A quarter-million words is what you get if you're writing four sentences a day for eight years. The total might feel like the accomplishment of your life. A quarter-mil can also haunt you and taunt you, depending on how close you get to revisions. In the span of just three weeks, I consulted with two […]
Line editing is about expression. Do you have chop on the waters of your writing, where every sentence seems to be under 12 words? Or is there a setup sentence or a summary sentence that your line editor might add that would establish a place for a passage that follows? If there’s a place for […]
Everyone's rates differ to some degree. If you're extremely accomplished as an author, you might get away with an edit of some kind for under $1,000. Those accomplishments are a measure of your skill, not your talent. Your talent is the engine, but your skill is your pilot. Most authors need more than $1,000 of […]
Good listening can be attractive. We’re all told to work on our listening skills to be more present for the people in our lives. It turns out to be a skill that has much in common with being a good editor. At least that’s what a seven-minute video from The School of Life tells us, […]
Authors who are not of color, or identify with traditional gender, worry about their chances. Publishing, it feels to some of those authors, tilts hard today toward BIPOC, non-cis attractions. (If you're not caught up on your labels, those are Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color, whereas non-cis means to choose to not identify with […]
Even an author who's published multiple books feels the siren call of a big book. One day, they might think, I can get that 150,000-word epic published. I've cut a lot, they might say, already 20,000 words. I need to stick to my guns, submit something that big, and not get talked out of it. […]
Today is National Donut Day. But is it really spelled and styled that way? The question offers a look at three facets of copyediting: style, house-style, and usage.
Writing stories in first person is an electric thrill for many authors. You have easy access to emotions and sensations, plus the mystery of solving the problems of the plot is intense, too. Sometimes it’s tempting to want to use multiple first person points of view. Consider why you need more than one.
We need to know if we'd like our books to become a part of a bigger world. Many like to call that publishing, but I consider that a business term. Getting a book into the world is all we can count upon. If you’re honest, you might find you’re not counting on it — and […]
This Sunday starts a new challenge for National Novel Writing Month. Every November, untold novelists try to write 50,000 words in just 30 days. I've attempted this a dozen times since I started on novels in 2004. I have never written that many words in one month. However, even my failures taught me plenty. November […]
