Blog - Page 25 of 73 - Adam Blumer

Book Review: Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors

By Adam Blumer February 7, 2014 Book Review, Books, Christian Nonfiction, Freelance Editing, Publishing No Comments

I’ve been a fan of Kathy Ide ever since I learned about the Christian Editor Network and The Christian PEN: Proofreaders and Editors Network, two organizations that were a tremendous help to me when I began editing from home in 2006. Kathy was especially gracious in helping a newbie like me learn the ropes in the scary world of editing books from home. She even referred some projects to me, which helped me earn income to support my family. I’m saying all this in the interest of full disclosure before I talk about her new book, Proofreading Secrets of Best-Selling Authors. What Is This Book About? What a treasure this book is, especially for book editors like me. I refer to the online version of The Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) almost every day. If asked, my book editing buddies would probably agree with me that sometimes putting our fingers on…

How to Plot Your Novel with a Simple Spreadsheet

By Adam Blumer January 31, 2014 Fiction Workshop, How to, Novel Writing, The Tenth Plague, Weekly Post, Writing 25 Comments

Have you ever wondered what a novel looks like in a spreadsheet? The outline, I mean. Maybe you’re wondering what a novel outline even is. When I say outline, what pops in your head? Is it something like this? I. This is the first heading. A. This is a subheading. 1. This is a subsubheading. No, I’m not referring to an outline for a high school English term paper. I’m referring to a novel. When I say outline, I’m merely referring to some kind of organizational structure behind the story—a blueprint, if you will, that shows all the critical ingredients that must work together behind the scenes for the story to work. You may be surprised to learn how many organizational details must work together to make a good story, especially for a suspense novel with multiple characters and settings on a timeline. There are actually lots of ways to…

Write Events in Their Logical Order

By Adam Blumer January 24, 2014 Fiction, Fiction Workshop, Freelance Editing, How to, Weekly Post, Writing No Comments

I was recently editing a novel and came across a recurring problem I thought would make a good, informative post about fiction writing. Here’s an example of what I want to address. John yelped as Mitch smacked him hard across the jaw while he was watching his baby sister. This sentence poses several problems for the fiction editor and the reader. Do you see what’s wrong with it? First, way too much is going on in this sentence. 1. John yelps. 2. Mitch smacks John hard across the jaw. 3. And one of the guys is watching his baby sister, but we don’t know which one because “he” is unclear. Who’s the babysitter—John or Mitch? A lot of beginning writers think they can join all sorts of details using the word and as if the word were Scotch tape. Technically, this is true—the sentence may make fine grammatical sense. But if…

Is Working from Home Right for You? Part 3

By Adam Blumer January 17, 2014 Freelance Editing, Weekly Post, Working from Home, Writing 2 Comments

See Part 1 and Part 2. In previous articles in this series, I addressed various pros and cons of working from home, primarily the social and financial aspects, based on my experience over the last seven-plus year. Today I address the issue of flexibility. Working from home isn’t for everyone, but it’s been a blessing for me and my family. Incredible Flexibility No drive to work means more time doing what I want to do. I have no set office hours. I can work evenings, weekends, whenever—as long as I hit my deadlines and keep the checks coming. Cons: No vacation days. No paid holidays. No sick days. If something doesn’t work right on my computer, I don’t have an IT department to run to. Because my office is so close, I sometimes may find myself putting in time during evenings and weekends, even when I don’t want to. Self-discipline is necessary to separate “work…