Miscellaneous Ramblings and Useful Stuff

Over the weekend I pulled out the ms of Maggie's Child. It has been resting for a few months. Why? I thought I would have a peek to see if the fairies had been to turn it into a best selling novel. Guess what? I was disappointed.

The reason I wanted to go through another stage of edits, was because I had found a useful tool on the Internet. It is software much like Autocrit, but free and all the editing options are open, with Autocrit they are part of a fee paying package. Pro Writing Aid, has proved to be a valuable help. I copy and paste my work, (minimum 200 words), into the allocated space and it turns it into pretty colours. Now that is not a good thing. It means it has found repetitive words, clichés and many other taboo writings. I could not believe I had used so many words such as, had, knew, felt, looked and oh so many more. I copied and pasted back into another file, the pretty paragraphs, this way I could work on changing the wording and tighten up my writing. It is a little long winded, but worth the time. I pretended it was a creative writing exercise and battled on through the mire. All in all it turned out to be a fun process.

Below is the overused words it found in the passage above, and marked it in red:
Over the weekend I pulled out the ms of Maggie's Child. It has been resting for a few months. Why? I thought I would have a peek to see if the fairies had been to turn it into a best selling novel. Guess what? I was disappointed.

--- --- --- --- --- ---

The reason I wanted to go through another stage of edits, was because I had found a useful tool on the Internet. It is software much like Autocrit, but free and all the editing options are open, with Autocrit they are part of a fee paying package. Pro Writing Aid, has proved to be a valuable help. I copy and paste my work, (minimum 200 words), into the allocated space and it turns it into pretty colours. Now that is not a good thing. It means it has found repetitive words, clichés and many other taboo writings. I could not believe I had used so many words such as, had, knew, felt, looked and oh so many more. I copied and pasted back into another file, the pretty paragraphs, this way I could work on changing the wording and tighten up my writing. It is a little long winded, but worth the time. I pretended it was a creative writing exercise and battle on through the mire.

This is the cliché report.

Cliches

Congratulations! There were no cliches in this section of your text.

Redundancies

Congratulations! There were no redundancies in this section of your text.

Paragraphs Containing Cliches and/or Redundancies

This is the repetitive words and phrases (the pretty coloured bit):

The reason I wanted to go through another stage of edits, was because I had found a useful tool on the Internet. It is software much like Autocrit, but free and all the editing options are open, with Autocrit they are part of a fee paying package. Pro Writing Aid, has proved to be a valuable help. I copy and paste my work, (minimum 200 words), into the allocated space and it turns it into pretty colours. Now that is not a good thing. It means it has found repetitive words, clichés and many other taboo writings. I could not believe I had used so many words such as, had, knew, felt, looked and oh so many more. I copied and pasted back into another file, the pretty paragraphs, this way I could work on changing the wording and tighten up my writing. It is a little long winded, but worth the time. I pretended it was a creative writingexercise and battle on through the mire.

Pro Writing Aid is not the same as a real life editor, but it is a resource tool that can help when you are battling with a stubborn manuscript.

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What else did I learn this weekend? Oh yes, author Heather Woods guided me through manuscript formatting over Skype. It was a great lesson. She set up her computer so I saw only a screenshot, and she worked through a copy of my work, showing me step by step how to get those pesky chapter headings to stay in place. After the lesson I played around and worked for hours getting so much satisfaction from seeing my manuscript sit neatly in orderly rows. Thank you, Heather.

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In view of the fact my writing 'to do's' are now piling up, I am going to keep with the once a week postings here. I write advertisements for a company and they keep me busy in between times. The once a week posts have taken pressure off of my shoulders, and freed me up for viewing other blogs. I follow over 1,000 and feel guilty if I cannot get to read them all. I am sorting out Google reader and making my viewing life a little easier. Oh, talking of Google, don't forget to clear your browsing history before they share all your information on 1st March. Not heard about it?Google use your search information for advertising purposes. Check out this video with the instructions of what to do. Mine is now cleared, purely because I do not like the idea of my search information being share around.
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I rarely put up personal information here, but just have to share with you that in September I shall be flying to the UK to celebrate Seren's first birthday, and from there will fly to Vancouver to see my son for the first time for three years. Excited? Moi? What do you think? 
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On 5th March I will be hosting an interview with the lovely, Ann Best, so put it in your diary.
Enjoy your week, and please share your news with me in the comments. I love to hear what is going on in your writing lives.