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Every Wednesday, Robert Lee Brewer shares a prompt and an example poem to get things started on the Poetic Asides blog. This week, write a spring poem.

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For today’s prompt, write a spring poem. We’ve got two days yet, but spring is just around the corner with flowers already blooming here in Georgia. Regardless of the weather in your neck of the woods, spend this week springing into poetry.

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Recreate Your Poetry!

Revision doesn’t have to be a chore—something that has to be done after the joy of the first draft. In fact, revision should be viewed as an enjoyable extension of the creation process—something that you want to experience after the joy of the first draft.

Learn the three rules of revision, seven revision filters, common excuses for avoiding revision (and how to overcome them), and more in this power-packed poetry revision tutorial.

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt at a Spring Poem:

“haiku”

the first bloom & bird
singing outside my window
rain in the forecast

The post Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 520 by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

For this week’s market spotlight, we look at the ABA Journal, the flagship magazine for members of the American Bar Association.

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ABA Journal: Market Spotlight

ABA Journal is the flagship magazine for members of the American Bar Association. With a circulation around 400,000, it’s considered the magazine for lawyers and the legal profession. As such, it’s a very competitive market with a reputation of paying competitive rates to freelancers.

The editors say, “The ABA is the largest voluntary professional association in the world. With more than 400,000 members, the ABA provides law school accreditation, continuing legal education, information about the law, programs to assist lawyers and judges in their work, and initiatives to improve the legal system for the public.”

What They’re Looking For

ABA Journal does not review unsolicited manuscripts. Rather, the editors want freelancers to query with their resumé and published clips. They expect articles to include multiple sources and opposing points of view.

The editors say, “The ABA Journal considers queries from professional writers or from potential sources who wish to contact us regarding subjects that might be of interest to our readers.”

Estimated length and payment are discussed upon assignment.

How to Submit

Potential writers should query managing editor Kevin Davis at releases@americanbar.org.

Click here to learn more and submit.

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In today’s competitive marketplace, it’s important to catch an editor’s attention. It all starts with a pitch. No matter what kind of article you want to write, a good pitch letter will get you noticed by an assigning editor. This intensive two-week course will teach you how to craft a good pitch letter and do it well. Be ready to mine your life for ideas. Start thinking about a great spin on a topic or an unusual personal experience that you’d like to write about in class!

Click to continue.

The post ABA Journal: Market Spotlight by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

“Are you any good at proofreading?”

I was a second grade teacher at the time and the man asking me was the grandfather of one of my students. He was also, as it turned out, a science fiction author with a huge fan following.

“Yes, actually, I am,” I replied. I was born for it.

The next week, Grampa showed up at school with a cardboard box containing a 300-something page manuscript, a pad of tiny sticky notes and a blue ballpoint pen.

I left the teaching profession in 2010 and started writing in 2011. I had been proofreading for Grampa since 2006. In 2018 I decided I wanted to make a real go at freelance proofreading. I had the spelling, grammar and punctuation skills, but after Grampa’s sticky-note system, I knew I needed practice doing it electronically.

I did some research and found Caitlin Pyle’s Proofread Anywhere. Through the course, I gained some new skills, picked up resources I needed and became a thousand times more confident that I could actually do this. 

Two years later I’m working steadily at a pace perfect for me. I’ve found my niche market, regularly bring on new clients and I’m watching my income increase steadily. (And yes, I still proofread for Grampa, but now he’s a paying client.)

How to find proofreading jobs

Looking for online proofreading jobs?

Before we tell you where to find proofreading jobs, there are some steps you can take to ensure you’re set up for success.

Get training

Look. I get it. For years, I was a school spelling bee champ. I cringe when I see apostrophes used for a plural. I’m that person people hate in online comment sections because I refuse to take a post seriously when there are a ton of spelling mistakes. 

But I also knew I needed some fine tuning (When to use a semicolon, anyone?). You may have been a champion at sentence diagramming, but there are way too many grammar rules. No one can know them all. 

A course like Proofread Anywhere can give you the practice, skills and resources you need to be a top-quality proofreader.

Build a portfolio

You can’t get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job. Gah! 

If you’re willing to do a little free work to build your proofreading portfolio, head over to Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg takes print books with expired copyrights and puts them into ebook form, and they need a lot of volunteers to help proofread them all. 

If you know someone who owns a website, ask if you can proofread it for them. It all adds up!

