I live in a tiny town in Indiana that has only one stoplight, and it's not even a red-yellow-green stoplight. Just the blinky red 4-way stoplight. I'm 34 years old, recently married for the first (and hopefully only) time, and I'm the mom of the most hilarious 12 year old boy my friends have ever met. I pop out with random things at random times, but my husband claims it's part of my appeal. Whatever. I love music, movies, books, and cooking. I told my husband I was addicted to him long before I ever read Twilight, so I think that means my addiction to Twilight is meant to be. Right? I also love Star Wars and ROBOTECH. GenCon is like heaven on Earth for me. I also like to write. I haven't published any stories on this site yet, because I want my work to be complete before I post it. Since I'm a writer (and former English major in college), I have a list of pet peeves concerning grammar, spelling, and abuse of the English language in general. I have no issues with a writer is English isn't their native language. Actually, I've found that most people who speak and write English as a second language are more technically sound than people who have been speaking and writing English for their entire lives.

Word usage: People who don't know the difference between "heels" and "heals", "loose" and "lose", etc. SPELL CHECK IS NOT ALL-KNOWING, PEOPLE!! Yes, it will tell you if a word is spelled correctly. No, it doesn't know the difference between "a doctor heels people" and "4 inch Manolo Blahnik heals". It just knows if the word is spelled correctly or incorrectly, not the proper usage. I can't tell you how many times I've stopped reading a fanfic because the author has used the word "loose" instead of "lose" too many times. Same goes for "peaked" and "peeked". People, you peek around a corner. Peaks are also known as the top of a mountain. Don't even get me started on "they're", "their", and "there".

Relying on Spell Check too much: See above statement.

Please capitalize correctly. A person's name is ALWAYS capitalized, unless it's a celebrity like k.d. lang.

Character names and cities also need to be spelled correctly. Emmett has two t's, and Forks doesn't have an apostrophe between the k and s. If in doubt, refer to the work that is the subject of your fanfic.

People who use abbreviations like "IDK", "IMO", etc in their stories. It's perfectly acceptable if your characters are texting each other in your story. Otherwise, don't do it. I have passed over what might be some good stories because the author has used abbreviations like the ones mentioned above in their summary.

Now, I know I'm not perfect when it comes to grammar. The mistakes mentioned above are very simple to correct. It only takes a few minutes to proofread your work for grammatical and spelling errors. I would love to be a beta reader. I'm just sayin'. ;)