Let's Have Some Fun While Editing

My life has taken a turn over the past few months. I have a book idea that I'm itching to write if I can ever find the time. I am honing my editing skills. What would be a fun way to do this, I ask myself? Find huge gaffes online and post them here!

That's right. I'm on the lookout for spelling errors, improper use of quotation marks, exclamation points, horrible grammar... whatever is horribly WRONG so we can post it for the world to see.

I know we all make mistakes. But some mistakes really deserve to be pointed out so we can all learn from them. Like the one I saw right after the earthquake in Chile on CNN.com. I wish it was still there. I wish I had copied and pasted it when I first read it... alas, I did not. They caught it before I went back and edited the article.

Suffice it to say the sentence went something like "... decided to AIR on the side of caution..."

That's right. To air on the side of caution. Um. Yeah. The phrase should be "...to ERR on the side of caution..." That is all they needed to do. Instead they rewrote the entire paragraph.

So... if you come across any gaffes that you just can't believe or that made you laugh out loud, send them my way by posting them here with the URL. I'd love to see them. In fact, I think this could grow into a really fun, big project that will leave everyone rolling in the aisles (definitely not isles!) while we may learn a bit about our wonderful language. C'mon... who wants to play?

I can't possibly do it all alone. There aren't enough hours in the day. Send 'em in and we can all have a good laugh. :)

"Dear Lucky Agent" Contest: Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Fiction

 They have another contest at Guide to Literary Agents! This one is for Urban Fantasy and Paranormal fiction for teens and adults. Follow the instructions below to enter.

HOW TO SUBMIT
E-mail entries to thirdagentcontest@gmail.com. Please paste everything. No attachments. (Also note that I do not check this account. Only the agent does. Looking back over old e-mails, some people have wrote to say hi to me, or perhaps ask a question. Contact me at literaryagent@fwmedia.com.)
WHAT TO SUBMIT
The first 150-200 words of your unpublished, book-length work of urban fantasy or paranormal romance (adult or YA - both accepted).
Joanna says: "Please keep it to these two subgenres specifically. While you can incorporate a variety of fantasy elements, they still have to fall under these two categories. For those of you who are unsure, keep in mind that both urban fantasy and paranormal romance have a strong base in a real world setting (like Jim Butcher's Dresden Files or J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood or Richelle Mead's Vampire Academy). So no stories that take place solely on another planet or world!"
You must include a contact e-mail address with your entry and use your real name. Also, submit the title of the work and a logline (one-sentence description of the work) with your entry.
Please note: To be eligible to submit, I ask that you do one of two things: 1) Mention and link to this contest twice through your social media - blogs, Twitter, Facebook; or 2) just mention this contest once and also add Guide to Literary Agents Blog (www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog) to your blogroll. Please provide link(s) so I can verify eligibility.
CONTEST DETAILS
      1. This contest will be live for approximately fifteen days - from Feb. 27, 2010 through the end of Sunday, March. 14, 2010 EST. Winners notified by e-mail within seven days of end of contest. Winners announced on the blog thereafter.
      2. To enter, submit the first 150-200 words of your book. Shorter or longer entries will not be considered. Keep it within word count range please.
      3. This contest is solely for completed book-length works of urban fantasy and paranormal romance (either adult or YA). To know more about what falls into these genres, look at the bold text above.
      4. You can submit as many times as you wish.
      5. The contest is open to everyone of all ages, save those employees, officers and directors of GLA's publisher, F+W Media.
      6. There are more rules (most of them dealing with legal stuff) that you can find in the comments section of this post.
      7. By e-mailing your entry, you are submitting an entry for consideration in this contest and thereby agreeing to the terms written here as well as the terms added by me at the beginning of the "Comments" section of this blog post.
PRIZES!!!
First place: 1) A critique of 20 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.
Runner-ups - second and third place: 1) A critique of 10 pages of your work, by your agent judge. 2) A one-year subscription to WritersMarket.com.

Study, Study, Study

It has been two weeks since my last post. In that time we have lost a beloved family member (my father-in-law) and my course from the Graduate School has arrived. I have been working hard to get through it. I'm working on lesson 3 already. The first came back from my instructor with a decent grade and my second has already been sent to her. Luckily, I seem to know most of it after all, but there are details that I am absorbing.

