Crystal Clear Proofing: Inspiring Thoughts

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Inspiring Thoughts

Hello Friends,

Well, I'm having an (I hope!) minor - surgical procedure tomorrow, and NOW I'm literally "down and out" with one heck of - something! Yesterday I was deathly afraid I had H1N1 - but thankfully it appears I just have a really nasty bug. So, I'm out of commission for a couple of days. It literally is all I can do to sit here and type this (sigh).

I have posts prepared for the remainder of the week, so please visit! I'll be checking in when I can! I apologize that I won't be able to visit your sites for a couple of days, but I'm hoping to be back in full swing by Thursday. See everyone then!

In the meantime, you know how much I love motivational and inspiring thoughts! So, today I'm posting a few for you to ponder. Enjoy!

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.- Albert Schweitzer

Working at a job you hate is unlikely to bring you either happiness or success. Do what you love. Whether wealth follows or not, you will be happy. And, you are far more likely to also gain financial reward if you are working at something that inspires and excites you.

The greater danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.

The secret of getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.- Mark Twain

If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.- Mary Pickford

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

7 comments:

Elizabeth Spann CraigOctober 27, 2009 at 8:55:00 AM CDT
Get better, Crystal! And thanks for the dose of inspiration this morning.

Elizabeth
Mystery Writing is Murder
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Alan OrloffOctober 27, 2009 at 10:05:00 AM CDT
Best wishes for a fast recovery!
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Elspeth FutcherOctober 27, 2009 at 11:14:00 AM CDT
Best wishes flying your way for a speedy recovery; both from the cold and from the surgery!

Elspeth
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Creative ChroniclerOctober 27, 2009 at 11:57:00 AM CDT
Very glad it's not H1N1. I'll be praying for you and keeping tabs to make sure you're doing well.
Take your time and recover, we'll all be here waiting for you when you feel better.
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L. Diane WolfeOctober 27, 2009 at 12:13:00 PM CDT
Prayers for an uneventful proceedure and speedy recovery!
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UnknownOctober 27, 2009 at 6:33:00 PM CDT
Thank you all so much for stopping by and for your well wishes!
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Mary CunninghamOctober 29, 2009 at 8:55:00 AM CDT
Sending good thoughts to you! Get better, soon.
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Reader Comments

This is one of the reasons I love your blog. I find things here that no other blog has! Between cool words and your fun challenges, not to mention your awesome tutorials you have a wonderfully unique and helpful blog!

You make lessons lots of fun. A wonderful gift!

Bravo! Your blog is inventive, informative and FUN! You have a real knack for presenting what could be HO-HUM in a fascinating way!

You truly do have one of my favorite blogs. Those spelling posts are working wonders for me. Thanks again!

Your blog is tremendously helpful...thank you very much for the great blogging you do! You provide a wonderful service for us writers.

Love your blog posts - you have such a succinct and clear way of clearing up the most difficult and subtle nuances of good writing and editing.

You have a special talent for clarifying literary distinctions.

You realy do need to write a grammar book! No one does these posts better and makes them as easy to understand & remember as you do!

Great and informative post. It's so nice and succinct - grammar seems soooo much easier now.

I am so delighted to have found you! I look forward to following your blog.

As usual, your in-depth posts bring clear distinction to often gray and fuzzy topics.

you really do do this extremely well.

Great tips. You always have such useful information. Thanks.

I think your blog is great! Very helpful

All good information...I love your tutorials!

Some excellent advice and as usual, very clearly explained. Thanks for the help.

Love your blog...Thanks for this, you're keeping English intact.

Thanks. I love your site for the great information.

Once again, a clear (crystal), concise, and easy to understand tutorial, my dear. And once again, I got it bookmarked. I'm putting together an editing/proofreading e-book for my personal use with the compilation of all these wonderful posts - thanks!

Your post are helping to alleviate the grammar phobia in me. Thanks, Crystal.

Crystal Clear Proofing posts the greatest writing/editing tutorials. As an editor myself, I go there often to learn subtle nuances in the craft of good writing, as she has this marvelous ability to make those fuzzy, sometimes hard to determine, gray areas of correct writing, well…Crystal Clear!

I do love your posts, they have such great information.

You always break it down into realistic terms, Crystal!

You have such interesting posts. Thanks.

