M.I.A.

We just wanted to update as to why we have been M.I.A. 

The last part of March all three ladies were either finishing or starting their move to a new home. That transition continued for most of the beginning of April. 

Then due to some family situations we have needed to take a breather for a little. We hope to resume regular blog posts shortly. 

In the meantime, keep creating!

Love,

The Ladies of Ographies 

Editing Please Don't: Dialogue Tags

Okay, y'all, here we go again. I've decided to take one of my Please Don'ts from the annals of bad fiction writing (lots of it my own in my teenage years; ugh).

Please don't use weird dialogue tags/use actions as dialogue tags.

Okay, let's get something straight. 

"Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!" Shelby greeted.

^^DO NOT DO THIS THING.

I can say:

Shelby greeted her readers: "Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!"

or

"Hello! Welcome to the Please Don'ts!"

But please don't try to make dialogue tags out of action words.

*sidenote: Did I use the word "greeted" because besides being an action verb and therefore not a very good dialogue tag it is also impossible to use as a dialogue tag because it requires an object and therefore cannot be used in any other way besides "Shelby greeted [person]"? ...Possibly.

**second sidenote: I'm side-eyeing you people using this as a dialogue tag so hard every time I read it. Including in actual published stuff. So much side-eyeing.

Let me introduce you to my much-maligned friend, "Said."

Said would like you to remember that it is, in fact, a totally acceptable dialogue tag. For example:

"I was thinking about doing a Please Don't for my blog piece," Shelby began.

"Which of your pet peeves were you thinking of doing?" Matt questioned.

"I wanted to talk about dialogue," Shelby stated.

"Dialogue has a lot of rules," Matt sighed.

"Yeah, I wasn't going to talk about comma usage in dialogue or what order to put the speaker and dialogue tag in," Shelby groaned.

"That sounds like it would be a lot of work," Matt observed.

"Yes, but coming up with trite dialogue for a really long example is even harder," Shelby pointed out.

"How so?" Matt asked.

"I'm trying to keep the dialogue going as long as possible so people can begin to get distracted by the dialogue tags," Shelby explained.

"Do you think that will work?" Matt whispered.

"I don't know, but it's worth a try," Shelby replied.

"Are you running out of dialogue tags to think of?" Matt responded.

"Oh, no," Shelby chuckled. "If I were to bring in other things, like dialogue tags as action words, which I just told them not to do, I could go on forever."

"Do you really think they could handle it?" Matt exclaimed.

"Watch. They might not even realized that I threw a couple in before I even started telling you I was going to," Shelby laughed.

"Well, some of them are very subtle," Matt nodded.

"Do you think we should stop now?" Shelby pondered.

"I think they get the point, yeah," Matt grinned.

"Okay. I'll go back to talking to the readers," Shelby proclaimed.

.....

You back with me? You're still here?

Phew. That was a fun read, wasn't it? Did you get distracted by some of the tags? Did you notice that some worked better than others? Did you notice that I just wrote an entire piece without using the word "said"? Did you notice that it started to get sort of repetitive and that you didn't realize the action was happening with the dialogue because it was all jumbled in there?

Good. You're learning.

Now let's try a different approach.

.....

"I'm back," Shelby said with a grin.

"Oh, good. Do I get to be part of the story again?" Matt asked.

"Of course you do. You're the only other person in this house." Shelby laughed and shook her head.

Matt smiled. "Okay, fine. But we should talk about something different."

"Okay," Shelby said. "What would you like to talk about?"

Matt shrugged. "Anything. How did your day go today?"

"It was pretty good. I worked a lot and wrote a blog piece about dialogue," Shelby said.

Matt sighed. "See, there you go again."

"What?"

"Talking about your blog piece!"

"Oh." Shelby frowned. "I guess it's hard not to do that when I'm still actually writing the thing."

"Maybe I'll tell you about my day?"

"Yeah," Shelby said. "Yeah, that sounds good."

....

Hello again! Okay, so do you see what I'm saying? Action words like "laughed" and "smiled" and "frowned" are set off in their own sentence, not as part of the dialogue tags. What's more, I used "said" a lot more because it doesn't distract from what's actually being said in the dialogue itself. I can use "said" as a placeholder to pause in the dialogue such as in this sentence: 

"Okay," Shelby said. "What would you like to talk about?"

See how that works?

Not to mention the fact that some dialogue doesn't even need a tag. Use them sparingly, use "said" lots more, and stop trying to "spice it up" with weird. Nine times out of ten, it's just annoying.

Now go to, my pretties, and reacquaint yourself with my friend "Said." He needs a home, and he'd love to stay with you if you'll just give him a place to stay!

Great Things, Little Packages

The greatest things come in the smallest packages. 

I don't think that is true when it comes to living space however. My husband and I moved into my parents home for the summer before moving away for school. We got a "large" room to ourselves. We have most of our stuff stored in their basement, but our essentials out in the room with us. I documented our journey/struggle to give some ideas on how to make small spaces liveable and your own. 

