Tag Archives: Reading

A blog about writing, Sharon C. Williams

I have an addiction: Author’s life

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I have an addiction. In fact it started early on as I was growing up. It has continued to grow within me. To make it worse I married someone who has the same addiction.

Books.

My husband and I love books. We love going to used book store and scoring the deals and also books we been looking for. In fact one of our moving trips from one home to another involved a U-haul van that had only books in it.

The shame of it all. But we are shameless. One of our problems is we rarely give the books away. I did purge about 110 books years ago by getting rid of 95% of my James Patterson books to a battered women’s shelter in town. I have donated a bit to the local libraries. I have placed some on my book swap site online.

I alone have nine bookcases. Six of which are large-sized. And while that might seem a lot it does not come close to my husband and his own bookcases. We are addicted. Again we are shameless about it.

It doesn’t help that companies have asked me, and yes I have accepted, to review for them meaning free books for Sharon and hubby.

It’s a disease. It is. I don’t try anymore to explain it to non readers. There is no point. Either you get it or you don’t. Either you love it or you run away from it.

This is my addiction. I might need to purge some more to make room for the others I am more than sure to bring into the house.

But this an addiction that we are glad we have.

Bog on writing, Topics on writing

Where are the people who buy your books from?

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It is always nice to see where in the world the people who purchase your writings live. For the last few years Japan has been one of the most interesting places that people were buying my books. It always makes me smile and ponder a few things. How did they hear of me, what am I doing right for them to know about my writings and then I go to does it matter? After all they are buying them in the first place.

If I knew what I was doing right I would focus on that a bit more. But every time I get word that they have placed an order we give a little WOOHOO at home.

Well that changed last week when a new contender made the list. Luxembourg. I had to look that up to see where it was on the map. That was really cool to get a new country to add to my list. As with Japan I was thrilled and yet wondered how that came about.

Luxembourg. Welcome to the family. I hope you enjoyed what you read and check out my other books. But a big hearty hello!

Reading your manuscript, Revising your works

Reading your manuscripts

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Do you ever read your stories out loud? Or as some people have suggested do you read them backward? The purpose of these exercises is to catch any errors or inconsistencies that you might have not noticed when you read it with your eyes. Granted I did scoff when I first learned of these tips.

It is easy to read our own work and miss some small and big items that need to be addressed. Yet when we read other works from writers we seem to be able to pick an error as small as a pin in a haystack.

We get so use to our stories, working on it, revising, editing and adding to it that it becomes like a second skin to us and errors just blend into the background. We can’t always spot the mistakes as readily if at all.

Hence why it is suggested we read our works out loud or backwards to find what we first missed. If one is not used to doing these methods it can be a bit awkward but you soon get over that. It’s a good way to proof your stuff and not look like a total goof when people get their turn at beta reading your manuscripts.