I'm reading and editing four manuscripts for fellow writers at no cost. I hope to help them and add the experience to my repertoire. I have been told it is tough out there for freelance editors right now... but what else is new? I am hoping fervently that I will succeed anyway.

I am enjoying editing very much. :) I'm enjoying refreshing my memory on all the rules of grammar. How many people have you heard say that? I'll be ready to start accepting clients in a couple of months. Anyone out there writing a book? How about a website?

FTC Rules for Blogs

I recently read of a new rule set by the FTC for bloggers. If you write reviews or any copy about products, books or services, you have to reveal if you got something in return. Did you get paid? Did you get a review copy? Did you get a kickback when someone bought the product through an affiliate program linked to your site (like Amazon, for instance)?

I haven't been paid for writing reviews, but I have gotten some review copies of books. I also have a website with affiliate links to Amazon. I have to be sure and put a disclaimer on my sites that explain how I was compensated.

If you visit this link http://michaelhyatt.com/2010/01/five-ways-to-comply-with-the-new-ftc-guidelines-for-bloggers.html you can learn more about the ruling. Michael Hyatt also offers free usage of the disclaimer blurbs he has written. 

"Dear Lucky Agent" Contest: Memoir and Narrative Nonfiction

I seriously thought about entering this contest, but my manuscript isn't finished yet. :P I hope they'll run another one sometime when it is.

If you have a finished manuscript for memoir or narrative nonfiction, why not submit the first 200 words? You may land yourself a literary agent! Follow the rules carefully or you will ruin your chances of making the cut. There is still one more day to enter! Click on the title of this post to find out more.

Need Editing? Free Manuscript Editing for a Limited Time!

While I keep writing, I need a steady paycheck. I have decided to pursue editing to provide that paycheck. All wanna-be editors probably have a similar story to mine: I grew up correcting the handouts my teachers gave me. I even handed the corrected versions back to them. When I graduated from high school, I got my creative writing teacher a spelling dictionary since I wouldn't be there to edit for him.

What little information I can find on becoming an editor says this isn't enough. They suggest I need to start working for a publisher and learn all about the publishing business. Well, there has to be more ways to become an editor than that. There are no criteria or standards to follow like if I wanted to become a doctor or a lawyer. I don't need a degree. I can refresh my memory on all the rules of grammar and proofreading by taking a simple course.

I have a zero chance of getting a job in publishing at this point in my life. I'm 46. I have a slew of children, the youngest of which is almost 3. It's hard enough to start over yet again without having to compete with 24 year olds for low paying jobs.

So, I'm paving my own way. I will take the course from The Graduate School (part of the Dept. of Agriculture) on editing. I will offer my services for free at first to gather manuscripts for my resume. I'm already doing that. I will focus on working with authors who want to self-publish at first or even exclusively if I have to. I can do this. I will do this. My family needs me and I will rise to the challenge.

If anyone reads this who is a writer that needs some editing, respond in the comments. I am still doing free editing for the next few authors. This can save you hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have me look at your manuscript for free. This is a limited time offer. I'll help you with your manuscript if you help me add to my resume and give me a quote I can use for my website. Do we have a deal?

Procrastination

Procrastination. It sounds like a positive word, doesn't it? I mean, it starts with the prefix "pro-"... that usually means something positive. Alas, all it does is make me crazy. My work piles up. Pages are not written. I mentally beat myself up because I folded the laundry or took a brief stroll outdoors to mingle with the chickens instead of pounding away on my worn out keyboard.

That reminds me... do other writers have the problem of the letters wearing off of their keyboard? So far I'm missing the E, the D, the C, the N and the M and several more are threatening to be unrecognizable.

See? There I go again. Procrastinating. That's why I'm writing this blog post instead of working on my book. I was a good girl and wrote all day for work, though. I have been reading with interest some of the query letters, first pages and even first chapters from other writers at Agent Query. My mind catches all the little typos, grammatical gaffs and other boo boos. I've always enjoyed editing... I wonder what it takes to be an editor? It may be fun to be a book doctor... I could see myself helping others to perfect their masterpieces before they send them on to their agents or publishers...

Hmmm. This will take further investigation. Heck, I used to correct the handouts my English teacher gave me in high school and hand them back to him for correction. LOL When I graduated, I got him a spelling dictionary since I wouldn't be around to fix his errors. Maybe I'm really just an editor waiting to spread my wings and fly.

Or maybe I'm still procrastinating. Still, this is an intriguing thought...