Writing is Hard Work

Hello readers.  Today, I don’t want to talk to you about writing.  Well that’s not true.  What I have to say is in fact about writing but it’s about the writing process in general.  A lot of people think that great writers are people that can sit down at their computer or typewriter and just hammer out a masterpiece with very little thought.  This misconception makes people think of writers as spontaneous and eccentric wordsmiths that will lock themselves away from the world until the work is done.  Well I’m sorry to disappoint you but neither Rome nor Moby Dick were built in a day.  It takes time and hard work to produce good writing.  And that’s why I think  the most important part of any writing project is not the writing itself, its the planning and editing stages.

I cannot tell you how important it is to plan your writing.  I’ve not only told other people this many times, I’ve told this to myself over and over again.  ”Make an outline!”  I don’t care what kind of writing you are doing, essay, novel, dissertation, short story.  If you don’t plan out your writing ahead of time it’s going to show.  I can tell you from experience, I have never written an A paper without making some sort of outline before hand.  Now I don’t mean that you have to have every sentence and argument written out in pristine bullet and numbered order. Whenever I plan out an essay or short story I’m all over the map.  If I’m writing a ten page paper, then it usually takes twenty pages of legal pad paper to plan out the essay.  And then only three of those pages are usually in an ordered fashion.  The rest of my pre-writing is stream of consciousness and brainstorming. But that’s just me.  I know students that can write a beautiful essay with an outline that takes up only half a page.  But you better believe they took a good day or two to come up with something that concise.  You can figure out what kind of planning works best for you but you should understand this simple point.  Before you write that first introduction paragraph for an essay or the first line of dialogue for a character, you better have thought out three things, 1)where is this piece of writing going to begin? 2)Where is it going to end? 3) How am I going to get from beginning to end?

Now you’ve done all your planning and you’ve written a complete piece.  It’s editing time baby.  I cannot tell you how many times friends of mine have asked me to read their essays or short stories without editing it themselves.  Please for the love of Herman Melville, don’t do this to people.  You need to read your own writing no matter how painful it may be.  Too often do I come across a sentence or paragraph that is so awkwardly worded that not even its author can figure out what he or she was trying to say.  This is infuriating to both parties.  But many people think that they need a fresh pair of eyes to edit for them.  Usually it’s because they think they aren’t able to spot mistakes in their own writing.  I understand if you’re writing a long dissertation or a novel, you might need some extra help due to time constraints.  In that case, let me direct you to the CambridgeEditors website–http://www.cambridgeeditors.com/index.html.–but if you’re writing a five to ten page paper then you can definitely edit your own writing.  For your own benefit, here’s a useful tip–read your essay out loud.  If you read you’re own writing in your head it’s easy to overlook mistakes–even big mistakes.  Reading your writing out loud will help you to hear exactly what your writing sounds like to another person.  And trust me when you read an awkward sentence, it sticks out.

A lot of people have this misconception that truly great writers are these magical word magicians that can just spit out great prose without much effort or thought.  One time, I got into an argument with a classmate about writing and writers.   She said, “you know writers don’t just sit down and think about everything that they are going to say, they don’t plan out every metaphor and symbol before hand.”  And my response was, “yes they do!”  You know the scene in The Great Gatsby where Gatsby tells Nick, Daisy’s ‘voice is full of money,’?  That scene went through six edits.  Are there writers that can churn out works of genius without thinking?  Not really.  If you ever hear of a writer doing that its because he or she has been writing and planning and editing everyday for years and years.  It’s like learning an instrument.  No one picks up a trumpet for the first time and is suddenly able to play like Miles Davis.

Here’s what I’m trying to say. Writing takes hard work and practice, just like everything else.  If you want to be a good writer you need to put in the effort, plain and simple.  And that means anyone can be a writer so long as they are willing to put in the work.  It’s a comforting thought.

Until next time.

