Writing Weekend: Before You Hit Send Workshop

I'm in the midst of an online course in self-editing taught by Carina's executive editor, Angela James. She covers everything from the most basic basics of punctuation and word usage to more advanced topics of voice and craft, with a goal of helping both published and unpublished authors submit more polished and professional manuscripts.

It's hands-on, so we're encouraged to apply the lessons to our own manuscripts. Though some of the basics aren't really issues for me--Mrs. Denney and Mrs. Atchison taught me well back in my school days, so I rarely struggle with grammar, punctuation, and capitalization--I've already learned MS Word tricks I'd never heard of before. And there's nothing like the executive editor of your publisher telling you to read your manuscript out loud to make you actually DO it and discover what a useful tool it is.

I strongly recommend Before You Hit Send to beginning and advanced authors alike--and you can take it beginning tomorrow at Savvy Authors (membership required). It's $35, but well worth the price of admission.

Punctuation

I spotted this sign at an eatery near my office earlier this week. I desperately wanted to say something like, "Wow, I'm glad to hear the Husky Card reader is working well today. I'd hate to think it was working sorry in the middle of your lunch rush." However, I refrained. The employees were busy, and I didn't want the long line of customers behind me to be delayed in getting their burritos by my pedantry.

Yes, I'm one of those people. I'm a grammar pedant, particular about punctuation, careful with capitalization. I'm fully aware that this means there will be at least one embarrassing typo somewhere in The Sergeant's Lady that neither I, my editor, nor my copy editor will catch. Karma is rarely kind to the snarky.

Busy Busy Writer

I'm in the midst of edits, really-o truly-o official edits requested by my editor, and completing my cover art fact sheet (a questionnaire designed to give the art department a sense of what the book is about, the story's mood, and any strong visual elements that may be of use to them in their design process).

Oh, and we're supposed to sign a pile of papers on Tuesday and have the keys to our new house by the end of the week. So I'm kinda busy.

I'll get back to the blog as soon as life calms down a little. I've just spent the most intense weekend of writing and editing I've ever experienced. Yesterday I started at 9:00 AM, spending the day shifting from Panera to two branches of my city's public library then back to Panera, taking a brief break to cook dinner and get my daughter to bed, and then editing for another three hours before going to bed. Today I went to church and to brunch, but then started writing at 11:30 AM and finished at 10:30 PM, taking only brief breaks for food, stretching, and rebooting my computer when it got frighteningly sluggish.

I actually enjoyed all this--I do love my book, after all. But I could sure use a good massage about now. Also, if I holed up like this every weekend, I'm pretty sure Mr. Fraser and Miss Fraser would abandon me, and I'd miss them dreadfully.