Browsing All posts tagged under »editing«

The Five Stages of Critique: A Guide For Beta-Readers

November 4, 2016 by

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So the writer in your life asked you to read something and give them your opinion. It’s all going well until you mention something that didn’t quite work for you. There’s a faint frown. This is the writer entering the first stage of response to critique. The first stage is always defensive: Let me explain […]

I Sound Like a Drunken Chipmunk

February 20, 2014 by

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I feel like I’ve been proofreading this book forever. Mostly because I’ve been saying I was proofreading it since mid January. This is a lie I’ve been telling to everyone including myself. I wasn’t proofing. I was line editing. Which is a whole other thing. But now I am done. Thank god. I’ve been actually proofreading […]

Ambiguity is My Jam, But I Didn’t Mean it Like THAT…

October 17, 2013 by

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I have a… problem isn’t the word, but it’s close. There’s this thing anyway with Drink Me where you can read it in a way that’s… not what I intended. I’ve been aware of it for a while now. And I don’t mind people reading it that way because honestly the idea of following that […]

If I Was the Whiskey…

September 24, 2013 by

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Yesterday one of my readers* came over and we worked through the notes they’d given me on Drink Me. I kind of love doing that in person because it gives me the opportunity to wave my arms and roll my eyes and stick my tongue out at them when I disagree. Which I think helps […]

Which I Suppose Explains Where My Time Went

August 27, 2013 by

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I’m procrastinating writing synopses right now because I’m horrible at it. Instead of fixing this by practicing and getting better my current plan is to avoid them entirely. That’ll work, right? Okay, since I cannot convince myself that’s true the only way I can justify procrastinating is by doing something useful. Something else I’ve been […]

Seriously, Though. Tomorrow. Friday at the Latest. PROMISE.

August 15, 2013 by

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I’m in the very final phase of this draft. At this point it really shouldn’t be called ‘editing’ it should be called ‘reading through and making sure I didn’t screw anything up when I was editing’. Apart from the occasional part where I’ve managed to delete a word from a sentence and I sort of […]

Maid, Mother, Crone

July 30, 2013 by

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I want to ask your opinion on something: What freight, if any, do the words ‘girl’, ‘young woman’ and ‘woman’ have for you — in relation to both the person referred to and the person speaking? For instance, if someone (say a person in their early twenties) referred to a person whose name they didn’t […]

Delete. Remove. Expunge. Excise. Eradicate. Cut.

July 24, 2013 by

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Me: Ugh. I’ve reached a chapter that has four decisions in it. Four! Arkem: Are they yes/no decisions? Because I could help. Me: Somehow I don’t think your help would be properly informed. Arkem: That’s never stopped me before. I’m up to the point in this draft where it’s all about making the hard calls. […]

The Second and a Half Draft

July 4, 2013 by

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This last pass of the edit is annoying. I keep having to tell myself off. I’ll be cruising through a scene and I’ll hiccup over something and backtrack and glare at it. But it won’t be an easy fix. At this point things are either insanely minor, and I take care of them without even […]

House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.*

July 2, 2013 by

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I have reached the end of the book in the current draft, which is not the same as saying I’ve finished the draft but is close. I still have to take another quick spin through to double-check the changes and then possibly proofread, because that’s always a good time. I am actually super excited about […]