#did they get rid of the old post editor?????

[anyachristinaemmanuellajenkins]

Forgiveness

BtVS 2.19 I Only Have Eyes for You // AtS 1.18 Five by Five // BtVS 7.05 Selfless // BtVS 7.02 Beneath You // BtVS 6.22 Grave

[skyburger]

RIP reo speedwagon (the jojo's bizarre adventure character) you would've loved reo speedwagon (the american rock band)

[lttleghostlemon]

Putting in my two cents for anyone who follows me, and in the future will see my posts. On the topic of fandom such as Coraline or Good Omens, I am going to continue enjoying them. I already own the books of both, and also dvds of both, so I won’t be giving him money by watching either. Both of these pieces of media are a huge part of myself that I cannot simply do away with. However, I can do away with the creator. In this situation it’s a “guilty until proven innocent” thing. Not the other way around. 

I’ve loved the Coraline movie before I even knew who Neil was. I am not going to throw it out because yes, I would be throwing out NG, but also the 500 people, who spent 4 years of their life working on the beautiful stop motion within the movie. Throwing out Good Omens gets rid of Neil, but also the countless amount of film crew, animators, editors, actors, background actors. And also Terry Pratchett.  

I am going to continue to appreciation these works for the other people involved. However I will no longer be supporting Neil himself. He is guilty until proven innocent because what he did is disgusting. I mainly am fixation on BBC Ghosts at the moment, but if I post about Good Omens or Coraline again in the future, this is my stance. *Edit 2 days after posting. I did not say I WOULD be posting about this content anytime soon, since my fixations lay elsewhere atm. But any future reblogs fit with my statement. That I continue to enjoy the media, and will forever deeply hate the artist. Because hes 1: a zionist, 2: supported CP. and 3: a rapist. I will probably no longer post any art since I would loved to not be mauled by 30 yr olds on tumblr. So yes, I will enjoy Coraline, I will enjoy Good Omens, though more privately with friends now rather than tumblr or insta. However I will forever bring up how disgusting this man is.

[fakehelper]

✦ Okay, I give in. Let's upload our gifs on the beta editor to prepare for a gif pack page. Resources are available at the bottom, so lets get started !!

So first things first, you can only upload 30 gifs at a time. Now for me, I will always upload as I gif, around every 20 gifs, then upload to the page (this also ensures I don't skip any or have doubles) and keep gifing. That used to mean that I don't have to wait for tumblr to load 300 gifs and die from impatience. For the rest of y'all that means you're going to have to batch upload. I know, I'm sorry.

Note: With the help of @nataliealynlind we discovered that the daily limit is 250 gifs! So if you have more than that, prepare to upload your gifs over the course of a couple days or use a second blog. (imo this is another great reason to upload as you gif! that way you don't have to get stuck at 250!)

So after you upload your gifs (in this case I only did 10)*, you're going to go to the gear at the top of your post and click it. Then scroll all the way to the bottom where it says Text Editor. This looks familiar, right?

*Note: If you don't save it as a draft first, your gifs will be in .gif format, not .gifv. This means you can skip removing this tag later on, but I'm not sure if gifs that are uploaded but never saved/drafted will later disappear at some point. To be safe, I would save it as a draft. I just forgot at this part tbh

Well the good news is, you only have to change this once! The bad news is, we don't do Markdown then HTML anymore bc Markdown doesn't strip any of the code anymore 🙃 So just change it to HTML

Now it should look like this! Fun!

Okay, now we're going to copy that text and take it on over to our new best friend, the HTML Cleaner! So you're going to want to paste it on the right side of the screen. Your gifs should appear on the left side. If both sides have text, that's how you know you pasted it on the left.

So in order to get ride of all this extra code, it's going to take a couple extra steps. First, you're going to check these boxes on the left hand side.

Now, on the right hand side, you're going to enter these under Find and Replace (copy/paste section below!!). I know you're like, uh what? Where the hell did you get those numbers? Well, I got them from our gif post code!

For easy copy pasting:

Find: <figure> Replace: (leave blank)

Find: </figure> Replace: (leave blank)

So after you add the specific widths for your gifs, you're also going to want to add the following:

Find: .gifv Replace: .gif

Find: alt="" Replace: (leave blank)

Find: /> < Replace: /><

NOTE: If your gifs are usually the same size, I would recommend saving these snippits above on your computer's sticky notes or a draft to copy/paste for future uploads! While I do appreciate the viewer traffic, I'm sure coming to this tutorial every time is gonna get old real fast.

After all that, click Clean HTML

And now, your code should look like this! If there's still a space between your image links, just click Clean HTML again and it should get rid of it!

Now your code is nice and clean to put into your gif pages! Not quite sure how to do that? Read the Setting Up Your Sidepage section in this older tutorial!!