CambridgeEditors

Sandor Mark

 

♥ Friendship in the Time of Love ♥

Here at the Cambridge Editors WordPress blog, we’ve decided to devote the month of February to some romantical-like writings, because let’s face it, there’s no getting away from Valentine’s Day. It haunts unattached individuals like a far more effective Canterville Ghost. If you’ve been to Dunkin lately, then you’ll have noticed even the donuts have gone all heart-shaped.

As a single lady, this isn’t my favorite time of year. I know it’s a “Hallmark holiday,” and therefor shouldn’t carry much weight, since you should appreciate your significant other every day of the year, much like you should appreciate your parents all the time, not just Father’s and Mother’s Day. But still, it’s harder to ignore not having a loved one when romance is in the air like tacky perfume spritzed by those retail store employees that can’t take no for an answer.

Thinking about it though, I realized that I have many loved ones. No, not like that; I’m just blessed with many wonderful friends, which hasn’t necessarily been true throughout my life. I was a weird kid, one of the types with big owl glasses and wolf t-shirts, who stayed in during recess to draw. Middle and high school weren’t much easier, and I didn’t really find myself with a solid group of friends until college. And with all the romantic love floating around, I think it’s important to remember the quieter love of the friend who stays up drinking wine with you after a bad day, even though they have work in the morning. The love of a friend who you can laugh so hard with you both start to cry. The love of a friend who will sit in silence with you after your dog is put to sleep, or you find out your dad is sick again. Those are the kind of friends I’ve found in the last three years, and I wouldn’t trade them for a million Jude Laws with 12 million red roses.

But to bring things back to literature, one of my favorite literary friendships by far is that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson. Our favorite consulting detective and his loyal companion have been enjoying a resurgence in popularity recently, with the recent blockbusters starring Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law (double sigh) and the BBC series Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman (more gratuitous sighs). Sherlock Holmes is one of the most depicted characters in cinema and TV, as well as the stage, and fans of the original canon may enjoy debating the merits of one actor or another, but I’m mostly just glad to see some interpretations of Dr. Watson that don’t involve him being a bumbling idiot as when portrayed by Nigel Bruce in the 30′s and 40′s.

The reason why this is the crux for my enjoyment of Holmes’ adaptations is because for me, the Sherlock Holmes stories aren’t about Holmes’ nearly supernatural deductive skills, or his trademark unusual behavior. It’s because I think the real story of Sherlock Holmes is that of him and John Watson, and Arthur Conan Doyle’s depiction of one of the greatest friendships in literary history. And for the spirit of that relationship to be portrayed accurately (again, this is just the significance I’ve found), Watson needs to be Holmes’ equal, at least in different areas than intellect (since it’s obvious that in smarts, Holmes can only be equaled by Moriarty or “The Woman.” This nerdy enough for you yet?). And Watson is Holmes’ equal, or even more in some areas; his general knowledge is much wider than Holmes’, he’s a trained Army doctor, a heckuva shot, and he’s also more emotionally adept to be sure.

Now, some people want Holmes and Watson to be… more than friends, which is something I hold no issue with and is frequently joked about in the BBC series. It’s undeniable though that there’s no evidence in the original canon to point to a romantic relationship between the two, and that’s just fine by me because I find their relationship fascinating as is. As best friends they are a perfect balance and operate in such a way together that they could not alone. Holmes, as a rather socially stunted man, must have been incredibly lonely before Watson came along, and Watson was an injured soldier with no cause left to serve. While Watson does serve as an excellent literary device, allowing Holmes to spell out his deductions and express the reader’s wonder at his conclusions, he also serves to tie Holmes to the real world with real interactions, something I think Conan Doyle became more aware of as he wrote the duo over the years.

