In honor of National Grammar Day … it IS “March Fourth” after all … do you have any grammar books? Punctuation? Writing guidelines? Style books?
Yes, I do. Currently, my favorite is the classic Elements of Style–illustrated and in hardcover. ^_^ A Little Brown Handbook for MLA and APA nitpicking and a few others that don’t quite come to mind at the moment–but I have more than two, I am sure.
More importantly, have you read them?
Excepting the LBH in its entirety, yes, I have. The Elements of Style was extremely helpful–definitely recommended to every writer (as was mentioned to me) and useful for brushing up on your grammar skills.
How do you feel about grammar in general? Important? Vital? Unnecessary? Fussy?
It’s important enough. I say enough, because grammar really is not a personal strong point of mine. Some folks can really fuss over it, and I let them, because it is their talent, their hobby. In reality, I’m not very good at it, at all. I never bothered with the proper names for things such as “noun clauses” and “gerunds” etc, I have no clue what they are and look them up every time they are mentioned. Knowing what they are the proper punctuation for them is excellent, however, my brain seems to switch off to faraway lands and swashbuckling adventures the moment I begin to show interest in such things. You would think I could remember by now with, but alas, I do not. I am touchy about punctuation though, my main nitpick is commas and quotation marks. I can survive fairly well without thinking much further than that, though I still endeavor to hone what little scraps of knowledge I know, so my readers will have less of a headache in following my stories. Sometimes it works. Not all the time.
Cheerio!
