Do you know your mantles from your mantels? I do, but Microsoft Word doesn’t. It NEVER flags ‘mantlepiece’ as an error. If you are attached to your mantlepiece (seek help! 🔗) you’re not alone. Merriam-Webster recommends ‘mantel’ (‘el’ like the ‘el’ of ‘shelf’ ) for the over-the-fireplace ledge, but it acknowledges that ‘mantle’ has been/isContinue reading “Is it mantelpiece or mantlepiece?”
Tag Archives: selfpublishing
What are metonyms? What are anaphoric references? And (why) do they matter in fantasy writing?
❓ Do you know your metonyms from your anaphoric references? This week, some terminology that was relevant when I was teaching A level English language has popped into my head. It doesn’t really matter what these things are called, but what does matter is that these things are *things. One term was metonymy. The otherContinue reading “What are metonyms? What are anaphoric references? And (why) do they matter in fantasy writing?”
Sending your book to an editor is like sending your kid on a school residential.
🚸 Am I talking about sending your kid on a school residential? 📚 Or might this be an analogy…? And when they get back…? This analogy can run much further. But I reckon that’ll do. 😃 Handing over your manuscript to an editor might be like sending your kid on their school residential. Be brave.Continue reading “Sending your book to an editor is like sending your kid on a school residential.”
‘Looking up, his heart sank.’ Did it? How bothered are you about dangling modifiers?
Can your heart look up? 💓⬆️ ▫️Looking up, his heart sank. I know what the author means. They mean that whatever the character has seen has made their heart sink. 🎣 But the way it’s written causes something called a ‘dangling modifier’. The subject of the sentence is ‘heart’ and the heart is said toContinue reading “‘Looking up, his heart sank.’ Did it? How bothered are you about dangling modifiers?”
POV: Improve your writing by doing more of it.
☺️☺️ Just to be sappy a moment… I love seeing writers improve over time. I am lucky enough to work with some authors whose creative wells seem bottomless. They are always writing. There are always more stories to tell. And I get to read them. And when you’ve seen someone’s early stories, then later ones,Continue reading “POV: Improve your writing by doing more of it.”
Will an editor judge me for my poor grammar?
When an author is worried an editor will consider their writing to be poor due to grammatical mistakes, my message is: don’t stress. We are not here to judge. In England, when 15/16-year-olds do their English exam and are asked to write a story, a whopping 40% of their mark for that story comes fromContinue reading “Will an editor judge me for my poor grammar?”
Come in. The water’s fine. How working with an editor can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
I reckon signing up with an editor must be like looking at the sea and deciding whether you want to dive in. It could be amazing. It might be awful. I shared with you recently that the next six — now eight! — months are looking really decent for me work-wise. All fiction. Perfect. AllContinue reading “Come in. The water’s fine. How working with an editor can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”
Can I make a living wage from self-publishing?
💷 A family friend awkwardly asked my indie-author husband: “But, is it a living wage?” For sure, not everyone who goes down the self-publishing route will make a living out of it. But, if you know what you’re doing, and you put effort into both the creative and business side of things, you can makeContinue reading “Can I make a living wage from self-publishing?”
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