Authors Electric

'Telling Tales' by Susan Price I was on the track down of an elusive and prolific beast -- one that's common but camouflages itself so well that you can be staring right at it and not see it. I knew that no matter how dedicatedly I hunted it, no matter how many hours or days I spent on the trail, I would miss many of the pestiferous things. So I asked my friend, Karen Bush,   an ex of this blog, to help and she bagged quite a few of the critters, having an expert eye for them. Using Karen's spotter notes, I culled all she discovered – but in the process found a whole lot more of the pests. They breed, I think, as soon as you turn a page. Because I'm talking about typos, of course. I've been proof-reading my latest self-published book, Telling Tales.   There are several breeds of typo. They can be mistaken spellings. I know to be wary of any word containing 'ie' or, indeed, 'ei' because I seem incapable of learning which way round they go in any...

This will be my last post on Authors Electric for a while. Life has got busy recently - busy in some very happy ways. My grandson Sam Zachary was born on November 9th - a little brother for Daisy, whom some of you may remember from my previous posts about her linguistic progress. This is Sam! First smile from Sam   So far, his literary accomplishments include gazing with deep interest at a book of black and white patterns. Good going for only three weeks old! He is also very keen on the horizontal grey and white stripes on the living room wall. (Daisy, at that age, was fascinated by a wardrobe.) I can't help wondering whether it's all the edge-detecting neurons in his visual cortex getting to work. Whatever it is, he gets engrossed, and he's also, like most babies, intrigued by faces. When I pick him up he frowns ever so slightly, as though he's thinking, Now, let's see, who are you? Ah, yes, Nana... I remember. Now, could you please ask Mummy or Daddy to ...