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Does Editing a Manuscript Help get it Published? Part 10 of 12

Hello and welcome to all the new people that we have. Keep up the comments, they are a source of vital energy for this blog, keep it up! Feel free to look over the other series that I have, so that you can suggest which will be better for the upcoming series. I’ll have a couple of guest bloggers between then, but sometimes this afternoon I’ll be working on getting the list out for the upcoming series. I’d planned for a couple more people, but computers and I don’t like each other. Or I didn’t type in the email correctly. That’s always a possibility. (I’ll let you guess who you think the people are… email me if you’d ever want to guest blog)

Today I’ll be mentioning two things: My editing pet-peeves on blogs and how I cope with editing. Yes I do read comments and this is where this post comes from… with my own twist.

When I edit I plan for more time. I use different colours than the standard res ink. I find that purple can highlight a grammar mistake better, whereas green or blue is my choice for spelling errors. Yell0w is for the parts of “I don’t understand this.” I was upfront with my editor. I told her this was what was needed and she’s been great about it. Really great.

I need to read my manuscript out loud while I’m typing and while I’m editing. Otherwise what happens is that I get confused and write many, many, fragment sentences. I also have someone these days read my blog before its published. I write but I need to be aware of my inner critic. It can get loud.

It helps to know what you want from your writing. I want publication, and I’m willing to edit until my fingers hurt from redoing things. it makes a better product. and it takes time, but it’s worth it. I need to have a positive attitude, and I think that’s the most important.

As for blogs, admittedly, I’m not one to see a grammar mistake, unless it’s a very common one, that I can see. I look for content. I look for passion in a blog. You know the ones, for example, Georganna and Jennifer keep their blogs up a lot. They have a passion in their blogs that can be seen. They enjoy the work and the time. Even a coupe of mistakes on grammar doesn’t seem to stop them.

On the other hand I can tell if a blog is there for something other than for enjoyment. You know the ones, the blogger comes and goes, or doesn’t want to deal with negativity. They repeat the same things over again, they don’t encourage comments ( Or I can’t find the comment button) or whatever… you just know.

I would say the one thing that makes me leave a blog right away is no content and no passion. A spelling mistake on something really long is nothing. ( Yes it is… but for sake of point here) A spelling mistake on something small…. that’s something.

I’ll ask a two part question here: Where do you find the most passionate blogs out there— what makes them something you want to return to? Also, how do you edit that makes it faster or easier?

4 Comments

  • Rob

    I do the same thing, reading my manuscripts out loud to see if they make sense. It's fun. Every once in a while I'll come to a piece of dialogue that I wrote and think, 'Wow! That makes no sense! Guess it sounded better in my head.'

    It's funny, even when writing a blog, I treat it exactly the same way as if I were writing a novel. All posts will at least go through at least 7 revisions before I post them.

    Searching for passionate blogs is tough. I've found 10 that I like, yours included. But I'm always open for people to reccomend blogs to me. I reccomend mymilktoof.blogspot.com

    That's a pretty good one.

    Editing on the computer is fastest for me. Writing longhand just pisses me off cause I can't write fast enough.

    Keep up the good work!

  • AmberInGlass

    Hey, Rebecca, I just happened to randomly stumble across your blog and I noticed right away you are another writer like myself! After looking through some of your posts I have to say way to go and thanks for taking the time to put up so much useful tidbits. I just recently started my own blog to post some of my own works right. Mainly storie excerpts, short stories, and poetry/lyrics right now. I'd love to invite you to come by and read some of the things I've written and if you decide to follow me, well that would be great too. I'll be by your page again. Here's where you can find me till next time! Would love to hear from you. Amberinglass.blogspot.com

  • Jennifer Roland

    Rebecca,

    I love visiting your site, and not just because you always have nice things to say about my blog.

    I do love posting, sometimes so much that an errant typo gets by me. This series of posts has made me want to step up my game a bit. I pledge to edit my drafts before posting them. If you see something that needs to be fixed, feel free to call me out on it.

    Jennifer