Tag: memoir

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Affordable Book Editing: Transform Your Manuscript

Have you thought about having an edit on your writing project? You can have it on a full book, or a short story/memoir, or even a poem.

What’s the benefit?

  • A second pair of eyes.
  • A dialogue with an experienced editor who is focused on your work, and what you want your work to achieve.
  • One-on-one interaction.
  • A live Zoom discussion.
  • And lots more!

What’s an edit look like?

Kinda like this, though every book is different:

crisp clear notes to show you why I am suggesting what I am suggesting, and collaboration that suits you.

How much does an edit cost?

As a member of ACES and the EFA, I edit based on the standard scale. That means I charge a per-word fee. This is because words can be cut during editing, and words can be added, but the price is based on the original word count. Some editors charge an hourly fee, but I don’t do that, because what if I read much faster than another editor? The other editor is going to present you with a much higher bill, and you’re going to pay for that person’s lack of experience and speed. Word count is much fairer to you, the author. The EFA recommends three to four cents/word, and I charge three cents. For that three cents I will do a combined edit: developmental, line/copy, and proofreading. I’m a registered business in Los Angeles, California, and I give you a contract, so you know what you’re getting, and when you’re getting it. I also offer a free query letter if you’re going to send your work out to agents and publishers. If you decide in the future that you want to publish with Current Words Publishing, I hold a spot for you for two years (no obligation) and do not require a second edit. If you choose to self-publish you can hit us up for any tasks you need help with, like formatting the manuscript. Sometimes authors choose to do a small piece at a time, depending on what they have time and budget for. I’m open to what works best for you. As an example, a 50,000-word piece would cost $1500, and take one week for me to complete, but would include free Zoom meetings and a free query letter, and help and suggestions on how to start promoting yourself as an author.

What makes me the best editor you can hire is that I am so experienced. I have spent over 25 years working with new authors of fiction and non-fiction in many colleges on both coasts. I published an award-winning student literary magazine at UMES for four years. As an editor I have worked on a lot of mystery, horror, dystopian, speculative, fantasy, magical realism, women’s, LGBTQ+, erotic, memoir, and short story collections, including the celebrated Echoes from the Hocker House. I studied under Juan Felipe Herrera, Syd Lea, Luanne Smith, Betsy Scholl, and Christopher Buckley, to name a few. I ran a very successful workshop that met bi-monthly for seven years. I run a poetry coop, and a literary magazine, and I have curated, edited and created many anthologies of horror, mystery, and literary fiction. I have also been a guest editor at literary conferences including the Atlanta Writers’ Conference. I’ll be at the self-publishing conference in Atlanta this spring, where Current Words Publishing is one of the sponsors. There are so many things an experienced editor can do that most “editors” can’t. You have to be choosy. And going with one of the large “we have editors” sites really hamstrings you, because those editors are not allowed to become a part of your literary life. They’re only allowed to do the job and move on. I am not like that. I invest in the authors I work with for the long haul.

The new year is just around the corner. January is already filled for me, but I am open to your project any time after January 31st, as needed. Depending on what you need I can turn around a full novel in as little as a few weeks. Some folks just like to have me edit their new work, a short story or a chapter in the novel, as they finish it. I am very open to a collaboration that suits you.

And, once the year is over, it’s over, and we, much to our frustration, cannot go back. So maybe what you need in 2025 is that push, that meeting, that obligation to send something to someone who is going to interact with it, and you. Let’s make 2025 the year that your book or collection becomes a reality. If you’re interested email: dianne@currentwords.com, or choose a meeting time that suits you.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, and literary new year!

Dianne

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FAREWELL QUEEN ELIZABETH

Above is one of the many photos of the young Queen Elizabeth.

Below is a photo of my Aunt Sara, probably when she was a bit older than the above photo of the Queen, but it’s the only one I could find of her easily (without groping through shoeboxes full of photos).

In my family we always felt like they could have been sisters. And both were, I believe, very dutiful and correct ladies in their lives.

It’s most certainly the end of an era, and I feel that these two women, both gone now, would have had much in common and been good friends, had they ever had the opportunity to meet.

My Aunt Sara was, I think, a sensitive creative person who was married to the wrong man, a man who was extra intelligent, and extra devoted to rules and duty, and not very loving to a creative and soft-hearted woman who did not manage to remain that way during their marriage.

My aunt was a gifted water-color painter, and sewer. She could make complicated clothing like lined suit jackets and silk scarves with rolled edges.

My aunt once told me that, in the year or so before Marilyn Monroe passed away, she had often thought of inviting her to dinner, because she looked, in the news, to be sad, and tired, and she thought she could use a place to take a break from her life. When Marilyn passed away, my aunt was sad but not surprised, she’d said. I tell this story because I always felt it was perceptive of my aunt, to clue into another woman’s pain, and I think it would have been lovely if that dinner offer had been sent and accepted.

In many ways, the Queen, because she had wealth and privilege, probably had an easy life, and in other ways, for those same reasons, it was probably hard.

My aunt was married to an incredibly smart, respected, and talented doctor, who was also very critical of her and unkind. My aunt had a lot of money, children who had little to nothing to do with her, a lot of time alone on her hands, and a sensitive artist side that was largely unfulfilled. She was, I believe, also deeply in love with the wrong man.

Prince Philip seems to have been a strong and controlling person, dominant, and I wonder, had Elizabeth not become queen, with all eyes upon them, if he would have been loving, kind, and faithful for life. My uncle certainly took pride in being faithful, but it was like it was a chore he shouldered with little complaint, when in fact he complained a lot, and often, and embarrassingly publicly. Many times my aunt spoke in front of me of how she wanted to leave him, but she was, I think, too in love to ever go.


Queen Elizabeth had her problems and missteps like all of us, but she was who she was, it seems to me, unfailingly, when I am certain there were times she would have liked to have been different than what was expected of her. I think she did a lot to bolster morale and, in general, help her beloved country through the challenges all developed nations have. In any case, she seems to have done more than a good job at it, and I hope she’s enjoying a cocktail now with her beloved spouse, and all their former corgis.

And I think it would be more than lovely if she could, now, in the beyond places whatever and wherever they are, get to meet her doppelgänger, my aunt, Sara.