Review of Editor’s Lexicon
Last week Rebecca Hargreaves, a blogger I follow, asked her readers whether or not she should take an advanced writing class. (http://bit.ly/cwWq2c) This post and the lively comments that ensued got me to thinking about how a writer trains to be a successful writer. As an academic who went through eleven years of post secondary education to become a professional historian, I have always been bemused by the thought that I could become a professional fiction writer without even one college level writing class, yet I suspect my serious lack of formal training is not unusual. I did take a college extension novel writing class over 20 years ago when I started the first draft of Maids of Misfortune, and I did find the class useful because it taught me how to find agents, write query letters, and generally what Read more…
How to be your own best editor: Part II
This is the second post about how I prepared my manuscript, Maids of Misfortune, for self-publication. In the first post I outlined the steps I took to develop the skills necessary to be my own best editor. As I look back at this previous post I feel it is only fair to mention that those editing skills were already fairly well developed–as a result of getting a doctorate in history that required numerous rewritings of a 400 page dissertation and over thirty years of correcting student’s essays. This post will look at the steps I took next to replace the editorial input I would have gotten if my manuscript had been accepted by a traditional publishing house. See earlier posts on Why I Decided to Self-Publish for why I didn’t submit the manuscript to an agent or the editor of Read more…
How to be your own best editor: Part I
I made the decision that I was going to self-publish my historical mystery, Maids of Misfortune, in the spring of 2009. Having discovered and become a faithful reader of the website, Publetariat, I was well aware that I had several tasks in front of me if I wanted to be a successful indie author. I had to decide where to publish, design a cover, set up a website, learn how to format the manuscript for different publishing mediums, and set up a marketing plan. But most importantly, I needed to make sure that my manuscript was completely ready for publication. Over the years, through at least 3 rewritings of my manuscript, I had gotten excellent advice from my writers group. However, with each rewrite, I had always assumed that any lingering problems with the manuscript would somehow be taken care Read more…
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