~ugh~

[jennickels]

I was working on editing my sg1friendathon story last night.  I'm pretty sure my turn is coming up pretty soon and I have almost 10k words to edit.  Anyway, I'm reading through my own copy and fixing things I'm not liking and then checking the comments my beta sent me and I realize I have serious issues with commas.  Specifically in relation to independent clauses which I had to actually look up.  My head hurts now.  I always thought I was pretty good at grammar... now I feel like an idiot.

So, now I have to go through the whole damn story with a fine tooth comb putting a bajillion commas in and completely change the way I write so I remember to put in commas in the first place.  I think the problem stems from my dropping the comma before and in a series (yeah, I know huge debate topic).  Some time in college it became the cool thing to not have a comma and I slowly switched over (I remember this being a big deal for me because I kept saying, "but there's supposed to be a comma there!").  Somehow that transferred into me dropping the comma before any and.  Ugh.

I apologize for my dozens of grammatically incorrect stories.  *shakes head in shame*

On top of that, I got to page 7 (of 19) and realized something was wrong with the plot.  At first I just thought I was confused in my own description of events.  See the group goes to implement this plan Jack devises to distract some Jaffa.  But I couldn't picture the geography as described.  I drew a little map and suddenly realized I screwed something up.

In my 1st draft I had a totally different scenario.  I changed it in the 2nd draft, making Jack's plan a completely different series of events.  But when I wrote the scene I reused some of the stuff from the first draft completely forgetting I changed the sequence.  D'oh.  So I had to spend ten minutes rewriting Jack's plan to match the actual events later in the story (easier than rewriting the entire section of the story).

I'm still only on page 7.  I still have a bunch of stories to finish.  Two are do tomorrow and a whole bunch of them due Saturday.  Today Owen and Brenna have eye appointments.  Brenna has worn glasses since she was 18 months and is long overdue for a checkup.  Owen's been complaining he can't see far away and he's the same age I was when I got my glasses.  That's going to take most of the afternoon.  And since I took a day off of cleaning yesterday the house is a wreck and I have to get it done today for my own sanity.  Sigh.  Can't wait to get this weekend over with.  I don't have any challenges due next week (at least not any I haven't already finished...yet).

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

A Special Comma
http://fandom-grammar.livejournal.com/11158.html

My #1 rule for commas: Use as few as possible unless it interferes with clarity.

"Let's eat Bra'tac!" is entirely different from "Let's eat, Bra'tac!"

Whereas "Would you like cake, pie, macaroons, or blue jello?" and "Would you like cake, pie, macaroons or blue jello?" is largely a stylistic choice of whether to indicate a vocal pause.

Hope the kiddos like their new eyeglasses. :D

[bluewillowtree.livejournal.com]

Commas are just tricky. I'm the opposite in that I tend to overuse them, though I'm trying to get better about it. I don't like the serial comma either, but I'm forced to use it for work writing (they have this whole list of writing guidelines that we have to follow), and sometimes I forget that I don't need to use it in real life.

I'm generally pretty good at grammar, but I mostly learned it through osmosis because my dad's an English teacher. I've very rarely had it actually taught to me, so while I mostly know what's right and wrong, I don't know the rules or proper terms to explain why.

Anyway, best of luck with your story, which I'm looking forward to reading! Also looking forward to checking out Seven Sins, though I'm guessing from the title that it might not be work-safe? I'll save it for when I'm home.