#penguiduck

Well, hello!

If you’re reading this, I am grateful you’re still here.

I’ve clearly underestimated how exhausting being a parent is. My beautiful daughter is nearly three years old now, but she still requires inordinate amounts of my time. She’s a nut—I’ve called her this before, to which she sasses back, “I’m a cute nut!”

This January, she started school. We’ve had some problems with our nanny, so our plan to keep her at home till she was older fell apart, but she’s enjoying her time with her teachers and newfound friends immensely. That said, schools and daycares are cesspools, and I suspect she (and, by extension, we) will be sick on-and-off for the next few years.

We don’t have a village nearby, so it’s just me and my spouse. It’s just something we have to deal with—not a big deal, but it’ll be strenuous on our physical and mental health, and careers.

All that said, I have not forgotten about you all or my writing projects. In fact, I think about them and you all a lot. I just have no time to execute in a way that is effective or meaningful.

I haven’t been completely unproductive. I finished Taming a Dragon (though I may go back and write an alternate ending at some point for Morty). I have most of the next chapter of Chasing Autumn finished, and a significant chunk of Armistice’s next chapter started. This minuscule amount of progress isn’t something I’m proud of, per se, but it’s the thought that counts, right? Baby steps?

Look, I’m not here to get your hopes up that I’m going to be updating at a pace even remotely close to what I was doing pre-child. I don’t actually know what my life is going to be like, even a year from now. I am prioritizing my little one right now, as I should, because this is time I will never get back.

What I will say is this: My theme for the remainder of 2025 is independence.

I’m looking for ways to find opportunities for self-care.

Writing has always been a haven for me, so I desperately want to come back to it. I just have to make it work.

My plan back from 2023 hasn’t really changed in terms of what my writing goals are. I just wanted to let you all know that I’m alive and doing well. I’m learning so much from motherhood—some days, I just feel like I’m fighting for my personal identity as a human being, aside from being a parent.

 It’s a journey I am happy to be on—my daughter is everything to me (even though the other day, she said, “Daddy is good at parking. Mommy is good at not parking.” Like, OKAY, TINY HUMAN). She’s my little moon and stars, and it’s been such a pleasure watching her grow every day. She is learning independence, and we’re working on ways for me to pull away and do things that I enjoy during “Mommy time.”

On other news, you won’t see me on Facebook anymore. Not only is it completely inaccessible to me because it insists on me showing them a legal documentation with the name “Yahtzee Penguiduck Dii” on it to prove my identity, but I refuse to use Facebook going forward for other reasons. Updates will be posted here on tumblr until further notice.

All this to say, I appreciate your patience and your willingness to let me figure out this part of my life.

Here’s the hoping things will stabilize in my life, so I can devote some time to my projects! Thank you for being here for me!

Part IV: Dialogue Punctuation Part 2 by Diamond April and Penguiduck

In this week's post we will be continuing our discussion on Dialogue Formatting.

In conjunction with the previous post, in this post we will cover interrupting dialogue. We've explained the basics in the last post, but now we'll show you interrupted dialogue in action.

Here is the standard format for interrupted dialogue, capitalization included:

"Text," dialogue tag, "text."

"Hey," he said, "you look familiar."

This is an example of correctly punctuated dialogue. When a dialogue tag is inserted in the middle of the dialogue, the two parts are offset by commas, and the continuation of the dialogue is not capitalized. There are no exceptions to the two commas in this format, unlike what we discussed in the previous post -- the only punctuation that changes is what the sentence ultimately ends with, in which case, you may have a period, question mark, or exclamation mark.

The following are all examples of correctly punctuated, interrupting dialogue:

"I'm not the right guy," he asserted, "but I think I know who you're looking for."

"And," she started, hands on her hips, "didn't you promise me something?"

"If only," he said sultrily, licking hs lips, "you could come stay the night with me."

"No," Alyssa replied, throwing her arms in the air, "I can't do this!"

"Well," Bob mused, "I don't believe you."

And what about the two parts of the text? They need to combine to be a full sentence -- if they did not combine into a single, full sentence, then there'd be no point in interrupting dialogue. You'd merely have a dialogue tag, and then a new sentence.

Here is an example:

"I want it now," she said, "If you don't give it to me, I'll scream."

The two parts of the dialogue to consider are:

I want it now

and

If you don't give it to me, I'll scream.

Both of these, however, are

two independent sentences

The dialogue above is punctuated INCORRECTLY

If you have two full sentences as dialogue, you need to start a new sentence. Otherwise, you technically have what we call a comma splice (or in other words, a run-on sentence).

The example above should be punctuated as:

"I want it now," she said. "If you don't give it to me, I'll scream."

As you can see, the only thing that changed is that instead of a comma after the dialogue tag, we added a period. We ended the first sentence with that period. The second sentence is the second piece of dialogue.

Now, what do you do if your dialogue is being interrupted by an action? This is not commonly used in writing, but I thought we should go over it nonetheless. You may find it helpful in specific situations.

Although commas are usually so important, there are no commas here. The format is actually quite simple:

"Text"—action—"text."

