This is what the question has come to. I wish I could be Superman and do all of it—write for my blog and work on my next novel—but I simply can’t do both well. That’s just the simple truth. Not with my editing schedule to pay the bills. Working on my blog frankly means less time to work on my novel, and I’m committed to finishing novel #3 this year. So what’s gonna have to give? The blog’s gotta give. Going forward, I plan to write an article every other week instead of every week. I hope to continue writing insteresting content for fiction writers or lovers of Christian suspense or both. I’ve also recently updated the look of my website and recently programmed a store, showcasing some of my favorite books. Let me know what you think. How’s the novel coming? It’s coming. Just not as quickly as I would…
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…
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…
