The Final Touch

I am so delighted to share with you the promo video for a soon-to-be-released book I’ve had the honor of edit­ing. Author Bathsheba Smithen is only in her mid-20s, but she has wis­dom beyond her years. Watch the video (Bathsheba is the first indi­vid­ual in it)… and then read the book’s Fore­word, below, which she also gave me the priv­i­lege of writing:

Editor’s Fore­word

“All is van­ity and a chas­ing after wind. … So I turned to con­sider wis­dom and mad­ness and folly…” (Eccle­si­astes 1:14 and oth­ers; 2:12, NRSV)

When Bathsheba Smithen first invited me to write this Fore­word, I replied with a laugh, “You want a pasty white girl from small-town Min­nesota to intro­duce a book by an African Amer­i­can from Wash­ing­ton, D.C.?!” Read the rest of this entry »

photo © 2005 JP Esper­ança | more info (via: Wylio)

This morn­ing, I took the time to fol­low a few Face­book links posted by peo­ple I know. Each took me to a piece of fine writ­ing recently posted in cyber­space. The arti­cles are quite dif­fer­ent from one another, but what they all have in com­mon is the high cal­iber with which they are writ­ten. I’ll pro­vide links to the arti­cles — as well as to two other exam­ples of fine writ­ing I came across recently — at the end of this post.

Some peo­ple are not con­vinced that the qual­ity of their writ­ing — cor­rect­ness of punc­tu­a­tion, accu­racy of spelling, smooth­ness of sen­tence flow, and so on — really mat­ters. “Peo­ple know what I mean!” groused one writer for whom I used to proof­read. “And if they don’t get it, they’re not the kind of read­ers I want read­ing my stuff any­way.” Well! Read the rest of this entry »

Is any­one out there work­ing on writ­ing a novel? I’d love to hear about it!

I haven’t writ­ten a novel myself, but I love read­ing them. Some of my favorite authors are Jodi Picoult,

James Pat­ter­son,

John Grisham,

and Lynn Austin.

When you get fully engaged in a book, you’re not stop­ping every few min­utes to pon­der what makes the book so good. But you would notice if it weren’t so engaging.

That’s why the arti­cle, “How to Edit Your Dia­logue,” by a mem­ber of the Writer’s Digest com­mu­nity of blog­gers caught my eye. I thought I’d pass it along for the sake of any of you who might also be interested.

Even if you’re not a fic­tion writer, you might find it inter­est­ing to see just why you like to read the fic­tion you do, and what the author’s use of dia­logue has to do with that.

By the way, would you please share your favorite authors/books in a com­ment below? I’m always game for some new read­ing mate­r­ial!

photo © 2008 McKay Sav­age | more info (via: Wylio)

First of all, I’d like to extend a warm wel­come to those of you who have recently stum­bled upon and signed on as fol­low­ers of this blog. I am hon­ored to have you along! Please feel free to intro­duce your­selves in a com­ment, if you wish — same goes for my “older” followers/visitors — and/or to post your own thoughts about some­thing I’ve said. I’d love to hear from you!

Speak­ing of friends “old” and “new”… Read the rest of this entry »

The fol­low­ing video pretty much speaks for itself. There are vary­ing view­points about whether an edi­tor should post his/her rates on a blog/website, but some of you have a gen­uine need to know, and your ques­tions gave me a great oppor­tu­nity to try out using video as a way to answer ques­tions. It was fun to do, though the learn­ing curve (at least for me) was a bit steep! Par­don the imper­fec­tions! (I do like, and I hope you will as well, the “inten­tional imper­fec­tions” of the Ani­moto* back­ground I opted to use — I think they make the whole thing artsy and fun!)

Oh, by the way, for those of you who don’t know me very well yet, the fact that my eyes dart back and forth is NOT because I’m speed-reading cue cards! It’s because I have a con­gen­i­tal con­di­tion called nys­tag­mus that affects the mus­cles of my eyes. Sorry it doesn’t look like I’m mak­ing eye con­tact with you!

Please let me know if you have any fur­ther ques­tions about how I might assist you with your writ­ing. And remem­ber: not just books; I’ll be glad to help with ad copy, school papers, resumes, let­ters, and more.

I invite you to view this and other videos on my YouTube chan­nel, “Final­TouchEdit.” If you find some­thing you like there, please click “Like.” I’d also love to hear from you, so please leave a com­ment here and/or on YouTube. And if you know some­one else who might be inter­ested in learn­ing about my ser­vices (or in see­ing the dar­ling cat video on my chan­nel!), please pass the links/URLs along to them. Thanks!

* http://​cmp​.ly/5

I love the tips offered by “Gram­mar Girl” Mignon Fog­a­rty on her web­site and pod­casts, and in her email newslet­ters and books. The fol­low­ing is copied from her email newslet­ter which I received today. Very interesting!

What Is a Janus Word?

Bob wrote, “How about weigh­ing in on the word ‘sanc­tion.’ I am con­tin­u­ally con­fused by see­ing the word used in con­texts in which it appears to mean approved by an author­ity, and oth­er­wise condemned.”

“Sanc­tion” is some­thing called a Janus word–a word with two oppo­site mean­ings. Such words are named after the Roman god Janus who has two faces that look in oppo­site direc­tions. Other Janus words are “cleave” (which can mean to cling to or to sep­a­rate), “screen” (which can mean to review or dis­play or to hide or shield from view), and “trim” (which can mean to remove things or add things).

Can you think of other Janus words? Please share in a com­ment here!