In the earlier stories, Watson sometimes seemed a little too awed by Holmes, a little too humble for their friendship to be one of equals; and Holmes seems as disappointed by Watson’s lack of intelligence as he is by everyone else’s. But as I wrap up this long, nerdy, sentimental rant, I would point you to one, classic moment, in “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs,” after the villain is caught by our heroes:

“Well, well!” said he coolly as he scrambled to the surface. “I guess you have been one too many for me, Mr. Holmes. Saw through my game, I suppose, and played me for a sucker from the first. Well, sir, I hand it to you; you have me beat and –”

In an instant he had whisked out a revolver from his breast and had fired two shots. I felt a sudden hot sear as if a red-hot iron had been pressed to my thigh. There was a crash as Holmes’s pistol came down on the man’s head. I had a vision of him sprawling upon the floor with blood running down his face while Holmes rummaged him for weapons. Then my friend’s wiry arms were round me, and he was leading me to a chair.

“You’re not hurt, Watson? For God’s sake, say that you are not hurt!”

It was worth a wound — it was worth many wounds — to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain.

So in the month of February, a time of romantic love and flowers and chocolates, I ask you to remember the friends you hold dear and where you might be without them. For without his Boswell, Sherlock Holmes may have never been the icon Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created, and we would all be poorer for it. Just as we would all surely be poorer without our friends.

From Cambridge Editors,

Katie (third from the right, with some of the best friends a girl could wish for.)

♥ Love and Literature ♥

It’s February, which means that Valentine’s Day is only a few days away.  As I mentioned on Friday, the big topic this month is love.  This theme has been a central concept in literature, philosophy, psychology, etc. It’s probably the most central concept in art.  While the concept has permeated through multiple disciplines of academia and art, itself has by no means been constant.  Love, in a sense, while thought to have a rigorous definition is fluid, and the more we try to define it, the more it eludes us.

Now I can go on and on about the philosophical origins of love, going all the way back to Plato.  I could even talk to you about the origins of Valentines day. But that would take forever and it would probably bore the pants off of you.  So let’s bring the discussion closer to home, shall we?  How can we express love in our writing?  This question almost hurts me to ask. Why you ask? It’s because young writers seem to have a certain image of how love should be expressed in their writing that is so cliche that whenever I see someone commit this crime against love I promptly return their piece and say, “try again.”  Now that may seem mean but I do have a good reason for doing it.  Most young writers today don’t have reasons for using the images and words that typically are associated with love.  They just believe that if they can reasonably regurgitate a few buzz words and images then they will produce good writing.  This method is dishonest, and it insults the very emotion that it intends to depict.  The problem with today’s young writers is that they never have an answer to the question, “Why?”

That’s the big question, “why?” If a character in one of your stories does anything, even if it’s as simple as going for a run everyday, there has to be a reason for them to do it.  Most young writers give their characters certain traits, not because it’s necessary to the story or to the character, but because they think it will automatically make their writing better.  For example, I cannot tell you how many bad short stories I have read about character who smoke.  Apparently they think that good writing needs a certain amount of “raunch”.  In fact, almost the opposite is true. A lot of the best writing I have ever read is about the dull and mundane.  When it comes to literature and it’s themes, it’s not the ‘what’ that’s important, it’s the ‘why’.

So what does this have to do with love?  I’ll tell you.  If you are writing a story or a novel, or even writing a paper about the love between two characters, you need to know the ‘why’ before you do any writing.  Why are these characters in love? Why do they express their love in such and such a way?  I’ll make this clear with one of my least favorite movies of all time.  The Star Wars prequels.  I know it’s not literature, but screenplays are a type of writing and therefore this example is relevant.

In the movie, Anakin Skywalker and Princess Amedala fall madly in love.  This causes Anakin to turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader, blah blah blah.  Great, I get all that, but why are they in love?  Go back and watch those movies again with a critical eye and you’ll see that these two characters are in love for absolutely no reason other than it works for the ending of the story.  Anakin is a self-absorbed maniac and Amedala is a boring monotone Senator,who is always terrified of her husband. George Lucas failed to grasp some basic rules from creative writing 101.  He forgot that the audience needs to care about the characters and their love first and foremost.  Otherwise we have no stake in the relationship and how the story ends.

