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The Priority Edit

Posted by on Sep 17, 2025 in Blog Posts, Editing, Featured, Writing Advice | 0 comments

If you think I’m just going to sweep in here and blog again as if several years haven’t gone by…you’re exactly right. Let’s get to it. (What’s been happening?  I’ve been doing a lot of editing work with my head in Word files rather than WordPress. Also living my life, volunteering, spending time with loved ones, taking a few cross-country trips, getting through one bout of COVID that could have been way worse—hurray, modern medicine!—far more watching the news unfold in horror than I’d...

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Q&A from the Clubhouse

Posted by on Aug 13, 2021 in Blog Posts, Featured, Writing Advice | 0 comments

Wow! Last evening was so fun and energizing–I admit I was a little unsure how a live chat app would work, but we had many wonderful people join us with some pertinent questions and insights. And talking to people out loud was very energizing; I just hope I didn’t talk too fast. I was mostly listening and talking rather than taking notes, but I jotted down a few questions and suggestions I remember from last night to share, both to help those of us who were there to remember and to...

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Notes from Your Editor (Clubhouse meeting, August 12)

Posted by on Aug 11, 2021 in Blog Posts, Featured, Work and Career, Writing Advice | 0 comments

Notes from Your Editor (Clubhouse meeting, August 12)

I hope many of you will be able to join me! As I prepare for my live chat with Nicki tomorrow, I have some notes that I’d like to share here on my website, both for listeners to follow along with, and for those who aren’t able to make it to benefit from: A. Copyediting, proofreading, line-by-line — what do all these terms mean? Developmental/structural/content edit – literally developing the ideas in the book. What to include and in what order? Add, reorganize, remove? Often...

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Money Management and Living on a Budget for Freelancers – Part 1: Income

Posted by on Apr 6, 2020 in Featured, Work and Career | 0 comments

This not going to be a series of posts where I tell you to stop buying lattes at Starbucks (though I will talk about what I do instead). Nor am I going to magically fix your budget with a few suggestions – wish I could, especially in these times when many people are facing budget strain, freelancers not least. But over the past few months, as I’ve advised a number of new freelancers, I realized there numerous tips I wish I’d taken sooner, and which seemed new to my friends....

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New Story Collections: Heroes, Apocalypse, Loyalty and Betrayal

Posted by on Nov 29, 2019 in Blog Posts, Featured, Publications, Work and Career, Writing | 0 comments

New Story Collections: Heroes, Apocalypse, Loyalty and Betrayal

Embarrassment is a poor motivation for writing, so I won’t be ashamed about how little readers have seen of me over the past few years. I haven’t been wasting my time – I’ve edited dozens of amazing novels, helped to plan two Waukesha County Sustainability Fairs, and found out this online dating thing might be all it’s cracked up to be (even if it means off-line interactions require an hour-long drive. I’m taking audiobook recommendations, by the way!). All...

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Before Editing: A Recommended Reading List

Posted by on Sep 20, 2018 in Blog Posts, Book Reviews, Editing, Featured, Work and Career, Writing Advice | 0 comments

Before Editing: A Recommended Reading List

Part of being an editor is noticing patterns—the motion of a character arc, the raveling of a resolution, or the fact that the past five paragraphs have all started with the same word. Here’s another pattern: I’ve been recommending certain articles and books to almost every client I work with, year after year. So why not share them here once and for all? These 12 short articles and 6 books delve into the writing techniques I comment on most frequently. Many of them formed the core of my own...

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