Tag: editing

One Writer’s Secret Weapon

Published on by Pearl S. Buck Writing Center2 Comments

By Bob McCrillis

I’m a terrible editor.

It’s an affliction that has cost me at least one potential agent. At a book signing for one of his clients, I started chatting with him about doing yet another complete rewrite of my novel. My elevator speech interested him and he encouraged me to bring a query package to a conference at one of the local colleges scheduled for a few months in the future.

Man, I knew I had this one locked. I had a great story, an inside track for an agent, and a couple of months to finish the rewrite. Imagine my humiliation when, after proudly handing him my query, he started through it then took out his pen and began circling things. Not editorial issues or voice possibilities, but obviously missing or duplicated words, “he” where I meant “the”, and even inconsistent spelling of a name between the first paragraph and the fourth on the same page! Continue reading “One Writer’s Secret Weapon” →

Brains, Butterflies, and Writers’ Retreats

Published on by Pearl S. Buck Writing Center1 Comment

By Anne K. Kaler

Anne Kaler Head ShotWhat do writers do when they are not writing?

Read? Do housework? Twiddle their thumbs? Get in trouble?

While all these solutions are possible, many writers enjoy a day to allow their creative muses out to play in the fresh country air with a like-minded group of writers. And what better place to let the muses frisk and scamper about than in an Upper Bucks County writer’s retreat. Continue reading “Brains, Butterflies, and Writers’ Retreats” →

Puzzles and Writing and the Human Mind

Published on by Pearl S. Buck Writing Center2 Comments

By Anne K. Kaler

Puzzle DoneIt is finished. The puzzle, that is. The writing is never finished.

The writing is truly never finished, never polished enough, never edited sufficiently because the story never fully ends in my mind. The characters and events continue to exist in my internal universe. I am never satisfied because I feel as if I have abandoned my created children on an alien planet without a working spaceship.

That’s why I do puzzles when I write. I need the constant encouragement that there is an end in sight — that there actually is a last puzzle piece to plunk into place, the only place in the material universe that it will fit.

So why do I persist in both endeavors? Continue reading “Puzzles and Writing and the Human Mind” →

April Guild session celebrates Journal

Published on by Pearl S. Buck Writing CenterLeave a comment

by Linda Donaldson, Editor

A merry dozen members gathered for the April 17th Writers Guild meeting, and celebrated the inaugural issue of the Pearl S. Buck Literary Journal, Spring 2016.

For those for whom life gets in the way, here is a brief summary of our meeting last Sunday at our Cultural Center.

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Next meeting is May 15, 2016 at 1:30 p.m.

We began with a discussion of the new blog post of the Literary Journal. Anne K. Kaler and I explained the concept of “following” the blog and encouraged all to become followers and share the blog on their Facebook page.

Anne discussed the term “developmental editing” and its application to one’s own work to help structure and Continue reading “April Guild session celebrates Journal” →