This is one of the reasons I cannot stand modern day depictions of love, that are deemed, “real”.  Somehow, post-modernism has infected our sensibilities into thinking that love needs to be full of cynicism and angst.  We seem to have forgotten that love can have some emotional levity, in fact it should be joyous.  Cupid shouldn’t be torturing his clients, he should be releasing them from their shackles.

That’s why I think the best portrayal of love these days can be found in romantic comedies.  You probably didn’t see that one coming.

Now I’m no fan of romantic comedies but you’ll be surprised to find that they have some depth to them.  People often say that they are petty and shallow depictions of what it’s like to be in love in the twenty-first century.  True, quality of the writing isn’t always worthy of Melville, but at least they have the basics covered.  Most romantic comedies follow the same structure:  a strong independent woman, usually working in a fast paced job that takes up all of her time, meets a guy, she starts to have feelings for him, she’s worried about getting hurt, finally she let’s herself be vulnerable, she experiences a minor heartbreak which makes her retreat back into her career, which forces her to shut down her emotional identity  completely, then after an impassioned speech about love, and they ride off into the sunset.

Sure it has a “factory made” written all over it, but I think it actually makes a really deep metaphysical point about love that is particularly relevant to the time in which we live. The message is this: in a world where superficiality and celebrity pop culture rules the landscape we have retreated more and more into ourselves and our careers. We have shut ourselves off from having any sort of real emotional connection to the outside world and the people who inhabit it.  People are seen as means and not as ends in themselves.  However, the one thing that can give meaning to our lives is love.  Romantic comedies remind us that, yes, love means opening yourself up to the possibility getting hurt.  That level emotional vulnerability is scary to everyone.  But in the end it’s worth letting yourself be vulnerable is much more rewarding than retreating into your own ego.

So for all the post-modern cynics that believe that love is dead because of our fast paced modern sensibility, I say nay! It can be found in some of the cheesiest writing that has ever been produced.  But corny writing doesn’t entail untruth.  I argue that more truth can be found in Jerry Maguire than can be found in any Chuck Palahniuck book.

So this Valentines day, when you are snuggling up with your significant other to watch a movie, take a page out of Kurt Vonnegut’s book.  Just stop, look around, and say,” if this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

CambridgeEditors

Sandor

♥ February, the Month of Love and Writing ♥

Well hello there, faithful readers, I didn’t see you come in!  It’s February and you know what that means; chalky heart candies with messages on them like “I wuv u”, heart shaped cards, over sized boxes of chocolate, and red decorations everywhere! Yes Valentine’s day is coming up, which makes February the month of Love. Why did I capitalize ‘Love’? I’m so glad you asked.

First and foremost we here at the CambridgeEditors are offering a special discount for all of your February editing needs. Any document 50 pages or more in the area of history will receive a 10% discount. This includes political, social, cultural or biographical works.  Email us and describe your project, mention the special and get 10% off. Also, writers of books and dissertations seeking edits of documents over 100 pages who contact us in February will receive a 15% discount.

The second reason I capitalized “Love,” was because I would like to announce some upcoming blog posts on the subject of love, that oh so mysterious and desirable concept.  Katie, Alex and Myself will be writing feature pieces on love, in honor of Valentines day.  These won’t be the only blog updates, of course, but they’re sure to be spectacular posts. So make sure you keep checking the blog.

CambridgeEditors

Sandor

 

The Need to Write

Reading Sandor’s post reminded me of people’s responses when I tell them that I’m a writing major; granted, I’m from Emerson, which is a smaller, more concentrated school (Math? Science? What are those?), but I still find that I’m always quick to defend my major, particularly when speaking to people outside my school. Well maybe “defend” is the wrong word, since I usually follow up my admission by saying “Yep, writing. Lucrative, I know. I fully expect to be living above my older sister’s garage for most of my life, or at least ’til she passes away and I can move into the main house.”

