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October 17, 2020 · 11:54 am

For the Amusement of My Writer Friends

I’ve been AWOL recently because I’ve been busy writing! I’m trying to slide Book 3 of my mystery trilogy into a channel where it will start floating right along (I suspect you get that metaphor), and I’ve been keyboarding the longhand draft of my “Horse Show Book” (great titles, huh?) that I just completed last week. My hope is that the closing scenes of this psychological suspense/mystery will work as well when I type them as they seemed when I (literally) penned them. We’ll see.

Apropos of that milestone, I had the following conversation with a non-writer friend the other day. I wonder if only writers will “get” this:

Friend: When are you going to publish your Horse Show Book?

Me: Oh, it will be a good while.

Friend: But you said you’d finished it!

2 Comments

Filed under Editing your novel, Publishing, Self-publishing, writing novels

Tagged as drafting a novel, drafting by hand, Editing your novel, how to write a book, The writer's Journey, the writing process

November 29, 2017 · 10:37 am

Reference Books and Style Guides, #amwriting

What an absolutely terrific post! I completely agree with Connie Jasperson about Strunk &White: too rigid, outdated (even though the general sentiment is fine). I have often recommended both Story and The Writer’s Journey to fellow writers–and I’ve promoted Rhetorical Grammar aggressively on this blog several times. This “textbook” provides a whole new way of looking at how readers read what you wrote. Invaluable! Thanks, Connie!

Life in the Realm of Fantasy

I use the internet for researching many things on a daily basis. However, in my office, some reference books must be in their hardcopy forms, such as The Chicago Manual of Style. I (and most other editors) rely on the CMOS, as it’s the most comprehensive style guide, and is geared for writers of essays and novels, fiction, and nonfiction.

Strunk and White’s Elements of Style is an acceptable beginner style guide, but is presented in an arbitrary, arrogant fashion and sometimes runs contrary to commonly accepted practice. Strunk and White’s Elements of Style is still the same book it was when it was originally conceived, as it has not changed or evolved, despite the way our modern language has changed and evolved. Because the Elements of Style is somewhat antiquated in the rules it forces upon the writer, I no longer even own a copy of it.

Instead, I…

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