Writing Tips :: From the Compost

Nov

Writing Tip: Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself

By Kim

Whenever I get fed up with my work not going well, and feel inclined to erase it all and send it into cyber-oblivion, I think about the Roman poet Virgil. He’s the poet who wrote The Aeneid, which he worked on for over ten years. We know Virgil was not satisfied with The Aeneid, because he caught a fever and died before he could finish it, and his dying wish was that the manuscript be burned. He felt it just wasn’t any good and didn’t want his name associated with such a poor piece of work.

The Roman Emperor Augustus disagreed so he ignored Virgil’s wish and published this epic poem about the founding of Rome. The Aeneid has been in print now for over 2000 years.

So maybe I won’t chuck my WIP after all. Maybe I’m like Virgil, and not the best judge of my own work. Don’t chuck yours, either.

Categories : Writing Tips

Oct

Writing Tip: Leaving Gifts

By Kim

Today is Samhain, better known nowadays as Halloween. This is the time of year to celebrate darkness and the gifts it brings. It’s the time to reflect on the past and honor the wisdom of the ancestors.

As my writing tip on this sacred day, I recommend you read something that was written long ago, by a writer now long dead. Then write about what you learned from this author. What gifts of insight or beauty did you receive by reading their words?

When you are writing, remember that your writing may be read someday far in the future. You too are someone’s ancestor. It’s up to you what gifts you leave behind.

Categories : Writing Tips

Oct

Writing Tip: Don’t Make Your Editor Crabby

By Kim

My work as an editor means to make suggestions on what and how to change, relocate, delete, and fix things like cumbersome wording, trite or cliché-ridden passages, redundant or unnecessary words and phrases, and other such writing perils that befall authors. This means that the manuscript that emerges after I’ve done my thing will be much changed from the one that was given me. That brings me to what I want to tell you today.

Here it is: don’t spend a lot of time formatting your manuscript for your editor. Editing will change your manuscript – that’s the job of the editor. This is why a lot of formatting of your manuscript before it is sent to your editor is a waste of your time. It is also a waste of time because your book designer will most likely remove all your lovely formatting and convert the manuscript into their design layout program.

Formatting before editing also wastes my time. It makes my job harder, especially if major editing or rewriting needs to be done. Working around unnecessary or inappropriate formatting codes and design elements is harder so it takes longer and therefore may cost you more money.

Here are two of my most disliked formatting mistakes. When I see a manuscript with these, I become crabby before I’ve read one word – and who wants a crabby editor?

1. Always indent your paragraphs. Standard indent is 5 spaces. Do not insert a space between paragraphs. This is called business letter format, and often causes big problems in editing, because the formatting codes (which are not always obvious) must be removed.

2. Use one space between sentences, not two. You are betraying your age if you use two – this is the way people were taught to type back in the dark ages – you know, on typewriters.

Categories : Writing Tips

Oct

Writing Tip: Balance

By Kim

It is an editor’s job to point out what does not work and where the problems are in a manuscript. We hunt for the bad stuff, so naturally we can sound negative and discouraging even though we might be positive, kind-hearted people. (I certainly try to be.) The trick for the editor is to point out the good stuff too, and the trick for the writer is to hold on to their vision for the book in the face of the realization that it’s not yet perfect. Actually nothing is ever perfect, not even carefully edited manuscripts. (I know for a fact that typos breed in the night.)

Working well with an editor means you must be willing to change, but also know where to hold your ground. Like everything else in life, the key to success is balance. Both for the editor and for you.

Categories : Writing Tips

Sep

Writing Tip – Another Excellent Blog

By Kim

If you’re a writer, then you need an editor. We all do. A great blog about editing is The Blood Red Pencil (http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com), which is written by a team of professional editors sharing their expertise and opinions – for free. I contribute to this blog occasionally (I am their “resident ghost” which means I get out my chains and clank them for 500 words or so). On this blog you’ll find posts that will help you understand the vital role editors play in making your writing the best it can be; such as posts titled “Things that Drive an Editor Crazy” or “10 Steps to a Better Story” or “Top Reasons Your Submissions are Rejected.” I urge you to check out this blog! Let me know how you like it.

Categories : Writing Tips

Sep

Writing Tip – Thinking of Self-Publishing? Check out this website and blog!

By Kim

If you are a writer, of course you are considering self-publishing as one of your options. After all, even many well-known writers have jumped on the self-publishing bandwagon. But there are good ways and bad ways to self-publish, and if you are new to the “book biz,” then it may be difficult for you to tell which is which.

Writing a book is a big challenge all by itself, and when you add in the many challenges of publishing and marketing a book, both obvious and not-so-obvious, it is easy to get overwhelmed.

But I know where you can get help! Check out this new website and blog, www.assistedselfpublishing.com. Here you can get information about the right ways to self-publish, and read an ongoing blog written by an author who is self-publishing and her team of book professionals. (Full disclosure: I am one of those professionals – I am blogging about the vital function of the editor.)

This blog creates a window on the self-publishing process that allows inexperienced authors to see how to self-publish the right way, with a virtual author’s assistant and a team of experienced professionals. You can do this work yourself – it is easier than you think.

There are many advantages to self-publishing including keeping all the rights to your own work, keeping all the profits, and taking less time to get your book to market. The disadvantages can be that it takes time to learn the publishing industry and knowing how to produce a professional quality book. www.assistedselfpublishing.com can help you lessen those disadvantages.