However, perhaps I shouldn’t be so self-conscious and deprecating of my chosen path, especially when it maybe wasn’t much of a choice. Just as my sister was always destined to become a nurse (which she’s incredible at), I think I was always going to be a writer. It could have come from growing up across from a library, visiting there every day, and eventually working there for two years in high school. It could have come from my mother reading aloud to my sister and I nearly every day when we were children. I definitely had the childhood for a writer, but then again, so did my sister. There was something different, then, that drove me to pick up a pen throughout my life every time I was upset or ecstatic or bored, and eventually drove me to major in writing.

A lot of my writing teachers talk about feeling the need to write, the burning for it; how they write because they must to survive. And I get worried because I’m not always sure I feel that. I get paranoid that maybe I’m just writing because my mom’s always told I’m good at it. Maybe I was really meant to be a dancer, or a marine biologist, like I wanted when I was 9. Or a unicorn, like I wanted when I was 5.

However, I don’t always feel most of my primal urges. I don’t always want to eat, or sleep- okay, maybe those are bad examples for a college student. But as many times as I feel my well of creativity as dried up, there have also been times where the only way I was going to stop typing was if my fingers fell off, because I just had too much to say. Inspiration may wax and wane, but I believe the heart of a writer is always true, whether or not they know it, and whether or not a difficult industry may discourage them.

Just as Sandor said, we write to communicate and to communicate well, and we also write because we have to share our common human experiences. That’s why, when one of my sister’s dearest patients passed away, she was compelled to write an essay about it. For my sister and I, as well as millions of others, there is a therapy in writing that can be found in few other places. I hope you keep this in mind when you write creatively; that while it’s good to stay mindful of your audience, you’re also writing for you. Let what other people think influence your third or fourth draft, but let that first one be yours. After all, that’s what editors are for!

From Cambridge Editors,

Katie (the one the right)

 

Why We Write

Whenever I meet someone new there is always the inevitable conversation topic of where I go to school and what I am studying.  ”Oh you go to BU,” they’ll say, “what’s your major?”  I respond, “English and Philosophy.”  This always seems baffle people, they look at me as if to say, “why do you want to study that? In this job market?”  As if there was a preconceived understanding that there are only a few “real” majors.  I’ve noticed that my science, business, and engineering friends don’t get this reaction whenever they tell someone what they’re are studying, leaving the humanities majors to shift uncomfortably in undeserved embarrassment.

Well I’m here to right a wrong, and make clear an issue that a lot of people tend to take for granted.  When it comes to the many skills that people can choose to hone in order to make themselves a desirable candidate for almost any professional career, writing is by far the most useful.  And this isn’t my own humble opinion either, when you compare the number of science students being accepted to top medical schools to the number of english and philosophy students being accepted to top medical schools, the results may surprise you.  English majors beat out the science majors every year.  Why is this the case?  The answer good reader, is writing.

Writing is crucial to our everyday lives and professions.  In any endeavor you might undertake:  a term paper, a dissertation, a novel, or even a project proposal, writing takes precedence as the key medium through which we communicate our ideas.  True, being a well spoken individual is impressive, but writing is by far a more demanding form of expression than verbal communication.  You probably have experienced this first hand, what seems like an incredible idea will pop into your head and you will try to convey it verbally.  Now try and write down that idea and try to be as clear and concise as possible.  You’ve probably found that once you sit down at your desk, or wherever you do most of your work, your idea, which was once so clear and well thought out, is suddenly muddied with vague assertions and half baked phrases that you thought would sound great on the page. Still don’t believe me? Well how about another example.

Tape record a conversation you have with one of your friends, or even better, Turn on CNN or FOX, or MSNBC.  Write down word for word what the newscasters or you and your friend say. The result will be an incoherent babble of ambiguous buzzwords that carry little to no meaning.

The truth is unavoidable. Writing simply demands a higher level of cognitive thinking to produce clear and concise ideas, that no other form of expression requires.  Because of this undeniable truth, everyone, and I mean everyone, should know how to write.  Not just for professional purposes, but so that we can better understand each other as human beings.  Who are we? What do we believe? What do we want?  It’s crucial that the answers to these fundamental question are clear to everyone, which means that when it comes to intelligent and humane discourse good writing is the cement holding the building together.

