Monthly Archives: February 2014
Reasons to Write a Book #3: The Medium Demands It
I’ve already touched on the compulsion one has to write and third-party credibility as a reason to write a book. Another, perhaps subtler, reason I like to give for writing a book is that it demands certain disciplines and constraints … Continue reading
The Em-Dash, En-Dash, and Hyphen
Among my many faults as a writer, I tend to overuse the dash—the em-dash, that is. A colon would work just fine in beginning a list or creating a long enough pause to make the phrase or clause that follows … Continue reading
Editorial Pet Peeves #2: Have You Finished Yet?
I receive a lot of manuscripts that the author tells me he or she’s finished with. This is usually a very loose translation of one or more of the following: 1. I’ve written around 75,000 words and that seems to … Continue reading
Editorial Pet Peeves #1: The Double Space After the Period
One of the first acts I perform when I receive a manuscript electronically is to find-and-replace double spaces with single spaces. It takes only a few seconds and it removes all those unnecessary gaps between words that will only irritate … Continue reading
Sometimes “Said” Should Be Taken as Read
When I was writing my zombie–P. G. Wodehouse spoof Bertie Wooster and the Lizard King, I decided to set myself the extra challenge of never using the verb “say” following direct speech. In other words, no “he said,” “she said,” … Continue reading
Conjunctive-itis
Much as I might wish otherwise, I am not perfect. (Say it ain’t so, I hear you cry.) As a publisher, I’ve brought into print titles that contained typos and errors of fact, that could have used more editing or … Continue reading
Tell Me a Story (Part 2)
When I think about it, writing a book is a lot like being like Coleridge‘s Ancient Mariner. The reader is the wedding guest, a guy who’s got his mind on much more fun things than to listen to your story, … Continue reading
Tell Me a Story (Part 1)
Having accentuated the negative in a previous post about submitting a manuscript to Lantern, I thought it might be advisable to give some idea to would-be authors of what a successful manuscript might look like in my particular eyes. First … Continue reading
How (Not) to Submit a Manuscript
We’re sent a lot of manuscripts at my publishing house, Lantern Books; it’s one of the hazards of the profession. Well, that’s not fair: We depend on them to keep in business, so we welcome them all. However, much of the … Continue reading
Martin Rowe 
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