First we got two of these clothing racks from IKEA since we do not have a closet! Not ideal, but they work pretty well! There is one for me and one for my husband. 

We slide them into a cubby and are in the process of making curtains to hide them. 

This picture, I want to emphasize the entertainment center in the background. Storage bins will be your best friend! They hide things really well and they add a cute flair to the room. 

Bedding is one of my favorite things! I love that it pulls a room together. I just wanted to share this shot and say regardless of where you lay your head down to sleep, you can always make a space your own. 

General Conference Quote

Brain? Brain? Hello? It's Me. Your Body. I Would Like to Go to Sleep Now. Can You Stop Writing for a Sec?

Picture source 

Dear Brain,

Hello. This is your body speaking.

I know we talk all the time, and I know you think we've got this communication thing down. I mean, I'd think after a twenty-four-ish year relationship, we'd really have something real, right?

And I mean, I love you. I really do. You're all that keeps me going in life.

But darling, we have got to talk about your sleeping habits. Because you don't seem to have any.

Now, I don't mind if you go all daydreamy on me, because heaven knows life is five hundred times as interesting when I'm sitting on the couch dreaming up new ways to make my quadruple agent character even cooler than he already is than when I'm just ... sitting on the couch.

And I don't even mind if you do a little thinking before we go to bed, because we all know that when I'm relaxed, that's when you start getting ideas. I've even started keeping a notebook by the bed so I can write while you spew your nonsense.

It's just that you don't stop.

I know, I know. It's our passion. It's our life. It's writing.

But, like, I need sleep. Really badly. 

I know you're trying. I know that when you start drifting off into the Land of Plotting that you try to counter with something else. I know we've got one particular dream in which we get as far as "I've arrived at this place and this is what I look like and here are my bags I'm about to unpack" before we're dead asleep. So, you see, I know it's possible.

So how come you're still going?

At one point do I start looking into research into an off switch?

Because I know you get frustrated when we're tired. You can't work properly. How feels?

Seriously, just shut up for eight hours a day. Can you do that for me? Just stop, turn off, and let me sleep.

I'll even let you pilot the dreams. Pick whatever you want. Just get to the REM part of dreaming first, not the daydreaming part. Okay? That's all I ask.

Pretty please?

Love,

Your Body

General Conference Quote

Avengers Easter Eggs

If you're like me, you've got a list of family traditions a mile wide. I've been living thousands of miles away from my parents for the past six years, though, so this was the first time in a while I got to paint Easter eggs with them.

I forgot how much fun this is!

My family does Easter eggs all out. We're not just painting; we're creating works of art!

We get out the dye and put the separate colors in little mugs, and then we bring out the crayons and markers and colored pencils. . . .

And then, we get to work.

Here are two of the eggs I did this year. As you can see, we usually have "themed" eggs, and my baby sister requested that I do a superhero/Marvel thing with mine because of Age of Ultron coming out next month and also because of the collaboration I was telling y'all about a few posts back.

With that said, please enjoy these Crayola masterpieces. :D

General Conference Quote

General Conference Quote

Why Do We Have So Much Stuff?: An Attempt at Helping to Organize

Hello, yes, I would like to report a disaster.

It's me. I'm the disaster.

I have too much stuff. I'm not just talking about the usual like too many shoes or whatever else. I'm seriously talking about unpacking going *Gandalf voice* "I have no memory of these things."

But, like, I need them? Maybe? I dunno; I like those stuffed animals, and they're cute and cuddly and could possibly be used by any future children I have?

But what do I do with them?

Well, okay, let's start with some basics.

Ah, the filing cabinet. My old foe . . . I mean, friend.

Seriously, I've put off getting one of these for my office for a while now because filing cabinets are for adults, and I'm not an adult, right?

Yeah, I'm a full-grown woman. I need to start acting like it.

Anyway, this is great. I've got my piano music in the bottom drawer, my financial files in the middle, and the top drawer has an assortment of other important things.

Look at those hanging files! Seriously, if you don't have manilla folders for every separate year of taxes, a separate folder for car payments/house payments/other bills . . . you just aren't doing organizing right.

I actually got the idea for cloth boxes from my mother, who used them in the room she let us live in for a while, back when we were in between living arrangements. They're really lovely for storage, and they come in any color.

Banker boxes! I love these things. They store pretty much anything and everything, so when you've got a whole heck of a lot of keepsakes handed down to you from both sets of in-laws, at least you have a way to store them!

And finally, plastic bins. The labels aren't on these yet, but what I usually do is take an index card and write in sharpie things like "Markers and Crayons" or "Stuffed Animals" or "Christmas Storage" or whatever else. These are some of the smaller selections. For really big things (see: Christmas Storage), you can get some the size of small suitcases!

Remember this as a kid?