Know your worth

I cannot stress this enough! Twenty years ago Stacy Brice of AssistU said to me, “People will pay you whatever you think you are worth.” Truer words were never spoken. 

Does this mean you should start out at the highest end of the scale? No. But don’t sell yourself short, either. 

The EFA has a comprehensive rate chart for editors and proofreaders. It’s a great place to start. 

Decide what you want to be paid, and stick with it. It may mean taking a pass on projects from time to time, but you’ll have a fatter bank account in the long run.

7 places to look for proofreading jobs 

You’ve gone through training. You’ve set your rates. You’ve built your website. You’re ready. 

Where are the clients? When you start looking for proofreading jobs online, you will encounter a lot of companies that are services for writers. All of them require applying and setting up an account. 

Some are free, some take flat fees and some take a percentage of your sales. 

Below are seven online companies that help you help writers put their best work into the world. I have listed them in order of cost to you, which tends to be proportional to the experience required and the fees you’ll collect from your clients. 

1. Fiverr 

If you’re brand new to proofreading and looking to build your portfolio, Fiverr is a great place to get started.

Fiverr is an online freelance platform that connects talented professionals with writers in need of editing and/or proofreading.

You create a free account, where you become a “seller” and create “gigs” for yourself. It’s a hip way of saying you create a profile for yourself and get added to their directory, where clients can seek you out. You will compete against other proofreaders for work. The more projects you complete with high satisfaction ratings, the more projects you’ll snag.

You may not get paid the big bucks here, and you may have to navigate authentic jobs vs. shady job, but most places for finding proofreading work either have a big fee or have lots of hoops to jump through and require a lot of experience.

Fiverr is free to join and can be a really good way to get your feet wet and start building a portfolio.  They will also act as a go-between and ensure you get paid. You will set your own rate, but Fiverr keeps 20 percent of what you bill.

Experience level: Ideal for those just starting out

Cost to join: Free

The company’s take: 20%

2. Upwork

Another good option for beginners is Upwork.

As with Fiverr, it is an online freelance platform where you will compete against other proofreaders for work. You set your own rate, and Upwork acts as a buffer between you and your client to make sure you are paid.

On Upwork, you are invited to bid on jobs, and they have a slightly more complex billing system than Fiverr.

Upwork keeps 20 percent for the first $500 you bill a specific client, 10 percent if you earn between $500.01 and $10,000 with that client, and 5 percent if the amount exceeds $10,000.

Note that this does not include all of your billings, rather it is for amounts paid to an individual client. The better your ratings, the more projects you’ll be able to bid on.

Again here, you may not make the big bucks, but a lot of people who go through the Proofread Anywhere course use Upwork and Fiverr to start building a portfolio and earn money. Eventually you may find you’ve got a nicely padded bank account. A fellow graduate recently announced she’d hit the $10k mark!

Another advantage to Upwork is the how-to videos that help you learn how to search for the right work, how to bid, how to write contracts, and more. What you learn there translates to the rest of the freelancer world, so why not take advantage?

Experience level: Ideal for those just starting out

Cost to join: Free

The company’s take: Upwork keeps 20 percent for the first $500 you bill a specific client, 10 percent if you earn between $500.01 and $10,000 with that client, and 5 percent if the amount exceeds $10,000

3. Scribendi

Scribendi considers all freelance editors to be independent contractors. If you meet their requirements, you’ll need to fill out a rigorous application, which includes employment history, references and a skills test.

You will pick and choose which projects you want to take on. Scribendi covers a broad range of writing projects, including manuscripts, ESL, academic, business, student,and personal (think resumés and personal documents). Reviewers say they average $15 to $20 per hour.

Experience level: Ideal for proofreaders with a minimum of three years experience

Cost to join: Free

Company’s take: None

4. Reedsy

If you love proofreading full-length manuscripts and have a minimum of 10 published books under your belt as a proofreader, Reedsy might be the place for you.

To sign up, you complete a profile that looks like a cross between an application and a resumé. You will then be required to upload Amazon links to all of the books you’ve worked on. Once your profile is complete, a Reedsy administrator will look over your information and determine whether or not they’ll be able to use you for now. It is a rigorous process, and there is no guarantee you’ll get in. But if you do, it could be well worth it.

Reedsy, like Fiverr and Upwork, takes a percentage of what you bill, but it takes no more than 10 percent. Also, Reedsy limits the number of freelancers from whom a client is allowed to request a bid to five. You won’t be competing with a hundred other freelancers for the same project.

