The Latest on the New Novel

Picture via Pixabay. Yesterday I received the final edit notes for the new novel. This was the copy edit part, where a super-observant editor with an excellent grasp of the rules of English, goes through the entire book with a fine-tooth comb and picks out all the nits and knots: spelling, punctuation, syntax, grammar, etc. …

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The Pleasures and Pains of #Editing.

It’s been a long slog, but it’s finally done! My latest novel deals with contentious themes and these proved a source of much discussion between me and my publisher’s editors. Usually, editing of my work has consisted in minor grammatical, structural and vocabulary changes. Nothing substantial, as the characters have always been accepted as well-rounded …

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Edit Notes: How Do You Deal With Them?

Word cloud created through wordart.com Environment, Capitalism, and Religious Hypocrisy are major themes running through my WIP, a work my publisher’s team of editors recently returned with ‘edit notes’. This wasn’t the usual ‘line edit’ I’ve had in the past and, on reading the notes, I was initially taken aback. My first response was that …

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That Final Edit

That final stage in progress. The title to this post is, of course, a show of blatant optimism, since I have completed my personal final edit, but the publisher’s team, kept locked in his basement, will undoubtedly come back with more. However, it is a milestone to celebrate. The MS ran to 79,079 words when …

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Using Editing Software?

Word cloud created through wordart.com How do you organise your own editing of your creative writing? You’ll find an account of my latest WIP journey here to show how I go about it. The MS stood at 79,079 words at the end of the edit referred to in that post. I then began the penultimate …

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Perils of the Pantster.

My desk during editing. If you write by the seat of your pants, you’re a pantster, as opposed to those who write a story from a structured plan; they’re plotters. Both methods have upsides and downsides, and both have devotees, some of whom can be unnecessarily scathing of those in the opposite camp. I’ve been …

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Finding the #Write #Words? No. 33: The Oxford Manual of Style

Continuing the description of books on words and language listed in the introductory post, which you’ll find here. Book 33: The Oxford Manual of Style Paperback, 1033 pages. Published in 2002 by Oxford University Press, this is the edition I own. I bought it as part of a bundle offered by a book club, so …

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The Writer’s Lexicon: Volume II, by Kathy Steinemann: #BookReview.

Reference/Writing/Editing 312 pages Subtitled ‘More Descriptions, Overused Words and Taboos’, this is a companion to the first book with the same title. Like that initial volume, this is an essential for any serious writer. Language is our lifeblood, and words are tools we employ to express our thoughts and ideas. If we’re to do this …

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Progress on the WIP: #SciFi in the Making.

So far 10 chapters subjected to the in-depth part of the edit that includes running the text through ProWritingAid, an online grammar checker. My beta reader is just a couple of chapters behind me. I was aiming to have a dozen chapters complete in time for this update, but I hadn’t allowed for a half …

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