Stay active, writers.

CambridgeEditors

Sandor Mark

 

Writer’s Block Attacks Again!

Katie’s post got me thinking about what I do to counter writer’s block, both as a poet, and as one with a general interest in writing.

Often my writer’s block comes out of an impatience; a desire to express an excess of ideas and emotions urgently! The ideas are without definition. They are disorganized, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear starting point for the project, let alone a readable path for it to follow. Often, designing a project with rules can help to get ideas flowing because you can focus on the rules of the game, rather than the overwhelming sense of not knowing where to begin. You begin with the rules!

 

Here are two projects that often help me to shake loose these thoughts from the unreachable tangle, and to begin to organize them:

1. Write a letter. Ideas seem to flow more easily when the writing takes the voice of a speaker in conversation. The letter can be addressed to a real person, but it doesn’t have to be. You can write it to one of your characters if you are creating a fictional world. You can write it to your sister. You can write it to an inspiring figure; one who you would love to share your ideas with, if you had the chance. Whomever you address your letter to, I think you will find that writing about your project, or about the themes that your project is focused on, will help you focus. The most salient ideas will condense in your mind as you write your letter. You’ll be able to understand your thoughts more fully; to write about them more accurately, and with more assurance. Sometimes it is just easier to express your ideas to a person, imagined or real, rather then to the potentially massive hypothetical and judgmental audience that your finished work will eventually be read by. The letter is really a workshop, or discussion with yourself, on the topic which you wish to write about.
2. Blackout Poetry. This project works especially well in writing poetry, but it could potentially be applied to other forms of writing as well. In this exercise, you find a newspaper or magazine article, maybe even a page from an old book that you don’t mind writing in. First I read through the text, marking words that I find interesting or pertinent to my theme on a scrap piece of paper. (The association can be loose! The idea is to make connections between your idea and the words on the page!) Then you slowly work through the text, blacking out words with a pen or marker, and leaving some visible, until you are left with a (sometimes rather abstract) piece of writing composed out of the writing of the original found text. This method of extracting my idea out of found text often helps me to solidify my thoughts on the subject, and opens me up to expressing my own idea in ways (and words!) that I never would have thought to otherwise.

 

Below I have attached a sample of a Blackout Poem that helped me compose a series of poems about the sun, and the fractal qualities that permeate nature, and sometimes, our relationships.

Poem that emerges:

I painted a dusty spiral.

Spiral.
The way seeds are distributed
within the head of a sun:

nautilus temples
to order their pictorial spaces,
satisfying in this shape.

*

Slowly in his chair
he notes natives deserting
their myths.

With his own strange demons
loss occurs daily.

I don’t think I felt this relation more acutely.
I just kept the feeling
on warm rocks.

*

There was a meteor
that certain philosophers thought
but couldn’t feel.

I sympathized with
all of nature,

so attracted to
the Nile:
universal glue-
parallel in every man.
The basic particle
groping after

invisible familiarity
first leans forward
toward a back, covered,
abstract.

*

He needs
character of the plant.
Drawing on my own
ample
stalk
of rhythm
he introduced me,
he forced me
at its texture.

He turns,
folds his hands in his lap.

 

 

From CambridgeEditors,

Alex

Conquering the Writer’s Block

When you’re a writer, there are few worse feelings than the dreaded writer’s block. It’s that friend that loves to drop by unannounced and far too often, just to whisper in your ear: “What do you mean you’re trying to write? You’ve got nothing left to say. Let’s watch 30 Rock.”

Now, I’ve heard some people say that they don’t believe in writer’s block. These people are somehow blessed with the self-discipline to sit down in front of their computer or notebook at a certain time every day (probably before noon, too), and stand up a few hours later having produced a considerable amount of decent, solid material. I imagine that these people also actually floss after every meal and remember to change their Brita filters however often people are supposed to do that.