Experience level: Minimum of 10 published books

Cost to join: None

Company’s take: None

5. ProofreadingPal

Are you in graduate school? Do you have a graduate degree and at least five years of proofreading experience?

ProofreadingPal offers proofreading for a wide variety of writing, including business, academic, and books and manuscripts.

Apply to work for ProofreadingPal via the online application the way you would for any other job. Like Reedsy, it is somewhat rigorous, but doesn’t require you to have a minimum of published titles under your belt.

Should ProofreadingPal invite you to continue the application process, you will take a timed test. Do well, and you’re in. You will be an independent contractor, which means they take no fees from you. According to their website, you have the potential to earn between $500 and $3,000 per month. 

Experience level: Minimum of five years of experience with graduate degree

Cost to join: None

Company’s take: None

6. The Editorial Freelancers Association

The Editorial Freelancers Association (EFA) is a membership-driven site requiring annual dues. The dues are a bit steep, but can be worth the investment.

Where other freelance companies either add you to a directory or let you bid on job postings, EFA does both.

When you set up your profile you will be able to choose a number of keywords that will help you show up in a potential client’s search. Clients are also able to browse the directory. There is a members-only area where you can look through job postings, and you can opt to receive daily job postings via email.

You can set your own rates, as the EFA recognizes you as an independent business. Aside from helping freelancers and writers connect, the EFA also offers online classes, many of which are free to EFA members.

(P.S. This is my favorite place for finding proofreading jobs.)

Experience level: Ranges from just starting out to highly experienced

Cost to join: $145 for one year or $260 for two years

Company’s take: None

7. The Internet + networking

I know. It seems broad and oversimplified at the same time. But networking can get you so far!

Join a group for proofreaders on LinkedIn or follow some proofreading related hashtags on Twitter. Join in discussions. Quote the Chicago Manual of Style. Link to Merriam-Webster. Sometimes a proofreader will have a client or potential client who needs work outside the scope of what the proofreader does or has time to do.

If you’ve contributed quality information in discussions about proofreading, you’ll find another proofreader will trust her client with you. My name was mentioned in an article about writing stages and I received a flood of inquiries, most of which led to proofreading jobs, and several of those jobs led to referrals to new clients. 

Is there a blog you love, but it’s filled with mistakes? Reach out and ask if they’d be interested in having your proofread before they post. A quick, high quality job could lead to more work with them. They may refer you to other bloggers to proofread for their sites, as well.

Seriously. Do a good job for the right client and they will tell everybody they know.

No application, no fees, just you, your professionalism, and your knowledge.

This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!

Photo via Pixsooz / Shutterstock 

The post Get Paid to Hunt for Spelling and Grammar Errors: 7 Places to Find Proofreading Jobs appeared first on The Write Life.

In a writing conference I once attended with novelist Ron Carlson, he said, “You wouldn’t not show up for a coffee date with a friend, so why don’t you show up for yourself?”

Despite our best intentions, we often let our distractions prevent us from showing up to the page.

An accountability group can provide the structure you need to stay on track. Why? Because we’re simply more likely to achieve our goals if we write them down, share them with a group and check in over time.

Plus, having the support of others is a solid strategy for combatting self-sabotage and resistance.

Creating a Successful Accountability Group

So how do you get started?

Here’s what you need to consider when creating your own writing accountability group.

1. Define your accountability group’s purpose

Imagine your ideal writing group. Are they reading your work and offering you specific feedback?

Or do you imagine the shared camaraderie of discussing the writing process? Or maybe you just want writing friends to hold you accountable to your self-imposed deadlines?

Imagining your perfect writing group will help you think about the types of people you want to include.

2. Find people who are the right fit

Will you meet online in or in real life? If you’re simply seeking accountability, the group doesn’t need to be made up of writers. In fact, sometimes the best beta readers and critiquers aren’t writers.

When creating an accountability group, it’s often best to work with individuals with whom you have weak ties. These people are vested in you enough to help you succeed but aren’t so involved in your life that they aren’t objective about your situation. In other words, it isn’t easy to be accountable with your mother or best friend. A coworker, neighbor, or acquaintance is likely to work better.

To find these people, post a flyer at your local writing center, browse online writing groups, approach writing conference attendees, connect via social media, or consider a NaNoWriMo challenge.

