Clare and Chrissy Try to Lose that Little Red Pen

Hello everyone! Welcome to The Clare and Chrissy Show – April Edition. Clare is busy avoiding all the tourists as London is in the throes of Royal Wedding Fever, and Chrissy is just trying to figure out what the weather will be from one day to the next here in the States.

Chrissy: Our meteorologist is starting to resemble a demented Mr. Myagi during his broadcast - Coats on! Coats Off! It's enough to give a gal whiplash as one day we are greeted with a record setting eighty-four degrees, and the next we are scraping snow off the car windows.

Clare: And in anticipation of the summer to come we've been busy updating our reading wishlists. Facing multiple visits to the U.S. this year I have tough decisions as to which books to load onto my eReader to keep me amused as I zip through multiple time zones.

Chrissy: *rolls eyes*

Clare: What? I don't sound like a Glamorous Jetsetter???

Chrissy: *clears throat* Anyway, let's return to those difficult reading decisions! There has to be the right balance between reading for pleasure and simple enjoyment, tackling something with more weight to keep the neurons firing, and tucking in the old favorite for a good, comfort read.

Clare: Those are three future C&C topics right there LOL. But even when we're relaxing happily with our latest purchase, we're brought up sharply by another issue.

Chrissy: You dropped your eReader in the bath?

Clare: *Per-lease*. What I mean is the interesting question of "How Authors Read". After working hard to develop our own writing skill, is it possible for us to turn off our inner-editors and simply read for pleasure without...

Chrissy: Dare we say it ...

Clare: ... that little red pen in hand to circle any errors we might find?

Chrissy: I'm kind of a green or purple ink gal myself. Just saying.

Clare: That doesn't surprise me, Ms. Confetti Munder. Thanks for sharing. But, back to my question. What happens when you can't turn that switch to "off"? A good inner-editor is invaluable for an author. We spend years grooming and cultivating this critical eye.

Chrissy: Then we spend our days in a hectic whirl of self-edits, edits from the peanut gallery, and edits from the publisher.

Clare: Sometimes I wake up terrified in the middle of the night; chest heaving, sweat rolling down the middle of my back, but not sure why, except that I remember a Giant Red Pen chasing me and my Adverb-itis down a deserted city street.

Chrissy: *cough* Hot Flash *cough*

Clare: Pffffffft.

Chrissy: Just look at the number of books and classes available online and at your favorite bookstore. It's not enough that we write…

Clare: ... we have to know how to dissect our writing as well.

Chrissy: So does this mean that in addition to the statue of your Muse on your writing desk, you also have a physical representation of your Inner-Editor as well?

Clare: Not enough room, Chrissy. Not enough room. But, seriously, I do find it different nowadays, reading strictly for pleasure. I crack the first chapter, excited to dive into a new world and lose myself in the story, and then, when I least expect it, I sit back and say: "That shouldn't be there".

Chrissy: Do you actually reach for your little red pen?

Clare: *squirms* Before my eReader? Sometimes.

Chrissy: Being a used book buyer it's always interesting to pick up a copy of a work and find the reader before me has gone through and marked out items they had issue with. I always wondered if this was done as an exercise in critical reading, or could they simply not help themselves?

Clare: Sadly, as one who has always happily given in to most of her instinctive urges, I suspect the latter.
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Chrissy: Skimming past Clare's TMI, why is it easier to spot a classic example of passive voice in every story but the one currently in progress on my computer? Is it the fresh eyes concept?

Clare: LOL. Probably. And those excess dialogue tags, she said.

Chrissy: Too much repetition. I said, too much rep -

Clare: Gotcha dear. And inconsistency of character, and effect before cause, and messy lists, and unnecessary exclamation points, and OMG the m/m minefield: perplexing pronouns. And did I mention the lists?

Chrissy: You did. I said, you d-

Clare: Anyway. And does anyone else ever put a book down at the end (or turn off the ereader) and cry "But whatever happened to the knife / letter / distant cousin in chapter 3 who went to school and never came back???" When my inner-editor wants to go beyond any nit-picky grammar or tense issues, and rewrite entire plot points?

Chrissy: *pets* The burdens you have to bear. To say nothing of the excess ???.

Clare: This is blogging. Different set of parameters entirely :P. Let's just make one thing clear - these are things I'm guilty of just as much. However much I learn about "how to" write, my Muse continues to strew examples of "How NOT to" whenever faced with a blank page. I've made all the mistakes, friends, and will probably continue to do so.

Chrissy: Hell yeah! If I could remember all the things I'm meant to consider in "good" writing from first draft onward ...

Clare: Your head would explode?!

Chrissy: I thought you weren't going to watch that movie? I just think it can paralyze the creative flow. It's important to give the Muse his head, and hope that we have enough common sense and skill to create a Good Read. Meanwhile, we battle on trying to absorb good style through osmosis, and treasure good editors.

Clare: So we're not pointing the finger or criticising anyone's writing, not by any means. We're just wondering how much we've been seduced ...

Chrissy: ... subverted ...

Clare: ... as *innocent* readers.

Chrissy: Will we ever get that innocence back?

Clare: Do we even want to?

Clare and Chrissy: So what about you? Authors, can you switch off your inner-editor and enjoy the story as is? Readers, do you struggle with some books, itching with the desire to scrawl through a whole page with a red line and comment "Exposition, exposition, exposition!" or more bluntly "Get the hell on with it!".

Here's your chance. Share your thoughts and be entered in a random drawing with one lucky winner receiving some of our sparkly Clare and Chrissy Swag! Winner to be announced at our next, monthly post.

Chrissy: Hey, your next trip over, can you bring us some Crown Jewels Condoms for our swag bags? Although, I'm quite disappointed at their disclaimer at not being real condoms – what's the point then?

Clare: Be careful what you wish for, my dear ... *mwahaha*.

Note: - "zombiehand" pop art used above copyright samantha parker @ quirkyville

March Winner: carolecummings - Congratulations! Please email your address to Chrissy at chrissymunder@yahoo.com to receive your Swag.

And a special chicken soup HUG from Clare to Chrissy, because she really has been miserably ill recently, and has had to drag herself from her sick bed, just to chat with me today :).


Chrissy: Awwwhhhhh, thanks sweetie. The only advantage to this whole, long-distance thing - no risk of contamination.
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