Wednesday Writing

Although it is an editor’s job to catch all of your mistakes and omissions, editors are still human. The more overwhelmed they are with all the little things that you could have fixed yourself, the less energy they will have for the things you wouldn’t have caught. Help them to help you by making your manuscript as clean as possible.

A red pen against a white page with this caption: The Value of Self-Editing The cleaner you can make your manuscript before sending it to an editor, the better job your editor will do for you, and the less money it will cost.

Wednesday Writing

How do you run a marathon? One step at a time. Any major project takes time, commitment, and consistent effort. You can’t just snap your fingers and have a completed project. But you can create big things one small piece at a time.

A winding pathway of open books on leaf-covered ground. Caption: How do you write a whole book? You don’t have to write a complete book. Write a part of a book—any part you want—and then another and another. Eventually you can put them all together, and a complete book will have happened. If you can write a paragraph, you can write a complete book. You just have to keep doing it.