Terry Odell's Blog, page 33
February 2, 2023
It’s Done! Sort of
I finished the changes to Deadly Relations based on my editor’s feedback. She likes to take a second look, so it’s back in her hands now. Is my work done? HA!
I’ll be sending ARCs to my Read & Review Team by Monday.
What needs to be done?
Listen to Word’s voices read it to me. (This is usually a several day process, as I can’t listen to the entire novel all at once if I have to concentrate on reading along and spotting/hearing glitches.)
Formatting it for the ebook. (Not re...
January 29, 2023
Peeking Out From My Editing Cave
Edits have been my priority these last few days, and will be for a few days more, so forgive my irregular appearances.
No car yet. Sales rep says Honda tells them between the 30th and the 4th. Amazon now says it’s going to be 2 or 3 more Business Days before they get around to fixing (?) their book page for Deadly Relations.
Am I counting on either date? Nope. It’ll happen when it happens.
I’ll share one tip I’ve come up with the hard way while doing edits.
I hav...
January 24, 2023
I’m Lucky That Way
As a follow up to last weeks’ post where I mentioned my car was stuck in the Quality Assurance (I think that’s what QA stands for) queue … I’m lucky that way. It’s still there. My sales rep has been hounding calling the daily, but all he gets is “You’ll get it when you get it” in response. Yes, I want the car to be perfect, but I want the car. Maybe next week. Anyone want to take a gander on that date?
On the writing front: My editor says she hope to be finished with her firs...
January 22, 2023
What About Other Languages?
When I talked about Word’s Editor function pointing out places where it “thought” I wasn’t being inclusive, a lot of the suggestions it made were gender-based. Words like manpower or man-sized or maiden name sent up red flags.
I thought about this as I was working my way through my Duolingo exercises. I’ve been studying German in anticipation of a December trip along the Danube. In German (as well as many other languages), nouns have genders. In German, they’re eith...
January 19, 2023
Artificial Intelligence and Writing
Image by Christian Plaza from PixabayGarry Rodgers posted an article about using ChatGPT developed by OpenAI to create blog content over at The Kill Zone yesterday, and although I’d never try to use AI to write a book, I thought his post (which was written by the AI program) was interested enough to see how it works. I asked the program to write a blog post in the style of Terry’s Place on the topic of launching a new novel.
This is what it offered:
Ah, the...
January 18, 2023
What To Do While You Wait For Edits
First, I still have openings on my Read and Review Team. See this post for more information.
My editor is still working on edits for Deadly Relations. So far, she says she’s liking it. (phew—but she’s not finished, and, as always, I dread getting a “whatever were you thinking” email.)
I’m waiting to see how close the weather forecasters come with their prediction of snow overnight. The sky right now hovers with the gray that says they might be right.
I’m still...
January 12, 2023
Read and Review Deadly Relations
Read and Review Deadly Relations
Now that Deadly Relations is with my editor, it’s time to line up my Read and Review Team.
What being a read and review team member entails:
You’ll get a download of an Advance Reader Copy of the book (which means it’s not the final, fully-edited version), probably before the end of the month. You’ll have about two to three weeks to read it and provide an honest review.
What else do you need to know?
Deadly Relations is a small-town police procedural/cozy blend....
January 10, 2023
What to Do Now?
Deadly Relations is in the hands of my editor. After sending the file on Monday, I took most of the rest of the day off. However, it’s going to be a couple of weeks before she’s finished, and I need to do something until I get her feedback.
What to do?
Work on front and back matter? Most of them, such as the copyright page, are simple “copy from the last book” files. Acknowledgments vary from book to book, so I need to go through my research folder and look at all the people who ...
January 8, 2023
How Inclusive Should Fiction Be?
Image by Gerd Altmann from PixabayLast time, I talked about using the Editor function in Word. One new to me check it provides is Inclusiveness. Of course, I checked it out, and it flagged several spots where it thought some people might find my word choices offensive. Not offensive in a profanity way, but rather reinforcing biases and stereotypes. What did the Editor point out?
“Be home soon.” Gordon put his SUV in gear—only a little white lie that he was alrea...
January 5, 2023
Do Editing Programs Help?
Do Editing Programs Help?I’ve been preparing the draft of Deadly Relations for my editor, and my goal, as always, is to give her the cleanest possible manuscript. I do the obvious, like run spellcheck, search for extra spaces, missing or spurious punctuation, etc.
I’ve mentioned using SmartEdit for finding repeated words, phrases, adverbs, and a dozen other checks. SmartEdit doesn’t check grammar, and I’d heard a lot of people swearing by Grammarly, so I tried that. Wasn’t impressed. Most of th...
