Editing tagged posts

Episode 83- “Live Edits From The Classroom!”

May 19, 2013 Newbie Writers Podcast  No comments

Episode 83 The Newbie Writers’ Podcast

Draft revision, the live version

  Apologies on the audio quality. Had technical difficulties.

Draft from Catharine’s novel – Five Elements of Time (working title)

A rock shattered the stained glass window scattering shards of red glass at Charity’s feet.

She glanced up at the hole, almost perfectly round. Through it the sky hovered gray, heavy, and unchanged despite the increasing volume of the chanting outside.

Preacher John stopped Charity from reading any more from the One True Word.

A big imposing man, twice the size of slender Charity, he never the less, glanced out at the men in the congregation for approval. Charity didn’t see a single nod, or twitch from any one, but there must have been some approval.

“We will exit, thisRead More

Episode 80- “The Doctor’s In The House with Stacey Aaronson”

April 27, 2013 Newbie Writers Podcast  No comments

The Newbie Writers’ Podcast

Special Guest: Stacey Aaronson

Special Co-host: Philippe Perez of The TaleTeller Podcast

Stacey Aaronson, Professional Book Doctor
Writing & Editing; Graphic, Website & Book Design
http://creative-collaborations.com
http://blog.creative-collaborations.com

Tell us about being a book doctor, what inspired you to create a career out of helping other authors?

Tell us about your clients – in general terms, who uses a book doctor? Should a newbie writer approach and hire a book doctor?

How far along should the manuscript be before you can really help an author with their book?

What is the worst thing you ever read?

The Best thing you’ve read?

Catharine always recommends that authors do not design their own covers – and you are a designer- what are some tipsRead More

Episode 79 – “Editing, Sequels and Pep Talks With Dionne Lister”

April 14, 2013 Newbie Writers Podcast  No comments

The Newbie Writers’ Podcast

Special guest: Dionne Lister

Dionne Lister’s website

http://dionnelisterwriter.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/a-time-of-darkness-is-here-awesome-epic-fantasy/

Sydney Writers’ Festival

I almost feel like I’m spamming everyone; my cover was ready so I did the cover reveal, and I was going to wait to upload to Amazon, but I couldn’t! So now, the next book in  The Circle of Talia series is out there. You can find it on Amazon or Smashwords and soon iTunes, Kobo and Barnes & Noble. The sequel to Shadows of the Realm continues the story of realmists, Bronwyn and Blayke and their creaturas, Sinjenasta and Fang. It’s fast-paced, scary and has awesome dragons (although those who have read Shadows of the Realm would know that).
I hope a lot of readers are waitingRead More

Episode 67- Toilets, Beaver’s Pond and Dara Beevas!

January 25, 2013 Newbie Writers Podcast  No comments

Sorry for the mega lateness of this, the past week just vanished into thin air. Here are the show notes from last week.

Episode 67- The Newbie Writer’s Podcast

Special Guest: Dara Beevas

Dara Beevas is an author, speaker, coach, editor, and blogger. She is the vice president of Beaver’s Pond Press, an award-

winning mentoring publisher that provides consulting, editing, book design, printing, eBook and marketing services for indie authors. She is also president and co-founder of Wise, Ink, an online community dedicated to content creators. Her passion for writing and publishing has led her to help more than three hundred authors publish their books in her decade-long career in book publishing.

Her book, The Indie Author Revolution was released in fall 2012. She holds a Bachelor’sRead More

Branch Out & Barter Your Way to a Better Book!

November 1, 2012 Self-Publishing, Success Stories  No comments

I am an indie writer, which is simply a spiffy phrase for being self-published. Why I chose this route is another story, but the bottom line is, I am on the hook for it all. In addition to writing my snippets of suspense, I also have to make sure the book is edited, designed, marketed and sold. I don’t know about you, but all of that stuff is much more daunting to me than the actual writing of the book!

