Editorial Notes = clarifying information, additional insight, annotations

Hiya Reader,

*Technicial difficulties beyond my control delayed the delivery of this edition by a few hours. Apologies.*

I'll be honest: I'm existentially exhausted by life right now. Can you relate?

My creative writing, always a process as slow as molasses down an iceberg, has reached a slowness of comic proportions.

Thankfully, I have my wonderful clients and lots of editing! When everything else in my world feels like chaos, I can always tinker like a tinkering thing. Maybe that's why I like rules so much? 🤔

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Example of the Week

Sometimes this is a good example—or a great one. Sometimes this is a bad example—or just a funny blooper. Sometimes a combination. You never know.

From a news item:

"Portions of the Aquatics Center are essentially complete."

Translation: nothing is finished.

Actionable Tip of the Week

A trick to add to your self-editing toolbox right now!

Once or twice a month, a prospective client will reach out to commission editing services, stating some version of "all I really need is a quick proofread." 🤯

There's a couple of problems here (and one is NOT that a quality proofread is the opposite of quick).

​Read the rest of the article here.

Reader Question of the Week

Nat wrote: In your description of your writing residency (sounds heavenly!) you mentioned that you used Scrivener. I've been considering this program, and I wondered what you find useful about it that I couldn't just do in Word.

Nat! I looked at Scrivener for quite a long time before deciding to bite the bullet, and while the software does have some wonky annoyances, the pluses far outweigh the minuses for me. You'll find lots of information online about the program with a quick Google search, so I recommend that you do your research and decide for yourself if the ~$60 usd is worth your investment. I'm not an affiliate, but even if I were, I wouldn't recommend Scrivener for every writer.

​Read my assessment here.

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Link of the Week

A fun list of proverbs from around the world, one for each wheel on a big rig. (That's 18, of course, or XVIII if you're a Heywood Banks fan.)

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I ❤️ Hearing from You!

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Thanks for reading!

~Helene, your writing sherpa

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P.S.

​Mark your calendars for May 28 at 3pm EST: I'm holding a LIVE Ask Me Anything for all your editing questions!

Go to the link to register for the session and type your question! The session will be recorded and sent to all registrants, so no worries if you can't make the call live (but I sure hope to see you).

Don't have a question but want to attend? Please sign up!

Nothing is for sale. This is a free event offered to subscribers. Have a friend who'd benefit? Send them the link to subscribe and then they can register.

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