Tag Archives: writing

Aug
3

Reality Check

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I almost joined a blog hop a few weeks ago. The theory here is that people all sign up on one person’s blog and then post the information on their blog, thereby leading to a what would hopefully be a stream of visitors from everywhere and possibly some new followers. However, I decided to check the status of some of the people already on the list before jumping in. And most of them were either authors, or those hoping to become published – which is fine. But at least one of those was very bitter. I’ll admit I’ve heard rumors of such people – but until now, I hadn’t really run across one. Said aspiring author had finally given up on the publishing establishment and had moved into self-publishing. Which is actually fine – quite a few authors out there have decided that the traditional route is not for them… Read more
Jul
22

Wielding the Green Pencil of Death

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My copyedits came in yesterday. Along with a house style guide, a legend of obscure short-hand symbols, and a magical green pencil, all provided by my awesome editor, Danielle. It’s a tad intimidating, I’ll admit. In between my gilded words are copious amounts of colored notes – Danielle’s line edits in grey, the copy-editor’s in red, Danielle’s rebuttal to some of those red marks…in green. It’s almost like Christmas came and barfed all over my book. I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course. It can be hard to see your words and sentences shredded – but honestly, the editors aren’t changing my writing voice, so much as refining it and making it stronger. In the writing world, less really is more – and prose often needs snipping to keep it crisp and fresh. So now I’ve got two weeks to go through all these little changes and… Read more
Jul
10

Beach-Combing

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The best time to beach-comb is at dawn. I think nearly everyone probably knows this. Something about the way everything seems so perfectly untouched, with new treasures washing up in each small swell. Or maybe it’s just the potential that is so interesting. The knowledge that you can’t actually collect each seashell as it appears. If you let one slip away, is it lost forever? Or if you wait around a bit will a better one show up? And how long do you wait before continuing on? When I was little, I used to look for beach glass, though that is fairly rare it seems, these days. I also used to find moonshells, though that is nearly almost as rare. I haven’t found one in ages, honestly, and that’s a bit of a shame. Today we mostly looked for oyster shells, but we found the usual sorts of scallops and angel-wings, clams,… Read more
Jun
25

Using What You Have aka Making Do

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Connor made me take a picture of this yesterday. And I did – not only because it seemed like a good blog topic, but also because I giggle madly every time I look at it. Never mind it’s not even *his* Transformer. Never mind that said Transformer’s head is probably somewhere in the off-roading bowels of the mud in some distant field. Point is, said Transformer needed a head, so lego man got an upgrade. I find it very interesting that kid will usually make do with something, even if it’s not exactly right or perfect. In the interest of saving the universe, of course. Writers often do this too. Or at least I do. I’m not a huge researcher. Unless the plot hinges around a particular detail that *really* has be accurate *right* this second, I have a big tendency just to toss something in as a place holder.… Read more