Writing Buddy

I get the biggest kick out of my writing buddy. She is so enthusiastic. She picks me up every time we get together. I see again the joy of writing. Besides that, we laugh a lot.


We met last night and went over two of my chapters and one of hers. She gave as good as she got. I was astounded at how fast she learns. Some of the tips I've given her about making the tale tight and good, she hit me with on my own chapters. It was awesome. 


I've often found it quite funny that, whenever I happen to 'offer' a bit of advice, it usually comes back and bites me. This kind of advice, however, is well received.


A couple thoughts. My piece if a period piece and, after hearing her read the chapter out loud, I saw that one place was too modern. Easy to fix though. 


Another was ending a sentence. Now, that seems to be a logical thing to do, but I find I sometimes 'run off at the mouth' and don't end the sentence when I should. I drag it out. Example: Home of pig farmers, one of my characters says. My buddy said to just say, pig farmers. It worked much better. A little thing, you might say, but it really makes a difference.  


Another thing. My editor sent me a little study in saidisms. I try to stay away from them, but do not treat them as a contagious disease. The paper my editor sent me said make sure I never have a character hiss. I did a search and found one particular character did hiss, every time she said a sentence. "You are a stupid, aren't you?" she hissed. Ten times, I found this characters hissing. I took her tongue out and now she says, 'she said.' Most times. 


"Life is," I hissed. *g*