3. Determine how and when the group will meet

The more vested you are in the group’s or your accountability partner’s success, the more likely you will meet your own goals. In other words, success fosters success.

Having an opportunity to see the individuals, either in person or online, allows that relationship to grow more quickly. Use Skype or a Google Hangout if you can’t meet in person. It’s easier to skip out posting each week to an online forum, but once you’ve connected with people via video you are less likely to no-show for a group meeting.

Create a schedule for the meetings. An hour a week is usually plenty of time to share goals and discuss challenges. You may need a two-hour meeting if you’re critiquing each others’ writing. Holding meetings at the same time each week or month helps foster a routine.

4. Choose your group size

If you plan to review each other’s work, the ideal group size is between 3-5 people.

This will give you several different sources of feedback while remaining small enough that everyone has time to share regularly.

If you just want someone to hold you accountable to your writing practice, however, having one committed accountability partner may be enough.

5. Commit to a length of time to work together

Choose a time commitment for your group. Maybe everyone wants to try it for three months or six months.

Once you’ve worked together for a few months, committing for a year might feel comfortable.

6. Create SMART goals

Follow the SMART goal format. If you’re in the midst of your “shitty first draft,” you might set a word count goal for the week.

If you’re rewriting, working for a specified amount of time each day or for the week will allow more flexibility.

7. Determine how much work you’ll share

Having a predetermined sharing schedule will create a structure for critiquing others’ work and submitting your own. For example, one writing group I participated in had members share 20-40 pages of work every two months. The pages were submitted two weeks prior to our monthly critique sessions.

Often sharing a larger section of work once a month or once every several months will give your reader an opportunity to get more of the flow of the story. We had each group member share overall feedback plus mark the text with specific feedback.

8. Ask for what you need

The more momentum the group creates, the more this will spill over to each individual. Help each other!

If you need a midweek check-in to keep you focused, ask for it. Do you need help with dialogue or characterization? Would you like help line-editing? What are you worried about? How can the group help?

Be specific about what you need, and you’re more likely to receive it.

9. Celebrate your successes

Having an accountability group will help you get unstuck and move forward. Take time to reflect on the group’s accomplishments. This will foster continued momentum and help you see how much the accountability group has helped propel you forward.

Writing is a solitary practice, but you don’t need to do it all by yourself. An accountability group will provide the support, motivation and structure needed to have you meet your writing goals week after week.

Have you worked with an accountability group? How has it helped your writing?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock 

The post 9 Keys to Creating an Effective Writing Accountability Group appeared first on The Write Life.

Poetic Form Fridays are made to share various poetic forms. This week, we look at the gwawdodyn hir, a Welsh six-line stanza or poem.

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Gwawdodyn Hir Poems

The gwawdodyn hir is a six-line Welsh poetic form that may sound familiar to regular readers, because we just covered the gwawdodyn byr last week.

(List of poetic forms.)

Here are the basic guidelines:

• Sestet (or six-line stanza) form
• Nine syllables in the first four lines
• Ten syllables in the final two lines
• Lines one, two, three, four, and six end rhyme
• The end of line five rhymes with a syllable in line six

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Build an Audience for Your Poetry!

While your focus as a poet will always be on refining your craft, why not cultivate a following along the way? With the multitude of social networking opportunities available today, it’s never been easier to connect with other poetry enthusiasts. Within minutes, you can set up a blog and share your poems and insights with like-minded readers.

Discover how to expand your readership and apply it to your poetry sharing goals today!

Click to continue.

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Here’s my attempt:

Languish, by Robert Lee Brewer

Move the blood around your beating heart
and provide our love a chance to start
as if you’re the horse and I’m the cart
or lost explorer without a chart
to know the universe or words to say
through these silent days when we’re both apart.

The post Gwawdodyn Hir: Poetic Forms by Robert Lee Brewer appeared first on Writer's Digest.

Writers’ victories are short-lived indeed.

For a brief moment after completing a first draft, writers sit back, breathe a sigh of relief, post a self-congratulatory humblebrag about finishing our manuscript, and then immediately think about that one character whose arc we forgot to complete, or that we’re pretty sure we overused the word “that,” or that those squiggly red lines scattered throughout our manuscript are surely incorrect.

In other words, the joys of #amwriting give way to the trials of #amediting.

As a strong (and biased) believer that every author needs an editor, your first line of literary defense shouldn’t be a professional editor. Rather, you need to learn how to edit —and really, how to self-edit — before sending your manuscript off to be edited by someone else.

