Hi Folks, Note: This post was originally scheduled for 5/30/2013. It didn’t post to MailChimp, so I’m posting it again now. I’ve revised the original post so it’s up to date. First, find a professional you can trust. For example, I am a professional fiction writer as well as a copyeditor. For details, or just to learn what comprises a good copy edit, please visit Copyediting. It costs less than you think. Thomas D. Morrow wrote … Read more
Hi Folks, Note: I ran this originally in September 2014, but it was so much fun to write I thought I’d share it again. So here it is. Other than some reparagraphing to make it more lisible, it appears as it was written originally. I sometimes experience an exchange of emails with a writer who asks for a critique of some writing with the proviso that I understand he or she is highly sensitive. Others ask … Read more
Hey Folks, Note: This post was originally scheduled for 1/10/2014. It didn’t post to MailChimp, so I’m posting it again now. I’ve revised the original post so it’s up to date. Once upon a time, I edited a manuscript that was teeming with clichés, ripe to bursting with platitudes and filled to the brim with trite, self-serving crap. It virtually screamed Look at me! Aren’t I wonderful? Aren’t I generous with my time and helpful in … Read more
Note: This post was originally scheduled for October 2014. It didn’t post to MailChimp, so I’m posting it again now. I’ve revised the original post A LOT so it’s up to date. Hi Folks, In my years of dealing with other writers, I’ve heard a few clichéd thoughts. In every case, the clichés are caused by the same old myths we’ve all been taught and bought into to one degree or another. One of the more … Read more
Hi Folks, Note: This post was originally scheduled for 4/27/2014. It didn’t post to MailChimp, so I’m posting it again now. I revised it (especially sub items in number 4) to express my current opinions, but the main list remains intact. It is timeless. First, I’m not talking about proofreading someone else’s stuff, although you can apply these tips to that process. But mostly here I’m talking about proofreading your own stuff. Note: I am a … Read more
Hi Folks, Distractions happen. They do. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do about them. But if you’re a mechanic and you get a phone call (distraction) and your spouse or significant other shows up unannounced for lunch (distraction) or a chunk of spy satellite falls out of the sky and flattens the dry cleaner across the street (distraction), you look, you take care of it, and you go back to work on the engine or the … Read more
Hi Folks, Following on the tail of Trusting Your Subconscious Mind, this suits. I’ve talked before about writing off into the dark. In fact, my whole Daily Journal is based on that method of writing, piggybacked on the writer’s determination to follow Heinlein’s Rules. I even teach an Audio Course on Writing Off Into the Dark. Click the link and scroll down to Course 12. But one subtopic is sorely lacking any direct instruction that I … Read more
Hi Folks, Every writer I know at one time or another has said (to me or to others while I was eavesdropping) that they want to develop their own unique voice. “I have to say it my way,” they’ll say. “I don’t want it to sound like anyone else.” I’ve even known writers who refuse to read works by other writers in the chosen genre because they’re afraid the other writers’ “style” will taint their own. … Read more
Hey Folks, I was going to write a whole post on this topic, but really, that isn’t necessary. It’s a personal pet-peeve kind of thing. And far be it from me to foist my “beliefs” on anyone else. What pet peeve? Well, people who write things and then postulate—not even apologetically but more apoplectically and with a wag of the hand—that “The reader will know what I mean.” Those folks get on my nerves. Deep and … Read more
Hi Folks, Sometimes, probably more often than not, my own biggest problem is Me. Today I knocked out something over 2000 words before I went walking. Didn’t walk all that long. I didn’t even need a shower, really, although I took one because that’s what you do. After that, I was fired up to leap back into writing another scene in The Marshal of Agua Perlado. And I did. Then I got stuck. I wasn’t stuck … Read more