This is probably of little interest to anyone except me, but sometimes I like to read the punctuation questions and answers on the Chicago Manual of Style website. People ask such detailed things. It must be a weird and thought provoking job to work there and answer those questions.

I think it would make me paranoid about getting a comma wrong.

Here's one I found helpful:

Q. Please help clarify a debate over what I see as a groundless but persistent carryover from high-school English classes: the comma-before-too “rule.” The rule goes something like this: When “too” is used in the sense of “also,” use a comma before and after “too” in the middle of a sentence and a comma before “too” at the end of a sentence. I am editing a work of fiction in which the author has rigidly applied the rule. I have just as rigidly deleted the commas. My managing editor believes that a comma is needed when “too” refers to an item in a list and has the sense of “in addition” (e.g., “I like apples and bananas, too.”), but she would omit the comma when “too” refers to the subject of the sentence (e.g., “Oh, you like apples and bananas? I like apples and bananas too.”). My managing editor’s rule helps make a useful distinction, but I am still wondering whether the comma is ever grammatically justified.

A. A comma can do some work in making the meaning of a sentence clear, but to claim two different meanings for I like apples and bananas too with and without a comma before too puts too much pressure on the comma. Out of context, neither version would be perfectly clear. To make the different meanings more apparent, short of additional context, you’d have to be more explicit:

I too like apples and bananas.
I like not only apples but bananas too.

Use commas with too only when you want to emphasize an abrupt change of thought:

He didn’t know at first what hit him, but then, too, he hadn’t ever walked in a field strewn with garden rakes.

In most other cases, commas with this short adverb are unnecessary (an exception being sentences that begin with too—in the sense of also—a construction some writers would avoid as being too awkward).

On Writing as a Profession
By RM Rhodes

At the end of The Wake, Sandman writer Neil Gaiman has Ben Johnson recite his resume, "In my time, I have been a soldier, a scholar, a pauper, a duelist, an actor, a translator and a spy."

I feel a great deal of empathy for Mr. Johnson. Over the past twenty some odd years of employment, I myself have worked as a sailing instructor, in a bookstore, as a bartender, in a laundry, as a Defense contractor, as a pharmacy technician, as a technical writer, as a pizza maker, washing dishes, on a helpdesk, as a signmaker, as a cheesemonger, in software quality assurance (an activity not unlike nailing jello to the wall), as a facilities security officer, as a nude model, as a pornograher, as a frycook, in a coatroom, as the guy who checks ID at the door and as the guy that manages the enterprise-wide migration schedule.

Like Mr. Johnson, I also write a bit. However, I am somewhat less prolific and extraordinarily less successful. In fact, you’ve probably never heard of me. That’s okay, I’ve barely heard of myself and it’s my job to self-promote.

I've always been a storyteller with an ability to explain abstract concepts, as necessary. I didn't get great grades in school, but I did get comments like "well written" from time to time; no great praise, but more of a recognition that at least the professor didn’t have to struggle to read the paper.

It’s probably not surprising that I never did get a writing career off the ground – or make a serious attempt, really. I wrote a few novels that I tried to get published, to no avail. I self-published one novel in the bad old Publish America days and eventually turned to making graphic novels and other assorted comics in my spare time. I’ve since vanished into the underbrush at Small Press Expo – occasionally visible in the backgrounds of photos of more famous cartoonists as the man in the purple suit.

While all of that was happening, I spent a decade learning how to be financially viable. It turns out that being able to write actually translates fairly well to a bureaucratic environment – where I still work (and thrive). In addition to basic attendance and reading comprehension skills (you'd be amazed who doesn't have them), having an ability to reliably keep track of complex things and a panoply of stupid Excel tricks has really worked out for me.

When I am honest with myself, I admit that I enjoy being a bureaucrat. I enjoy analyzing business processes and once took a day off work to go to an Edward Tufte course. My favorite jobs have been those positions where I have a narrow scope and broad leeway to the point where someone can honestly forget I’m there, quietly tasking myself and making my business process work with a minimum of fuss.  As it turns out, getting stuff done in a professional office environment can be pretty fun.

Consequently, I’ve come to the realization at the age of 40 that it's kind of silly to contemplate the pursuit of a career in the arts if it can't pay me as much as my day job. This is a very mercenary point of view, but my day job gives me affordable health insurance and a steady paycheck, important perks for someone with a heart arrhythmia and a mortgage.

I also recognize that this frees me from having to be overly concerned with whether my creative work is commercial, which makes me a dilettante more than anything else. I’m okay with that because it is what it is – a business decision. I prefer the sure thing of a steady paycheck to constant salesmanship and hustling. Because that’s what being a professional writer is all about – selling yourself. Again and again and again. Done properly, selling should take up almost as much time and effort as the production of the work. And, like most creative people, I really prefer to make stuff than to sell it.

