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Thanksgiving Blog Hop … day four!

Saturday, 10 November 2012  |  Posted by Brenda Drake

With the craziness of NaNoWriMo this month and other writing stuff I’ve got to do, I’m taking a small break. For the days leading up to Thanksgiving, I’m going to post small snippets or pictures of things that I’m thankful for. I’ll post some small editing advices of things I’ve learned over the years. I may even announce a very exciting event coming up. Who am I kidding? I WILL announce it by the end of this week!

What is it, you ask? Agented/Published authors or industry interns are teaming up with aspiring writers to read entire manuscripts and help shine up their teammate’s pitches to present to agents in January. So get your manuscripts ready. More details this week.

My fourth thankful thought…
 
I am so thankful for my critique partners. Erica, Shelley, and Shannon, even after critiquing LIBRARY JUMPERS several times, they worked tirelessly behind me during final edits before it went out on submission. They’ve also read all or parts of my middle grade, THE BRITANIKA JOURNALS along with my newest and dearest CPs, Marieke and Rebecca.
  

 
Erica M. Chapman 

Erica keeps me from adding everything and the kitchen sink into my work. We talk on the phone almost every day about plots. She knows my crazies and helps me work through them. We have an ongoing joke “get rid of the cats”. Yes, I had shape-shifting cats in there. Hey, I thought they were cool. But I realized, after much whining, that it was only me who thought that, and removed them. Plus, she doesn’t mind if I pass out on her in a hotel room.

 Shelley Watters
Shelley is the Queen of Steam, I am not. I don’t do the icky-love stuff that well, but because of her, I’m learning. My romance in my books (all but the middle grade) is getting hotter because of her. I still haven’t gone as far as she has with romance, but I hope to get there someday. Whenever I read her work, I’m pretty much blushing the entire time.
Shannon Duffy

Shannon is an amazing writer. Not only is beautiful on the outside, she is in the inside. She’s such a giving person, and I loved hanging out with her at the RT Booklovers Convention! She catches all the mistakes. She helped me find where my main character was being off putting to her love interest. Actually, my character was kind of mean to him. She helped me discover how to get the reader to fall in love with my characters by how they treated each other in various situations. 

 Marieke Nijkamp

Marieke is a seriously awesome critiquer. She knows her history. She helped to get THE BRITANIKA JOURNALS polished before submissions. She gave me great insight into the time period and places that Max and Annika journey to. I love reading Marieke’s work, she’s so wonderful at descriptions. She’s read tons of slush so she know what works and what doesn’t.

 
  Rebecca Weston

Rebecca was so kind as to read THE BRITANIKA JOURNALS for me. She’s an aMAZing copy editor and writer. She’s also co-authoring a YA Thriller with me. She knows her conspiracy theory stuff.  It‘s a dual point of view and I’m so excited for this one. We really work well together and our voices are different, but it really works for the story. 
I LOVE these ladies! All of them are talented and make my days brighter and less  cray-cray!

Editing tip: Get rid of the “purple prose”*.  Don’t overdress your sentences. Use a few words to evoke images in your readers’ minds not a string of descriptors that make your writing sound like a bunch of babble. 

*Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. (Wikipedia)

Won’t you join me on this journey of thanksgiving? Sign up on the linky below,  post pictures or thoughts of thanks from now until Thanksgiving, hop around during the month, and get to know each other. I look forward to visiting each and every one! Start posting today or join in whenever you like.

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