Monday 26 August 2019

On Having My Mind Boggled...

I went on the Bridge House Publishing editing course back in May and it was an eye-opening experience.

Bridge House carry out not one or two but three edits of work. Naturally this takes time. The course showed what each edit did. By the time all three edits are carried out, writer and publisher know they have a polished piece of work to be proud of but this was also enlightening from a writing viewpoint.

What all good writing has!  Pixabay image

The more you can do on your own work before submission, the greater your chances of having your work accepted. Seeing the different editing stages really brought that home. It was also awe inspiring to see the work behind each edit and understand why every stage is crucial.

As a flash fiction writer (From Light to Dark and Back Again, Chapeltown Books), I’ve learned to develop editing skills given I’m writing in a form where every word must punch its weight if it is to stay in the tale. But seeing how much good editing matters to a publisher was enlightening. It really can turn a promising story into a great one.

Good writing is re-writing. There is no such thing as the perfect first draft. Pixabay image




It was also mind boggling to discover the different ways stories are formatted, even though Bridge House do set out clear guidelines.

It was clear how much time can be saved from the editor’s viewpoint if the preferred formatting is followed. It is very much in our own interests as writers to follow these things then! So regardless of anything else, I took home a great deal to apply to my writing, particularly the thought what can I do to save my publisher and editor time?


We could all do with more time to write, to edit, to submit work etc. Pixabay image.

Now I’m going to be on the other side of the fence as well and looking forward to this immensely. I am glad to say I am one of Bridge House’s new editors and I look forward to working with them and with the author whose work I will be editing soon.

I learned not to be afraid of editing when I finally grasped the point that this was going to make the difference to whether I would be published or not. What writer does not want to get their work to as a good a standard as possible?

A good publisher will want to bring their writers’ work up to the best it can be.

A good editor then is the publisher’s and the writer’s best friend.

A good writer will recognise what an editor and publisher can do in helping to hone work to as high a standard a possible.

There is a challenge to us all there, I think!






Sunday 18 August 2019

A Few Words from a New Editor

I am delighted to be welcomed by Gill James as an editor for Chapeltown Books and Bridge House Publishing. After enjoying a course with Gill I have begun on my first edit for an author and look forward to working with them.

http://bridgehousepublishing.co.uk/ http://www.chapeltownpublishing.uk/ http://cafelit.co.uk/ http://trtpublishing.co.uk 
http://www.creativecafeproject.org/



In another role I am volunteer editor for Reverberations, the national handbell magazine, and I am just finishing the Autumn/Winter 2019 edition. Then I will be enjoying a holiday in Scotland as my best friend and I celebrate our 40th birthday year; a dream we are fulfilling since our school days!



So, with my work plan in my diary and future editing, writing, art, crafting and music in my life, let’s do this!




Wednesday 14 August 2019

Dianne Stadham’s Links

Click on image to view at Amazon


It has been a great privilege to work with Dianne on this book. Dianne already has stories in several of our anthologies. She has established a distinctive quirky style.

Links is in three parts:
  • Lucky Links, describing a chain of events starting with a crocodile
  • Dramatic Links, centring on village amateur dramatics and having a macabre twist
  • Literary Links, containing as Dianne herself says, ‘a mixture of biography with recipes for life, love and laughter’.

There are a lot of illustrations in this volume and also several examples of other sorts of text. It’s quite a challenge avoiding copyright issues and producing text that will format well in both the printed book and in Kindle but we managed it and have also got the book out for a reasonable price. Like many of our collections it retails at £9.00 for the paperback and £2.35 for the Kindle editions.   

Dianne adores black humour and challenges conventional genres and perspectives. Worth a look?