My earliest stuff is... quite something.   

Speaking of those embarrassing early stories we all have, here's a question for everyone:  What's something embarrassing you used to do in your writing that you don't do anymore?

I used to overuse the thesaurus on Microsoft Word.  During my purple prose phase that began with Broken, I discovered the thesaurus feature and used it to pick "juicier" words for my descriptions.  Sometimes I would end up with words I had never heard in context that didn't really work for what I was going for.  When I come across them now with an adult's vocabulary, I cringe so much.  I was just looking for a specific scene in BMS and found a sentence that describes sex as "not his most superlative love-making experience."  Superlative?? 🤦‍♀️

I still use the thesaurus on Google Docs sometimes when I'm trying to find the perfect word, but I will only pick words I'm actually familiar with and am pretty confident I'm using correctly.  Some of Google's thesaurus suggestions are pretty funny though!

Happy birthday to your dad!

If your weather is anything like it's been here, it's a perfect weekend to stay cozy and read HP!  We had snow days Wednesday and Thursday because we got dumped on.

They didn't react with as much shock as I thought they would, but mostly compared Harry's age to their parents' ages.  Of course, I compare Harry's age to Nick LOL.  I'm sure 1992 feels so long ago to them, though.  This generation now calls anything before 2000 "the 1900s." LOL.  Technically they're right, but it makes me feel ancient to think I was born "in the 1900s."

Earlier in the year, though, I had a group reading the book "The Lemonade War," which came out in 2007, and they commented on how they could tell it was older because the kid in the book is saving up for an iPod, and iPods are outdated. 🤦‍♀️  Meanwhile, I was reading "Tales of a 4th Grade Nothing" to them, which mentions record players... but I guess record players are cool again now, so maybe that didn't seem as old-fashioned to them as iPods.

Haha, right?!  I love the comparison of kids today to the wizards who don't know muggle stuff LOL.  We just read about Nearly Headless Nick's 500th deathday party yesterday, where it has the cake that says he died in 1492, so I always make the kids do the math to figure out what year Chamber of Secrets takes place and then what year Harry must have been born.  Harry's turning 42 this year!

I'm glad you were pleasantly surprised by your story!  I think the whole "You're supposed to be embarrassed by yourself 5 years ago" is more true when you're younger.  If I compared my writing from when I first started to five years later, absolutely, there was huge growth, and I was embarrassed of my early stories by that point.  But if I look back on stories I wrote 5 years ago now, they really aren't much different than what I write now in terms of quality.  Not that we can't all still grow, but I think it's slower and more subtle in your 30s and beyond.  But that's good because if you were embarrassed by your story, it would be a lot harder to go back to it!  I'm glad you remember where you were going with it and are going to try to continue!

Very true!  My earliest stuff is... quite something.     I have a long weekend and plan to finish re-reading HP 1.  I figure that's a good way to jumpstart some creativity.

Love that activity with your students!  Did they have a reaction to Harry being 42 now in "real life"?  I'm sure that's difficult for kids to hear. haha

Aww, thanks ladies! 💕

Happy belated birthday!! Hope it was a good one and that you got to do lots of celebrating.

I took today off work for my Dad's birthday.  Nice to start the day with some hot tea and not already be on the phone or my work computer.  .

Aww, thanks ladies! 💕

Yes, happy birthday, Queen!

I'll come back and catch up later. Just wanted to pop in and wish Mare a happy birthday!

I've been horrible about keeping up with our update thread. All five parts of Mr. Body Beautiful are now uploaded! You can read them on our official site or on AO3. There's also an extra special "Behind the Episode" at the end of part five on our site since we had so much fun writing the retrospective blogs for the old episodes.

Let us know what you think!

Doctor: "We're going to lie you down now, Mr. Carter."

Google Docs thinks it should be, "We're going to lie to you now, Mr. Carter."  That will not improve people's trust in medical professionals, Google. LOL

But should it be "lay you down" instead?  Lay/lie can be confusing because lay is also the past tense of lie, but usually we lay down objects, not people.  People lie down.  Nick is going to be lying down, but he's not putting himself in that position; the doctor is going to lower the head of his bed to make it flat.  So I dunno... is it lay or lie?  I could go either way on this one.  But I guess since it's being used in dialogue, it doesn't really matter what is most grammatically correct.  Which word would a real person be most likely to use?  Obviously my first instinct was "lie," but feel free to weigh in with your opinion!

I love that you get to share it with the class!  The series is so timeless (though I simultaneously love the mention in book one about a VHS and a computer game, and thinking about kids today having to ask their parents about certain things the "muggles" in the 90s are talking about just like wizards would have to in the books. ). 

It's funny, I saw a meme yesterday that said something like-- you're supposed to be embarrassed by yourself 5 years ago; it shows that you've grown.  I read half the HP fan fic yesterday and thought, 'Wow, I used to be pretty funny.'   . I need to finish reading; it was longer than I remembered, which was a pleasant surprise that I was that far along.  The good news is I think I remember where I was going with it.  So I'm definitely going to try to see if I can draft out the rest of the story!

Haha, right?!  I love the comparison of kids today to the wizards who don't know muggle stuff LOL.  We just read about Nearly Headless Nick's 500th deathday party yesterday, where it has the cake that says he died in 1492, so I always make the kids do the math to figure out what year Chamber of Secrets takes place and then what year Harry must have been born.  Harry's turning 42 this year!

I'm glad you were pleasantly surprised by your story!  I think the whole "You're supposed to be embarrassed by yourself 5 years ago" is more true when you're younger.  If I compared my writing from when I first started to five years later, absolutely, there was huge growth, and I was embarrassed of my early stories by that point.  But if I look back on stories I wrote 5 years ago now, they really aren't much different than what I write now in terms of quality.  Not that we can't all still grow, but I think it's slower and more subtle in your 30s and beyond.  But that's good because if you were embarrassed by your story, it would be a lot harder to go back to it!  I'm glad you remember where you were going with it and are going to try to continue!