The trouble with proofreading your own work is that you see what you expect to see, so you read what you think you wrote, and not necessarily what you did write. If you first and last letters of a word are in the correct order, you may not see typing errors in the middle of the word.

Firstly, use a good spell and grammar check. This will never pick up all of the errors, especially the words that sound the same but have different spellings for different meanings, such as there, their, and they’re. However, the spell check is a good place to start.

Secondly, read the work looking for the common errors you often make. If you are not sure about the meaning of particular words, use a dictionary and a thesaurus. If you commonly make mistakes in comma placement, print out the page and highlight every single comma. Re-read the comma rules one by one and check each highlighted comma on your printed document. If you can’t find a rule that explains why the comma is there, take it out. Although you can miss commas, overuse of commas is the more typical mistake to make.

Read your work aloud. This helps you to catch the awkward or repetitive phrases, as you tend to stumble over these passages as you read aloud.

Check your work for consistency. If you start spelling Summer with a capital, make sure you consistently spell it with a capital throughout the document. Don’t say 2 apples in one paragraph and three oranges in the next.

Finally, put your work aside for at least a couple of hours and reread it again before you send it off to the publisher. You must look at the work as if someone else has written it, not you to be a good proofreader. Assume you have made mistakes and look for them.

I hope this blog on proofreading articles helps. On a private note, I’m sorry I have been very quiet on this website lately – I’ve been sick and just been keeping up with the paying work. I’m getting better now, so hopefully, I’ll be more active on the forum again soon. Take care,

Hayley Hunkin

www.expandingcreationswriters.com

Like many of us at Newbie Writers, I am taking the Comprehensive Writing Course  with the Writers Bureau.  It is as the title implies “Comprehensive”. It gives the newbie writer a feel for all types of writing.  I’ve been with the program since April 2009 and truth be told, I haven’t proceeded as far as I would have liked to.  After a year, I have only proceeded as far as Assignment 4. 

Over the next few months, as I proceed with the course, I am going to discuss various topics for the newbie writer, like how to do a market analysis and readers letters.

As I was reading through the module on readers letters and filler markets, I couldn’t help but wonder how many people have actually made a living from writing readers letters? I’d be interested in knowing… is it a worth while market?

Allison

I posted this article of 865 words on Constant Content. This site has become a thorn in my side, so to speak. I think that the editor on CC must have a masters in english because ed is tough! That is the primary reason I want to write for this site, because they demand the best.

Fortunately for me, I have discovered an on-line writing course designed to teach me “How to write for the Internet.” I can already see the difference in my writing. I first bought Haley Writers e-book about CC for a measly 10 bucks. Even I can afford ten dollars, and it was well worth it. She even critiqued the article for me.

It occurred to me though, after having a few of my attempts at articles, and their rewrites rejected; that I was missing something.

I finally realized that I have some issues with grammar, and well… all sorts of writing issues really. It was then that Haley’s newsletter from her site , ExpandingCreations.com arrived in my e-mail inbox.

Haley offers the Newbie Writer all sorts of learning material on her web site, and for the Paltry discounted price of twenty five bucks, I received her course ..”How To Write A Winning Article Online”.

I am working my way through her course, and I can tell you that it is well worth the money. In fact, as I told my husband recently, Haley is working way too cheap. I am glad she is though, because I would not be able to afford her expertise if she charged more. Now, lets see if CC agrees that my writing is improving. I will let you know. In the mean time, as Dawn say’s, just write something…….

The more I do research on line the more I am aware of two things. Number one, becoming a paid writer is not as hard as one would think, that is what all the on line authors would have you believe anyway, and Number two, all it takes apparently, is a good idea.

Well hey, that’s just swell! All I need then is an idea for a new book, article or essay. Easy right? Maybe, but in the Idea department I think I must have been standing ‘behind” the door when the good Lord passed out the creativity genes. Try as I might I cannot imagine any topic that might be sufficiently interesting in and of itself to make a person want to know more. Happily there are articles about how to come up with new ideas.

Here is where the Internet and all of the writers therein, come into play. I am so amazed at the wealth of information available on the net to anyone willing to dig it out. The digging isn’t very hard to do either! It blows my little southern mind, to think of all the people out there in the world of writing, that are giving all of this invaluable information away for free!

There are so many sites dedicated to the writer and while many are really interesting my favorite is still NewbieWriters.com. I especially like the section on “learning the craft” it has so many great “how to’s” and I spend quite a bit of time just reading.

I am actually spending more of my time reading about writing these days than I am actually writing! This I will change soon though.

I have decided that I will only do housework on designated days of the week and the rest of my time will be spent in making my dreams come true, thanks to the many authors in cyber space who are willing to share their knowledge so freely. I am confident that I will be able to learn from the volumes written on the net so freely. So part of my new goals for 2010 will be to take advantage of all the free writing guides out there and learn as much as possible about the craft I so love. I hope that you are having an inspired New Year too and that you will make the time to write this year ….no matter what! What is it that Dawn says? Just write something!

Writers all too often wish to show off their intelligence by using complex language and  assuming a certain amount of knowledge from their readers. They think that by ‘impressing’ their reader in such a way, they will appear as superior intellects. However, all this does is alienate their audience.

