by Mary HickeyGetting your book out for free if you know the curtain is coming down: Author Michael Davies was ill with cancer, though I didn't know it, when he sent me and other people on his mailing list his most recent book as a free PDF. He felt it was important to get the most up-to-date version he'd written out into the world before he left it. The Bible tells us that the worker is worth his wages, but that was irrelevant when he knew his life was almost over. He died in 2004, but that book was released several years later by someone else, perhaps one of his literary heirs. It's still available on Amazon and also Abe Books. The moral of this story is: If you just get it out there somehow, your writing might still die with you—or not! At least you are giving it a chance to take on a new life. Updating the cars in your earlier stories: I didn't think of this myself until maybe my third revision of one of them. Check to see if you have a "new" car in your story that was current when you wrote it, but now is considered to be at best an older classic car, or just a junker if it's in bad shape. If so, you might need to substitute for something more modern. And whatever car is featured in your story, look it up online to make sure it comes in the color you're saying it is, too. Most of us wouldn't notice, but it only takes one gearhead reader to spot an error like that. C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams were members of a writers' group that met at a pub called the Eagle and Child. Other people came and went also. They called the pub the "Bird and Baby". Now the building is being made into a hotel, but they're preserving a pub area in it with a plaque commemorating the writers' group. That's when we'll know we've arrived, when someone puts up a plaque for us at the Methodist Church! Of course, we've all heard of Lewis and Tolkien, but Charles Williams? I had never heard of him until I read about that group, but he did publish some novels. I looked up the description for one of them, and it didn't interest me at all, but oh well. Maybe being part of that group encouraged him at least to finish them, even if he never became as famous as the other two. Editing to get rid of weasel words should include excess adverbs. I do it by searching not for just ly, but ly followed by a space. Then I don't get words and names that have an ly in the middle of them. It will still flag words like family and only, though. Other weasel words to minimize: quite, likely, perhaps, probably, now, also, had, finally, maybe, might, was, were, usual, even, generally, mostly, somehow, often, just, most, seem. Yes, many of those are adverbs that the ly-space thing will pick up also. Happy writing, everyone, and also Happy New Year!
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