Why You Can't Afford to Get Lazy with Your Writing!

-Pamela Woods-Jackson

As writers, we all have a basic grasp of grammar and punctuation, but in this technological age, we've gotten lazy when composing short texts, social media posts or emails. No caps, no commas, and auto-correct are the order of the day. Remember that your social media presence represents YOU to your readers, many of whom have never met you. Therefore it's important to be diligent about putting your best foot forward. In other words, EDIT EDIT EDIT and then PROOFREAD! It's one thing to fire off a quick text to a friend, but it's quite another matter to allow that lackadaisical attitude to creep into your professional writing. There is no excuse for misspelling a word, or confusing homonyms like you're and your, it's and its, or their there and they're. These kinds of easily corrected mistakes distract from the quality of your manuscript and often result in rejection from a publisher or literary agent. You don't want your fantastic story to be turned down simply because the editor couldn't slog her way through the grammatical errors. 

If editing isn't your thing, you can always hire someone to do it for you. If that isn't in the budget, see if you can work a trade with another author or even an English teacher. As a high school English teacher, I was always willing to help out fellow writers, and you probably know someone with a degree in English who would be just as generous. However you go about it, please don't send your work out to perspective publishers or agents until it is in the best possible shape. Even a few minor mistakes can get your manuscript rejected, so get ahead of the competition by making your mechanics as great as your story!

My contemporary romance CERTAINLY SENSIBLE, released December 2, 2015 by The Wild Rose Press, is a Gold Medal winner in the 2016 Literary Classics Award Contest. I am also the author of CONFESSIONS OF A TEENAGE PSYCHIC (The Wild Rose Press, 2010), which was a 2011 Epic Ebook Contest finalist. A follow up novel has just been accepted for publication by The Wild Rose Press. My YA novel GENIUS SUMMER was released in November, 2014, by Vinspire Publishing. It was a finalist in the 2013 San Francisco Writers Contest, received high marks in the 2013 Pacific Northwest Writers Contest, and was awarded the Literary Classics Seal of Approval in 2015. 
 My books can be found on Barnes & Noble and Amazon:
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