I thought perhaps you might enjoy hearing some of the simple lessons I learned during the editing process for Dark Moon Wolf and Waxing Moon.
– You can delete the word “that” almost all the time. Yeah. I know this, but apparently my fingers forget it when typing.
– I am overly enamored with the -ing form of verbs. Was standing. Was looking. Was saying. Was thinking. Was eating. Uh, Sarah? Did you mean stood? Looked? Said? Thought? Ate? 🙂 Yeah…we thought so.
– I think I know how to use commas, but sometimes I’m totally wrong. I need to study the week on commas in my friend Andrea’s university course on grammar…
– Gaze. Not eyes. Peoples’ eyes don’t literally follow you. Uh…thank goodness?! Now I’m imagining peoples’ eyes jumping out of their faces and hopping around after me.
– Fewer exclamation points. No, really. Yeah, even fewer than that. Thanks.
After sooooo many rounds of revisions and edits before my manuscript even made it to my editor, I am amazed how many of these simple issues still exited in my text. I am grateful to my editor Lara Parker for helping me clean and streamline my writing! Dark Moon Wolf is tighter after working with her and I know my future manuscripts will reach her in better shape because of all this work.
Sarah E. Stevens 
I see some really good lessons here. I don’t have an editor, but I’ve had a lot of help from Grammar Girl with the these:
– Starting sentences with conjunctions. I do it far to much, and without noticing. [i]Moderation Gary, moderation.[/i] Since I dropped conjunctions as crutch words, and started using them when necessary, the voice of my prose grew stronger.
– When to use an em dash, an en dash, or a hyphen. I no longer struggle with this issue, but it perplexed me for some time. It’s not difficult, it’s just that I’ve never really bothered to find out the correct usage
– When to use an em dash, a comma, or parentheses is a bit more nuanced. Knowing in what context to use these is important to the comprehension and readability of your sentences. It also signifies to readers that you’re a professional. If you put something in between parens that really should be between commas or em dashes, it won’t ruin your work. It merely signifies inexperience.
You’re truly amazing, Sarah. You’re going to be a [b]massive[/b] hit. 😉
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