Charlie Knight, Hungry Hungry Editor

I never actually did an intro post, and I realize I have none of my links or info here so...probably time to change that. 

I’m Charlie. They/them pronouns, please. Super queer, super nerdy, super awkward and apologizing for that in advance. I’m an editor and an author, a gamer, a brand new narrative designer trying to break into game writing, and a bit of a chaos demon. But in the fun way. I hope. 

I'm an editor for indie authors with +10 years of experience and actually affordable rates. You have stories to tell! Money shouldn’t be what keeps you from the professional editor you deserve. Find me and learn more: cknightwrites.com

I write! As of now: I have a very large, very smutty, angsty as hell Shakarian fic that is posted every week. Best friends to lovers kicking ass in space—you don't ever need to have played Mass Effect to get into this story. Read that here. 

I also have a Dragon Age: Inquisition fic and (less frequently updated, sorry) Horizon Forbidden West fic. 

My debut novel is coming out in 2023, too! RISE OF THE TEMPEST (the novel formerly known as Butt Pirates) is a low-stakes, high heat fantasy romance features two trans MCs. More on this later, but you can see character arc on my blog already and a little more here! 

On my Patreon, I provide customized and functional editing and writing advice, education, and coaching. I've covered everything from how to use em dashes properly to world building and purple prose. New posts weekly! 

My Patreon also has an Editor in Training tier! I'm delivering education on what being a freelance editor is actually like (and how to make it work for you), building that business, and hands-on coaching on editing practices. 

(And as a bonus, my Patreon is how I pay for chemo, so subscribe here.)

I am disabled and sick, which is a costly life, and my editing rates are set to be more affordable for you than profitable for me. My Patreon goes directly to my medical bills every month, and my ko-fi is another great way to help with that.

I will cheer on and help my mutuals however I can. My messages are always open, and I encourage you to use them if I can help you with anything. But you're not welcome here if you gatekeep the writing or queer communities in any way. I'm not nice to bullies. 

FIND ME ELSEWHERE! 

IG, TikTok, Bluesky, & Twitter: @ CKnightWrites Discord: enbycabbage#0401 linktr.ee/cknightwrites

Every single day for the last five years, I've written in Rewrite the Stars, my Mass Effect fanfic. It's turned into an almost 3 million word passion project that has gotten WAY more attention and love than I ever could have anticipated.

And this week, I put "The End" on the entire series. It's done.

I'm excited about that. I think my readers will love the ending (and I did leave it open for anything that happens in future games), and I'm proud of myself for accomplishing something so massive.

But I'm grieving. Hard. Today will be Day 3 since I wrote anything for Garrus and Elle, and I feel empty. I miss them. I know their story is complete for now, but after all that time, not reconnecting with them everyday is difficult.

This grieving process is part of the bigger writing process, I think. Most of us go through something like this after we finish, especially series or bigger projects. And I think it's part of the writing process that deserves recognition.

Yeah, you're probably the only one writing your book, but that doesn't mean that you must (or that you should) write alone!

You're more likely to get words down if you're writing with others. It takes the pressure off your brain to focus exclusively and intensely on writing. That's exhausting! If you introduce a social aspect, you have other things to focus on, and that's actually good for your progress.

You can remind your brain that writing isn't hell. Who wants to sit there alone and stare at a blank page?? It's miserable! And that misery tends to build up until even the thought of writing is painful. If you have friends with you, even if you don't get words down in that session, you probably had some laughs. Now, you're reassociating writing with good things instead of with that pain, and that will very likely mean you're going to get more words down in the future.

And it's just a better experience. No one else knows what we're going through except other writers. You deserve people who can support you, and I'd bet your friends would love your support too.

There are lots of ways to find writing groups (and online, they require much less actual socialization, even if you're chatting...and minimal socialization while socializing is very important to me). Go out and find or create a group, and you'll change the whole writing process for yourself.

