

Editing 101: You Found It Where?
At times, editing can be a bit like a jigsaw puzzle - if the puzzle pieces were scattered around the room like Easter eggs. Although I work with a lot of first-time authors, I don't think that this is a problem specific to them. After all, if you think about Faulkner or Dickens or Joyce, you know that a lot of famous, established authors were known for convoluted sentences and paragraphs that refer back to things that you didn't think were important before. So instead of scol
Editing 101: Should I Quote You on That?
We've talked about this kind of thing before: the facetiously placed quotation marks that cause us to question what we're reading. With the latest rounds of political finger pointing in the news lately - and the assertion that we're all supposed to simply understand when people are joking or not - I've actually heard government officials say things like "Well, he made those 'air quotes,' didn't he?" and a reporter say "But the tweet was in ALL CAPS - there weren't any quotati


Freelance Wordsmith: Who am I? Who do you want me to be?
I've had two occasions, lately, to try to figure out exactly what I do - and what I'm willing to do - in my freelancing.
(Don't let your mind go too far. We're only talking about various kinds of editing, when we really get down to the basics.)
My website says that I'm a writing coach, an editor, and a proofreader. And that's pretty much how I see what I do. When someone comes to me with a manuscript (partial or complete), I can coach to the points that are working (and c