Life in progress

Tag Archives: editing


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R is for Redress

Wow. Okay. “Oh Thesaurus The Great” gave me “redress” to work with today. Your guess is as good as mine where this is going…

As a verb, a few of the synonyms are adjust, correct, rectify, and repair. I suppose in blogging terms we redress our posts in that we edit them (if we’re perfectionists or even semi-perfectionists) all the time. Typos abound in my posts; if I didn’t edit them you wouldn’t be able to read half of them. But even that doesn’t seem quite right (as a definition of the word) since some of the other synonyms seem full of regret: make amends for, mend, and repay for instance. So is it fair to say that if I regret not editing my post I am full of redress? Let’s see what it means as a noun.

Atonement, indemnification, (there’s a mouthful) quittance, reparation, and restitution among others.

And here I was expecting to talk about trying on new clothes… 😉


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One-Liner Wednesday – On Editing

If I could speak to Stephen King right now I would say, “Your books make me want to edit my work, because although I will likely never be, I want to be as good as you.”

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UPDATED March 4th/15

Anyone who would like to try it out, feel free to use the “One-Liner Wednesday” title in your post, and if you do, you can ping back here to help your blog get more exposure. To execute a ping back, just copy the URL in the address bar on this post and paste it somewhere in the body of your post. Your link will show up in the comments below. Please ensure that the One-Liner Wednesday you’re pinging back to is this week’s! Otherwise, no one will likely see it but me.

As with Stream of Consciousness Saturday (SoCS), if you see a ping back from someone else in my comment section, click and have a read. It’s bound to be short and sweet.

Unlike SoCS, this is not a prompt so there’s no need to stick to the same “theme.”

The rules that I’ve made for myself (but don’t always follow) for “One-Liner Wednesday” are:

1. Make it one sentence.

2. Make it either funny or inspirational.

Have fun!


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The Cost of Self-Publishing

Another great article and an upcoming freebie from Steve Vernon, Storyteller.
Note: Comments here are turned off. Please comment on the original post.

Steve Vernon's avatarYOURS IN STORYTELLING...

First off, I operate  my self-publishing business on a deep discount budget that would make Loblaws-shilling William Shatner look like a piker.

I make my own covers or use a Fiverr cover service. I do my own formatting. I do my own promotion. I do my own editing.

I am NOT saying this is the best way to do it. I truly WISH I could afford an editor – but budgetary constraints are a reality in my world.

So I was pretty interesting in reading these two separate versions of the very same story – how much does it COST to produce a self-published novel?

Take a look for yourself.

Lisa Medley, Missouri indie author, has this to say about how much it costs.

Ben Reeder, Missouri indie author, has this to say in reply.

As for myself – well, I spent absolutely NOTHING on the creation of my latest


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Random Update – Doctor Fortune Cookie Edition

I love it when a fortune cookie actually tells my fortune.

fortunecookie

I did have an opportunity to edit this weekend, since the kids were with their dad. Now to play the lottery with those numbers… or did I miss it? I’ll check Saturday’s draw and see.

In other news, I went to the doctor about my shoulder and my eyes on Friday. She’s sending me for another ultrasound for the shoulder and I’m on Advil three times a day to see if it helps. Apparently if we can figure out whether it’s bone or soft tissue that’s causing the problem, she’ll know how to treat it.

My eyes on the other hand, she had no answer for. My bloodwork showed that I’m perfect – I already knew that though (haha) – so the good news is it’s not diabetes. Anyway, she said she’ll talk to an optometrist colleague this weekend and get back to me next week if they come up with any ideas. I thought of something that I neglected to mention to her since. I’ve been watching my diet, screen time, and all kinds of things to see if there was a common denominator to when I have problems, but the one thing I hadn’t watched was what I was drinking. I wonder if I get dehydrated, particularly when all I drink in a day is coffee and wine. I’ll mention that if she doesn’t come up with anything better.

Or maybe what I really need is more Chinese food to get my answer.


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A Rant

I am officially ashamed of my job. The organization that prints and distributes the local newspaper that I deliver–that people pay good money for–needs to take a good, close look at itself and its practices. It’s no wonder subscriptions are on the decline. I’ve gone from having twenty-three customers to thirteen in the three years I’ve been doing the job.

Today, however, takes the proverbial cake.

The article in question (no, I won’t cite it for the following reasons:  a) I don’t want to advertise publicly where I live; b) the article is conspicuously absent from their website anyway; and c) I still work for them. For now.) is about a recent awareness-raising campaign entitled “Slut Walk.”

The annual Slut Walk, if you haven’t heard about it, is a tool to teach people (men mostly) that dressing like a slut isn’t an invitation for sexual assault. This, in and of itself, is a reasonable lesson to learn. You can read more about it here: http://www.slutwalktoronto.com/about/how if you’re interested.

But it’s not the Walk itself that I have a problem with – it’s the article.

Apart from numerous grammatical errors, (“you’re” instead of “your”? Come on!) which point blatantly at the fact that if an editor even read through the article he needs to be fired clean out of the editorial cannon, there are the questionable quotes from the event’s organizer, in which she states that the word ‘slut’ need not be a bad word, and that, “It just describes someone that is sexually promiscuous, someone who is maybe for work or for personal reasons and that is not a bad thing.”

Then she goes on to say people are complaining that the Walk isn’t child-friendly, but that, “…there is not a whole lot of scantily clad people…” this directly below a picture of a woman with the middle of her t-shirt cut out, revealing her bare breasts (and no, it’s not edited) and then, “…I think there is only one sign with profanity…there is nothing here that you wouldn’t see on TV or hear on the radio.”

