What are your feelings, not merely thoughts, on the importance of good grammar, punctuation, and spelling? As I continue querying literary agents (about my books here) this week, I lost a bout with the whole slew of them.
Has the informal haste of texting turned all care about tidy syntax and the like into a fetish? How about the decline of longhand writing? Do most people even apply pens to paper any longer? No doubt, I’m backwards for shuddering at a recent funeral when a mourner performed an entire eulogy while squinting and thumbing through their smartphone to read it aloud.
Alas, the good and the bad of experience is that valuable wisdom gained can muck up embracing what’s new. Not that I remember when I gasped my first breath in the light of day, but I think I’m safe to guess I was already cranky. How couldn’t my equilibrium be thrown off from having no say in letting go of the old experience, let alone choosing what was ahead?
If only, for every step of the way, I could be in command of what I discard, set aside for later, keep, or pick up.
Dang, I’m just making excuses for myself. A few days ago, I caught some major flubs in the latest version of my query letter. Ouch doesn’t cover it! At least I’d only been using that sloppy mess for two weeks. Urgh! Two weeks of researching and reaching out to agents who I can’t pitch the same book to again. The best I can hope for is that they don’t remember the mess when I pitch them about the second novel in my…
