PUBLISHING DIARY:  Awesomely editing awesome awesomeness!  (Status: editing chapter 4)  This post is going to be a little self-indicting because, as the title suggests, I don’t always like what I find when I’m editing.  I am very grateful there is an editing step where I can find such things and correct them – not that I’ll see everything!  Now, here’s a quick list of (some of) what I’ll find when going back through a manuscript.

  1. Awesomely Awesome repeated words of Awesomeness – In particular, repeated adjectives, verbs, or nouns in close sentences or (worse) in the same sentence simply make me cringe!  I see them and tell myself, “Yep, weren’t paying attention, were you?”  Grrrrr…  Not happy.  I think one of the panda ninja movies actually made fun of this, and I agree, it is laughable, and I hate when I do it.
  2. He/She/The Cross-up – the fingers were working just a little slower than the brain and a sentence which should read “Then, she turned off the light” might read “Then, she turned of she light.”
  3. Comma, comma, comma, comma, chameleon! – Commas, I’ll just tell you, are hard.  They are (for many people) very subjective.  A place which seems to need a comma in the original writing just sticks out later like an extra six thumbs (wut?!).  Dramatic pauses are okay – too many of them, and you’ll need to command a starship in a 60’s sci-fi show.  They are important, however, and deserve respect; they keep you from eating grandma.  (“Let’s eat, Grandma.” versus “Let’s eat Grandma.”)
  4. Word Crimes – One of my editors actually showed me this video (Weird Al Yankovic’s “Word Crimes”), and sadly, I will admit that I am guilty as charged on at least one of these items, if not several.  Consequently, I almost always watch that video somewhere early in the editing process.  I “literally” do… (tempts being smacked in the head with a crowbar by Weird Al.)
  5. Have you lost an article, Sir? – Do you know those FB memes that show you a bunch of mangled text and promise “only the top 1% of the population will understand this” or “if you can understand this, you’re a genius”?  Yeah, not so much.  The truth is our brains do a lovely (and sometimes tragic) job of filling in the missing pieces.  So, you may read the sentence below and not see anything wrong with it.
  • As far as I can tell, his only definitive statements are made using golden, ivory-handled revolver of the finest quality.

Yeah, there is “a” little something missing in that sentence (between “using” and “golden”).  This is where the “text-to-speech” editing really helps.  The eyes might skip over something like that, but the ears have a real problem with it being missing.  Audible speech is like music, and dropped “notes” are noticed.

Okay, enough!  Wow, that’s painful.  What’s more is when I edited the blog post I found … those very things.  Oh, and if you look, I’m sure you’ll find more.  Now, you know why I have other people help me edit.  It is because I am never going to find everything.  Prefection is achievable … not. (wink!)

Take care, and see you in the future,

JTL