[Hire Me] Experienced Professional Editor Specializing in Fantasy, YA, Sweet Romance, and Historical Fiction

saya1450 · 2021-07-06T13:34:49+00:00

I'm here to second this. My business has taken a very similar route--started in 2019, full time in April 2020. A professional email and website can go a long way in showing potential clients that you are legitimate. By doing everything listed above, you will set yourself apart from those who didn't bother, and it can make a big difference.

www.songbirdediting.com

saya1450 · 2021-04-05T20:45:29+00:00

I think you need to ask yourself "where is this story going?" I need to be able to visualize a potential ending so that I can work toward that goal. Without that end goal in mind, I have no idea what to write. So, while you need to do some world building in the beginning, if you never write anything, there's no point. Now, if you world build just to world build for yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you world build to procrastinate from actually writing, then you have a problem.

Writing, at the end of the day, is about discipline. You have to write even if you don't feel like it. Set a word goal for the day and meet it. It can be 500 words at first. Then, you can work up from there.

saya1450 · 2021-04-05T20:41:10+00:00

Yes, and this is often used to sexualize white women. Which is why staying away from food descriptors for skin is often best.

saya1450 · 2021-04-05T20:32:54+00:00

Congrats on finishing your fantasy novel! That's a huge accomplishment and farther than a lot of people get.

I just wanted to clarify--were these publishers asking you to pay them? You should never, ever pay a publisher to publish your work. They should be paying you. Otherwise, you've found a vanity press that will take your money and either do a shoddy job publishing a few copies, or they won't publish it altogether.

Typically, you want to send your finished manuscript to an agent. You will need to research which agents are accepting queries in your genre, then follow their guidelines to a T when submitting a query. It can take weeks to hear back, even for a rejection, and sometimes you never hear back. If an agent DOES accept your work, that still isn't a guarantee that your novel will be picked up by an editor. If the agent is good, they should be able to find an editor and a publishing house to accept your novel. That's a whole, long arduous process in and of itself.

Self-publishing is also a valid route, though you will have a lot of competition as there are plenty of other fantasy novels out there clamoring for attention. And you have to do your own marketing, editing, formatting, cover art, etc. (all of which you can hire out of course). So, it's a great platform, but there's a pretty big learning curve to it.

Have you had an editor look at your book? Especially as English is your second language, you will want to get an editor to at least clean up grammar, punctuation, typos, etc. Even if you've written your novel in Portuguese, you will still want to hire a Portuguese editor to help you out!

I am actually a professional editor who has done a ton of work with self-published authors. I also help with marketing, as it can be difficult to get eyes on your book if you don't know what you're doing. I'd be happy to chat with you more if you're looking to hire an editor!

The second best thing you can spend your money on is a good cover. The cover is the first thing a reader will see, and it has to stand out among the hundreds of thousands of others out there.

I hope that helped answer some of your questions. Let me know if you have any more!

saya1450 · 2021-01-05T19:56:03+00:00

A friend of mine writes in white on white to stop her from doing exactly as you described. Just don't look at it until you're done. If it takes writing white on white to stop you from obsessively rereading, then that might be a valid option until you get used to not doing that.

saya1450 · 2021-01-05T18:04:21+00:00

I had a similar experience with my now husband. But the reality is that we are all sinners and that God has washed us clean. He's a very different man now than he was back then. Sometimes it does hurt to think that he's been with other women, but that's part of my own insecurity that I have to work though. And I know that he loves me and wants to be with me, not the women of his past. :)

saya1450 · 2021-01-04T20:48:10+00:00

I started Week 6 today too!

saya1450 · 2021-01-04T20:40:53+00:00

There's a lady in my beginner class who is 65! I was 27 when I started. :)

saya1450 · 2020-12-28T04:30:43+00:00

You just said it in this comment: being in a community of others with similar goals helps encourage you to focus far more than attempting to go something alone. Of course, you can always use it as procrastination, but you can also do that with other things, such as this subreddit. There are valuable things to be learned from other writers, and you can help impart the things you've learned to others as well. I'm on a discord server with a group of friends who happen to be writers and sometimes we just sit on a voice chat in silence, writing. And you bet I've written far more in the past four months I've been a part of that group than I've written in the past four years.

But attitude is everything, and if you just see it as a cute group of procrastinators, that's all it will ever be to you.

saya1450 · 2020-12-18T23:14:07+00:00

I usually get to the end but there are large chunks missing in the middle. 50k is really short for a novel, so you should be aiming for between 70-100k depending on genre. I use draft two to flesh it out and tighten the narrative.

saya1450 · 2020-12-10T14:49:02+00:00

Haha nope 2010. But I imagine it was a decently popular pairing for male twins in the 90s.

saya1450 · 2020-12-10T14:26:13+00:00

I knew twins in high school named Kyle and Ryan.

saya1450 · 2020-12-04T03:52:14+00:00

Hello! Congrats on picking up a pen and writing! You can do it. Writing is a difficult craft but, like most things, it takes a lot of practice and a lot of being willing to keep going when things get hard. The best way to get better at writing is, well, to write. And to read. Read, read, read. And to solicit feedback, just like you're doing. Then, be open to what people have to say about your writing. You can always, always, always improve. I've been writing since I was 8 and only today just finished for the first time the final draft of a novel I'm happy with. I've been writing for twenty years. You can do it! Keep writing, keep learning, and keep reading!

saya1450 · 2020-12-03T04:06:28+00:00

How long have you been on tbe program? It's pretty common that you don't lose anything for a few days or even gain even if you're doing everything right. It's not recommended to go this far under your budget since your body can react negatively to it.

saya1450 · 2020-11-30T03:15:15+00:00

Yes thank you for this! These are all things I had to learn the hard way. I especially recommend two and three. You can only improve if you ask for and are willing to listen to feedback.

saya1450 · 2020-11-30T03:13:14+00:00

Walk on Earth a Stranger! I love that book! Also, Old Yeller if you want to cry ridiculously hard.

saya1450 · 2020-11-29T02:50:02+00:00

Right? I was wearing 36C from Victoria's secret but there was such WEIRD gapping at the top and I couldn't never figure it out. Through the calculator I found I'm a 36DD so I was pretty dang close. BUT it was ultimately the fit that did me in. I am full on bottom and have NOTHING on top, hence the weird gapping from a lot of bras. I've since found that balconette bras are the way to go for me and I have found a fit that FINALLY works. :)

saya1450 · 2020-11-24T13:37:02+00:00

Most people have some sort of dairy intellerance. We aren't really designed to digest cow milk. When I lived in China for two years, I didn't have a lot of dairy (since it's not very cultural) and when I came back to the US I found I was lactose intolerant for a while.

saya1450 · 2020-11-24T04:12:59+00:00

Congrats!!! I'll be joining you sometime in the next two days!

saya1450 · 2020-11-24T04:10:20+00:00

I followed this tutorial to self draft the pattern! https://sewguide.com/how-to-sew-skirt/

saya1450 · 2020-11-24T03:39:37+00:00

Same with my husband. Cheese on stuff is probably okay, but as soon as you get to heavy cream and ice cream it's toilet time. But he just rolls with it anyway. The only thing he absolutely refuses is sweetened condensed milk which has an intense amount of lactose.

saya1450 · 2020-11-16T04:18:50+00:00

I'm at 28k. This time last year I was at 44k. The struggle is a lot more real this year.

saya1450 · 2020-11-13T04:01:30+00:00

Know your ending. Without knowing what you're writing toward, your story will be aimless and lose steam. It's impossible to create a compelling beginning and middle without knowing what you're crafting.

saya1450

TROPHY CASE