Broke Punctuation

History of the Punctuation of English Writing

After reading a brief narrative about how punctuation evolved over the years, I noticed it had an eerie similarity to the seven Ecumenical Councils.

Wikipedia Note: The first seven Ecumenical Councils, recognized by both the eastern and western branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, were convoked by Christian Roman Emperors, who also enforced the decisions of those councils within the state church of the Roman Empire. Acceptance of councils as ecumenical and authoritative varies between different Christian denominations. Disputes over Christological and other questions have led certain branches to reject some of the councils that others accepted.

The key words in the above text are enforced, acceptance, disputes, and reject. Let’s translate that to today’s world, shall we?

The Enforcers are the Literary Police whose only purpose in life is to point out mistakes. The Acceptee’s are the Readers; they like a good story and don’t dwell on disputable punctuation. The Disputers are unimaginative 12th Grade English teachers and College Professors; they know everything, just ask them. And finally the Rejecters, they're people like me; we play with punctuation like a child plays with Legos.

Out of necessity, jimmy and I convened our own Literary Ecumenical Council to determine our preferred definitions of all punctuation.

A Period means stop, start a new sentence, go pee pee, get a drink, then continue reading.

A Comma means you need to take a short breath, or perhaps, you just want to be a drama queen, and, add, an excessive, amount of, pauses.

A Semicolon is for adding extra thoughts or for specific, important stuff; or to make a crazy long sentence that takes the readers breath away; hey, you gotta exercise a little bit while reading!

A Colon is for listing things like: rum, coke, ice, and lemon; a cool refreshing drink while reading is vital.

Quotation Marks are a writer’s paradise. Inside them you can say it and spell it however you want. Quotation Marks are like Las Vegas – What happens in the quotes, stays in the quotes. Party Time!

An Exclamation Mark means you're excited about what you just wrote! More than one is redundant!!! , but fun!!!!!!

A Question Mark denotes a question or confusion. What? HUH?

Parenthesis they are a writer's VIP room. You get a peek inside the writers head. Yikes! (See Quotation Marks.)   

Dashes and Ellipses – use them for extremely . . . exciting . . . dramatic pauses, or . . . you simply want the reader to take a . . . breath. Breathing is very important. Dashes are for additional information, instead of a new sentence, or a dramatic pause. 

There you have it! Dr. jimmy says that exploiting and manipulating punctuation is a great way to relieve stress.

Note: Italicizing and Underlining mean you probably should pay attention to those words or sentences; there might be a pop-quiz about them later.

Librarians are the gatekeepers, protecting written knowledge for future generations to study, explore, and repeat mistakes.

“Mr. Kafka; did you reread Homer's Iliad last night?”

“Yes . . . yes I did, jimmy.”

“That explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Nothing. I’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich, and then we’ll go take a nap under the willow tree.”

“Thanks jimmy. That’s a great idea!”

-jk- 

Epic Publishing Failure

You don’t have to fail to succeed.

 

However, when you do fail, it’s not the end of the world. Learn from your mistakes and move forward.

 

Part 1

My Story, as a writer, began with an idea for an Epic story, and it nearly ended because of an Epic failure.

Several years ago, I finally got to a place in my life to where I had plenty of free time to sit down and write a novel. It was a struggle at first, mainly because I heedlessly jumped into the deep end, and quickly learned that writing a novel was a lot tougher than I ever imagined.

I spent a month writing the first paragraph – that’s how ignorant I was.

More than a few times, I just wanted to give up and toss in the towel, but I powered on and finished the first draft. The next step, I read the entire novel aloud to my wife, one chapter every day, correcting errors along the way.

Once that part was over, I foolishly believed I had a novel that was ready to be published.

I was wrong – undeniably wrong.

The euphoric feeling of finishing a novel is amazing. I had never experienced anything like it before, and for those who know, it’s a dam good feeling.

I queried agents – and after I got rejected numerous times, I decided to self-publish and prove to the publishing world they were wrong.

 

This is what Failure looks like.

Part 2

More Editing? Why? I corrected all the errors.

No, I corrected what my eyes and mind wanted me to see.

Ignorance is Bliss – the Ecstasy that clouds all rational thought.

I got a nice cover and self-published my first novel, and put it on Amazon for the entire world to buy and read. I also had 50 copies printed – 25 hardback and 25 paper back. I even set up a book signing at a local library. What I didn’t do, and to this day I don’t know why; look inside and read my great literary work of art. No, no, I mindlessly went to the book signing and sold some books.

And then, . . . it happened.

Sadly, I have a picture of when it happened.

A person who bought my book, opened it, silently read a few pages, and then asked, “Who edited this?”  

Slowly and painfully, the euphoria I had felt, immediately turned into absolute embarrassment, as I opened my book and read the same pages. (I quickly packed up and left)

The next day, my only thought was about how can I fix it. Sure, just contact Amazon and have them take it down. Unfortunately, a few books were purchased already. There was nothing I could do about that; the damage was done. It eventually got pulled down.

The embarrassment isn’t over yet, . . .

The worse part, if that’s even possible, I gave a few books to family members and bragged about my great accomplishment on the family Facebook page. It wasn't a delight experience. I can still hear the unspoken words at every family gathering.

 

Moving on, . . .

I could have given up, after all, my name was ruined, along with my reputation, what little of it there was. I reckon most would have quit and absorbed the shame for how ever long folks remembered.

But that’s not me. I had to fix it! So, I got right back up on the horse and got to work, but this time, I contacted a friend who knew a thing or two about editing. I rewrote the first book, and wrote another and another – and a Trilogy was born.

15 years and six books later, I’m still writing, and working on a seventh book.

 

The day my writing career turned for the better

Nothing is over until you say it’s over. The embarrassment and public humiliation hurt for a time, but for me, it was just another chapter in the story of my life.

I’m comfortable sharing my failure, because it’s the truth. I made a mistake. It happens and I moved on. I not a better writer because of what happened, I'm simply smarter about the process.

 

The best advice I could ever give to a young writer – find an editor you can trust.

Oh, and always write like you mean it.

 

jk