This picture was taken at the 2011 New Orleans Obesityhelp conference photo booth. Aren't Savannavansmutsmut and I beautiful! LOL!

I'm a 49 year young mom and a huge Twilight fan!! I recently discovered fanfics and love to beta good stories. I used to work as a proofreader and typist many moons ago, as well as done lots of secretarial and clerical work. I have several degrees and love to read and am learning that I love to write fan fiction as well! I have written lots of poetry and lyrics, but Blue Monday is my first totally original fanfic to write. All poetry and song lyrics in my stories are original works of mine unless noted.

*NONE OF DOLLYBIGMOMMA'S STORIES OR ORIGINAL WORKS MAY BE USED, COPIED, REDISTRIBUTED, OR TRANSLATED WITHOUT EXPRESSED CONSENT, AND CURRENTLY NO SUCH ACTIONS ARE AUTHORIZED. ANY SUCH ACTIONS SHALL BE REPORTED AS THEFT AND PLAGIARISM. ALL COPYRIGHTS ARE RESERVED BY DOLLYBIGMOMMA. ALL TWILIGHT-RELATED CHARACTERS, EVENTS, AND REFERENCES ARE PROPERTY OF STEPHENIE MEYER. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT, PROFIT, OR PLAGIARISM OF TWILIGHT OR OF ANY OTHER FANFICTION.NET AUTHORS IS INTENDED.*

Very sadly, I have removed my stories Blue Monday, Through the Closet Door, A Silent Voice from the Garden, All in the Family, and Once Upon a Time due to plagiarists. I will not be posting any other non-vampire or AH stories on the internet because of this. It's so sad that some people feel the need to steal others' hard work to make themselves look good or to profit from ill-gotten gains. Remember, people, karma is a bitch. I highly suggest everyone keep an eye out for their works.

VICTIMS OF HER OWN HILARITY Friday blog at http://victimsofherownhilarity.blogspot.com/ is a compilation of stories and such from various authors based on a picture of the week. I'll be posting my entries for the blog in my new "story" of the same name. Check out the link for the corresponding pictures since I can't post them on here.

My biggest writing pet peeves:

Nasty reviews and PM's by people who aren't writing as well I love hearing from readers and getting reviews as much as the next writer, but I also don't need snarky, hateful comments that are meant to be hurtful and malicious. If you don't like my stories, my beta skills, or how I write, that's fine - move on. If you have something constructive to offer about errors, plot, or style, I'm all ears - PM me. Otherwise, keep it to yourself. My writing and beta work is something I spend lots of time on that I could be doing something else for my family, so unless you're writing as well and can be reached for a rebuttal, I don't feel you have room to be issuing non-constructive criticism about other writers' efforts. And no one has the right to be rude, condescending, or malicious. EVER.

That. That. That. It's a highly overused word in MANY fanfics and lots of other books in general. It's very easy to overuse, and sometimes hard to catch yourself doing it. If you use the word "that" in a sentence, please make sure to check the flow of your sentence without it first. IF IT STILL MAKES SENSE WITHOUT IT, PLEASE LEAVE IT OUT!! A few other words that vex me regularly: led/lead, chose/choose, lose/loose, breath/breathe, slid/slide, there/their/they're, your/you're, then/than, met/meet, and definitely/defiantly just for scorpio11! These drive me crazy!!

Punctuation around quotation marks.It's a pain, I know. I did on-line research trying to figure this out, and finally went to Half-Priced Books and picked up several texts on writing to help me because I was doing it so badly, plus I wanted to be a beta and wanted to do it right for you all as well. I’m still by no means perfect, but at least I’m trying!

Here's a quick tutorial on what I learned:

If the words after a quotation mark cannot stand alone as a complete sentence in themselves, place a comma (or question/exclamation mark) inside the quotation marks, then finish the sentence without capitalizing the first word after the closing quotation mark.

"I told you not to come here," she said as she held the door.

"Don't you want to go?" she asked sadly.

"You know you really do!" she teased.

If the words following the quotation mark make a complete sentence by themselves, place a period (or question/exclamation mark) inside the quotation mark, then start the sentence following with capitalization:

"I told you not to come here." She closed the door in my face and refused to speak to me any further.

"Can we bring you anything?" She always took care of me anyway.

"Well, be that way!" I couldn't believe she said that.

Capitalization of pronouns. Pronouns like mom/mother, dad/father, son, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, and sometimes "love" ARE NOT capitalized if they're used in the possessive form or are referred to impassively.

"My dad wants you to come over, Grandma Ann," my mom said to my excited step-grandmother. My grandma and my brother, Emmett, were characters.

Those same pronouns ARE capitalized if the person is being addressed directly, including titles Sir, Ms., Mrs., Mr., Ma'am, Madam, Miss, etc.

"Come on, Dad. You know our grandma's friend is hot," I said mischievously. He pointed for me to go to my room. "Yes, Sir. I'm sorry," I said sadly.

Emmett shook his head, "You know, Edward, we're going to tell mom you said that, right, Dad?"

"I know your grandma's friend is pretty, Son, but she's not my type." Dad was just kidding himself.

Usually, terms of endearment are not capitalized.

"Hey, princess! How's my girl today?" he asked. "Come on, sweetheart; give your daddy a big smile!" He sounded like an idiot talking to our little darling.

"Thank you, love. That makes me happy." She was truly the love of my life.

"Hey, baby, come to papa!" I held out my arms and she jumped on me eagerly.

Grammar: What can I say? If you don't have a spelling and grammar check feature, please please PLEASE, get a good beta! It's so hard to enjoy a story when you spend half your time trying to figure out what the author was trying to say.

The main reason all this means anything to me is because there are lots of young readers who come to this site and everything we put on here is what they learn from, be it the content of our stories, or the way they're written. If you care about the future writers of the world, do your best to make sure they learn the highest quality lessons they can from you. I know I still screw up, A LOT, but I'm trying to do the best I can. Please join me!

This was one of the most helpful sites I found if you need help with grammar rules: http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp