Homophones!

I got edits back from my agent this week.  Most of the edits were line edits, which are edits for spelling or punctuation or word usage.  Line edits are things where you go, "Oh shoot!  You're right," and then you click to accept the change and then move on with your life.  They aren't big, global things like "I don't understand this character's motivation," or "This scene makes no sense," or "You should add a bunch of background or world building or cut a character."

Most of the edits were line edits.  A big chunk of them were homophone mistakes.

Homophones are words that sound the same, but are spelled differently.  Two, Too, and To.  Your and You're.  Don't worry, I've got those under control.

What I don't have under control are things like "compliment" and "complement."  Did you know those are two different words?  I just learned that a few years ago, and it's still blowing my mind.  One means that things match or improve upon one another, like "That dress complements her complexion."  The other is something nice you say to someone.  "Thank you for the compliment about my dress!"  For a real long time, I thought they were the same word, because both words are about lifting one another up.  We're complimenting each other!  We're complementing each other!

Alas!  This is not the case.

The other one that blew my mind was "wander" and "wonder."  One is when you stroll around without direction.  One is when you think about something real hard or are in awe of something.  I thought these were the same, because when you wonder, you are wandering around in your thoughts.  Just...figuratively.

Alas!  Also not the case.

I'm real bad at homophones, y'all.  This is why the podcast was successful.  No one can hear if those mistakes are there.  Or not there. Maybe I did everything right.  You'll never know.

This week, I made myself a Big List of Homophones.  It's a list of way too many homophones that I'm likely to mess up, and before I send anything else out to my agent, I have to check everything that's on there and make sure I'm using it all correctly.