Thursday, March 31, 2011

Long Absence

Hello everyone! First of all, I would like to apologize for not posting for several months. I have indeed been busy, and one of the things I have been busy with is this...

Yes – I recently signed a contract with L-book to publish The Second Sister in both E-book, paperback, and audiobook format. I’m so incredibly excited!!!

As of now, it’s a 5-year contract, and hopefully they will be interested in the three other books in the Amendyr series as well. A redirect/link will be posted on this website as soon as the book comes out.

I want to thank all of you for your support throughout my writing career. Getting e-mails in my inbox is the highlight of my day, and they always make me smile. I try to respond to most of them and all of the comments you guys leave. I also want to thank Lee, my awesome Beta reader, and my Mistress, who has encouraged (read: tolerated) my writing from the very beginning even though it drives her slightly insane.


Item of business one: OMG!!!!! *spaz* I am so excited!

Item of business two: new website - http://raedmagdon.com

Item of business three: Should I continue to run this site (with much more frequent updates) as a separate entity or combine it with my new website? Tell me in comments.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Hello, everyone! Christmas break is over, and I am feeling much better now that my wisdom teeth are taken care of. (Yes, that's a hint to my embarrassingly young age, but at least I am several years older than the 18 years technically required to be able to read the smut I write)... Oh well, moving on. Four items of business today.


First of all, I should be hearing from L-book.com soon about The Second Sister. If they think it isn't right for their publishing house, I'll be disappointed, but I'll certainly keep looking for a home because that book is good, and it deserves to be shared.


Second item of business is this: Thank you to Brooke R. Busse. Check out the award lists she included me on!


Number three - I usually don't plead for reviews, but the third book in my Amendyr series got lost in a big glut of story releases on a wonderful site called The Athenaeum. If you all could go leave a review here on The Witch's Daughter (if you've read/will read it), that would make me feel all kinds of warm fuzzies! I don't usually ask for reviews, but on this particular site, more reviews means more people will see the recommendations on the updates page and maybe check it out.


Number four is slightly longer and different. Yes, I'm giving you a grammar lesson...

I've noticed a disturbing trend in Alex/Olivia fanfiction lately. No, it's not the torturotica. I just avoid that. No, it's not the lack of spanking stories. I cry about that at night, but I get over it because I know it's not everyone's kink. It is, in fact, the incorrect use of capitalization in dialogue after a comma!

Now, two of the BEST A/O fanfic writers I have ever encountered make this mistake, so if you do as well, don't fret. You're in good company. But technically, when you add dialogue to the end of a sentence, you should NOT capitalize the first letter of the clause. For example, let's examine this sentence.

To the surprise of both women, Christine actually grinned. “Hey, I know the effect of those glasses, Agent Hart,” she said, giving Tess’s reflection an appraising look, “They only add to her sex appeal.”


Do you spot the problem? Yes, the T in They should not be capitalized. When you are connecting two pieces or dialogue or adding a dialogue tag at the end of a sentence, you do NOT want to capitalize the first letter. Here are two other corrections for that sentence.

To the surprise of both women, Christine actually grinned. “Hey, I know the effect of those glasses, Agent Hart,” she said, giving Tess’s reflection an appraising look. “They only add to her sex appeal.”


Here, I used a period to separate the last piece of dialogue. Because I ended the sentence, I can now start the dialogue tag with a capital letter.

To the surprise of both women, Christine actually grinned. “Hey, I know the effect of those glasses, Agent Hart,” she said, giving Tess’s reflection an appraising look, “they only add to her sex appeal.”


I kept the comma this time, but used a lower case 't' in they. This sentence is also correct.

(Just for those who are curious, option 1 is the original sentence from my latest novel. I purposely wrote it incorrectly to demonstrate the problem, and the second correction, even though it is not actually used, is a perfectly acceptable option).