Short Stories – Page 63

is for abbreviation, among other things. This is an area that is still misunderstood by some novice writers. In keeping with the theme of my blog, I’ll be using words associated with writing as I make my way through the alphabet. Now where was I? Oh yes, abbreviations.

A simple method for remembering the proper usage is to keep in mind, that the reader may not know the abbreviation; so use the full word first, followed by the abbreviation. You can then use the abbreviation throughout the remainder of your piece of writing.

For example: The hero in my book, ‘Beyond The Law’, is depicted at the beginning of the story as a member of the Special Air Service (SAS). That’s simple enough.

Where would we leave out an abbreviation? This would be the case, where it is no longer necessary, because of the accepted use of a shortened version of a word.

An example of this would be telephone, which up until recent times would have been abbreviated with an apostrophe, i.e. ‘phone; but now it is simply written as phone. Another one is the shortened version of aeroplane; ‘plane, which is now recognised as plane.

How about plurals that do not require an apostrophe?

CDs, MPs, DVDs, and so on.

This was just a glimpse at one area of writing, but there are many more to come. Now, on how many occasions did I fail to italicise all the words beginning with a? The first correct answer gets a name check on my next post.

Thank you for reading and I’ll see you tomorrow with B, for … bye.

Before I write my review, I’d like to reiterate a statement I made on this very blog on 11th March 2014.

‘Even if we don’t take all the advice that’s offered to us, we owe it to ourselves to find out what is on offer out there, and this has to be one of the most beneficial days any self-published author could spend.’

I would now like to follow that quote by saying, that if I hadn’t already said it; I would be saying it now.

The event was held at the Stamford Court Conference Centre in Leicester yesterday, Sunday 30th March 2014. It was well organised in every respect, including overflow parking, to allow for those who don’t know how to guide their car between two white painted lines …

There were 4 sessions, which overall offered a choice of 21 seminars to attend. This meant that each delegate made their own choice of which seminar to attend during any particular session. These were pre-booked. Apart from the final seminar, each was followed by a refreshment break.

Rather than tie my faithful (or new) readers down, with a detailed view of everything, I will be writing individual posts over the coming weeks on the four seminars I attended, which were:

1. Work successfully with bookshops and libraries to sell your book.

2. The importance for new authors of an author website.

3. The importance of cover design.

4. Using your existing author website to the full.

Needless to say, the impact of the seminars I attended will be reflected in my follow-up activity. For now, I’ll say no more on that subject. I would suggest, that attendance at the conference next year would be beneficial to any self-published writer. I will most certainly be highlighting it in my diary.

Sponsors of this year’s conference were: Writers & Artists, Writing Magazine, Nielsen, Matador (Troubador), Kobo, Writing Life, Cornerstones, TJ International, Cameron, Self-Publishing Magazine, Booked PR, and The Writers Advice Centre.

It would be remiss of me to leave out one important personal aspect of my attendance. I got to meet fellow writer and blogger, Paul Ruddock. We attended a couple of the seminars together and used every available moment in between, to discuss views that would have taken a much longer time by email or blog post. For any of you that wondered; yes, he really is a nice guy.

The A to Z Challenge starts tomorrow.

Thank you for reading.