Nitpicky Goodness

I think the word "ungrammatical" is one of the ugliest words in the human language, and any editor utilizing it should be shot.

At the moment, I am dismayed that one of my writers has learned about the existence of the em dash, and is doing his best to include it in every piece of writing he produces. The problem with this is that he's inserting it where a comma will suffice, or when he doesn't need any sort of punctuation at all.

I'm pretty sure I went through this phase in high school. Occasionally I'll get em dash happy when I'm trying to write after a glass of wine, or if I'm banging out an exciting battle scene. That's it.

This poor guy. I almost want to write him a note, but it's nothing I can't fix on my own.

Am trying out a new tack: rather than set 15 live at the end of each day, I will limit myself to just looking at 15 pieces, unless I'm feeling particularly grammatical. This includes those I send back. If I push through 15, great; otherwise, as long as I'm looking at 15 new pieces, I'm still meeting my quota. Might also give me something of a mental break. I get through the same number in the end.

One more piece to edit, and then I'm off to indulge in turkey. Mmmm-mmm good.