Book editing at its best

As a full-time editor, I witness dozens of simple mistakes authors constantly make. If only they’d take the time to learn and incorporate better self-editing techniques, they would become better writers, endear themselves to their editors, and maybe even save money on a professional edit.

Furthermore, beta readers and early reviewers will be grateful for the creation of a readable early draft.

If you’re ready to self-edit your book, consider these 10 tips for book editing.

1. Rest your manuscript

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” — Henry David Thoreau

When you’ve finished typing the last word of your masterpiece, set it aside for a few days. If you can stand it, set it aside for a week or more. In On Writing, Stephen King relates that he places his finished drafts in a drawer for at least six weeks before looking at them again.

Why rest your draft for so long? You want to try to forget everything you’ve written so that when you do come back to self-edit, the book almost seems as if someone else wrote it. You want fresh eyes, and the best way to do that is to rid your mind of what’s been filling it for so long.

2. Listen to your manuscript

“So the writer who breeds more words than he needs, is making a chore for the reader who reads.” — Dr. Seuss

Hearing your words spoken makes mistakes glaringly obvious. You can enlist a (patient) friend to read it to you, or you can go the friendship-saving route, which has the benefit of being free: use your computer’s built-in speech synthesis function.

If you’re a Mac user, click the Apple logo at the top left of your screen, select System Preferences, click Accessibility, then click Speech. Choose a System Voice and Speaking Rate you can tolerate, then select “Speak selected text when the key is pressed.” If you want to change the keyboard combination, click “Change Key” and follow the directions. I prefer Option+Esc.

Once you’ve enabled your preferred shortcut key, simply highlight any text (within any program) that you want to hear read aloud. Then hit your shortcut keys and follow your words on-screen as your computer reads them aloud.

For PC users, make use of Narrator, part of the system’s Ease of Access Center. Press “Windows+U” and click “Start Narrator.” Since the program is intended for blind users, it will automatically begin to read any text your mouse encounters. To turn this off, hit “Control.” To have Narrator read a paragraph, place your cursor at its beginning and type “Caps Lock + I.” To have Narrator read an entire page, press “Caps Lock + U.”

3. Search for troubling words

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” — Mark Twain

All writers have specific words and phrases that (which?) always cause them to (too?) second-guess whether (weather?) they’re (their?) using them correctly. If you know what your (you’re?) troubling words are, use your word processor’s search function to locate every possible variant of that word or phrase.

To help you consider what your troubling words might be, here’s a good starting list, excerpted from the first chapter of Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing:

• a lot/alot
• affect/effect
• can/may
• further/farther
• good/well
• i.e./e.g.
• into/in to
• it’s/its
• lay/lie
• less/fewer
• that/who
• their/they’re/there
• then/than
• who/whom
• your/you’re

If you’re unsure of how to properly use these words, there’s no shame in looking them up. Grammar Girl likely has the answer, or check The Write Life’s post on how to edit for invaluable tips.

4. Remove or replace your crutch words

“I can’t write five words but that I change seven.” – Dorothy Parker

Do you know the top 10 words you use most frequently in your manuscript?

Outside of necessary articles and prepositions, you may be surprised at what words you tend to use over and over. One client of mine used “suddenly” too often, making every action seem unnecessarily rushed. Personally, my crutch words tend to fly in the face of the age-old encouragement for all writers to “eschew obfuscation.”

In other words, I tend to cash in ten-dollar words when five-cent words suffice.

Scrivener makes it simple to discover your crutch words and is available for Mac, iOS, and Windows users. In Scrivener’s top menu, go to “Project > Text Statistics,” then click on the arrow next to “Word frequency.” If necessary, click the “Frequency” header twice to sort your words by frequency. You’ll then be presented with what could be a jarring list of the words you might be overusing. (To include your entire manuscript in the frequency count, be sure to have your entire manuscript selected in Scrivener’s Binder.)

For Microsoft Word users, there’s a free Word Usage and Frequency add-in, but other, less technical online solutions may also help, like TextFixer.com’s Online Word Counter or WriteWords’ Word Frequency Counter.

No matter how you determine your crutch words, go back through your manuscript and see where you can remove or replace them.

5. Remove all double spaces at the end of sentences

“I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” — Elmore Leonard

If tapping two spaces following your sentences is an age-old habit ingrained into you since before the dawn of modern digital typography, may I suggest ingraining another practice?

