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Andy Unedited

Exploring Books, Life, and Writing

Category: Editing and writing

The Book I Didn’t Understand

January 26, 2022 by Andy Le Peau

Once I was the editor for an author whose book I didn’t understand. I liked him personally but found his manuscript vague. He employed specialized vocabulary, using words to mean things they didn’t normally mean. I had no idea why the book was organized the way it was and couldn’t figure out what other structure …

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Mr. Ryan’s Class

September 21, 2021 by Andy Le Peau

Propped up on a desk in the front row of the room, thirty-something Mr. James Ryan sat silently surveying my high school English class. I was a junior on the first day of school. The first minute of class. We quieted down waiting to see what he would say. Would he introduce himself? Tell us …

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The Four Phases of Editing

March 30, 2021 by Andy Le Peau

For many, the work of editors can seem mysterious, if not a bit intimidating. As writers we know they hold the power to get us published, but we have little idea how the process works. One doorway into this mystery is the four phases of editing. All four phases can be handled by a single …

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An Editor’s Work

February 16, 2021 by Andy Le Peau

I clearly remember my second day as an editor forty-five years ago. The first day was mostly orientation. But the second day an author came in to discuss a contracted manuscript with Jim Sire, my boss. I sat in watching and listening as they discussed the editing Jim had done. That morning and afternoon, the …

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Upside Down Writing Strategies

January 26, 2021 by Andy Le Peau

One of the best writing strategies is to write a lot of bad stuff. Yes, the more bad stuff we write, the better. If that sounds counterintuitive, it is. Here’s how it works. One reason Beethoven and Picasso produced so many great works was that they produced a lot of ordinary, unknown works. We might …

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Dear Mr. Editor Person

November 3, 2020 by Andy Le Peau

Do I get letters? Yes. I get letters. Dear Mr. Editor Person: Often I read words or phrases that make my grammatical hair stand on end, my syntactical stomach churn, and my semantical head bow in grief. Someone uses “impact” as if it were a verb or “ask” as if it were a noun, and …

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The Reason Is Not Because

June 23, 2020 by Andy Le Peau

The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz practiced the scales every day, even in his eighties. He wanted to continually master his craft so that he would be “be in possession of the full arsenal of skills when inspiration does come.” The same is true for us. Here are two skills you can master. Don’t worry about …

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English Made Fun

May 14, 2019 by Andy Le Peau

Benjamin Dreyer is the Stephen Colbert of grammar, style, and punctuation—informative while always being cheerfully acerbic. When he tells us in Dreyer’s English to never use actually, it is “because, seriously, it serves no purpose I can think of except to irritate.” When offering examples, Dreyer also gives us cause to smile. Honorary titles should …

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The Key Question I Ask Authors

April 7, 2016 by Andy Le Peau

When people hand me a proposal or manuscript for a non-fiction book and ask me for a publishing opinion, we’ll talk about a number of issues. But I have one chief diagnostic question. Almost anything and everything an author has to say flows from the answer to this question. It tells writers what kind of …

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The Publishing Experience (1)

February 23, 2016 by Andy Le Peau

What will publishing be like in fifty years? Will we be reading books from our brain implants? Will people still love print books but be printing and binding them in their home or office? Will reading increase because people will have more time as they travel in self-piloted personal drones?

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