How can I be a better writer? How can I get better at grammar? Here's the advice everyone will tell you: Read a lot. Write a lot. Practice. Subscribe to grammar websites. Buy Strunk & White.

The real best thing you can do for your writing is to never start editing. I love my job, don't get me wrong. I feel - called is too strong and religious a word - drawn to the art and craft of word-wrangling, and the help I can be to all of my clients.

Confession time: Being an editor has KILLED my writing. I mean, I can still write. Any rust on the cogs of my ability to construct a storyline or lay down compelling dialogue is no one's fault but my own and the fact that I've chosen not to give it the time that it deserves. But my spelling. My word choice. My grammar. It's horrible! Just yesterday I re-read an email I'd written (a professional email! to a CLIENT!) in which I said "there were know further issues." KNOW FURTHER. He's a long-time client of mine, and I can only hope that the work I've done for him is evidence enough of my abilities, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised if I never get another project from him.

I never used to have problems like this. I blame editing. You know the advice above to read a lot? The idea is that by constantly reading good, correct prose, you'll learn by osmosis. You'll absorb what sounds right, and all of the rules will start to fall into place. I, however, deliberately surround myself with incorrect writing. My entire focus is to find where an author wrote "their" when she really means "they're." By focusing on error, I believe I've somehow solidified it in my own mind as the way my own writing should look. Why my mind has allowed a decade of editing to supersede three decades of reading is another question ...

See how I've suffered for you, clients? Does anyone know a good editor who could help me out?

When I was little, my grandmother was the only person I knew to have a pantry. It was a tiny, doorless closet to the right of her oven, and it always smelled faintly of fresh tomatoes and onions from her garden. This year marks ten years since her passing, and longer still since the passing of her cooking days, but even today whenever I read the word "pantry," I can see the neat stack of Crisco, and feel myself flipping through the little plastic file of Kool-aid that she kept for my cousins and me.

I've got my own pantry now. We recently bought our first home, a "century home," built in 1911. The house offers a stunning lack of storage space, but the previous owners helpfully closed up a corner of the dining room and installed custom shelving and drawers. It's a wonder of modern engineering and displays a House-of-Leaves-esque ability to accept the infinite boxes and cans I try to cram in there.

"Pantry" is an early-fourteenth-century word, coming from the Latin "panataria," meaning "the office or room of the servant who has charge of food (bread)." In the late middle ages, enough care and concern was given to the various stages and elements of food production that separate areas were kept for the storage and preparation of bread (pantry), meats (larder), and booze (buttery). If you were lucky enough, you had one particular person on your staff who controlled the pantry: the pantler. If you are having suspicions about the origin of the word "butler," you are on the right track!