More to the point, I don’t really like my voice when I try to sell myself. Writing this article, for example, has been excruciating. I’m deeply uncomfortable putting this much of myself out there for anonymous eyes to pore over – despite the fact that placing this article on Salome’s blog is a nakedly promotional act. Not everyone has the chops to be truly self-employed, but it’s fun to pretend sometimes.

The weird thing is that my wife is in marketing. She has given me really valuable advice on how to use marketing tips and tricks as multipliers. These have turned barely marginal shows into marginal shows. But they’ve also highlighted the fact that I sell myself reluctantly, with a wince of embarrassment at my blatant self-aggrandizement. I like being a bureaucrat in part because my notoriety is contained – big fish, small pond.

Comics is my hobby, not my day job, but that doesn’t mean it’s not my passion. In addition to my comics output, I also read a lot of comics and I contribute more than my fair share of support to the comics market. I even pay a French teacher up the street to sit with me once a month and help me read my Bandes Desinees. It’s a very specific way of learning a new language and, in addition to allowing me to explore a distant corner of the comics world, it has given me some insight into how much the Norman conquest influenced the English language.

I suppose this is the part where I’m meant to lament the lack of creativity in the bureaucratic environment and pine for the ability to spend the whole day doing nothing but write and/or make art. The thing is that being creative is also a day job – and all professions have trade-offs. I chose low chance of fame and reasonable, reliable standard of living, which is not for everyone.

And it feels like sour grapes to point out that the natural result of success in a creative idiom is fame – which is better understood as a loss of privacy. Fame is a multiplier, but it has no intrinsic value of its own.  Beyond that, the twin problems with fame are how difficult it is to become unfamous and how easy it is to become infamous.

And really, if I went into the arts "full time" as it were, I wouldn't be able to wear any of the really cool suits that I've put together over the course of the last decade. One of the best things about an office environment is the fact that you get to wear clothes that are designed to make you look better. That should really be in the offer letter – health insurance, enough money to take a trip to Europe every other year and you get to look awesome in a suit every weekday. Different suits, even.
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Find R.M. Rhodes on Twitter as @oletheros

Today's post is by Thad Glindmeyer, a compatriot, circuit whisperer, imagineer, crafter of music, humorist for the Independent Post, past columnist for SunStar daily, and wielder of a vorpal yardstick

Imagination Survivalism

by: Thad Glindmeyer


I went through a phase a long, long time ago in a parish (county for the rest of America) far away which results in family members still calling me Luke Skywalker every Thanksgiving. I'm fine with that. I get the feeling they mean for it to be embarrassing, but it's a badge of honor and a reminder to occasionally revisit the well of fiction from which stories spring.

The parish I grew up in was far less Coruscant, more Dagobah, and slightly more inhabited by actual people. I swung from trees and flopped in mud when vines snapped quite un-heroically. I had grand escapades by myself and a cast of imaginary characters crossing storylines, genres, universes, and time itself. Why were Cylons working with a Loup Garou to catch young Skywalker? I'll never tell, but the Golden Pooh warned me well enough about the bees (a very real danger in our woods) to take a sudden detour, and I always managed to make it back to base just in the nick of time. I was a guardian of peace and justice in the (Old Republic) woods before the dark times... before the progress.

With the houses and endless road construction came the bulldozers and backhoes: the woodfolk were facing decimation by the lumbering yellow tankbots, but our house matriarch sealed the castle because it was too dangerous out there to save them. I watched treetops disappear from the window and can tell you stories today of old enemies siding with allies to fend off their new interlopers. The days passed and the sky was becoming more visible: imagination was not enough to save my world. The good guys don't always win, but I wasn't very excited to be rid of the ninjas either.

With the turning of seasons came school. Man, all of these kids were bizarre: they spoke in tongues of sportsball, fishing, and pop music. None of them had ever liberated a planet before, yet they called me strange. Ungrateful amateurs. I argued that my white tunic and tan pants were indeed a uniform and a few kids ended up in the dirt over our disagreement. The matriarch denied me future pass without proper school clothing. Her increasing allegiances with those who would end my adventures were beginning to border on villainous. Kindergarten was the darkest of night.

With the completion of preschool, I had moved on to a place where agents seemed all too eager at the time to take up the torch of ending my fantasy world for mother: the nuns at catholic school. My sanity might not have survived any one of the next 8 years had it not been for my aunt, the school librarian. I had a new base to build on with all the wisdom of the ancients at my disposal. I would often show up to class without homework just so they would put me in the library to “watch while the other kids were having fun.” When they make a video game about surviving childhood with your imagination intact, Aunt Laverne will be the character saying, “It's dangerous to go alone. Take this,” and hand you a book.


--
Thanks, Thad. Find Thad on Twitter as @gravimetric.

We're a couple of weeks into the release of the book. Based on reviews and comments so far, there are a few things I want to say, hopefully things that will help readers decide to read or not read the book.

