A Lesson on Semi-colons

My previous dentist had residency in a small office. It was a husband-and-wife team, with only two rooms that they really used for patients. (They retired last month, hence why they are now considered my “previous” dentist.)

Every time I went, I was ushered into the exact same room. And every time I settled into the dentist chair, my eyes would lock onto the framed picture hanging on the wall to my left. The faded poster talked about the dangers of gingivitis, but I was not fascinated in all the ways that poor dental hygiene could do to my teeth.

Oh no. It’s because there was a particular sentence on the bottom – written in bold font – that was grammatically incorrect.

The first comma of the sentence should have been a semi-colon.

My inner editor was triggered. Seeing a semi-colon being used improperly has always been my biggest (writing) pet peeve.

I always wondered if anyone ever pointed this particular sentence out to the dentist, but I didn’t want to be that nitpicky jerk who noticed such things. Especially on a poster that has probably been hanging for 20+ years.

It was one of those sentences with the word “however” thrown in the middle. Quick lesson: The word “however” indicates a relationship between two contrasting independent clauses. Therefore, you need a semi-colon before the word and a comma after it when writing a compound sentence. The only way you can throw “however” in the middle of the sentence without a semi-colon is if you’re simply rearranging the syntax. As in, if you move “however” to the beginning of the sentence and it still makes sense, then you’re okay with just using commas.

I will never understand why people have such a difficult time with how to use a semi-colon. I mean, if you replace the semi-colon with a period, and the two new sentences still reads fine, then you’re probably good to go.

And if you’re still uncertain, I’d rather you use a comma instead of slapping on a semi-colon just to appear sophisticated or intelligent. It’s less distracting for me to read your words as a reader, which means there’s less of a chance for me to stop reading your writing. (And, yes, this comes from a person who probably uses commas too frequently.)

Another quick lesson: A comma unites an independent clause with a dependent one. The latter clause is when it is missing a subject or verb, and doesn’t convey a complete thought.

But the worst offense I ever saw about semi-colons came from a manuscript I once had to read for a past internship. Judging by the author’s dreadful cover/query letter, I was already preparing myself for what I might encounter with her submission. (Don’t get me started on query letters, and what some people believe passes for one.)

I won’t get into the story itself, but on each page, there were at least ten semi-colons. She would use them instead of commas. And I had to read at least thirty pages of this manuscript. I desperately wanted to ask her to pick up the nearest novel she had lying around and count all the semi-colons she came across on one page – because I can guarantee you that there was probably no more than one.

Honestly, I’m surprised I haven’t had nightmares about it. I can imagine me waking up in the middle of the night with a cold sweat, shouting, “Semi-colons! Everywhere! They were everywhere!”

Oh, the horror of improper grammar. More terrifying to me than a trip to the dentist.

P.S. Fun fact, but spelling "semi-colon" with a hyphen is considered the British way, whereas Americans typically spell it as one word. Obviously, I prefer to write it with a hyphen, only because it looks weird to me if it's just "semicolon." Either way is correct, but don't let anyone tell you that I follow the crowd, lol.

Spring Writing Project: Final Update

It has officially been three days since I completed my Spring Writing Project. And by that, I mean I reached my two-month mark and not because the story itself is finished. (It’s close, though. According to my outline, there are only 7-9 scenes left to write. Most of them are just small scenes.)

Also, this post will contain a mix of what I experienced during the last sixteen days of my project and my overall thoughts about it. So here we go.

1.) General Statistics

I’m quite proud of myself for managing to write every single day during the entirety of the project, never dipping below the daily word count goal that I was aiming for. I actually ended with a total of 89,586 words. (I’m pretty sure this is the largest manuscript I’ve written.) Therefore, the average amount of words I wrote every day is about 1,445. Not bad.

However, I can’t calculate my exact average writing time. The document that I saved the information on was deleted on May 7.* Luckily, I had been recording all the word counts in an Excel document, but not the times. So judging by the information I had remaining – I had lost six days’ worth of recordings – my average time is probably around 1 hour, 43 mins.

Also, because graphs are fun, here’s what my daily word count looks like:

^ Can you tell when I began to write at least 1,400 words/day?

*I was so upset when I found out that I couldn’t save this particular document. It was like my own personal “junk drawer”; I have saved all sorts of random stuff in there. Things like quotes I collected, data, websites, various reminders for myself, etc. It had FIVE YEARS worth of material saved. But something happened while I was trying to save the document before restarting my laptop, and the file got corrupted. I researched all sorts of ways to bring it back. As a last ditch effort, I even personally emailed a Microsoft Tech Support guy to try and retrieve it. Alas, all he could do for me was convert it into a notepad, and all the words were nonsense. Once reality set in, there was only one thing left for me to do: I slowly rose from my desk chair, sat down in the middle of my bedroom floor, stared off into space with an unblinking gaze, and contemplated the true meaning of life. And then I created a new document. (Yes, I realize how dramatic I’m being.)

2.) Character Names

Honestly, I’m surprised that I made it through to the very end of the project without really assigning names to characters. I guess I wasn’t kidding when I said how, back in March, I wasn’t going to let my lack of names to stop me from moving forward with my story.

(Too bad I can’t pull something like Cormac McCarthy’s THE ROAD. None of the characters have actual names in that book. Then again, it’s quite easy when you’re basically only reading about two people.)

3.) Plot

According to what I had mentioned in the very first paragraph of this blog post, you know that I had enough story to get me to the finish line. I may have stretched certain scenes out, but you know what they say: it’s better to write more than less. After all, it’s easier to delete paragraphs than to sit there and have to write additional sentences. Also, even if you have to hack away certain lines, there’s still a chance that it might have helped you discover something about the story or characters. Words are technically never wasted in a draft.

Remember when I had mentioned in previous updates how there were two major scenes that I kept avoiding? Simply because it was too daunting to write? Well, on the night that I had lost my particular document last week, I wrote the first important scene. Got to channel my anguish for the protagonist. As for the second one, I actually wrote the tail-end of the scene on the last day of my project. I hadn’t planned on writing the last scene of the manuscript on the final day, but it worked out quite well. It was quite satisfying to type the last line out of the story on the 62nd day.

A majority of the story has been written out of order, though, so I’ll have to re-arrange everything if I ever want to get it to the editing stage. Luckily, I’ve been recording where each “chapter” belongs within the story. Outlines are helpful.

4.) Final Thoughts

Overall, I would call this project a success. I accomplished everything I had set out to do with it. I focused on only one story throughout the entire process; I wrote every day for two months straight; and I exceeded my daily word count goal.

Next time, though, I need to make time to write when it’s not after midnight. Sacrificing sleep is not good in the long run. But it seems like I never learn this lesson.

Strangely enough, despite how I had made it a habit to write daily for two months, I haven’t felt the absence of it in the past three days. Maybe I just need time for my brain to recover? I don’t know.

It’s clear now that I have the writing endurance to withstand a project of this length. So we’ll see what I want to do for my Summer Project this year…