I feel as though I’ve achieved the unachievable - I’ve squeezed writing into my daily life for nearly six weeks now. I wasn’t really sure I’d be able to fit it all in, but somehow it’s happening (though the housework is sometimes a bit neglected). In that time, I’ve realized a few things about myself and my style - the most important of which is the stunning, sad fact that I am a complete buffoon at punctuation. As I edit my work* I see errant commas, a plethora of colons, not to mention how my semi-colons and dashes abound. I really have no clue what I’m doing. I just spice things up like salting a meal, randomly distributing the punctuation throughout my work depending on..what exactly I don’t know. Aesthetics? The need to make run on sentences look intentional? What marks are being used the least in my current post?

Oh sure I’ve read the rules, I just don’t get them. I need hard and fast rules, not those wishy-washy guidelines I find in writing books. Then again, why don’t I know these already? I’m college educated for Pete’s Sake**. And just yesterday, I realized I often commit the ultimate punctuation blunder - yep, the its/it’s rule. Yikes! Am I losing all my brain power, slowly being sucked away by meal preparation, floor cleanings and playing the K’Nex all day? Scary thought.

I know we can’t all be perfect, but I feel as though I’m in serious need of punctuation boot camp. So, I’m going to dust off a book from my shelf that I stopped reading in favour of “Fun Books” - yep I’m going to read Eats Shoots and Leaves. Now the fifty or so pages I’ve read of this book are pretty amazing for a book on the misuse of punctuation. So I’m going to finish it this time, and no fluffy books until I’m done! A person can only be ignorant for so long! Wish me luck!

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* I swear I edit my work - honest! Before I even publish, I delete nearly half of all the commas a given post had originally. No exaggeration.

** Shortly after I was married I went back to college to upgrade my degree, and begin a Masters’ (and then got pregnant, so that’s on hold…). At any rate my husband was my editor and he corrected my punctuation all the time. He said I was awful. I just never believed him. I do now but I don’t think I’ll admit that to him anytime soon… At least now I use (read: misuse) colons and semicolons. At that time I was strictly a comma and dash kind of gal.