Proofreading. Some writers love it, some writers despise it. But whatever your feelings, proofreading is your final task when preparing to share your words with the world.

Writers often read their words the way they believe they wrote them, not how they actually wrote them. This means spelling mistakes, typos and grammatical errors, such as poor sentence structure, wrong choice of words and punctuation can all go unnoticed by the writer. These factors impact the context and readability of the work.

The good news is that proofreading skills can be learned, developed and improved. Where is the best source for information on learning how to proofread, I hear you ask (at least I hope you are).

Fear not my friends, help is at hand and The Haunted Pen is here to save the day!

The best source for hands-on information is a professional proofreader – someone who has spent years…

In the late afternoon shadows, by the underlit leaves, near a tree bent by the weight of its own fruit…in the breeze between summer and fall: there, in the crook of a bush by a rock I spied a colored egg overlooked last April, a memory of youth still sealed like a wish, better left to itself.

Italics were invented by a famous Renaissance printer called Aldus Manutius. Italicizing passages became much easier after word-processing virtual-paper technology overcame the tedium of typewriter backspacing and underlining in a manuscript. Print-on-demand permits Indie Authors to be their own publishers, which means they assume the role of compositor, too, and must know how to set type to achieve the most visually pleasing and easy-to-read presentation of their works in the Art of Communication. To see how italics can function when typesetting for your own Indie-published book, we’ll discuss the ways I used italics in Irish Firebrands.

I learned about italics in primary and secondary school, in English composition and typewriting classes, but how I chose to italicize parts of my first novel is probably an amalgam of the “house styles” of the many different traditional publishers which put out the books I’ve read over more than fifty years.

Reblogged from This is My Truth Now:

History has tons of lecherous and caustic villains. Author Charles F. French re-introduced me to one in the debut novel, Maledicus: The Investigative Paranormal Society Book I, in his series ‘The Investigative Paranormal Society.’ Long ago under Roman Emperor Caligula served a man named Maledicus. Is he real or made-up? I’m not sure, but’s he scary and wicked, and I don’t ever want to meet him. Maledicus has tortured hundreds perhaps thousands, but when Caligula fears the man he once thought of as an ally, Maledicus is tricked into being killed. But he’s so horrific, the Underworld refuses to let him truly die and instead, he haunts people for thousands of years. Through an idol of sorts, his spirit is invoked and wrecks havoc on anyone nearby. Fast forward to current day and a young girl being tortured in her dreams… it…