Hi, my name is Jessie, and I’m an ISTJ. That means I’m Inverted, Sensing, Thinking, and Judgmental. It means I like schedules, to-do lists, and rules. It means I find pleasure in rote tasks and focusing on small details. It means that I love editing!
Over the past few months I haven’t had a chance to edit much more than friends’ posts on Facebook. Which I’m not actually going to do because that’s rude and there’s only so many times you can lament a misused your/you’re before it gets boring.
I’m working to change that and challenge myself to be a better editor. If you want to help me be better by giving me a manuscript to work on, please do!
In the meantime, I’ll be trying out some new editing books, rereading some old ones, and digging into the Chicago Manual of Style for some buffing up.
Here’s some tried and true editing and writing books that I recommend:
- Stein On Writing by Sol Stein
- On Writing Well by William Zissner
- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers By Renni Browne and Dave King
- The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
- On Writing by Stephen King
And of course, I’ll be doing a lot of reading! Because the best way to learn how to read well is to read good books, and I think the same thing goes for editing. Here’s what’s on my to-read list for this year:
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- 11/22/63 by Stephen King
- The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling
- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
- The Voyage of the Basilisk by Marie Brennan
- Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson
- A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
- For Whom the Bell Tolls by Earnest Hemingway
- Winter (Lunar Chronicles #4) by Marissa Meyer
Sounds something like a list of things to do. And if there’s nothing I love more than a list, then it’s a plan to make a list.
So yeah, that’s me. Welcome!