Bettys Tips--Sept/Oct 2014
Dear Readers,
Once again my summer garden has been successful. Tomatoes, eggplant, sweet peppers, zucchini, parsley, and blueberries have, once again, given the best of themselves. I have filled my freezer with pasta sauce and homemade blueberry muffins, and soon the tomatoes will finally finish producing. Thank goodness. I’m so weary, but so content with another year's harvest.
Okay, enough about veggies. I’m back at my writing desk and giving more thought to my manuscript. Editing is a must. Personally, I hate it. But if you are going to write, you are going to edit. And edit, and edit.
In these days of Google, almost anything we want to know, whether it’s writing or editing, can be found. I’ve found thatEight Simple Tips for Editing Your Own Work has been very helpful for me. Yesterday I had to look for a new tip on becoming more effective for one part of my story and I used Editing Tips for Effective Writing. That website had many good things to offer.
I go to The Writing Center when I need different opinions and have found it very useful. I have hired two different professional editors from time to time, but first I find using www.themuse.com for honing, trimming, and morphing clumsy words into a clearer concise message. And then www.lifehacker.com is a consistent help as well.
As always for me I have two standbys that work. One is www.profkrg.com and the other is home.earthlink.net. Both give great tips on helping you have a cleaner copy. And my last fallback on how to be a better editor is www.wikihow.com.
I hope that you find yourself becoming more knowledgeable as you work harder toward your goal. One last goodie for my personal self is www.techrepublic.com. It’s a golden website for giving great tips, like putting distance between your writing and editing.
That’s it for now dear readers. Happy Editing!
Betty Wryte-Goode
Betty Wryte-Goode is a writer, mother, and wife who lives in the Lehigh Valley. Her passions include writing, reading, shopping, gardening, and exploring the internet. Betty is always looking for writing tips, so if you have any you would like to share, please send them to her through our Submissions/Contacts page.
Mixed Up
Words
of the
Month:
Born
vs.
Borne
Both of these words are the past tense or past participles of the verb "to bear," meaning to carry, support, endure, or give birth to (a child), but they are not interchangeable.
Born refers to something that is brought forth by or as if by birth as in: She was born in a hospital.
Borne refers to everything else that uses the past tense of "to bear," as in: She has borne many hardships on the road to success.
In addition, either word can be used as a part of a phrasal adjective as innatural-born citizen, orinsect-borne diseases,but the distinction between a birth and the act of carrying remains.
Putting it together:
When our first-born child graduated from college, I knew all our financial planning had finally borne fruit.