Monday Meanderings on a Tuesday

I would have meandered yesterday, but it turns out spring arrived with a special gift this year ... a bout of the flu. Thanks to Gonzo & Daphne for cuddling up with me to ward off the shivers, even if they are tremendous bed hogs. Can't say that I blame them, if my life started out in a shelter, I'd be sprawled out across the pillows as often as I could too!

The weekend wasn't a total loss though. I did manage a new version of my query pitch (God help me if this one isn't closer than the last) as well as revising a couple of the chapters in my novel to fix the problem with keeping unnecessary secrets. Now I have to give it a day or two and go back over them and see if they turned out as well as I feel they did ... or if it was really just an effect of the Dayquil.

That last sentence made me think of one of the annoying problems I run into sometimes when I'm writing -- word choices that repeatedly trip me up. For instance, it will not matter how many times I read the definitions for both, or have a well meaning person try to explain it to me, effect and affect will forever intermingle in my brain. In the moment when I'm writing, they pop out and later I stare at them (and change them) until I'm convinced neither is right. And don't get me started on reign and rein -- these were especially tricky since part of my novel takes place during the time of King Henry VIII and there are horses involved. In the end, I had a clear understanding of the last two after numerous re-readings through my dictionary each time either appeared, but in the first draft I bounced back and forth between the two like they were opposite ends of a ping pong table.

I know there are a ton more, but right now my brain is still foggy from the sinus medicine. Anyone want to make me feel better, by sharing their word confusions and letting me know I'm not the only one who loses time and brain cells on this sort of thing?