In Rework and Edit, in the BBC’s Get Writing section, Barbara Trapido says:

Here is my best advice for editing and revising. READ EVERY WORD OUT LOUD.
Barbara Trapido, Rework and Edit

While the prospect of reading a full 100,000 word novel is more than a little daunting, the advice is sound. It’s amazing how clumsy some word groupings can be.

Even if you don’t read the whole novel, reading aloud just the passages you are having problems with can also help. 

You will find you skip words, or say them in a different order, or replace some words with others. If you stumble over words or phrases you will often go back and reword them so that you can say them, which you wouldn’t do if you were not reading aloud.

It’s a good idea to have someone else listening, or to tape your reading, so that they can pick up on things you don’t.

A truly useful exercise.

I reread some old blogs today and noticed an interesting change in my first impressions of posting sample chapters on the website to how I feel about it now.

When I started writing this blog I obviously thought it was not really a good idea.  Now, I would have to say I think it is one of the best marketing tools an author can use.

It may just be my familiarity with writing blogs that has brought about my change of mind, but I suspect it is also part of broader changes with entertainment in general. The internet is coming into its own as a valid platform for publishing and marketing.

Terrible progress over the last month.  Work has been frantic and some personal stuff got in the way as well. Life has been one constant round of get up, go to work, come home, eat, sleep and then get up and do it all again.  I’m exhausted.

Our average, over the last month and a half, has been 60 words a day.

And to think that this year I had planned to take part in NaNoWriMo.  Hah.