Crystal, I think I'm going to print out all your posts and staple them together for my own style book. Thanks!

Thanks for the great posts!

I have learned much from your blog.

Just excellent. I need to remember all these things. All the time. Thanks.

Thanks for these tips; they're very useful! Readers get drawn into stories in part because of good, clean writing, and these are valuable ideas for creating that kind of writing.

I.E AND E.G.
Thank you! I've never know what those meant or how to properly use them!

JOINT AND SEPARATE POSSESSION
Thank you so much! I had a hard time finding what joint and seperate possession means! Once again, thank you!

WAIT AND AWAIT
Oh, I love this site! Do you have a past post about lay, lie and all that good stuff?

This is a very clear and succinct explanation of the distinction between the two words."

LAY AND LIE
OMG! This is GREAT!!! I might actually understand it now! Thanks so much, Crystal. This is an awesome site!

You have a great way of explaining words. Your blog is a wonderful source for writers. I'll have to search your post to see if you have "affect" "effect", I know I use those improperly often.

AFFECT AND EFFECT
Thank you for this great post! I have printed it to keep it handy. Hopefully, it will positively affect my future writing.

Thanks for this post Crystal. I was going to actually email you and request that you explain the difference between these two, because these are usually a problem for me. Thanks again!

Another classic, Crystal Clear explanation...this tutorial contains some subtle nuances well worth being reminded of. Thanks!

THAT AND WHICH
Another excellent grammar lesson!

You are really rockin' this grammar instruction! I am currently working on a short story for class, which must be submitted this week, and this was very helpful. Did I get it right? (Note from CCP: she did get it right!)

WHO AND WHOM
Perfect! Got it...I keep all these tutorials in a bookmarked file now.

Great tutorial!! I'm saving this one.

Another great tutorial.

QUOTATION MARKS
Great post. Good tips about punctuation.

AWHILE AND A WHILE
Another fine tutorial. Got it added to my Clear as a Crystal file.

What a wonderful tip!

Oh!!! Those examples are perfect and it really makes sense now. Thanks!

APOSTROPHE USE WITH POSSESSIVE NOUNS
Excellent and very thorough. Got this one copied and stored along with ALL your tutorials in my Crystal Clear Writing folder. :)

Another excellent post. I always have trouble with these.

Now that my eyes have re-focused after glazing over, I can say that this is why writers need to hire editors--So they don't have to think too much about grammar. I can't keep all the darn rules straight in my head. Thanks for doing what you do. I am cutting and pasting this into a new word file for grammar tips.

Good one! I'm tweeting this.

Clear and concise. Thanks.

That possessive S has at some points been the bane of my existence...so thanks for this.

Great article! Thanks for the examples too.

Confusing topic, excellent post. Many people really do not know at all how to handle these pesky little things, so thanks for 'splaining it so nicely.

Excellent post! I enjoyed this a lot...Great blog. :)

LEVELS OF EDITING
Crystal, great explanation and post today - I copied it as a word doc and stored it in my "Crystal Clear" file.

You've written a wonderful post that throws light on a rather mysterious (to me) subject.

ONE WORD VS. TWO WORDS
Another great post.

Thanks for sharing this list and clarifying these points.

WRITING DATES AND TIMES
Writing dates and times is always confusing for me, so I really appreciate this, Crystal! Thanks.

Great tips. This is very helpful. Thanks.

Awesome tips. I make some of those mistakes.

I will copy and paste into a writing tips folder I've started to gather all these handy dandy things in one place. Thank you.

Great post!

What a very useful post! I'm going to bookmark it for easy reference. Thanks Crystal!

Good stuff Crystal!

Very good and clear lesson here. Copied and pasted it into a Word Doc and saved it in my "Crystal Clear" file!

You have some good reference article(s) here, Crystal. :-)

PREPOSITIONS
Excellent tutorial, got it saved as usual.

Thanks for this! Bookmarking it for easy reference.

SEMICOLONS
Another great and much needed post for people like me. This is why you are the Grammar Goddess!

Oh I agree. You are the Grammar Goddess. I have the worst time with commas and semicolons. Thanks for the helpful post. I'll have to print this out and keep it close.

I bow to you, Grammar Goddess. Another one to save in my growing list from your posts.

Oh great Grammar Goddess, how I worship you! Thanks so much for this post.

You make it look so easy!

