Happy New Year!

Before all of the festivities get started, I wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Do you have any goals or resolutions for 2014? Have you made resolutions in the past? If so, have you stuck with them? Let me know what you think!

If you are like me and don't have cable, here is a link to a live feed to watch the ball drop in New York City. The live feed will begin at 5:55PM Eastern Time, so tune in to enjoy the celebration!

http://www.latintimes.com/new-years-eve-ball-drop-2013-live-stream-when-and-where-watch-times-square-event-141379

A Good Christmas Read

Are you looking for a new Christmas story to read this season? A Gitmo Nation Christmas Carol, inspired by Charles Dickens' classic and based on the No Agenda series, is a thrilling tale of the mistake-filled life of President Ebenezer Scrooge. This twist on the traditional holiday story will keep you on your toes!

The best part? It is FREE for the next 5 days in the Kindle store!
In the US, get your copy at http://www.amazon.com/Gitmo-Nation-Christmas-Carol-ebook/dp/B00A8Z3OH8.
In the UK, get your copy at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gitmo-Nation-Christmas-Carol-ebook/dp/B00A8Z3OH8/.

Oh, and it also happens to be edited by me!

A Christmas Message

If you are alive and well on social media, you have probably seen this cartoon floating about. With the holidays quickly approaching, I think it is a good time to remember that books can be a great Christmas gift! Don't forget that giving someone, child or adult, the gift of a good book can open new worlds, let them learn something new, and expand their universe. Happy holidays, everyone!

Developing our Language

Have you heard and/or seen this speech by Stephen Fry? If not, you need to watch and listen to this video. In it, Stephen Fry talks about the "correct" use of language and how, if you will excuse the term, "grammar Nazis" need to reevaluate their motives.

As an editor, I find this video very interesting. I started to contemplate the difference between cleaning up a manuscript and squashing an author's creativity. It seems that we have entered an era where people are fighting the development of language. Any slip of a comma or misuse of a word is immediately attacked by the mass of the Internet. Everyone is enforcing the idea that the English language needs to be static, that the rules are the rules and that's just the way it is. What if, however, we allowed people to start making up words? I don't mean "YOLO" and "swag", but more along the lines of what many people have done in our past. What if we allowed our language to keep moving forward and develop? Our language is vastly different from the German language it is said to have come from. It has added and subtracted words, meanings, spellings, usages, and other rules as time has gone on. We have stolen from other languages and we have allowed our own words to shift to become other things. You just have to look at the differences between American and British English to see how things have been growing. Instead of fighting this evolution, I think we should try to embrace it and give new words and meanings a try. Who knows where we could end up?

What are your thoughts?

An Internet Funny

What do you think?

Times are Changing

"I write a story as if it were a letter to someone and essentially, that’s what you do."
-Theodore Sturgeon

I came across this quote today and it made me start to think. I feel like this has hit the basic idea of writing on the head. When you are writing down a story, it can sometimes seem like you are recounting an event or series of actions that happened in your own life. You put yourself in the place of the main character. You can choose to either recite past actions or narrate as the story moves in time. You can comment on the experience or present it point-blank. All in all, you are expressing what has happened to the reader.

Then, I was struck by the idea that some of the younger generation may not completely understand this quote. Besides the occasional school exercise or required essay, a letter has become a lost form of communication. Emails and text messages don't quite convey the same thoughtfulness, consideration, and detail as a letter. In a world of instant gratification, where you can tell the whole world each moment of every day, how do you apply this theory to today? As a series of Facebook statuses and tweets? It just doesn't convey the same meaning.

Instead of mourning this change, however, I prefer to look at it as a chance to become more creative. With more and more stories becoming popular that utilize an alternative writing style, this could be a chance for the next generation to come up with their own way of telling the stories in their heads.

What do you think, opportunity for new ideas or tragic loss of an art? Leave your ideas in the comments.

Hello again, World!

Wow, it has certainly been awhile. This is my first blog post as a married woman. This past summer has been a whirlwind and I can't believe the time has gone so fast! Here's my question: How are YOU doing today?