I’m a real person. Not a robot. Or a telemarketing company. I live and work in Australia. When you contact my business, I’m the one who replies. I email you. Or Skype you. Or phone you. We can even meet in person. When you work with me, you’re working with a genuine business in publishing […]
Book Review of The Empyrean Quest
21st February 2019 by Leave a Comment
Debut Queensland author Don Horsfall has done himself proud with his first novel. The Empyrean Quest is part story and part mystical personal development journey. The self-help aspect of the book, however, does not detract from the story. I recently read another self-help fiction book, Your Second Life Begins When You Realize You Only Have […]
Book Review – A Town Like Alice
14th February 2019 by Leave a Comment
Book Review – A Town Like Alice A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute, is a novel I have heard about since childhood yet until recently I had not read it. Having done so, I realise what I’ve missed. The story, narrated by her solicitor, Noel Strachan, follows Jean Paget, daughter of a Scotswoman and […]
How to Punctuate Dialogue
1st February 2019 by Leave a Comment
Is it a struggle for you knowing how to punctuate dialogue? How to punctuate dialogue correctly eludes a lot of writers. Yet once you know the rules, it is straightforward. Quotation marks, speech marks and quotes Quotation marks are also referred to as ‘speech marks’ or ‘quotes’. I’ll use the term ‘quotation marks’ here so […]
Is your Book Character-Driven or Plot-Driven?
25th January 2019 by Leave a Comment
First of all, what does character-driven and plot-driven mean?! Plot-driven In a plot-driven story, the action is the focus of the writing, not the character. The character tends to be static; there is little character development. Plot-driven stories are often genres like horror, action, science fiction. An example of a plot-driven story is Dan Brown’s […]
The Incorrigible Optimists Club
18th January 2019 by 2 Comments
A Book Review I had never heard of The Incorrigible Optimists Club or the Algerian-born writer Jean-Michel Guenassia. I came across it in the library when I was selecting books for my Christmas holiday reading. The original is written in French and I read the English translation by Euan Cameron. It is quite untrue that […]
A PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATION FOR EDITORS
8th January 2019 by Leave a Comment
Is there a Professional Qualification for Editors? In Australia since 2008, yes, there is a professional qualification for editors. The name of the qualification is ‘Accredited Editor’. What does it mean to be an Accredited Editor? Editors who have passed the accreditation exam and become certified may use the pronominal ‘AE’ – e.g. Gail Tagarro, […]
ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES and other words
3rd January 2019 by Leave a Comment
While Charles Darwin gave us the theory of evolution in his ground-breaking work On the Origin of Species, the subject of this blog is etymology: the origin of words and how their meanings have changed over time. This blog is not intended as an academic treatise on etymology. It does not give every single meaning […]
How Can I Publish My Book … what are my options
13th December 2018 by Leave a Comment
All that hard work… Whenever I’m approaching the end of a book edit, most of my clients begin asking me the question, ‘How can I publish my book?’ So … that precious manuscript of yours that took you months, maybe years, to write, has now been professionally edited, and you’re ready for the next step. […]
Evoke Reader Emotion with Compelling Characters
5th September 2018 by Leave a Comment
Thesaurus Today, I’ve just added another thesaurus to my reference book collection, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. By learning how to evoke reader emotion with compelling characters, I’m planning to improve my writing as well as help my clients with theirs. For most of my adult life, Roget’s International Thesaurus […]