editing – Alexa Preece

Busy, busy, busy…

The writing bug bit again and I’m busier than ever.

Currently working on plotting/planning four different stories to see which one grabs my full attention… They all seem to be vying for dominance at the moment so it’ll be interesting to see which is the victor.

I abandoned the story I was toying with because it wasn’t flowing right – it’s now reinvented itself into one of the above ideas so we’ll see if it works second time around.

I’ve also made a decision about the YA fantasy trilogy I’ve had written for the best part of a decade gathering dust on my laptop: I’m going to self-publish it!

As it’s different to everything I’m working on now, and was written so long ago, I’m doing a vigorous edit and rewrite/polish and then will release it a story at a time this year under a pen-name (GR Taylor for anyone interested.) I’ll list it on the website as and when it’s available, too.

And that’s where life has taken me since I last posted in mid-March! It’s a lot to do and there’s limited time to do it – in non-writing news, I’m starting a degree through my day job in June so not quite sure how everything’s going to fall into place but we’ll see what happens.

Happy writing!

General Writing, Writing: NaNoWriMo

And it’s done!

LWL book 4 is finished!

It was oddly easy to write 50000+ words over the course of NaNoWroMo but the last 24000 seemed to be a bit of a struggle. Nevertheless, they’re written, it’s done, and now it can sit on my laptop for a little while until I’m ready to come back and edit it.

Phew.

I’d hoped I’d finish this series by the end of the year but I didn’t actually think I was going to do it. And since I’ve got no one who understands what a personal achievement it is in my real life away from my computer, I thought I’d write a little post to commemorate the occasion.

I’m happy. I’m a bit proud of myself, to be honest. It’s been a tough year, there’ve been weeks where I’ve just not had the energy or the motivation to write, but somehow, over the course of the last 361 days, I’ve written just under 180,000 words. It’s just shy of the goal I set myself of aiming for 500 words a day so… Yeah. I’m pleased.

I hope all of my fellow writers reading this have had a good year for writing, and that everyone who stumbles across this has had a good year in general.

Here’s looking to 2018, and whatever new adventures it might bring.

General Writing

Editing tools

I haven’t written much today, I’ll admit that. But I have done some editing, which makes me grudgingly happy.

It’s one of those things I know has to be done but I kind of resent doing because I want to get on with getting to know new characters rather than revisiting and rehashing those I’ve already, in a way, said goodbye to.

I’ve recently discovered Grammarly, which was recommended to me by an author friend.

I’m not convinced by it enough to purchase it – yet – but I’ve registered an account and as such, been able to download an add-on app which I use in Word to check over what I’ve already written.

Some of the suggested changes I agree with and face palm having missed myself during a re-read.

Others I disagree with. (It seems to like suggesting ‘suck’ instead of ‘sulk’, and ‘bulkier’ instead of ‘sulkier’. Not sure my lead character would appreciate being told she looked bulkier…!)

It is a good way of being made to re-read sentences and paragraphs that somehow made sense when I first wrote them but in hindsight maybe don’t make as much sense as I thought. It’s also highlighted I have a love affair with commas going on. I tend to overuse them a little as many writers are prone to do. (The urge to add a comma to that sentence, for example, was high.)

So if you’re looking for something to help you with your editing, I’d recommend signing up for an account and downloading the app. If nothing else, it makes you think about the words you’re putting on the page.

In other news, I’ve bought a couple of new books for my Kindle… Not conducive to making progress with the writing but sometimes, you’ve just gotta give in to the urge and read… 🙂