-- Thomas Jefferson, to his daughter Martha

-- Andrew Jackson

Some words just don't look right no matter how you spell them. I was just typing up a comment on someone's blog, when I turned to my husband and said, "I hate, hate, hate this @#$% word! How the Hell do you spell 'broccoli'?" Ironically, English is his second language and my first; I majored in English - "Rhetoric and Writing," if you want to sound snotty about it - and he majored in Chemical Engineering. Damn it, though - he can usually finish the New York Times crossword puzzle faster than I can, unless there are a whole slew of French and Latin words to fill in.

"B - R - O - C - C - O - L - I," he said.

"Two C's, one L?" I asked. It no longer looks "right" to me either way.

"Yep. I remember it by thinking of it as 'brock collie.'"

"That could work. Nasty, stupid word. Like... E. Coli, only 'Brock Coli.'" Icky word - killer bacteria. Works for me. Great mnemonic, there. I can spell mnemonic, by the way, but not broccoli. Doesn't get much dumber than that. Let's see if I can get this one without looking it up: floccinaucinihilipilification.

Yep. Spelled that right on the first try, too. B - R - O - C - C - O - L - I. Brock Coli. I refuse to be done in by a vegetable!

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"Too much detail can cause me to skip pages, but it's all the more difficult to get the feel of a book and get hooked when it occurs at the very beginning. … On the other hand, there have been stories that left me guessing about details that I wanted to know. I've been known to flick back through a book to see if I missed something…"

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"There are some places on the net that can connect writers to jobs and project managers to writers, but getting through the sites that are less than legitimate can be a problem."

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"I blame my first college professor for my pet peeve about the misuse of the second person."

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"I get knocked down, but I get up again. A rejection means I sent my work out. I didn’t just sit idle at home…"

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"If a title or story idea hits you while you're in the car, you can write it down--preferably at the next red light and not while driving."