All posts by Joe Wallace

Today’s Writing Tip: Principal versus Principle

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When I was in junior high, we were taught that the way to differentiate these homonyms, or sets of words that sound alike but mean something different, was to think that the principal was our pal. That way we would remember that principal refers to a person whereas principle refers to an idea.

Thomas Jefferson stood on principle.

A high school principal has a tough job.

This one is pretty simple once you remember the rule. I recognize some teens may gag on the pal reference, but if it improves your grade, what the hell?

Sigrid Macdonald is a manuscript editor and the author of Be Your Own Editor. Find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/.  

 

Today’s Writing Tip: Clarity

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You know what you want to say but sometimes it’s hard to express.

Try to imagine your reader. Could anything you’ve written be ambiguous? Could it be confusing? Don’t assume that the reader knows what you are thinking. Step back and fill in certain details or clarify to be as precise as possible.

Take this sentence: “That ended her short life in Shadow Lakes.”

What ended her life there? Did she die or simply move? Or did she stay but she never had a decent quality of life afterward?

Think like a reporter and ask yourself all the W’s: who, where, what and why (and, of course, the non-W, how). Once you’re clear about those, convey them to the reader.

“Marrying Stephen ended her short life in Shadow Lakes because they moved into the city right after their honeymoon.”

Sigrid Macdonald is an editor and the author of three books. This is an excerpt from her last book, Be Your Own Editor, available on Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/c3az54r

Today’s Writing Tip: When to Use Can or Could

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It’s easy to determine when to use the word can and when to use could. Can indicates ability. I can type a letter. I can run 10 miles. I can write a fan letter to Jon Hamm, although he probably won’t answer. Can denotes certainty. Could denotes uncertainty.

I could go to visit my sick neighbor if I don’t have to work on Thursday night. My neighbor could die from pneumonia if her immune system is not strong. My son’ s car could last another five years if he’s lucky. The most significant word in the last three sentences is “if” because the first part of every sentence depends on another factor.

It could happen, but maybe it won’t. Whereas when we use can, something will generally happen or at least the person has the ability to make it happen.

Parents used to teach children table manners by differentiating between the words can and may. A child would say, “Can I go now?” after dessert, and the parent would retort, “May I go.” Because clearly the child can go by simply getting up and leaving the table. Using may is a way of asking permission.

Sigrid Macdonald is the author of three books and two short stories, and is also a manuscript editor. Find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/.

 

Pro Bloggers Beware: WordPress Denial of Service Attacks

book and script editor for hire Joe Wallaceby Joe Wallace

If you are an “end user” of WordPress (as opposed to someone who spends as much time in the Dashboard and/or control panel of your WordPress site) you might be scratching your head lately wondering why WordPress is moving so slowly for you.

There’s been a string of notifications from Internet Service Providers (ISPs) about a hacking campaign aimed specifically at WordPress sites. The idea behind this campaign is quite simple–it aims to shut down WP sites by using a Denial Of Service Attack featuring repeated login attempts to the Dashboard or back end of your WordPress site.

The goal is not necessarily to gain access to your site–instead, the idea is to flood your ISP with so many attempts to log in that it overwhelms the server. This causes slower response times for legitimate readers trying to view your WordPress site, and can shut your page down altogether under the right circumstances.

There are some semi-complicated fixes for this, things that many freelancers and bloggers won’t feel comfortable attempting. I myself have mitigated this problem by setting an extremely low tolerance for repeated failed logins from a single IP address–any more than X number of failed logins and the user is blocked from trying to login again for TWO WEEKS. But again, this is a back-end, deep-ish feature (not connected to WordPress directly, but rather the server I use) and many users won’t or can’t access such features.

The solution?

Contact your ISP or web host and ask about addressing this issue. You want to reduce the number of allowed login failures to WordPress to around 10 or 15 per IP, resulting in a 15 minute ban from attempting again after that number has been reached. Some sites have the ban automatically set to an arbitrary number such as five minutes, but if you’re experiencing slow response times from your WordPress blog and suspect it might be related to this issue, ask your ISP tech support people what the best course of action might be. (Source: https://www.servermania.com/kb/articles/cloud-server-prices/)

This Denial of Service attack issue likely isn’t affecting EVERYONE using WordPress, or affecting everyone the same way. But if you’re noticing slower repsonse from your WP blog, it might be something to consider as a possible cause.

