This morning my friend tagged me on a post featuring an article about sensitivity readers. Without reading the article, I replied, "Yes! I use sensitivity readers and editors all the time!" Then, I did a bad thing—I read the comments. Ugh. A few people equated this type of editing to censorship and others made some really insulting …
Continue reading Sensitivity editing is not censorship—it’s about respect.
I’ve not been writing as much as I’d like these days. It’s not that I don’t want to complete The Stealth Lovers, it’s just that work has been constant these past few months. Not that I’m complaining; I love how my day job involves editing manuscripts. There’s nothing like giving other authors joy when they see …
Continue reading My manuscript and I need to sneak away together!
I wrote a thing about a thing on author Louise Allan's Writers in the Attic! This is a topic that means a lot to me as a writer, and I'm so glad Louise let me share my thoughts on this forum, which also has other great authors! (Including my homie, Robin Elizabeth!) by Louise Allan |May 29, 2017 …
Continue reading When to Listen to and When to Ignore Writing Advice
Disclaimer: This is my personal story and should not be substituted for medical advice from a physician or trained professional. I have copious amounts of self-confidence, teetering on a get-a-room-with-yourself-already conceit. Not the slightest blush of humility or humiliation can be found on my cheeks as I talk about my mental illness. Now, my self-worth is …
Continue reading An Unusual Symbiosis: How My OCD and I Have Learned to Work Together
Boing, boing, boing! There goes my confidence as it bounces out the door. I assumed colossal bouts of insecurity would only happen during the writing of my first book and there was no need for me to repeat those feelings the second time round. Surely, I've learned so much from the previous experience, right? Wrong. And don't call me …
I normally don't like to toot my own horn, but I can totally own up to one of my talents---I can write really badly. WHOOT, HOORAY, GO ME! I've totally got bragging rights on this one. Why in all that is iced with frosting would I feel proud that I cannot write positively goodly? Well, quite …
The Noob Writes by Cait Gordon How awesome, oh, how awesome I write, except when I totally suck. When once my wit cut right to the bone, now it gurgles while drowning in muck. But no! And lo! This chapter’s not bad, in fact, it’s beyond all compare. But wait, oh great, I read it again, …
To date I have written the crappy first draft, got a slightly less crappy second draft beta-read, created an even better third draft after putting myself through editing boot camp, then read that draft out loud and came up with a decent fourth draft, and now I've just finished editing the fifth draft. I feel like I've been drafted.
So, as many of you who follow me already know, I'm in pitch-mode with my first novel, Life in the ’Cosm. I wrote until my Chromebook caught fire, turned a first draft into a beta-reader draft, got comments from readers, and then put myself in self-editing jail for several weeks. Afterwards, I started to send the manuscript …
The beta-readers were mild compared to Editor Cait. I found over 100 nit-picky things in my “fuzzy-socks reading” step of this process. After I made those changes, Editor Cait went into Dalek mode, and started exterminating words like they were timelords.
Cait Gordon—author and editor 