My grandfather was a poet. He didn’t find this out until after he retired from over thirty years as an electrician for Dow Corning. His family treasures every one of his poems. Each of his daughters keeps a copy of his work collected in a three-ring binder, and I wish I knew where to find those poems he would write and send me on my birthday.

But you’ve probably never heard of him, even if you’re a hardcore poetry fan. You’ve never heard of him because he never published or sold a single poem, except in the occasional senior-center newsletter. To my knowledge, he never even tried to sell any.
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I grew up in an interesting time, in that generation when home computers were just starting to become normal. I also learned to type on a typewriter in a class in high school, where I picked up a habit that I’ve since had to unlearn.

We were taught to place two spaces after the punctuation at the end of each sentence. Perhaps you can identify with this habit?

​However, modern word processing programs are designed to automatically adjust the spacing, making multiple spaces unnecessary and even counterproductive.
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You may have heard me mention manuscript evaluations before. I even offer them among the other services​ listed on my website. But what are they, and what can they do for an author?

In the editing world, there are several services that overlap, and which ones you choose depends on a lot of factors. (For more on how to decide what kind of editing you need, see my blog post on the subject.)
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One of the most common questions people ask when looking to hire an editor is How much will it cost me? It’s a completely reasonable and important question, but it’s also deceptively difficult to answer.
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It’s similar to hiring a contractor to do some remodeling on your house. You don’t want to overpay, but you also want someone who will do a quality job and finish the project within the deadline and budget.
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