Conduct a find-and-replace search after you’re done writing. In Word, type two spaces in “find” and one space in “replace” and hit enter.

Voila! You just time-traveled your manuscript into the 21st century. (If you’re interested in why you should only use one space, read Slate’s Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period.)

6. Search for problematic punctuation

“An exclamation point is like laughing at your own joke.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Are you a comma chameleon, adapting that otherwise innocent punctuation mark to do work it was never meant to do? Or does your manuscript need a semicolonoscopy — a thorough check-up on proper semicolon and colon placement?

If you know you have trouble with certain punctuation marks, conduct a search for that mark and figure out whether you’re using it correctly. If you’re still unsure, let your editor fix it, but make a note to ask him why.

7. Run spell check or use an automated editing program

“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.” — Markus Herz

Writers sometimes become too accustomed to the colorful squiggles under words and sentences on their digital pages; I know I do. In an effort to get ideas on the page, we might run rampant over grammar and usage.

Yet those squiggles mean something. At the very least, run spell check before sending your manuscript to an editor or beta reader. It’s a built-in editor that I’m not sure every writer uses to their advantage. You may not accept every recommendation, but at least you’ll save your editor some time correcting basic errors.

You might also consider trying out automated editing programs; The Write Life provides an overview of the best grammar checkers. I have yet to try them all, but I’m a fan of Grammarly.

8. Subscribe to The Chicago Manual of Style

“To write is human, to edit is divine.” — Stephen King

When an editor returns your manuscript, they may cite particular sections of The Chicago Manual of Style. If you’re unfamiliar with this Bible of the publishing industry, you may not be aware of precisely why the editor made a certain change.

By subscribing to CMOS (it’s only $39 a year), you’ll be able to look up issues on your own before sending your manuscript off to an editor or beta reader. Sure, you shouldn’t get too hung up on some of the issues (editors have their jobs for a reason), but learning more about the mechanics of writing can only help you become a better writer.

You can also buy the hardcopy version of The Chicago Manual of Style, but I recommend the online version for its ease of use.

9. Format accordingly

“The Real-World was a sprawling mess of a book in need of a good editor.” — Jasper Fforde

While preferred styles may differ from one editor to the next, you can show your professionalism by formatting your manuscript to conform to industry standards.

Such formatting makes it easier for beta readers to consume, and editors prefer industry-standard formatting, which allows them more time to edit your actual words instead of tweaking your formatting. Here are some basic formatting tips:

• Send your manuscript as a Word document (.doc or .docx).
• Use double-spaced line spacing. If you’ve already written your book with different line spacing, select all of your text in Word, click Format > Paragraph, then select “Double” in the drop down box under “Line spacing.”
• Use a single space following periods.
• Use black, 12-point, Times New Roman as the font.
• Don’t hit tab to indent paragraphs. In Word, select all of your text, then set indentation using Format > Paragraph. Under “Indentation” and by “Left,” type .5. Under “Special,” choose “First line” from the drop down menu. [Note: Nonfiction authors may opt for no indention, but if they do so they must use full paragraph breaks between every paragraph.]
• The first paragraph of any chapter, after a subheader, or following a bulleted or numbered list shouldn’t be indented.
• Use page breaks between chapters. In Word, place the cursor at the end of a chapter, then click “Insert > Break > Page Break” in Word’s menu.

10. Don’t over-edit

“It is perfectly okay to write garbage — as long as you edit brilliantly.” — C. J. Cherryh

Set aside an hour or two to go through this list with your manuscript, but be careful about over-editing. You may start seeing unnecessary trees within your forest of words, but you don’t want to raze to the ground what you’ve toiled so hard to grow.

A middle path exists between exhausting yourself in a vain attempt for perfection and being too lazy to run spell check. Do yourself and your book a favor and self-edit, but be careful not to go overboard.

If you’re creating a professional product, your self-edits shouldn’t be your last line of defense against grammatical errors. In other words, I don’t offer this post to write myself out of a job. Even in going through the self-editing steps above, you’ll still need an editor to ensure that your manuscript is as polished as possible.

Plus, going through the editing process with a professional editor will help you become a better self-editor the next time you write a book.

Do you self-edit? What tips and tricks work best for you?

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

Photo via GuadiLab / Shutterstock 

The post Self-Editing Basics: 10 Simple Ways to Edit Your Own Book appeared first on The Write Life.