My Own Little Storybrooke

My session is being featured on the Editorial Freelancer’s Association LinkedIn. EFACON 2026 is a virtual conference that takes place on June 26-27. Interested in attending? You’ll find the full itinerary here. Use the link https://bit.ly/4kGhUFZ to register and the code TEN2026 for 10% off.

In a recent workshop on self-editing, I mentioned how Artificial Intelligence could help streamline the process. Once I let the AI cat out of its bag, there was no putting it back. The conversation drifted to a discussion of Artificial Intelligence and the question of whether it wasn’t more hellhound that devoured your carefully constructed prose, chewed it up, and spit it out after using it as…

Colin O’Donoghue who plays Killian Jones aka Captain Hook in ABC’s Once Upon A Time is handsome, I’ll give him that. The blogosphere was abuzz with how Hook will give Rumple a run for his money, how he will be the biggest and baddest villain on the show. The problem with these theories is that Hook is flat whilst Rumple is rounded. Hook will be no match for Rumple due to Rumple’s multifoliate…

Match Your Message by Hilary Jacob Business writing • Workplace communication skills • Professional development 204 pages (approx. 28,500 words) Buy on Amazon. Worried your writing doesn’t sound professional? Match Your Message: A checklist, strategies, and tips for writing that reflects your best professional self arrives just in time for students, job seekers, young professionals, and…

Key differences Canadian self-publishers should know Someone asked me this question the last time I presented my workshop, “Self-Publishing for First-Time Authors.” My first response was simple: it’s exactly the same. A few minutes later, I had to change my answer. Self-publishing in Canada isn’t harder than in the US, but it is slightly different. This is to be expected, given the fact that…

Canadian television has changed by leaps and bounds since the days of The Trouble with Tracy. I remember enjoying Night Heat in the mid to late eighties, loving the fact that I could pinpoint Toronto landmarks like the downtown Greyhound station, simultaneously hating the fact that all destination points announced in the background at the station were American. There is something about Canadian…

Fix your manuscript by studying mentor texts My latest work-in-progress (WIP) had me stumped. I loved most of the book, but the beginning had me second-guessing myself. It wasn’t the plot as much as it was the writing. I thought I was introducing my world to my audience, but it fell flat. Try as I might, I couldn’t streamline the information dump, the narrator’s voice sounded a little off, and…

I am thrilled to announce that I will be presenting a session at this year’s Editorial Freelancer’s Association’s virtual EFACON 2026 conference! The name of my session is “Write • Revise • Repeat: A Self-Editing Toolkit.” Here’s a bit more about it: Even experienced editors struggle to edit their own work. Our expertise does not eliminate our brain’s tendency to “autocorrect” errors or…

It’s a cruel twist of irony. Your book’s cover is the first thing potential readers see before they decide to buy your book, making it the most effective marketing tool you have. Your book cover should convey your book’s theme and genre at a glance. It should also look like you’ve put time and care in its creation—if your cover is slipshod, they might assume the interior is the same. Yes, it’s…

As a self-published author Congratulations! You’ve completed your first book! Now comes the challenge: self-publishing. Where will you post it for online distribution? There are many places to sell your book online, but where should you start? What should you consider before deciding which sites to use? Is it better to cast a wide distribution net or focus on one or two places at most? This post…

Literally speaking, foreshadowing is a hint of things to come. Foreshadowing happens when the author drops hints or clues about future events in a story, helping build suspense. Foreshadowing is easier to spot during second and subsequent reads. This is because the reader already knows the ending, and can connect the dots. In chapter 2 of Lord of the Flies, Jack says, “We’ve got to have rules…

My latest work in progress (WIP) had me stumped. I loved most of the book, but the beginning had me second-guessing myself. It wasn’t the plot as much as it was the writing. I thought I was introducing my world to my audience, but it fell flat. Try as I might, I couldn’t streamline the information dump, the narrator’s voice sounded a little off, and the telling was a bit lacklustre. That was when…

It’s a cruel twist of irony. Your book’s cover is the first thing potential readers see before they decide to buy your book, making it the most effective marketing tool you have. Your book cover should convey your book’s theme and genre at a glance. It should also look like you’ve put time and care in its creation—if the outside of your book is slipshod, they might assume the interior is the…

As a self-published author, your book is in competition with over 2.6 million other self-published books. Your book will appears alongside more than 560,000 traditionally published books. When I talk about traditional publishers, I mainly refer to “Big 5” publishing conglomerates (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan) that have been around long…

It is said there are three sides to every story: yours, mine, and what really happened. Writing in a deep point of view allows your narrator to tell their side. It lets your reader know what the narrative character thinks by filtering events through the lived experience of their backstory. It also uses interior monologue to show how the character interprets plot events. Deep point of view, also…

Editors often warn writers to avoid passive voice at all costs. But here’s the problem: many people confuse passive voice with any sentence using the verb to be. However, the Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) says, “while passive voice often includes a form of to be, not every sentence using a ‘be-verb’ is automatically written in passive voice” (Online Edition, 5.122) So, what exactly is passive…