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Monday, June 4, 2012

Comen Spel’in Misteaks by Guest Author Shannon Mayer


For those of us (and by that I mean me) who can write but still struggle with spelling from time to time, this post is for you. (And by you I mean me again.) I think I have come to rely so much on my spell checker that I have gotten lazy when it comes to correct spelling. It’s so easy to hit the spell check button and have the whole manuscript in perfect order in such a short time it almost seems redundant to bother doing it yourself.

You see so many small spelling mistakes if you cruise the web at all. Blogs, articles Facebook Posts (gah, that drives me wild!). Not to mention Twitter shortenings, text speak, and mashed up words that seem to have no meaning. While they can help us get our message across faster, I think we are losing some of the basic things that we should still carry from our grade school years. You know, the ability to spell. Big words, not just the little tiny ones. As I mentioned, I can be as guilty of this as anyone else, so no worries, I’m not pointing fingers!

From time to time I think it’s a good idea to make sure our grammar and spelling is up to snuff. You know, old school style. It would do us no good to have an article or blog come out riddled with mistakes. (Unless we don’t expect anyone to see it, and even then, this is the age of the internet and someone will find it) What kind of authors would that make us? (I try to fix mine I do!) In fact, it is a large part of why I take so much time with my manuscripts, the last thing I want is for people to be pushed out of the story, because I didn’t do my due diligence as the author. But, I also don’t want to have my editors call me and tell me that they are going to have to charge me double, because of my numerous mistakes. Eeek, that is something I try to avoid at all costs. No pun intended. Well, maybe a little one. ;p

So, for fun and a little wake up call for us bad spellers, here’s a list of 10 words with a correct spelling and an incorrect spelling. Now no cheating and using a dictionary or your spell check, this is all on you. Good luck and happy spelling!

accommodate or accomodate
concensus or consensus
seige or siege
exhuberant or exuberant
marshal or marshall
quandary or quandry
propeller or propellor
occassion or occasion
alotted or allotted
dispel or dispell




About the Author:
Reading and writing from a very young age I learned early on that stories built in a fantasy world were where the fun was at. Reading books by Robert Jordan spurred me on and it was the first real epic fantasy that I fell in love with. After that came Piers Anthony, Melanie Rawn and into my older teen years, Anne Rice.

It was in Rice's novels that the idea of urban fantasy really bloomed for me and it was about that time that my grandmother was letting me read her Harlequin Historical novels. (Okay, actually she was slipping them to me when my mother wasn't looking, but let's not get picky.)

The combination of love stories and darker fantasy stuck with me and it's now not only what I gravitate towards to read on my off time (Kelly Armstrong, Laurell K Hamilton, Kim Harrison), but has become the style I love to write in.

Besides writing, I love to spend time with my family and animals, horseback ride, garden and hike with my husband.





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