Good one!

Oh my goodness you have made it so clear! I'm sure it will be this clear when I am writing later...Thank you!

COLONS
As always, awesome advice and clarification.

Thanks, Crystal. Helpful, as always.

Great advice, Crystal! I'm tweeting.

Helpful as always. Thanks.

DASHES
You should really turn your blog into a book. Now THAT is a grammar book I would buy!

Thank you so much for this post. The explanations and examples made it "crystal clear" for me. :-)

I like your distinction between the use of dash and colon. It makes sense to me.

Most helpful. I just had to change a host of en dashes to em dashes in my ms.

HYPHENS
Thank you very much for this post!

Great tips, Crystal! Thanks so much.

Such great advice! Thanks for the valuable lesson!!

Great post. Thanks.

Wow! Thank you for taking the time to clear up some of the confusion about hyphens. As always, a very helpful post.

These are wonderful guidelines, Crystal, thank you!

Another fine tutorial.

I'm pretty sure I don't use hyphens correctly. It was good to read through this advice and think about how I do use them. Thanks.

Good post, great blog!

OVER THE TOP AWARD
Congratulations, you and your blog are "Over the Top."

Your blog is sure Over the Top! One of my favorites!

FIFTEEN PUNCTUATION FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW
Great summary.

Love this post!! I needed this one. I think I might have to frame it and stick it beside my desk as a reminder when I'm writing! You rock!!

Great tips! I'm tweeting.

Crystal this is excellent. I've got it stored in my Crystal Clear file folder.

Yeah, I've created a Crystal folder as well and cut and paste all your gems.

Thanks for these tips, Crystal! Very useful! I think I should post them above my desk!

Another very useful post, Crystal.

Great tips as always :)

You always make this painless. Thanks Crystal.

EFFECTIVE WRITING
I think this is one of my favorite rules post yet. So helpful!! May have to post this one on my desk too, I know I'll get one of those flip book easels so I can have all your post handy and in my face to remind me. I need that, you are an editor extraodinaire!!!

Thanks for making grammar crystal clear once again, Crystal.

Another fine lesson, Crystal on some of the finer points of good prose. Got this one saved, too.

I love the examples - they make it so much easier to remember these rules!

And another of your posts goes into the 'keep' file. Bless you, my dear, for making it all so Crystal Clear!

Oh, man, I wish I could send this to all the writers I worked with and trained over the years at TV stations! You rock, Crystal!

CLAUSES
Thanks! I love these tutorials.

Very helpful and easy to understand as always!

CHALLENGES
Great idea for a proofreader post!

Your posts are fun, creative, and challenge our brains.

What a fun exercise!

This is a great exercise, Crystal! I really appreciate your blog.

I just love your challenges - they make me realize how much I still have to learn!

This is great, I like the new Challenge! Great blog too, glad to have found you on blogger!

I love these!

Thanks Crystal. :) This is fun.

This is a great exercise for concentration; thanks!

Another excellent week of challenges...Keep them coming!

These are so much fun, Crystal. Helps keep us sharp, too!

This is an interesting weekly challenge, Crystal; it shows me time and time again how easy it is for my brain to skip over mistakes.

I love the idea of doing this weekly. What a fun little challenge.

This is such fun to do...Thanks for providing a means for waking up my brain.

This is great...Thanks, Crystal! So fun!

I LOVE the spelling challenge!! I am a horrible speller and need all the help I can get. Great idea for a weekly post.

It's so easy, isn't it, to miss those little things that, in the end, make writing look polished or look "raw." This is a good exercise : ). I look forward to more.

Yippee for me. Got them this time. So fun, Crystal. Thanks.

As always, you're the Grammar Goddess. Thanks for keeping us on our toes.

Thanks, as always, for these little challenges. It's so important to communicate clearly when one writes, and readers do *not* want to be bothered by obvious spelling goofs.

Love the spelling challenges.

Wow, you really know how to get a brain working! Thanks again for another helpful post!

Thanks for this challenge. I appreciate the exercise. It's always good to keep in practice.

I just love your challenges - they make me realize how much I still have to learn!

Great test! Thanks, I love your posts!

***************************************************************************************** "Editors and proof readers are the unrecognized support structure of books. Without them, books would take authors twice as long to complete." Comment left by Leigh Russell (CRIME FICTION)