1) Even though the phone box looks a bit like a Tardis, it isn't anything like a Tardis. It's not a live, or sentient. It's an object, manipulated by various forces and beings. I was very explicit when we were working on the book. This is not a Dr. Who fan fic. This is its own thing. Everyone loves Dr. Who, and the writers there are doing fine without our help. If you're a Dr. Who fan, you may or may not like this book but it will start you on the wrong foot if you think it's going to be like Dr. Who. It's much darker.

2) The book is full of swearing. There are a couple of sex scenes, even a bit graphic, though completely in context with the story and characters. There is a lot of violence. One of the writers at the launch party pointed out that there are fifty deaths for every sex scene. I think she might have been exaggerating, but a number of people do die, some kind of horrificly.


3) There is a Dramatis Personae in the book. If you have a physical copy, it's in the back and you can flip back to it to remind yourself if you don't remember who someone is. In the eBook, we chose to make it a separate document because it's a pain in the neck to move backwards and forwards in an eBook. You lose your place, and stuff. You can download the Dramatis Personae here (directly to your device). Or you can print out the pdf version. It's not very long.

There's a lot of stuff to discover in this story. It might demand a bit more of you than some books. But it will worth it, in my opinion, if you stick with it. (I hope so anyway!)

Write to me. Tell me what you think of it. Ask questions. Try to stump me. (It's possible actually, since I didn't write the whole thing. I keep discovering little details I hadn't noticed or known. Like the fact that Safran Alef's name means 'Librarian A.' Uri Kurlianchik informs me that this means he's either the first librarian or the best librarian.

I remember clearly the first story I wrote. It was about a rabbit that went to the moon because he thought it was made of carrots. I was six.

I got more serious about it at age eleven. I remember lying on my bed, the top bunk of a set of bunk beds i shared with my brother, and immersing myself in making up stories. I even got one published in the school magazine. I'm glad I don't have a copy of it. I'm sure it was cringe-worthy.

I've written a lot of stories and poems over time. But why? I think it's because I could do it by myself. I spent a lot of time alone as a kid. I read a lot, too, and it gave me ideas. I became obsessed with making something different from the things other people made. I was no good at it, of course. Beginners rarely are. And so I would give up for periods of time. I wanted to be an actress, but that required me to interact with other people. Mostly I just didn't have the nerve to fail so publicly, so I wrote instead, and imagined.

I was bullied a lot from eleven to when I graduated from high school, so I learned to avoid other kids. I wanted to prove I was good at something. I wanted, for a while, to be richer and more famous than anyone else, but it didn't take long before those goals started to feel empty. And the words in my head wouldn't shut up. I would make descriptive paragraphs in my head as I walked down the street. I didn't just look, I transformed visuals into narrative.

Whenever I go through a period of being alone, I write. It's almost a magical process. In one story, spirits came to visit me at night and I would awaken to find a new section of story written on my pages. All my attempts at capturing the numinous nature of the process have depicted some kind of otherworldly influence. Because that's how it felt to me. Still does when it's going right.

Maybe this is why I can get righteously indignant when people don't take it seriously. For me, it's everything. It's the only reliable path to finding what things really mean. I don't mean what's real, in a substantive, scientific sense. Though science is of interest to me, I find it lacking. It never gets to the thing I want to understand. What connects us?What deep down at the core of thinking does it mean to live with a human mind going twenty-four/seven in the midst of other such beings?

I'm asking some other writers to do guestposts about their reasons for writing. So expect more.

Red Phone Box was released on Saturday. Just three days ago. During pre-release we got all four and five star reviews. Even Kirkus appeared to like the book. Yesterday, we got our first 'meh' review -- three stars.

I've seen some writers go berserk over reviews where the reviewer clearly didn't understand the book. That was never going to be me. Here's why. I've spent a lot of time reading reviews written about other people's books. I've always noticed that even the best books will get some one and two star reviews. Nothing is for everyone.

Red Phone Box doesn't follow normal novel conventions. It's also isn't exactly an anthology. It does have a lot of characters and plotlines that crisscross and weave together. For some people this was always going to be a flaw. I just happen to love things like that. I wanted it to be unusual, and it is.

So what happened when I read the review? I was a little disappointed. But it wasn't all bad. I smiled at the nice things that were said and nodded at the critical stuff, my brain immediately trying to figure out how to avoid the problems mentioned when we write the second novel.

All in all, after I took a few minutes to digest it, I was actually kind of pleased with it. Now I'm steeling myself for some worse ones. I mean, Neuromancer has some one and two star reviews and the average on Goodreads is 3.81 (with over 100,000 reviews).  It's going to happen. It has to.

Someone sent me this quote: 'Classic' -- a book that everyone praises and nobody reads. --Mark Twain

Mostly writing books is about work, but sometimes you get to have fun.

Red Phone Box was released this past Saturday, November 30th. We had a launch/wrap party that night, before which I was a nervous wreck. Nine out of 28 writers were able to attend. The others were missed. We had a great time at The Warrington in Maida Vale, London.

Check out more photos on the Red Phone Box Facebook page, here.