Tag: Self-editing

Letting a Manuscript Sit

desert of maine sept 2008 photo by K. S. BrooksIn this world of self-publishing and numbers, there is always the “rush to press” or to get that book out there as quickly as possible. After all, time is money. Despite that, I have always been a fan of letting a manuscript sit: getting away from it, clearing my head, and moving on to other things. For at least six months.

Most authors don’t want to do this. And I can understand that.

We’ve had plenty of posts here on IU about putting a second set of eyes on your manuscript. What if that second set of eyes was yours? Continue reading “Letting a Manuscript Sit”

This is Your Brain on Revisions

Are your revisions going nowhere? Stuck in a plot hole, a muddled middle, a twisted thread? Try some of these fairly harmless, out-of-the box suggestions to get your project moving again, endorsed by actual, real brain scientists with degrees and everything. No, I didn’t make this up. No, I won’t give you their e-mail addresses. Not without some serious coin. Hey, amygdalas and those cool scanning machines with the flashy buttons don’t come cheap. Continue reading “This is Your Brain on Revisions”

Watt Due Ewe Mien?

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left hymn and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of bored fence nine feat heigh. Life to hymn seamed hollow, and existence butt a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and past it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a tree-bocks discouraged. Gym kame skipping out at the gait with a tin pale, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always bin hateful work in Tom’s ayes, before, butt now it did knot strike hymn sew. He remembered that their was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro buoys and girls we’re always their weighting they’re terns, wresting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Gym never got back with a bucket of water under an our – and even then somebody generally had to go after hymn. Tom said:

“Se, Gym, aisle fetch the water if yule whitewash sum.” Continue reading “Watt Due Ewe Mien?”

Typopotamus

Typopotamus
© 2012 Anneliese Hise

I am no typist. Whether I am working on a manuscript or simply chatting with a supermodel on Facebook, my messages are sometimes as garbled as if I were dictating to a Hippopotamus.

A typo is not merely typing the wrong thing, but happens when you mean to type one thing and instead type something else. Sometimes, this is caused by a keystroke error—you end up with too few or too many of the letters you meant to type because your touch is too heavy or too light; or you were off by one key and typed the wrong letter altogether.

Spell-check is helpful, but it is no panacea. Auto-correct is responsible for some hilarious and embarrassing word replacements. There is simply no substitute for proofreading. Proof however you like. Proof as you go, proof each day’s work, proof the whole dang thing when you claim to be done. When you are finished, proof it again. Continue reading “Typopotamus”