Punctuation

Punctuation is a feeling process for me. I know how to use punctuation, and for the most part I put it in the right place. I’m always worried that I use too many commas or that I’m not really using anything else but commas and periods. Wondering whether I could have used an M dash or whether that useless slut of a semi-colon is really necessary. If you want to piss off a real English major, a good thing to say is: “Oh, I love it when people use semi-colons!”

Really? Why? It’s just punctuation. Does it take someone of a certain writing acumen to be able to use a semi-colon? No. You can more or less Google how to do it.

Anyway, I figured that if I want to be taken seriously as a writer I should take better care of my punctuation use. Feeling things out works for the most part but I’m getting old and my instincts are getting dull. If I’ve learned anything it’s that once you start getting dull you have to rely more on technique and knowledge than the process of feeling things out.