In these days of e-mails, texts, mind-boggling abbreviations, and thoughts that bounce all over the place, we have seen huge changes in our language, especially in its written form. In fact, I can’t even decipher some of the texts I receive from my grandchildren. How does this affect us as writers? New abbreviations and fragmented sentences are all the rage and fast becoming the present norm. Are we jumping headfirst into the confusion, or are we torchbearers in times of change? Some years ago, I researched expressions common during the flapper era—the 1920s—for a poem I was writing. Today, a reader would likely have little idea what those terms mean. How many of the following can you define (and these are just a few)? • Bee’s knees (they don’t buzz) • Big cheese (not to be confused with a Big Mac) • Bluenose (not a precursor to frostbite) • Carry a torch (nothing to do with the Olympics) • Cat’s pajamas (not necessarily nightwear) • Cheaters (you’ll be surprised when you se...

Once again please welcome Terry Odell for another guest post. Since I'm back at intensive writing, and doing critiques for my writers group, I find my reading for pleasure moves deeper into edit mode as well. Most of these things have no effect on plot or storytelling, but they're things that slow my read. I wonder if anyone else notices or even cares. I don't begin to consider myself a grammar guru, although I had a lot of basics pounded into my head by Miss Cook in junior high, and Mr. Holtby in high school. Lately, I've noticed that some of these lessons don't seem to matter anymore. Or else copy editors had different teachers. Our language is fluid, and constantly changing (my agent said the comma before "too" is no longer required and made me remove all of them which still waves red flags for me), so I wonder if there are other memos I've missed. Of course, even if you get the memos, they're not written in stone, as my editor went and put back...

Barbara Warren, author and owner of Blue Mountain Editorial Service, lives on a farm in the beautiful Ozarks in Missouri with her husband Charles, a herd of cattle and an office cat named Rosicat, who was abandoned at their church when she was just a kitten. Rosicat manages the office. Charles and Barbara do the work. She is a writer, editor, and Sunday school teacher. Her hobbies are reading and raising flowers. Barbara was my editor on Cowgirl Dreams, published by Treble Heart Books . Can you expand on your editing background--how did you get into it? Did you take classes? No, I didn’t take classes. I belonged to a writer’s group and we critiqued each other’s work. People kept urging me to become an editor, and after a while I took them seriously. I do read a lot of books on writing and have an extensive library of books about writing and editing. I keep studying, wanting to grow so I can do a better job for the writers whose books I edit. How long have you been editing? I’ve...