I love to write. I hate being misunderstood. So I write, edit and revise. Actually, I perform quite a war dance on my keyboard as I create my posts.

Weapons of Mass Construction

I use Microsoft Word 2000, Dictionary.com and Google. The dictionary and thesaurus in Word are pathetic, as are my outdated reference books of the same names. Thus, Dictionary.com and the related thesaurus get a good workout as I try to avoid repetition, clichs and lifeless words. I use Google to look up stuff (duh!) If you use Firefox, you can find Dictionary.com and Google.com in the upper right corner as a quick-search text box - assuming you haven't changed that default setting. Just click the triangle to select either one.

Conjunction Junction, What's your Function?

Some of you know that I failed typing, so you shouldn't be surprised that my first drafts are about as legible as a bank robber's note. (I used to work in the police department and, believe me, most bank robbers not only failed English, but also never heard of the Palmer method.) To clean it up a bit, I press function keyF7, which is Word's keyboard shortcut for the grammar and spell-checker. I am not an English teacher, nor am I a professional writer. So, I will not speak of style and grammar, except to say that the use of passive verb tense is to be avoided. (wink!) As far as spell-checking goes, I grimly plod through it all, because I know it's going to catch a boatload of typos. The good thing about Word's spell-checker is that, unlike Santa Claus, it only checks once. If you add or edit text after going toe-to-toe with F7, the subsequent rounds are completed more quickly, since only those additions are checked.

Save Early, Save Often

Here is a tip for Word users: place the title of your post at the very beginning of your document. The first time you save the document, Word will select the first line as the file name. If there is any punctuation in the first line, Word will stop at that point, but you can still add the rest when prompted for a file name. Having the title at the beginning comes in handy when you paste your post into writingup's Body Box. Just cut the first line from the Body Box and paste it into your Title box! (You can go back to the Body Box and delete the blank line.)

Bonus tip: Hold down the Ctrl key to select more than one category!

Link, Split, Repeat

Now, with my cleaned up post sitting in the Body Box, I append the delimiter to the very end of my post. Then I hit the Preview button. This is the time for me to test my links. For this chore, I love Firefox's tabbed browsing feature; I simply right-click on each link and open it in a new tab. I fix whatever problems exist with the links. One way to minimize errors is to copy and paste the link address directly into your post, then surround it with the anchor tag. You don't have to load the specified page into your browser window, as long as you see a link to it somewhere on your current page. In that case, right-click the link. If you're using Internet Explorer, select Copy Shortcut. If you're using Firefox, select Copy Link Location. Once I start this review/edit/repeat cycle, I usually work directly in the Body Box, leaving the Word document alone until I have finished editing the HTML tags.

Final Split Test

Before I submit the post, I remove the delimiter and hit Preview. If I don't like where the default break occurs, I place the delimiter at the appropriate break point.

Running with Scissors

Having done all that, I select the entire contents of the Body Box and paste it back into my Word document, over-writing the previous version. This little two-step works best if you are using keyboard short-cuts, since you have to select the entire contents of the Word document before pasting the revision.

• Click inside the Body Box and press Ctrl-A to select all text
• Press Ctrl-C to copy all text
• Click anywhere in your Word document and press Ctrl-A to select all text
• Press Ctrl-V to paste the text you copied from the Body Box
• Save the Word Document
• Press Submit