cloister

Read. Write. Review.

This is my life.

I read a lot, because it's incredibly useful as a writer and an editor to expose myself to a wide range of styles and genres. Also, you find some darned enjoyable stories to lose yourself in that way.

I write a lot, because that's what a writer does. Most of my daily writing is incidental to my life--like reviews on this website or at www.LongTalePress.com--but every day I spend what amounts to at least a few hours practicing some form of writing. Whether it's creative writing, expository writing, blogging, or reviewing doesn't so much matter to me. It's all good practice at the same core skill of stringing words together into coherent sentences. (And it's good practice to help me fight my "comma abuse" problem.) But speaking of blogging, I maintain a creative writing blog called Show Some Character, about the "dos-and-dont's" of character development in fiction. Check it out, and drop me a note if you have a character development issue you're struggling with in your own writing.

I review a lot because it's fun, because it helps other writers, because it sharpens my own analytical skills (which also helps my own writing), and lastly, because it helps pay the bills. I am a freelance book editor. You can look at my reviews on this website (or drop me a note asking me to review something you've written) to get a sense for the types of issues I pick up on, far above and beyond the boring "hey, you have a typo here" stuff. If you're interested in having me take a deeper look at any of your stuff, you can find me at www.PlotToPunctuation.com.