Where is anything child-friendly about this scenario? On one hand you have a legitimate message – clothes don’t invite rape – and then on the other hand you have a newspaper quoting an organizer saying it’s okay for girls to be sexually promiscuous for work or personal reasons or whatever. Not only that, she’s blind!

And so is the editor of my damned paper!!!

Aside from finding a way to get a note to the author of the article to ask him if he grammars much, I’ve a good mind to write a letter to the editor.

I just don’t know where to start.


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The Editing Process

It occurred to me this morning as I was working on what will probably be the second-last edit of my novel The Great Dagmaru, that editing is an inherently ugly process. When I read my novel as a whole, it’s like taking in a picturesque landscape, with rolling hills, still lakes and vividly coloured birds, twittering and flitting from branch to branch.

But as I edit it, sentence by sentence, all I can see are the caterpillars, munching on the leaves and weaving themselves gauzy tents where they squirm like maggots. My job, of course, is to get them outta there looking like pretty butterflies.

It’s easy to get discouraged when I’m gazing at my work under a microscope. I agonize over single words; I look at them sometimes until they cease to have meaning. I forget how phrases go together in natural speech because I’ve contemplated them for too long. Thankfully this only happens occasionally. There are also parts which I can read through and not want to change a thing, except to delete a word here and there.

Today, however, the ants are crawling with the spiders and the worms are aerating the ground to allow for new growth. And I’m seeking oxygen to keep going.


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Forcing Myself

I’ve been having a hard time for the past few days getting into editing my novel. I’m able to force myself to work, but then I come up with any number of excuses to do something else, every other sentence I fix.
Candy Crush Saga is only the tip of the ice cream cone. (Make that a mint chocolate chip Klondike Bar.) How about those dishes in the sink? Or is that another email? And let’s not even mention WordPress stats. And if all else fails and I’ve done everything else I can do, or eaten everything in the house (damn, I just ate tomorrow night’s pork chops… and why do my teeth hurt? Must be the fact that they were still frozen…) I start to notice that my butt’s starting to hurt because I’ve been sitting on it too long.

It has to be time for a glass of wine.

You can see how it goes. I sit down to edit at times like this and I get SO MUCH ACCOMPLISHED! just not any editing. Is it really worth spending three hours just to slice the hell out of two paragraphs that I end up not happy with anyway because I wasn’t really concentrating?

How does anyone get this job done for goodness sakes?!?


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Starting A Career

At the ripe old age of 50, I’m seriously considering starting a career. At the moment I have no income whatsoever, apart from the $15 I bring in every week (I know, put your jaw back in place) from my paper route. The government supports my kids because of their disabilities and we all live off that. If I’m ever unable to physically care for them anymore, or if they by some miracle are able to look after themselves, I’ll have nothing. Even now, I’m living beyond my means.

So I’ve been looking into University level courses to get an Editing Certificate. I’ve enjoyed the proofreading/beta reading I’ve done so far, and it’s something I could do from home, on a freelance basis. There are no Universities in the area that offer the course, however, so I’d have to do it online. Even if there was a course available close by, I’d have a hard time getting there with the limited time I have free due to looking after the kids. Add to that the fact that I can’t always be reliable given a certain day and time, and the concept of going to University is pretty much a flushable one.

Originally I was looking into the idea of taking a copy editing course, or even some more creative writing courses. I recognize though that it’s not recommended that one does one’s own final edit. And so no matter how good I am at writing, or how much I think my writing is perfect, I know it won’t be. If, on the other hand, I learn to edit other people’s work and get some money coming in from that, I’ll be able to afford to pay an editor to edit mine. It’s kind of like the old adage, “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for one night, but teach a man to fish and he’ll eat his entire life” … except this fisherwoman will still be asking other people to fish for her. And THEN, maybe I’ll be able to do something about the little red line that goes under “fisherwoman” but not “fisherman.” First the Certificate, next, the world! Or at least the world of spell check.

Anyway, that’s what’s been going through my little brain of late. I’ve always wanted to go to University. About time I did, if I’m going to. Never too late to start, right? I don’t want to be sitting around in two years thinking to myself, “If only I’d started two years ago, I’d be finished now,” after all.

Is there anything you’ve wanted to start and thought it was too late? Has this made you want to get off your butt and do it?

 


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Does Size Really Matter?

Right now it’s about 4 inches — which is way too big. I might be okay with three, but I know it’s not what they want. They want two. Two inches maximum. What am I to do? Cutting it is painful, to say the least. Torturous even. At best it just doesn’t feel right. Hell, if I had my way it would be five inches if not more!

I’m of course talking about the thickness of my printed manuscript.

I’ve been working on fixing it, line by line, one word at a time and while it’s true that I’m managing to reduce my word count, I’m finding it very costly. What is the cost, you ask? I feel like I’m deleting my own voice from it. I’m trading word count for style. That can’t be good, right?

I’d like to put a question out to all my published author friends. If I decide to e-publish I can keep my inches and be happy with my manuscript. Size only matters to a publishing house. Am I correct?

For all the readers out there, how do you feel about buying a thicker-than-usual book? Do you give it a chance or do you pass it over? Of course if it’s an e-book, you won’t necessarily even know how long it is until after you buy it–I never do, since the size isn’t in direct relation to the cost.

Does size matter to you?