However, I do believe in writer’s block, and not just because there’s a Wikipedia page on it. No, fellow writers and readers, I’ve been there. Whether it’s an essay due in 4 hours or a certain story that just won’t come out, I’ve definitely had those moments where I start to wonder if repeatedly hitting my head on the keyboard might be more productive.

Whenever I get that feeling while trying to begin some creative writing, I usually turn to the internet for some inspiring, (and most importantly) free prompts, and I thought I would share some of what I’ve found. Kathy Steffen over at The How To Write Shop wrote an article a couple of months ago about getting over that “getting started” hurdle, and here are some of the prompts she came up with, for either fiction or nonfiction:

1. Write about waiting for a baby to come
2. Write about a birth
3. Write about being a child at the turn of the century. Next, a child in 1920. 1930? 1940? 1950? 1960? You get the idea…
4. Write about going to school for the first time
5. Write about a teen-age fan and the icon they adore (person, character, movie, etc.)
6. Write about a dance in a gym
7. Write about a first date
8. Write about a first kiss
9. Write about a party
10. Write about a graduation (high school, college, beauty school, driving school, etc.)
11. Write about a wedding
12. Write about a marriage
13. Write about a breakup
14. Write about a divorce
15. Write about a family reunion
16. Write about waiting for death
17. Write about fighting death
18. Write about a death
19. Write about the morning of a funeral
20. Write about a family ritual

The life events listed above tend to be changing points in a person’s life, moments full of drama and urgency, and as such writing about them can imbue your prose with the same qualities. Write about yourself or a character of yours, and don’t get tangled up in concerns about whether it’s the beginning of something larger or if it’s going where you want it to; just keep writing! Because when you’re a rich and famous author, you can always pay someone to buy your Brita filters for you.

From Cambridge Editors,

Katie

Congratulations to Laura Paquette!

Laura has been editing for Cambridge Editors for two years.  She started as an intern here while she was finishing up her Masters degree at Emerson and today she became a mom.  At seven this morning Brian Patrick Paquette was born.  Congratulations to the Laura and Aaron!

Laura Paquette holds an MA in Writing and Publishing from Emerson College. She has written for publications such as New England Film, e-how.com, and Step-by-Step Marketing. She has also worked as an editorial assistant for the non-profit magazine Teen Voices, which encourages young women to think about the role of media in their lives. While receiving her BA in English Literature, she completed a thesis on Shakespeare’s progressive use of jealousy and served as head intern at campus publishing house, Fiction Collective 2.

Here come the interns!

We have three new interns at CambridgeEditors who are going to be posting updates to the blog, so we figured we’d give them the space to each say a little something about themselves!

Katie Walsh

You may remember me from such well known works as the “January Inspiration” post I did two days ago! As before, I’m a senior writing undergraduate from Emerson College with a minor in psychology, which makes me a blast at parties. I’m a fan of old movies, Jackie Chan, big dogs, and books of all varieties, from graphic novels to Victorian literature. I’m excited to be here at CambridgeEditors and looking forward to helping out wherever I can!

Alex Beuscher

I graduated from Connecticut College in 2010 with a degree in English Literature. I moved to Cape Cod for a year during which I taught art classes to female inmates at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility. After traveling through Southeast Asia for several months, I have recently settled here in Cambridge. I am an occasional poet, and an animal lover. I make ceramic sculpture mostly inspired by animals and skeletons.

Sandor Mark

I am a Junior at Boston University, studying English and Philosophy.  In addition, I am an executive member of the Boston University Literary society and the Vice President of the BU Writers Workshop.  Although I grew up in New York, Boston has become the fertile soil of my literary destiny and education. Some of my interests include, spontaneously reciting lines from Woody Allen movies, trying to grow facial hair that can rival Ernest Hemingway’s beard, and old typewriters.  It’s great to be here at Cambridge Editors!