Tag: proofreading

This is Harder Than I Thought it Would Be

Published on by rachelkeerieLeave a comment

Posting my first chapter is harder than I thought it would be. Writing it has been fantastic, getting into the story and having goddess-like control over the lives of my characters, that’s so fun. Hitting that publish button on my blog post and sending it out for reading, scrutinising, criticism and oh yes the comments on grammar and spelling mistakes that a first draft inevitably produces despite my reading and rereading. These things are giving me the first post jitters.

This calls for courage and fearlessness, trust in my readers, and a willingness to shrug off any negativity that is sent my way. I can do this, I can, I know it. This new book won’t be read if it sits in my laptop as a draft post or is printed out and placed in the drawer with my five other novels.

The world is going to get a chance to start to read my book this week. My readers will be able to give me feedback, tell me who they love, who they really don’t like, and what they hope will happen next. I don’t promise to follow directions, but you never know, I might even include a reader suggestion or two. I’ll definitely be asking readers to choose some things like place names. I hope you will have your say.

Writing

Published on by rachelkeerie2 Comments

When I wrote for other people, copywriting and ghostwriting, there was a need for privacy and it wouldn’t have been right to show the world that work which really didn’t belong to me. Now I’m writing for me, for fun, and I want to share my process with anyone who wants to watch and maybe even learn a bit about writing, the way I do it.

I have my own writing process, and I am looking forward to sharing it with you because I think you might like seeing my writing world. I know the story I want to tell, and my style falls somewhere in between writing to see how the first draft of the story fleshes out and compiling copious handwritten notes about the story as I plan to write it, characters, their names, traits and descriptions, places in the story, ideas about when and where a certain event between characters should take place and lots more. I’ll share photo’s of this journal as I write in it, to go with the writing I do. If there’s anything you can think of that you’d like to see, feel free to ask.

I’ll share the apps I use, the pens I use, the notebooks, as well as what time of day I feel the most productive, where I write and so much more. I’m completely open to suggestions and I’ll try almost anything to get my story written, so please don’t be a stranger.

Writing happens in three stages: writing, which is often called the first draft; editing, which is the second, third, fourth, fortieth draft; and proofreading which happens at the end of the process, to tidy up grammar and spelling. For now, I’ll be writing the first draft of my book and for your benefit I’ll be careful of spelling and grammar in a way I never have before in a first draft. I’ll make mistakes, and I know you will let me know, all I ask is that you be kind. Putting this process out there online is huge for me, and I’ll be waiting for those kind comments letting me know where I’ve messed up or where I’ve missed a predictive correction that went wrong.

I commit to posting one blog a week of first draft writing and one blog a week of writing information, answering questions, chatting about my process and how I feel it’s going, basically the writing life. In my very next post this week I will announce the name of my book and some initial information about the story. You can email me from here on my blog, and I hope to meet you on my Instagram at rachelgracewrites. Bye for now.

Rachel