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 […]
February 20, 2014 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
October 17, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
September 24, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
August 27, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
August 15, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
July 30, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
July 24, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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. […]
July 4, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
July 2, 2013 by Kandace Mavrick
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 […]
November 4, 2016 by Kandace Mavrick
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