From Booking Through Thursday:
Writing guides, grammar books, punctuation how-tos . . . do you read them? Not read them? How many writing books, grammar books, dictionaries–if any–do you have in your library?
I generally don't read them. I used to read a fair amount of writing magazines in my younger days, but these days I just write.
For my day job, I have a copy of Diana Hacker's Pocket Style Manual, as it's the style we follow. I also have a Chicago Manual of Style, which I was introduced to during my days as a freelance copy editor and proofreader and which I still find useful in my own writing. I own a Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, probably an edition or two out of date, and a Webster's International Dictionary, which sits ignobly in the garage because it's too damn big to keep anyplace else. I don't think I've cracked it open in years, thanks to the Internet.
I don't trust the gosh-darn wide world interwebs for anything! I like books.
ReplyDeleteNow, strictly speaking ... there really ought to be a hyphen between 'historical' and 'fiction' in your blog head ... just strictly speaking, in a sort of compound-adjectivally sort of a way, of course!
I'm with you, Susan, on "I just write."
ReplyDeleteI have the easiest to use set of dictionaries, style manuals, etc. in the world though.. the Internet. With my lousy eyesight print versions just ain't gonna do it. I like that I can go right to a word, a rule, whatever. I agree with Lesley to a point.. I enjoy Wikipedia but I take everything on it with an e-grain of salt.. But I figure the ppublishing companies that put their print materials online are going to make them trustworthy.
Nan Hawthorne
medieval-novels.com
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