It's as much "AI" as Grammarly is. Or even your spellchecker on your devices. There's no LLM generation. Everyone's jumping on a guy for making the tech equivalent of a Plagiarism checker and accused him of plagiarizing like ChatGPT does, but it's not even remotely the same technology...

1. Why would you come here and not Twitter where I posted anything about Prosecraft? And you're anonymous? Coward. You're either Benji in hiding or just a creep.

2. Super weird to defend AI use ever at all.

3. Even if I gave a shit about what he did with the data, let's take a step backward. Tell me how you think he got the full content of 25k published books without theft/piracy?

Whether you live to see tomorrow because you're doing okay...

or because Mitch McConnell and Henry Kissinger are still alive and you damn well better outlive them...

Should I push through this whole draft, finish it, then go back and edit? Or should I edit as I go??

I have the only actually correct answer for you:

I saw this picture on Twitter today, and I laughed. I think it’s funny, and I think we all like playfully bullying ourselves with things like this. 

But I also think way too many of us believe that the only acceptable part of the writing process is the actual writing. That’s...just not true. 

There are sooooo many non-writing or writing-extra things that can be part of your writing process. Making playlists? Writing process. Creating aesthetics on Pinterest? Writing process. Talking about your book part of the writing process! 

We all have a creative well that will run dry, a creative spark that will be snuffed out if we allow it. If we force it. You’ll force that if you don’t feed that creative energy, and that’s what you’re doing when you participate in all these non-writing pieces of the writing process. 

You’re involved in the writing process anytime you engage in storytelling--that means reading books but it also means watching movies or TV and playing video games. Daydreaming! Daydreaming is an excellent way to feed your creative brain, and it IS part of the writing process. Please, writers, I’m begging you to stop forcing yourself out of daydreaming and into writing. 

You need activities other than writing within your writing process if it’s going to be fun, successful, and especially if it’s going to be repeatable. If you bully yourself into finishing this novel, great, you’re done...and now you’ll hate writing the next one. Your poor brain! 

...is a little anal, and probably a little chaotic, but it’s very effective! 

Here's how I plan and prep for my big edits/rewrites. The general idea is a visual display of the whole novel, chapter by chapter, with color-coded Post-it’s that decrease in size as we get from big pieces of content down to smaller details. 

I have my giant whiteboard (isn’t she beautiful?), and I map out each chapter with the yellow larger rectangles. Effectively these are a super simple backward outline with just a quick bulleted list of the content in every chapter. 

The orange-y squares are for bigger content or structure changes. If I’m editing the content of a chapter, I use one of these. 

The smallest Post-it’s are for the details, one for worldbuilding, one for character details, and another for focus points within the chapter. 

The final piece is those bright pink squares that show me where I’m going to add or remove a chapter and a quick description of what’s going into that chapter. 

And of course, because this is me, I have a key nearby so I don’t forget which color or Post-it is what. 

Especially with my neurodivergent brain, I find that a visual aspect added to my editing process is a game changer. Most people might have some pages of notes, might have it all in their mind, and then they sit down to edit. But I can’t sit down with a book I know by heart, all these edits in mind, and just...do it. 

First of all, that’s boring. ADHD brains don’t do boring. And I don’t really want to get bored with my book! 

Second, I’ll definitely lose track of everything I intend to do/add/change/remove. It’ll end up costing me more time in revisions when I need to go through another round of the things I forgot, and that’s assuming these things aren’t connected because that’s a whole different mess! 

Third, that just leaves me with no space to think things through, to test things out and move them around, to change my mind on the fly. 

This chaotic, beautiful board changes all that! 

When I edit for clients, I often walk them through the process of taking in edits and organizing the work needed. This sort of visual can be extremely helpful, and you could make this work in a notebook with post-its!

Everyone's process is going to be different, but if you find edits really painful, anxiety-inducing, difficult—consider adding a visual step. It might make all the difference.

And incredible things happen.