Southern Speak - Before You Hit Send

with Maggie Mundy

A few years back Angela James from Carina Press came to a RWA conference and talked about her online course so I thought I would sign up. It cost $55.00 US and takes three weeks. It is good to try and schedule it when you know you have time to be able to get to the computer and respond to the lessons. It is definitely one of those courses that the more you put in the more you will get out. So this was how it went.

1. Introduction. Angela asks you to choose a manuscript you love because you will be doing a lot of work on it. There will be a lesson every day and you are on a forum so you have to read other peoples comments and put up your own that can be daunting.

2. Read aloud. She repeats this comment a lot. It is a very good tool to use.

3. Track Changes. As someone who has just had to learn how to do this with my current editor. This is a safe environment to get used to it.

4. Find and Replace.

5. Customising your word Processing Program.

6. The Basics Part 1. Spell check, grammar check, formatting.

7. The Basics Part 2. Comma usage, capitalisation and titles and possession.

8. Back up, and when you have done that. Back up.

9. Basics Part 3. Apostrophes

10. Similes and clichés.

11. Adverbs.

12. Adjectives

13. Comma splices, contractions and conjunctions.

14. Dangling participles, prepositions and misplaced modifiers.

15. Random Post. Be yourself and bend the rules a little.

16. Random Post. Proper pronouns.

17. Grammar verses style.

18. The Editorial Relationship.

19. Body Parts gone Wild

20. Tagging Your Dialogue

21. Punctuating Dialogue

22. Examining your Character Dialogue

23. Passive Voice

24. Pacing Info Dump and where to Start.

25. Show verses Tell.

26. Overwriting.

27. Point of View.

28. Timelines, Character Outlines. Plotting.

29. When to Stop Editing.

30. Finalizing a manuscript before you send.

I found this course extremely beneficial but time consuming and a shift worker a bit difficult to complete. It is still worthwhile. I did this course a year or so ago and it may have changes recently.

Click here to find out more about this course.

About Maggie

Maggie Mundy lives in Adelaide, Australia and is a member of Romance Writers of Australia, and the local chapter SARA (South Australian Romance Authors). She recently completed a Bachelor of Arts in Drama and English at Flinders University. She had a short story published in the RWA Topaz Anthology Little Gems in 2010 called Sea and Vines. Over the past year she has had stories on line with Alfie dog in the UK and Antipodean SF in Australia. Her debut novella Blood Scent came out in July this year with Rogue Phoenix Press. She has also performed for many years in corporate entertainment for which she wrote her own sketches, which probably explains why her head is so full of characters. She loves writing romance but thinks falling in love can be scary, especially in her stories where creatures of the night really exist.

Blurb for Hidden Mortality

In Bath in 1850 a witch is murdered in a ritual granting longevity to four men. What they are not aware of is that she has bestowed the same power to another called Seth to avenge her death.

Cara is a descendant of the witch and fills her days with food with her Irish themed catering business. Her nights are another matter; they are full of erotic dreams of a mysterious lover, or nightmares with mutilated bodies. So this wasn’t the best time for her Nana to tell her she is coming into her power. 

Of the original four immortals, Vincent is the only one left and to stop his own long life fading he needs another witch to kill. Seth was meant to protect the witch’s descendants from a distance, but with Cara he can’t stay away. He has to make a choice to love Cara, or avenge the original death and possible die himself. Cara has the fight of her life on when one man comes to kill her, and another to love her.