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Hi All!

Mimi here. I’m not sure about you, but I’ve been busy, busy, busy getting my next OHellNo book ready, WINE HARD, BABY! (Coming this month!) Anyway, instead of hearing from me, I thought it would be fun for my readers to hear from one of the awesome people who work behind the scenes to bring these books to life! With that, it gives me great pleasure to introduce STEPHANIE ELLIOT, who recently worked on WINE HARD with me!


So, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a romance editor, now’s your chance!

WITH LOVE,

Mimi


Recently, I had the opportunity to edit Wine Hard, Baby, the upcoming release from New York Times bestselling author Mimi Jean Pamfiloff. A longtime client recommended she contact me and once logistics were discussed, she sent me her hot cowboy romance, and I was off and riding!



And, whoa! Was Jed hot – I was captivated from the get-go. A spicy, determined career woman whose parents have her life planned out for her gets sidelined when she meets Jed. When he shows an interest in her, she flees the state, not wanting the temptation! But when temptation ends up knocking on her door, complete with a six-pack you’ll wanna run your hands all over, and a bunch of hot, hot tats, well, what’s a girl to do!?



What I love about my job as an editor is that I get to read something totally fun and entertaining and get paid for doing it. I also love to try to get into the author’s mind and think the way she does as I’m reading through the story. With Jed and Camila and their hate-you, love-you, want-to-ride-your-hard-stallion relationship, complete with secrets and lies, I was hooked.



What’s it like to edit romance books, and books in general? It might seem pretty easy, but eyeballs get tired! There are only so many pages and so many times you can search a word before it starts looking like ALL THE WORDS are floaty and fuzzy on the page (and that’s without drinking!). It’s important to give your eyes a break during a big manuscript edit read, or else MISTAKES WILL HAPPEN. As for a process, originally I thought, ‘I don’t have a process!’ but thinking about it, I clearly do!



I always run my manuscripts through the spellcheck first thing. I check all the spacing, the chapter numbers and titles, and the little things before I dive deep into a book. I keep track on a separate document things that stand out to me, or character names, towns, characteristic traits so I can compare when those things come up again in the story. Did Jed start off with amber eyes and now suddenly his eyes are green as the pasture grass? I need to check all that stuff!



I know the words that almost always get misspelled (like that word – misspelled!) – words like ‘toward’ – it is not towards with an S. Acknowledgment and judgment are always two that get messed up as well because of that E that doesn’t belong there. And speaking of there: It’s easy for writers to get confused when they’re working on their theres (see what I did there?) as well as the too, to and twos. Are and our, aisle and isle and alter and altar are some that I see misused often – there are so many different words that can be written the wrong way.



Writing is hard, and remembering all the little nuances of the English language doesn’t always come easy. There are still several words that I continually do not know how to spell and always have to look them up. Rhythm and nausea come to mind right away – I never get those right.



But, like a mathematician loves numbers, editors adore words – doing a good edit job is like putting together a really fun puzzle! And, I hope that it keeps my mind sharp!



It was fun to edit Mimi’s work because she’s already a professional, and she knows what she’s doing. I mean, my gosh, she has 44 books published! My job was to polish up her gem of a book, basically find any typos or inconsistencies and question anything that didn’t ring true to me, so that you, her readers, have a great experience focusing on the characters and the story. No spoilers here, but an example would be me questioning how the love interests could be going at it so hard when there is an abdominal injury involved! Ouch!



I hope you enjoy reading Wine Hard, Baby as much as I enjoyed editing it, and even more so, I hope there are no typos in this article! If you are an author in need of an editor, I’d love to connect and see if we’d be a match. I always offer a free sample chapter (or pages up to 10) to make sure our visions align with your project. I believe that you are showrunner, I’m just someone behind the scenes who wants to see you succeed! 🙂

Stephanie

Bio: Stephanie Elliot is an author, editor and freelance writer, and is currently accepting new clients for editorial work. Her young adult novel, Sad Perfect, which was based on her daughter’s eating disorder, ARFID, was published in 2017 by Macmillan/FSG. She has also self-published several adult novels. Stephanie has written for various magazines and websites on topics such as parenting, mental health, relationships and more. She is a passionate advocate of authors and has been helping to promote the writing of others for years. Visit www.stephanieelliot.com for more information or contact her at stephanieelliot@gmail.com.