Myr

This week we talk about when to capitalize and when not to (in grammar, not in money). Capitalization is when you place the first letter of the word in uppercase and the rest of the letters in lowercase. ✅DO - First word of a sentence and every first word after a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point ✅DO - Proper nouns like "Statue of Liberty" 🗽 but ❌DON'T capitalize "the" preceding the proper nouns like "the Statue of Liberty" ✅DO - days of the week like "Friday", months of the year like "May", and holidays like "Easter" ❌DON'T - names of seasons like "summer" or "winter" ✅DO - names and nicknames such as "William" and "Bill" ✅DO - family relation names when used immediately preceding a proper name such as "Uncle Bill" ✅DO - names of brands, companies, associations and institutions such as colleges "Boston College uses Nike shoes" ✅DO - names of streets, roads, towns, cities, states, provinces, countries and landmarks such as "the Empire State Building is located in New York City, New York" ❌DON'T- words like "country" when used before the proper noun such as the country of Canada. ✅DO - titles when used before proper names or when used in place of the proper name such as "Captain Kirk, she's going to blow!" "She's going to blow, Captain!"🖖 ❌DON'T - titles that follow the proper noun or used instead of the name such as "James, the captain, sat in the center seat." ❌DON'T - titles that are used as descriptive instead of as part of the proper name such as "The captain, James Kirk, sat in the center seat." ✅ DO - the first word in a quote if it forms a complete sentence such as: The author said, "This grammar guide is very helpful." ❌DON'T -the first word in a quote if it does not form a complete sentence such as: In the grammar article the author said that he types "about 60 words per minute." References: Kern, Jara. (2020). The Infographic Guide to Grammar. Adams Media Venolia, Jan. (2001). Write Right! (4th ed.). Ten Speed Press

meh... I've been running Gay Authors non-stop for 20 years... I am thinking I've proven I'm a bit unhinged at least...

LOL. I need to make a Cliffhanger Achievement Badge...

This has been one of those things for 12 years now since we started self-posting stories/chapters on the site. Basically, the issue is when an author posts more than one chapter at once, it takes up all the announcement space for other authors. It also hurts an author's feedback. People will typically read to the end of what's posted before laying down a comment, unless something in the chapter really motivates them to speak up. The reason why the software now enforces it is because of the abuse and mistakes authors make. It is particularly annoying when an author publishes multiple chapters and then unpublishes them, because the Staff gets flooded with "Your website is broken! It told us So and So Posted Such and Such and the link is broke!" or my perennial favorite "Your website sucks and nothing works!" <---👴 Besides... everyone likes cliffhangers on stories, right? @C James sure saw success with it...

Huh... never seems to be a lack of people pointing out what's wrong so far as I've seen...

This saves your chapter to the site, but does not publish it publicly: This is default and recommended, especially for people that have troubles with chapters looking the way they want in the system. This allows you to edit a few times while only you can see it. If you toggle the Publish Chapter button: You get another toggle option (publish now) that will only be available if you have not posted in the last 24 hours. It defaults to 24 hours after the last published chapter or about 5 minutes into the future if you are past the 24 hours. Pushing the "Save Chapter" button as show above will Save the story to the system and Publish it publicly at the listed date/time. If you toggle the Publish Chapter and Publish Now toggles: Then hit "save chapter" , it will save to the system and publish publicly immediately. This was the old default prior to the update. Reminder: "Publish Now" will be grayed out if you are attempting to publish a chapter inside that warning time. I will update the FAQ with images to make it clearer.

We are going to do a really simple Grammar Guide this week. We're going to talk about the end of the sentence. There are three common ways to end a sentence. A period. An exclamation point! A question mark? First up, the round dot at the end of your sentence is the period. A period is used when the sentence states a fact or makes a command. Each sentence in this paragraph ends in a period. Next up, the question mark: ❓ Sentences that ask a question or display doubt end in a question mark. Example: Scooby-Doo, where are you? Last, but not least, the exclamation point! An exclamation point expresses strong feelings, yelling, or tells you something extraordinary has occurred. Example: Jinkies! Important tips on exclamation points: Don't overuse them! They lose impact! Honest! People lose sight of them if they appear constantly! Not everything is extraordinary! And do not put more than one together!!!!! The only caveat to those tips is if you are simulating an annoying teenager's dialog habits.

Yes, since we went to the 4.X version of the software in about 2016? Titles can be duplicated. Link titles must be unique. The system should automatically create one or you can override it if it gets tetchy. (You really should let the system set it for you)

Congratulations, Aaron!

Just wait until we get into gaggles, collywobbles, taradiddles, flibbertigibbets, donnybrooks, and bumfuzzles. (and yes, those are all real words)