Pen & Hook

02/16/2018

After a bit of a Facebook hiatus, we're back!

Stay tuned for creative exercises you can try at home, best practices, hot topics, resources and more.

02/25/2017

3 modern grammatical trends:

1. Skipping the serial comma.

2. Inserting one space--not two--after sentence punctuation.

3. Substituting words for numerals with numbers under 10 (for blogs & social media only); E.g., "3 top reasons" vs. "Three top reasons" is actually a best practice. (But continue the "old school" tradition in formal documents.)

02/25/2017

02/10/2017

Do a Mad Libs-like exercise with me: Let's demonstrate how word choice matters. :)

Comment with:
- 1 superlative
- 1 verb that's a synonym for "to help"
- 1 noun that's a synonym for "goal"

The sentence for your "blanks" to come later today.

(Disclaimer: Mad Libs is a trademark of Penguin Random House Publishing.)

02/09/2017

We're in a "Dorothy Parker" kind of mood today. Do YOU ever feel this way too?

02/09/2017

Hey, email marketers: Do your subject lines "pass the test"? Before you hit "send," score them using this free resource:
http://www.subjectline.com/

02/02/2017

What's your favorite/go-to writing resource? Book, website, blog, app...

01/30/2017

Great podcast on "slanguage."

01/29/2017

Peggy Seery Jeffrey Stone Dean Stanley Randy Bachman Jammie Gehring

Fellow writers (and the world's most amazing proofreader): Please feel free to post frequently! Correct any of my mistakes, help answer questions, share your words of wisdom, enlighten us on a topic of the day...

Wow us with your witticisms and wisdom. ;)

01/29/2017

Yes, I know this looks weird. But trust me: It's grammatically correct.

An apostrophe is used either as a contraction ("it's" = "it is") or to show possession ("Jane's dog")--not to make something plural.

Yes: Mind your ps and qs.
No: Mind your p's and q's.

Really.

01/29/2017

Every home should have this book: "On Writing Well," by William Zinsser. The fundamentals made easy.

Of course, you can find it on Amazon. But we hope you'll support your local booksellers instead! NoVA folks, check out One More Page Books & More.