Writers, authors and editors -- one sack and a baseball bat

See that baseball bat? Yes? Good, because I want you to remember it. Why, you wonder? Well, let me explain...
You know when everyone tells you to leave your problems at the door when you come to the office? Yes? Right, be assured that it doesn't apply for your writing and editing, dear writers, authors and editors! For writing or editing you will need your brain. Surprised? Yes, so am I when I read things like: Running down the stairs, she pulled on her jeans.
Excuse me, but would you have the grace to explain to me how one would be able to fulfil such an impossible task, or tasks for that matter? Just asking. I've tried and tried to picture it, to no avail. How do you do that? I reckon it would result in at least some severe bruises, broken limbs or if it goes terribly wrong in a snapped neck, which, as we all know, would be a not so positive outcome. Expected, yes, wanted, no. Let alone that you normally pull on jeans as you are probably rushing to answer the door, unless you want to open in your knickers, but then there's no need to mention the jeans anyway.
Just recently I had to read a sentence like this: Walking into the kitchen, she opened the fridge.
Really? So the fridge was basically placed smack bang in the door, which, unless she's a skinny bitch and not a fat cow like me, might make it a tad difficult to access the kitchen, which then would mean she didn't even get to walk into the kitchen to open the fridge, right? And what would happen if the kitchen was several feet long and the fridge was placed at the end? Does she have extremely long arms or something long in her hand to open the fridge? Then she must be quick because walking into the kitchen takes one step only. Unless, she has a fridge connected with a mechanism that opens it the second she steps over the threshold. Can you see my problem here? No?
Okay here's another fun example: Tying her shoe laces, she ran a mile.
Gee that woman must have an extreme balance being able to tie her laces while running a mile. You could say, yes, but she hopped on one leg, but that wouldn't be running now, would it?
Or how about this little beauty? Opening the bin, she threw away the rubbish.
Wow, how smart of her. I think I never saw someone in their house throwing the rubbish onto the closed bin, unless they had more drinks than they could manage, but that's not the point.
Understand my problem now? I could merrily go on pulling examples out of my non existent hat.
Want proof? Here we go: Opening the door, she took a seat behind the wheel.
Now how would that work out? Try it out for yourself and send me a picture if you manage to do both at the same time.
And another one: Taking a sip of his coffee he mumbled, 'What a bloody idiot.'
Yeah, one could only hope he referred to himself, because taking a sip and mumbling would end up messy, with coffee generously sprayed around the kitchen. If he was in the kitchen, that is. Sipping would imply you're sucking in the fluid, how would you be able to mumble at the same time? Eh? Correct! Not possible.
Writers and authors seem to love this sort of writing and editors seem to have left their brains with their problems at the door; there's no other explanation for this sort of insult to a reader. This reader in particular.
Unless it's two things you can do together, like walking and singing, cleaning and listening to music, drinking and watching, please stop torturing me and possibly others. Every time you see such sentences in your writing, or you, editors, in authors' writing, I want you to feel hit over the head with that baseball bat, which hopefully will prompt you to rephrase as shown below.
She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
She pulled on her jeans and ran down the stairs. 

Phew, that felt good. I'm glad we got that sorted!

Hi, I'm Stella and I'm an editing addict

I

Editing

So, you might now declare me officially mad, but it's true: I love editing. And I will even tell you why. 

Well, to begin with, I always loved helping people. Editing is basically helping writers or author see their manuscript from a different angle. Things they don't see, for they are too close to their books, will most certainly jump at me, in addition to others. 

Take my friend, for instance. He's an experienced and skilled writer, even had been published with a small press many moons ago, He's trying to land an agent and received many rejections. For he's too blind to see what's wrong, he turned to me. And because I'm a good friend, I helped him with one of the books. I'm harsh, I'm strict and I can be rather pushy, but he took it on the chin and reworked. We never 'worked' together and he was rather surprised how much I picked up; on voice, on pace, on character and plot inconsistencies. His words were, "I'm impressed, you really have a talent for editing."

Made me go all fuzzy, because it has just been a couple of years since I actually found my calling as an editor. Luckily, most of clients think the same, which is a good sign. Of course I made some mistakes by taking on clients who weren't 'ready' yet, but we all make mistakes and learn from them.

My friend was so taken, that he now has come back with the next book. Working with more seasoned writers has the advantage that you can dive straight in, they know the basics, they know the techniques, in short, they just need someone with a keen eye to do the dirty work for them. I rather enjoy that, and in addition, I get to read an exciting book. 

Working with new authors has its perks, too. I love to teach them the basics, to see them adopt the suggestions and slowly getting better; some take longer, some are quick to learn. It's wonderful to see them grow, their writing season and their confidence increase. Although it's often more difficult to edit a new writer's work; many are not used to be criticised and are hurt easily. In many cases, I will try to comment on the first few chapters to give them some sort of guidance so they can take the suggestions and rework their manuscript, learning as they go. A service, by the way, I'll offer soon: first 10k for a certain price and if the person doesn't feel confident enough after that, we can agree to do the whole book to a fixed price. Ideal for new writers who need a quick assessment of their skills. Some return with their revised version and it always makes me proud to see how much it has improved and that I was part of it.

As editor you are a teacher, a motivator, a bringer of bad news, a tough hand and often go out of your way to help the person whose book you are trusted with.

Tip of the week: Who to follow on Twitter or connect with in general

Be honest: how many of your followers are writers or authors and how many do you follow because they are writers or authors? My blind guess would be about 95%. I admit, when I started out with social networking on Facebook, all I did was trying to gather 'friends' and I envied those who had over 1000 on their list. Same with Twitter, I connected with anyone whose name I vaguely knew.
It became clear very soon that having all those writer friends on facebook didn't really bring me much other than having their constant promotion in my face as soon as they self-published. I started to delete those I never really talked to and kept those who are dear to me and with whom I have interesting, funny and informative exchanges.

On Twitter, I stopped following back. Instead I take a look at the profiles and blogs (if link provided) and decide then if they are 'worth' to follow. The problem is that I'm an author myself, so my tweets or the tweets of my followers will most likely be about writing or the books. It's preaching to the choir. There's no need to gather as many followers as possible, because only if your followers retweet your tweet, you'll have more exposure and that only if they have plenty of followers themselves. I have a few followers who have over 30k people following them, we never talk, they never retweet my tweets so I'm wondering what's the point of following them?

I observed that I'm gathering new followers (mostly writers) and when I visit their profiles and they don't interest me enough to cause me to follow back, they'll unfollow me a little bit later. We never exhanged a word. Which means, they didn't follow me because they found my tweets or profile interesting, they followed me in order to get a follow back. Well, no, I don't see the point.

Please don't get me wrong, I love the people I connect with, they are carefully selected -- at least those who'll stay in my list as I'm slowly going to clean it up -- and I'm having good conversations with many of them. Sometimes we don't talk for ages, but that's a Twitter thing, time differences, life, etc., but I only follow those who will catch my eye, be it due to their profile, their blog/website or because of our exchange.

To up your 'presence' write interesting blog posts, informative, educating, be versatile; something that'll make you stop and read another person's blog. Write about what you know, blog regularly and be selective with the people you connect with. A following of 4k or more won't help you if they only follow you because you follow them.

Have you noticed that a large following helped your exposure? I'd like to know about.