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Major proofreading fail.

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A while back I offered to proofread a book by a former co-worker. It was for a regional publisher that has its own in-house copyeditor for proofreading, but my friend wanted to go the extra mile.

In fact, he hired yet another former co-worker – who’d spent many years on a newspaper’s copy desk – for a third set of eyes.

A total of five pairs of peepers (including those of the author and the publisher) pored over that manuscript. After finding a handful of typos and misspells, we congratulated ourselves on making the book as clean as it could be.

You can guess what happened in the finished product.

 

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Vanilla freelancing.

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A post by Suzan St Maur had me laughing out loud recently. In “Vanilla sex: Here, have another helping,” the writer, coach and humorist applied the idea of “vanilla” (boring) to concepts other than sex.

Such as:

“Vanilla Politics: Politicians, usually at local government level, who … hate cutting ribbons and are useless at kissing babies – and expect to justify their existence merely by represent the interests of their electorate.”

“Vanilla Friends: Friends who offer you absolutely nothing in the way of valuable social contacts, wild nights out on the town, parties straight out of Hollywood and air-kissing companionship … and simply exist on the basis of always being around when you need them.”

But it was her “vanilla blogging” example that got my attention. 

 

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Things to say to writers.

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th-1(Note: A version of this article originally appeared on www.donnafreedman.com.)

A Twitter hashtag called #TenThingsNotToSayToAWriter really got my attention a while back. Bet you can imagine why.

Some well-known writers (Jodi Picoult, Harlan Coben, S.E. Hinton, John Scalzi, et al.) played along with the rest of us lesser-known and unknown scribes. Collectively we whirled and howled about stuff like:

  • Low pay and no pay
  • Folks who question why we have to use so many cuss words
  • The assumption that we’ll never get published, i.e., be “real” writers
  • People who treat what we do as a hobby
  • Those who swear they could do this too, if only they had the time

Were we being thin-skinned? You be the judge. Here’s the kind of thing that writers report having heard:

“It’s pretty impressive that you spend so much time on something that has so little chance of success.”

“I downloaded your book for free online. Could you please sign this printout of it?”

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9 writing sins to avoid.

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th(This is a guest post from Abigail Perry, who blogs at I Pick Up Pennies. She won the People’s Choice honor at the 2014 Plutus Awards. Abigail and I share some blogging pet peeves, probably because we also share DNA: She’s my daughter.)

Before you go any further, be warned: The following tips are steeped in sarcasm. But if that’s what it takes to encourage better writing, then I make no apologies.

Yep, I’m a writing snob. But if something offends you then you might be an offender. (Emoticons? Excessive GIF use? Non-use of contractions? Please.) Many a truth is spoken in snark.

This is for your own good — and for the greater good. I’m not the only reader  whose eyes bleed when a blogger uses “it’s” as a possessive. Focus on the information contained within the semi-withering language, then go and sin no more.

And if you’re a fellow Sarcastic? Come sit by me.

1. Do not use dictionary definitions. A professor once told me that if you have to use a dictionary definition in a paper, you’re done. It’s just no good. Having read a few blog posts that use them, I’m inclined to agree.

Definitions interrupt the flow of a post. Depending on the thing you’re defining, it can also feel a little insulting to the reader. We know what words like “frugal” and “freedom” mean.

 

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