Joe Wallace has been fildding around in the back end of WordPress and Freelance-Zone.com’s Virtual Private Server for many years. He still doesn’t know every much about how it all works on a technical level, but he does know how to make a wicked pizza. He blogs about vinyl records, sells rare and unusual LPs, and does sound design for indie film and video projects in Chicago. Contact him at jwallace242@gmail.com

Today’s Writing Tip: Question Marks In the Middle of a Sentence

sig2010Punctuating question marks in the middle of a sentence confuses the best of us. Our instinct is often to capitalize the word that follows the question mark, but usually that’s wrong. Here’s an example:

When I asked my teacher, Mr. Cotton, “What is the purpose of life?” this is the answer I received.

Note two things about that sentence. One, the word that proceeds the question and the question mark is lowercased. That’s because the phrase “What is the purpose of life?” is still part of a larger sentence, even though it is a complete sentence and can stand on its own normally, but in this instance it is only half of the sentence.

“This is the answer I received” is the other half and we need it to make our point. Two, there is no comma after the question mark. A version of our example which includes the comma is wrong, e.g., When I asked my teacher, Mr. Cotton, “What is the purpose of life?,” this is the answer I received.

Fortunately, your spellcheck will probably pick up the second issue and flag it as a problem; however, spellcheck may incorrectly tell you that you want to capitalize any word after a question mark. Don’t do it automatically; do so only if it is not part of a larger sentence and that includes dialogue. (“Is the purpose of life to love and be loved?” she asked. No caps for the pronoun and no comma after the question mark.)

Sigrid Macdonald is an author and an editor. You can find her at http://sigridmacdonald.blogspot.com/ 

A Totally Non-Scientific Look at Books On Freelancing

book and script editor for hire Joe Wallaceby Joe Wallace

I was browsing through Amazon.com today looking at all the books on Freelancing, wondering what the market for “teaching people about freelance work” is like these days. Full disclosure–I have an Amazon Affiliates account and the links here take you to Amazon where if you click and buy, I do get a wee cut for referring you.

That said, it was interesting to see all the different titles. Some looked good, some books seem out of date, and some seem like snake oil. I won’t really go into which I thought was which…but I do urge careful attention to titles, implied promises, and caution.

Is it really possible to take some of these book titles at face value? “How To Earn A Bizillion Dollars Freelance Writing In 90 Seconds Or Less” and similar titles just seem off-putting to me. The exception to this rule is a book titled Break into The World Of Freelance Writing: How I Went From $0 to $1,100 In One Month With No Experience.

Written by Megan Kutchman, this book (which I have never read) has a title I very much respect.

Kutchman doesn’t make ANY promises with this title. I love “How I Did It” books, and the title of this says it all. She doesn’t say YOU will do this, and doesn’t say “And YOU CAN TOO” in her title. This book has earned my respect…

One book I won’t mention by name DOES imply a promise in its title, basically saying YOU can earn THOUSANDS per month–not as a freelance writer, but as a professional BLOGGER. This is a bit more misleading. Yes, you may be able to do this. Hell, I myself do this. But it’s getting into sticky territory to write a how-to book about something as nebulous as pro blogging unless your advice itself is fairly nebulous. (Update: I welcome anyone to contradict that statement…as I like to say, “Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll believe you”. But please be sure to tell me WHY I’m wrong!)

Again, full disclosure–I HAVE NOT read that book, either. But I’m talking about first impression factors here and “should I buy this book” things. If it were my money on the line, I would gravitate more toward “how I did it” titles and farther away from “YOU can earn ZILLIONS By Freelance Whatevering”.

In the end, it’s your call…but setting and getting realistic expectations are important. Sure, marketing hype sells copies, but at the end of the day if you don’t sell some steak with your sizzle, you’ve failed as a writer. Some people are better marketers than writers, a fact of life in this biz…so let the reader beware.

–Joe Wallace