Assisted Self Publishing is the brainchild of Jan King, who I have personally worked with for over ten years, and it is my opinion that what Jan doesn’t know about publishing is not worth knowing. Her experience in the world of publishing is second to none, and if you don’t believe me, read her bio on the website. I guarantee you will be impressed.

If you are writing a book, or have already written one, you owe it to yourself – and your potential readers – to check out this site. www.assistedselfpublishing.com.

Categories : Writing Tips

Aug

Tip: Make Your Time Count – You Never Know

By Kim

This is not merely a tip about writing. It’s about life. It’s tied to writing because it’s about the man who invented the modern printing press. I read about him in The Writers Almanac, which if you don’t subscribe to, you should. (Another tip!)

His name was William Bullock, who in 1863 patented the first rotary printing press. This machine self-fed the paper, printed on both sides, and counted its own progress, and this invention meant that newspapers no longer had to rely on one operator feeding individual sheets of paper into the press. It meant that many more newspapers could be printed, they could be sold for less money because of the volume, and more people would read them. In short, William Bullock’s invention revolutionized the newspaper business.

Bullock often helped install the first presses. One day he was installing a press for The Philadelphia Press when his foot got caught in the mechanism. His leg was crushed, and a few days later he died during surgery while they amputated his leg.

So my tip is this: do what you love, because you never know what will happen next. If what you love is inventing printing presses, spend your time inventing them anyway, even if they kill you.

Categories : Writing Tips

Aug

Tip: Another Shake Up

By Kim

Here’s another tip I use to shake up my writing, again courtesy of Natalie Goldberg. Take a line of poetry – any poem you want, and use that first line as the first line in a paragraph, and springboard from it. Again, don’t overthink, don’t pause, just scribble whatever stuff comes up for you.

Here’s what I wrote when doing this exercise, using the line “I am a wumberlog, you see” by John Lennon, from his book “A Spaniard in the Works.” My paragraph is a little weird, but then so was John Lennon.

I am a wumberlog, you see, and a wumberlog can see what you cannot, so you see I am not a wumberlog, but if I was, you could not see it. A wumberlog lives in the dense rain forest of the Olympia Peninsula where even the sun seems wet and the ferns wrap damp fronds around your ankles as you pass by the trilliums and bleeding hearts. The wumberlog hides underneath rotting fallen logs and inside the cast-off skins of snakes. Don’t think I’ll tell you what a wumberlog looks like, because I won’t. If you knew you’d tell others and then they’d all come and we’d have chaos here in the forest – not the ordinary forest chaos of death and worms and rain, but the dry, sharp dusty chaos that swirls around metal and other things made by men. We’d have girders and beams and nails and men with thick boots and even thicker heads calling out “Over here, Fred!” and “Watch out, Bob!” as they build their ugly metal cages to sit on the floor of the forest so they can show off the wumberlog habitat and maybe catch a young wumberlog or two, those too inexperienced to hide. And then the scientists would come with their probes and their measurements and their invasive theories and they’d breed more wumberlogs in captivity – well you get the picture, don’t you? Now go away.

Go ahead, try this exercise. See what your mind throws up. You’ll probably be surprised. I was.

Categories : Writing Tips

Aug

Tip: Shake It Up

By Kim

If your writing feels like it’s getting stale, here’s a way to shake yourself up. I first did this exercise when I read Natalie Goldberg’s book Writing Down the Bones. First, make a list of 10 verbs – any action verbs. Just let them pop into your head and onto the paper. Or open a book at any page and take the first 10 action verbs you find and write them down. Then take that list and write 10 sentences using one verb per sentence, starting each sentence like this: “I (verb) because …”

Don’t overthink your sentences. They don’t have to make sense. Don’t pause. Just write as fast as you can, letting whatever comes out your fingers plop onto the paper. See what you get. It’s likely to be surprising, and alive. Here’s what I got once when doing this exercise:

My verb list: swim, cough, run, laugh, walk, play, dance, fart, drive, work.

I swim because the water is cool and smooth and I pretend I am a seal.
I cough because the dirt I ate last night is threatening to come up again.
I run because my legs have been made new and I am reborn in a place like Kenya.
I laugh because Groucho Marx was born and that was a good thing.
I walk because it is very deep to put a foot down on the earth.
I play because I hear the ball calling to me, squeak and hurl, squeak and hurl.
I dance because the music makes my bones itch.
I fart because I was stupid and ate cabbage.
I drive because my car is a shiny blue and I’m cool.
I work because work is life and life must be lived.

Now it’s your turn. If you like, share your sentences here on this blog. I promise I will like them. And so will you.

Categories : Writing Tips

Jul

Tip: My “must have” Writing References

By Kim

I hate grammar. I still get confused about where to put the periods when using parentheses. I have to look this up every single time. You’d think I’d remember, but I don’t.

I know I’m not alone in this. So as my tip for today, here are some of my favorite references for those times when I cannot remember, or never knew, the answer to knotty questions about proper grammar.

My two basic must haves – Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style, and the Chicago Manual of Style.

The grammar book most fun to read: Eat, Shoots, and Leaves by Lynne Truss.

Quick online references to check: www.punctuationmatters.com and http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com

If you’d care to leave a comment with your favorites, I always have more room on my Favorites tab …

Categories : Writing Tips

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