Tag Archives: editing

The Candy Man

I’ve never been able to shake the memory of a man I met eleven years ago in an Atlanta hospital. “Met” is probably not the best verb to describe our encounter. Geez. It wasn’t even an encounter, but what do … Continue reading

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Well, Alrighty Then

I love teaching, I really do. I should be retired by now, and for the most part I am. I teach two online classes but don’t show up at 8:00 ready to “rock and roll.” Nor do have committee work, … Continue reading

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Hard Writing = Easy Reading

  Writers need to be a bit tough-skinned if they want to improve their poetry and prose.   It’s the only way I know to have a tight, well-developed story or article that’s smooth, correctly punctuated, interesting, and easy reading. Someone* … Continue reading

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Exclamation Points & Oxford Commas

Intrigued by a friend’s comments about her personal use of the exclamation point, I clicked the link she had posted a to a New York Times’ article about Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style. That title! … Continue reading

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Seeing Lives Change

Online classes began at midnight today at Horry-Georgetown Technical College, the community college where I began my teaching career in the mid-70’s, and the traditional classes started about thirty minutes ago. Thinking about the nervous excitement felt by the students, … Continue reading

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Personality, Passion, & Preparation

No doubt about it, the beginning of an enterprise is always more exciting than the middle. At the start, you don’t know the roadblocks and distractions lying in wait. You can’t predict the weariness and frustration that will set in, and you surely don’t expect fear to come creeping in the door. What if people think my work is sorry?

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Now and Then and Now Again

It’s crunch time for shaping up this year’s anthology. I’m not at the fingernail-biting stage yet. I know we’ll pull it together my mid-August at the absolute latest. We want our book to be top-notch even if it means tacking … Continue reading

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Keep That Dialogue Real

Do this. Don’t do that. When I first joined a local writing group, I heard those phrases more than I like to think about. Let’s be honest; I still hear those five little words at just about every critique meeting. … Continue reading

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Push the Button

As I sat at Kathryn Lovatt’s kitchen table Tuesday morning previewing what we thought was our absolute final upload of Serving Up Memory, I said,” I think I’m gonna cry.” Alarmed, she stopped what she was doing at the counter … Continue reading

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What Would Tolstoy Do?

I once read that Tolstoy was working on revisions of War and Peace when he died. The epic masterpiece that survived is recognized as one of the most important in world literature. It’s one of the longest too. I know … Continue reading

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