Dear Geist,Can you tell me where the expression “It’s not my pigeon” comes from? I overheard someone say it recently, and it brought back my childhood half a century ago.

Dear Geist,Why do you always write “such as” instead of the easier, quicker and more down-to-earth “like,” in a phrase with one or more examples?

Dear Geist,Does my novel have to be 75,000 words long to get accepted by a publisher or agent?

Dear Geist,When did people stop saying and writing “I’m so excited about your award!” and start saying “I’m so excited for your award!”?

Dear Geist,Do you have any guidelines for making the meaning of a novel or short story more prominent?

Dear Geist,Is the bullet journal an assist for writers, or just another labyrinth in the writing life?

Can you give a high-energy prose writer (me!) some idea of what publishers and agents are looking for in signing up new novels? What’s selling?

Dear Geist,Are the expressions dull as dishwater and dull as ditchwater related?

Dear Geist,How do I go about publishing a short text—really a coda to a published book—that I edited some time ago?

Dear Geist,Wait—a month of writing, with support, perks, prizes, meetups—is NaNoWriMo for real?

Dear Geist, What is the difference, if any, between jealousy and envy?

Dear Geist, Any pointers on starting up a new column for writers?

Dear Geist, Which of these three sentences, if any, are grammatically okay? (1) I would have loved to go. (2) I would love to have gone. (3) I would have loved to have gone.

Dear Geist, Did I really hear someone utter this sentence at a conference? “We want to data this for a few more weeks.”

Dear Geist, Is it acceptable in the magazine world to let an interview subject read over the transcribed interview and suggest edits?

Dear Geist,What should a writer do when she can't get the perfect ending she planned?