"I can't believe"—he threw you a dirty look—"that you'd do this to me!"

The em dashes are especially important here. Em dashes are different than the typical hyphen. Compare the two: — vs. -

If you have issues finding the em dash, as it's not on the typical keyboard, the double hyphen ( - - ) is more appropriate than the single hyphen.

Here are some examples:

"I thought you loved me"--your heart sank--"but I guess I was wrong."

"I've been waiting for this day all my life"—her voice cracked—"and now I don't want to go."

"Why is it that you"—he pointed an accusing finger—"always manage to get out of trouble?"

Part III: Dialogue Punctuation by Diamond April and Penguiduck

In this week's post we will introduce one of the most common grammatical errors we see in the queue: improper Dialogue Punctuation.

Truthfully, you have a wonderful reference in published novels. Take a look at how dialogue is punctuated in some of your favorite books. There are formulas you can follow if you pay attention.

This post will walk you through basic dialogue punctuation when:

the dialogue portion comes before the dialogue tag.

the dialogue portion comes after the dialogue tag.

Let's start by defining what a dialogue tag is. A dialogue tag is the written portion of the story that specifically states that a character is speaking. It is always connected to a quoted piece of dialogue. As long as the dialogue tag comes after the dialogue, it should NEVER be capitalized.

The following are all examples of dialogue tags:

he says

she chirped

Alex brags

Sandy replied

Donovan asks

he would say

she sighed

Thomas reasoned

The list is endless. Come up with some dialogue tags of your own.

Now that that's settled, let's get to the brunt of this tutorial.

Traditionally, at its basic level, dialogue should look like this:

"Hello," he said.

Notice that the dialogue tag (the bolded portion) is not capitalized and that the actual dialogue is set off with a COMMA -- the comma is still INSIDE the quotation marks.

All of the following are punctuated INCORRECTLY

"Hello." he said.

"Hello," He said.

"Hello." He said.

The reason why you can't use a period to punctuate the dialogue is because a period marks the end of the sentence. The dialogue tag is part of your sentence, so using that period would be inappropriate. 

There are several exceptions to this comma rule, however, and we will explain them here.

If you use a question mark or an exclamation mark, that is fine. For example:

"Hello, how are you doing?" she asked.

This piece of dialogue still contains a dialogue tag (bolded text), but because it is a question, the question mark remains.

"Hello! I haven't seen you in forever!" the child cried.

This piece of dialogue also contains a dialogue tag (bolded text), but the child is exclaiming something, so the exclamation mark can stay.

However, notice that ALL PUNCTUATION (comma, exclamation mark, question mark) are INSIDE the quotation marks.

The following are all examples of

CORRECTLY

punctuated dialogue:

I thought that you were lying," he said.

"You should have seen me," Alex brags while puffing his chest out.

"I already bought lunch," Sandy replied, lifting the bags in her hands.

"How are you feeling?" Donovan asks, studying your face carefully.

"You had better watch your back. You never know who's out to get you," he would say when you were young.

"Oh, he's so handsome!" she sighed.

"If I can trick him to going to sleep, I can steal the key," he reasoned, his eyebrows furrowing.

The following are all examples of

INCORRECTLY

punctuated dialogue:

"I thought that you were lying." he said.

"Oh, there you are!" She chirped.

"You should have seen me." Alex brags while puffing his chest out.

"I already bought lunch." Sandy replied, lifting the bags in her hands.

"How are you feeling?," Donovan asks, studying your face carefully.

"Oh, he's so handsome!" She sighed.

"If I can trick him to going to sleep, I can steal the key." he reasoned, his eyebrows furrowing.

Now, let's talk a bit about what happens when the dialogue tag comes before the dialogue. This sort of formatting is not nearly as common as the dialogue tag coming after the dialogue, but we figure that it is used and should be explained, if only briefly.

It should look something like this:

He said, "Hello."

With this sort of structure, the dialogue tag (bolded) comes first. Of course, it is capitalized because it is the beginning of the sentence. A comma sets off the dialogue tag, and then the actual dialogue comes afterward. The dialogue is also capitalized and punctuated with either a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. Simple, right?

The following are all examples of

CORRECTLY

punctuated dialogue:

He said, "I loved you."

She screamed, "Oh, my god! I can't believe you are so dense!"

With a sigh, Bob returned the money and said, "I can't do this."

Derek couldn't help but ask, "Where are the others? Are they all right?"

He often said, "Never let your guard down."

She shrugged before tipping her head to the side, saying, "I don't get it."

He answered, "I hope you understand the severity of the situation."

It’s that time of year again! I’ll be sending out holiday cards, just like I did last year.If you are interested in receiving a card with a small gift, please give me your address here: www.postable.com/yahtzeepenguiduck

If I sent you a card in 2020, your information should be here. You should receive an email, letting you know to update or confirm your address in my address book. Because I do not know if Postable alerts me to your confirmation/change, please let me know if you would like a card this year. You can do so by sending me an email at paradiseislandyoshi[at]gmail[dot]come or by contacting me on Facebook/Tumblr.