• Proof of Life

    I haven’t retired. And I’m not yet dead. So to answer the question you may be asking after noticing it’s been a while since I last posted: yes, I’m still editing. So why haven’t I posted recently (or much at all these past few years?) I used to post frequently (check out the archive), partly because I had a lot to say, and partly because that’s how you stay relevant on this World Wide Web. But when you get to be my age (64 as of this writing), you tend to prioritize just about everything else above “carving out a space on the Internet.” Things like physical and mental health,…

  • That’s a Lot of Words

    I’ve been editing for more than thirty years. Not the same book, mind you. That would be insane. When I was organizing a shelf yesterday (as one does when procrastinating), I decided to line up some of the books I’ve worked on. The picture here shows what I found. I don’t have much space for books in my small apartment, and I only have a tiny percentage of the printed versions of books I’ve worked on, so this is just drop in the proverbial bucket. In the interest of full transparency, there is one book here I didn’t edit (Demon, by Tosca Lee), but since I worked on all of…

  • Eleven

    “I don’t want to grow up.” My granddaughter is excited about Christmas and eager to turn eleven, but this is what she’s thinking about right now. In the next hour, she will claim she is “very responsible,” despite piles of clothes on the floor in her room offering evidence to the contrary, then ask for a cellphone for Christmas. Or her birthday, which will come three days after Santa. “Santa’s not real,” she would tell you in a mostly-confident statement of fact. But she understands the role Santa plays in American culture. She also knows she can’t stop time. She is a reader. She knows lots of things. She starts…

  • Nothing New Under the Sun

    I used to be quite prolific in this space. I know that’s difficult to believe as you scroll down to find the most recent post is from February and the one before that is almost a year older and neither of them has a clever title like, “How to Write When You’ve Forgotten What Words Are,” or “How Can I Possibly Finish This Book When My Protagonist Is Smarter Than I Am?”, or “Six Places in Your House (Besides Under Your Desk) Where You Can Hide From Your Novel.” It’s not that I don’t have anything to say about the writing life. (I have plenty.) It’s just that I don’t…

  • Something New, Soon. Meanwhile…

    I’m working on developing a new service for all you writerly folks. My current editorial services are for novels that you’ve revised so many times words suddenly have no meaning and all those little letters on the page might as well be cookie crumbs or ants angling for cookie crumbs. (Note to self: Clean your screen, Stephen. I mean, seriously.) The new service will be for projects that are still in their infancy. Those clever nuggets you’ve been collecting in a dozen computer folders (that have names like “new story idea” or “another new story idea” or “an even different new story idea”) as well as the Next Big Thing…

  • How to Be a Writer During a Pandemic

    It’s been a crazy year for writers. For some of you, it’s been a curiously productive season, despite all the challenges introduced by the pandemic. Perhaps your writing success was prompted by the change to your routine, or the self-induced pressure to make something good out of something awful. Or maybe it was that “I’m a writer…I can’t not write” thing forcing words to the page. [Is that a real thing? Or just something writers say to sound cool? It sounds oppressive to me. “I’d love to feed the kids and walk the dog and shower more than once a month, but I can’t leave the computer because my hands…

  • Still Here, Still Editing

    This isn’t a real post. A real post would have a lot more words and include compelling content that would make you nod your head in agreement or shake it in dismay. This is just a little note to remind anyone who happens by that I’m still doing my editing thing. Still working away on writers’ manuscripts, mask at the ready in case the fictional characters who come to life in my little apartment don’t understand the term “social distancing.” If you’re using this Very Strange Season to write, I hope it’s going well. If you’re just curled up in the fetal position under your desk, I hope that’s going…