The trick with non-fiction writing is not to make YOU appear intelligent, but to make the reader feel that THEY are intelligent. By explaining complicated matters in a simple, easy to read manner, the reader will grasp the concept and come away from the experience feeling better about themselves and you as a writer. I experience this all the time when reading certain popular science books on Quantum Physics. Pick up any book by Brian Greene, or Michio Kaku, and they will make you feel like you are an expert in the impossible. Richard Dawkins is also another excellent proponent of this method. They don’t shy away from using simpler language and concepts to portray their message.

A lot of writers when presented with this advice do not wish to ‘dumb-down’ their writing; they still cling to their desire to use complex language and terminology, as they fear that not doing so will make them look like incompetent writers. They feel that they have to use long, rarely encountered words in order to demonstrate how educated and eloquent they are as writers; all they accomplish, however, is to annoy the reader, bored with constantly reaching for the dictionary.

So, whether you are writing fiction or non-fiction, keep it simple! Your reader will thank you.

For years and years, I fought Writer’s block.  I would ambitiously start a project and  never finish it. This was not getting me anywhere. I didn’t understand what my problem was.  I thought maybe I wasn’t cut out to be a novelist. Partially out of fear and insecurity, I let my dream sit on the shelf.

A few years later, after the birth of my second son, my dream broke its silence. “Its time.” It whispered to me. “Its time to make your dream a reality.”

I started reading through many of my uncompleted works, trying to find an answer to why I had never completed them. My answer soon became clear. I would write everything I could on the story – but then I would simply lose direction. Has this happened to you?

I began to look to my many writing books for answers to how to write the book from start to finish… one key element stood out for me OUTLINE.  Maybe that is what my problem was. I would write and write until I lost interest in the story.  I decided to make another attempt to write something. This time I decided to try outlining before I wrote the story.

I had an idea for a book for children. It was a beginners novel.  So the first thing I did was jot down ideas for the book – brainstorming. Once I had some good ideas from the brain storming. I began to Outline the story.

With the outline I included the cast of characters with a brief description about them.  Then I wrote the story in abbreviated form. It is important when writing to know where the story is headed.  Once I completed the outline, I went to work on writing the story. For three weeks I wrote solely on this project and for the very first time wrote a complete story.

From that time on when I start a story the first thing I do is brainstorm and write an abbreviated version of the story.  Once I have the story written, I will add the padding including the details, and back stories etc. Very often my outlines are multiple pages long depending upon the length of the piece.

I keep this handy little list, I made up using the word OUTLINE to remind me what I need to include in the outline.

O- opening line,

U – understanding character motivation,

T- tell the story,

L- list the characters

I- information needed (research)

N- nothing but the bones

E- ending.

What techniques do you use when you write? Do you write freehand? Do you outline? Please tell us.

With the busy time of the Christmas season upon us, I won’t be writing again until the New Year. Wishing you and your families a very joyous Christmas and a happy New Year 2010.

Allison

I have actually been writing most of my life. Even as a child, to placate my younger sisters, I would make up elaborate stories to tell them as they lay huddled together in the bed next to mine. To this very day if someone says, “tell me a story” I am apt to try. So here I am on the Newbie Writers Blog site to impart some bits {and believe me they will only be bits here} of wisdom that I learn along the way to becoming a published, paid writer.

I am fascinated lately it seems, with commas. Have you ever gotten hung up writing some thing and couldn’t figure out if a comma belonged to that sentence and if so why and if not, why not? No? Well maybe I am a little weird but there is quite a bit written on the subject of commas. Take for instance “The Little Book”. Never heard of it? Oh, I’ll bet you have, it is otherwise known as “ The Elements of Style” by William Strunk and E. B. White. I found this book a few years back when taking a paralegal course. I keep it in the bathroom and read it over and over again.

The Elements of Style privately published by the author, an English professor, in 1919 and later collaborated on and added to his “little “ book was E. B. White of Charlottes Web fame. In their book Strunk & White imparts a compendium of rules and principles of writing. I scan this little book almost daily it seems to check on the usage of a verb or noun, and of course the comma and its use has been addressed here as well.

The quest to find the correct usage of commas led me to other resources as well, like the piece written on the subject by Dawn Copeman. In her article Dawn tells the reader/writer the many nuances of the plain old comma. She teaches that the comma can be used in many ways, and if you notice, this little blog has a bunch of commas running through it.

The comma, can for instance, be used as a “serial” comma separating a number of items one from the other. An example of this would be; the clown ran through the tent and the elephant, the monkey, the big cat and the giraffe followed too.

There are numerous rules about commas when to use them and when not to, and if I were writing a paper for a classroom there would be much more written on this subject, but this is just a blog and I am only trying to write about what I am learning as I teach myself to write.

I have used commas in this blog for emphasis, for separating a list of things and I have not used a comma to enclose a parenthetic expression in the second paragraph of this piece.

I hope that you have made it to this point in my blog this morning and that the information imparted here is helpful. As for me, I will be writing my little heart out here, now that I have finally come to the point in my life where I actually have “time” to write, may I learn to do it well.