ON TENTERHOOKS was my first novel and that means that writing for me occupies that nebulous space between engaging hobby and primal passion. It doesn’t pay the bills so I had to be very judicious about how much cash I spent to get things geared up.  Below are some useful tips I discovered that helped me produce a professionally edited book, an engaging cover and a polished bookRead More

Episode 38 – Careful of the Nakedness

June 23, 2012 Newbie Writers Podcast  2 comments

The Newbie Writer’s Podcast – Episode 38

Where do you write?

What does your environment look like? And does that make a difference?

I think it does. Some writers need complete silence, some need coffee houses, music and the sound of the espresso machine (which for me brings back happy memories of mornings in Italy)
I think those of us who like sound, either music or the TV in the back ground or a café, or a noisy library (college, the library is always noisy) Is that they distract our left brain, so our right brain can roam freely and deliver weird stuff to the page.

What kind of environment is perfect for your creativity to just flow? Do you need to be alone? Do you write at the kitchen table in the middle of interruptions? Have you even considered it?
JK Rowlings purportedly wrote inRead More

Editing translated writing

March 15, 2012 Emma's Corner  6 comments

I’ve just been hired to help ‘fix’ a short story which was originally written and edited in Russian, and has since been translated into English.

After only a few paragraphs I’m reminded of those instruction manuals you get with electronic gadgets or DIY furniture. They’re often good for a giggle because it seems like the translator has simply converted the original text – word by word – with little or no regard for the intricacies of English grammar. The end product often ends up being a set of completely nonsensical instructions, which only add to the confusion instead of being any help at all. And, in my experience, the accompanying pictures are usually just as bad, forcing you to ‘give it a crack’ and hope you don’t end up with any leftover pieces.

In our house we call those extraRead More

~ Common errors ~

December 1, 2011 Emma's Corner, Learn the Craft, Writing Tips  7 comments

I came across the following error in a conversation I was editing this week. The spelling was correct and the sentence still made sense to the reader but because I’d seen this author misspell definite elsewhere in the manuscript, I queried her about which word she intended to use. She was adamant that the character was definitely (not defiantly) evasive.

“““““““““““““““““““

“I asked her yesterday.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, she defiantly avoided answering the question, but I know she wanted to see him.”

 “““““““““““““““““““

This is a simple example of an issue that a spelling and grammar check programme will not pick up, and one that an Autocorrect function can often create, rather than prevent.

Definitely seems to be one of those words that many people have difficultyRead More

You really should follow the doctor’s orders

November 8, 2011 Emma's Corner, Writing Tips  3 comments

Doctors warn against keeping old cosmetics for a very good reason. I’ve just experienced the fallout of not following this advice first hand. Yes, guilty as charged. I used an old tube of mascara and gave myself a nasty eye infection. Don’t I feel stupid.

I dragged myself to the GP who referred me to a specialist after I showed no signs of improvement over four days, and they agreed that the best treatment is to just put up with it until it heals on its own. Perhaps I was just feeling sorry for myself but the specialist appeared almost gleeful when he explained that I hadn’t even reached the peak of the illness yet, and it’s going to get worse for the next four to five days before I start to recover.

What this means is that I’m currently hiding away from the world lest someRead More

Diary of a Newbie Novelist

October 11, 2011 Diary of a Newbie Novelist  No comments

Late June 2011

At a talk last year, Stephen Booth shared with his audience – it took eighteen months to find a publisher with his first novel. He is now a successful author in the crime genre with over seven novels published. So, I was in it for the long haul.

My novel submissions took a couple of early passes from the independents. The normal standard replies: we are no longer accepting submissions; our lists are full; not right for us at the moment. Then within two weeks of my submission I got an early hit.

The Editor read the first two chapters of An Unfamiliar Murder ‘like lightning’ and eagerly requested the rest. She emailed me several times over that week to discuss my plans for my book, my thoughts on publication. Things were looking very positive.

Within seven days of havingRead More