Post #72 – Women’s Memoirs, Book Business – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler
I love Easter. The snow is gone, the grass is more green than brown and the buds are starting to pop. The daffodils are out, and the tulips will soon follow.
The landscape is conducive to the Easter Bunny finding my yard and leaving lovely eggs, lots of chocolate malt eggs and Peeps…plenty of Peeps. And in neon colors not seen in nature. Easter, even more than Memorial Day is the beginning of my favorite time of year. Spring is definitely here. No more backsliding into winter, and summer is just around the corner.
As I’m finding, however, Easter in Maine is not quite so springlike. One year we built snow bunnies on Easter…from fresh snow too. And this year the grass is still brown. I was glad, therefore, to escape to Connecticut for a long weekend where the grass IS green and Easter Sunday, despite some rain, was a balmy, shirt-sleeves day.
Alas, today I’m on the road, driving back to Maine, but I know that warmer weather is only a few weeks away. The drive will be pretty much an all-day event. With gas selling at $4.09 here, I won’t be speeding. But even though I’ll be driving today, I wanted to post a quick article for you. A couple of weeks ago, a Women’s Memoirs reader, Andrea McDougal, dropped me a line to tell me about a piece she wrote that compiled 25 different blogs for “editing geeks,” as she calls them.
This is an excellent resource for all things editing. And as memoir writers, we can all benefit. I know that as writers we sometimes feel we don’t need editors…that we don’t want someone else, someone with a different editorial eye messing with our words. But an editor is an important resource. A good editor can make our memoirs great. An editor serves as a set of extra-careful, super-critical eyes to catch the spelling mistakes and grammar errors we (as the authors) just can’t see.
So here are two things you can do with this post:
First, use Andrea’s piece as a resource: Word Nerds Rejoice: Top 25 Blogs for Editing Geeks. I suggest visiting some of her blogs for “word nerds.” There’s a lot of good material, and you may pick up a few tips that will make your writing all that much stronger.
Second, when you’ve finished your memoir and are getting ready to send it out to an agent or publisher, find yourself a professional editor first. Take advantage of that extra set of eyes. Or, if you’re not sure that you’ve found the absolute best possible way to tell your story, you might want to work with a conceptual editor who can help you organize your memoir to its best advantage. In either case, you’ll find some terrific women to work with through the Story Circle Network Editorial Service. Matilda and I helped Story Circle set this up so you can read about each of the editors and select the woman with whom you want to work.
As for me, I’m going to hit the road shortly. It’s going to be a little browner and about 10 degrees cooler in Downeast Maine. But as long as I don’t come home to snow, I’ll be okay.
editing resources
memoir writing