Resources

HTML Cleaner

My Gif Pack Page Codes

Recommended Gif Pack Page Codes (tag)

Previous Tutorial (How to upload to a Standard Sidepage)

Barebones Code (for previous tutorial)

[forestgreenlesbian]

oh nooooo they did it they got rid of the old post editor for photo posts and now force you to use the new one this might really be the thing that gets me to delete my blog lol

[apostaterevolutionary]

I’m really upset by the upcoming functionality loss as apparently tumblr is getting rid of the desktop post editor and switching to the crappy mobile one. But I’ve seen NO posts about this? Am I the only one? They’re basically killing gifsets (don’t work properly on the new editor) and fucking over artists with crappier image quality and I’ve just seen… silence? The archive will be worse as post types won’t exist anymore? No copying multiple paragraphs? A hint that old posts soon won’t be editable? I have over a decade of posts here and I do NOT want to lose access to them. Like I’m fucking panicking cause this WILL really hurt fandom, the group tumblr has been most trying to cater to. Like I think between this and other social media sites going down the tubes, I feel like fandom as a whole will not exist in a few years at this rate. I’m not trying to spread panic, I genuinely feel this way unless some other site comes along or staff gets their heads out of their assess

So poll (which ironically don’t work in the desktop editor although it’d be literally so easy to implement)

[themesbyeva]

Beta Editor / NPF Image Posts

Hi everybody, so since tumblr wants to get rid of post types all together by May 15, I tried to figure out a way to make “old” and “new” image uploads look the same in my theme.

Example:

Left you see a new image upload, on the right side an “old” one, uploaded with the “Legacy Post Editor”.

Since old posts will continue to look the way they do now, and all new uploads will look like the left image above, my themes will look like a mess.

I did a little coding today and found a way to make both pictures look the same, while still displaying text posts normally.

Here is the new version:

Possible problems:

As the new post types are a pain in my ass and pretty much all posts are coded as text posts now, it’s hard to make everything look the way it should. This means I can’t fully guarantee that every single post will be displayed correctly. Especially long text-heavy posts with multiple images (such as this one), might not be displayed correctly with my changed code. But keeping in mind that my themes are intended to be used on photo-heavy blogs, for the majority of people this would be a good fix.

So let me know if you are interested in a theme code update for the following themes:

Grapefruit

Lightsome

Adventurer

All other themes have been moved to the #old tag. They are still available, but not supported anymore.

I hope to get at least some feedback on this post. Have a good week everybody.

xx Eva

[nenko-dreams]

Lovely @zetaaa requested a snippet from “Emergency exit” so here it is. I hope it’s not too confusing after only one chapter posted on ao3... but I’ll be happy to answer any questions! I hope you’ll enjoy =) 

Two days later her useless toad of a husband returned from the city. His arrival was announced by the sound of a car stopping at the gate. Roelle strode down the stairs on her way to the living room window which allowed a nice view of the main road and the garden. Selwyn found her with her nose glued to the glass, gaping critically at the fiancé he had brought from the mainland. The man was tall and unbelievably handsome, standing alone at the path leading to the house with a confused expression on his face. His golden hair needed some trimming to look presentable according to the government standards but the thing that attracted Roelle’s sharp gaze was something else.

“He was supposed to be handsome and agreeable���” She shook her head, turning back to face Selwyn. “And while he doesn’t lack in looks, he is a cripple.”

“Try to find a better one,” Selwyn said, defensively, taking out his casual clothes from the large wardrobe in the corner of the room.  He was in no mood for an argument. He only wished to finally get rid of his elegant suffocating suit and escape to his greenhouse to calm down after this ridiculous journey. “Now people know their value. It’s difficult to hire for field work, not to mention for a wedding.”

“But he’s a cripple,” Roelle insisted with a clear distaste in her voice. 

“So what?” Selwyn shrugged, unbuttoning his shirt. “It’s even better. Only true love would make you marry a one-handed man and if you need a divorce, it’s always a good reason.”

“Oh.” Roelle shot him a surprised look. She had always considered her husband a simple-minded muttonhead but from time to time even he could come up with something clever to say.  “I see the visit to the city did you some good. Now you’re thinking like a politician. Where did you find him?”

“At television.”

“What’s his name?”

“I guess it was Lannister… He’s an editor there or something.” Selwyn turned away so she could not see his face.

“Is he? He doesn’t even have glasses…” Roelle said, taking away his shirt. It was too expensive to trust him to fold it properly. “Did you sign a contract?”

“Hells, Ro. Our Brienne is not an old car for sale.”

“Those vultures from television will do anything for money! Did he tell you why he needs it?”

“Something about the journey around Essos,” Selwyn mumbled the first thing that came to his mind. The revelation at the ferryboat left him too drained and exhausted to ask any more questions about his future son-in-law and he wasn’t even sure he wanted to know the answers. 

“Yet another bloody traveller, greedy for my money. Human cruelty has no limits!” Roelle snickered. “And it’s all your fault, Sel. It’s because of your lenient parenting Brie is now carrying a bastard!”

“Not so loud, Ro,” Selwyn said preventively before she could start her usual rant criticising his every little move. “What will the fiancé think about us?”

“Who cares? Just bring him over here.” 

Selwyn sighed, casting the last resigned look through the window and suddenly froze. The damn fiancé was no longer waiting in front of the house but what terrified Selwyn the most, was the fact that the young man was nowhere to be seen. Fearing the worst, he shoved the suitcase with the money in his wife’s hands ordering her to hide it properly and ran out of the room.

[rpschtuff]

Hi Jeanette! There may be an workaround with the switchover from legacy to the new editor for Trim Reblogs that should still work (I haven't tested it as I've been using the new editor for months now) that you could test.

So what matters to Trim Reblogs is the root post of the thread, i.e. the initial post of that thread. So let's say a thread is 20 replies--you want to go back to the starter for that thread. Let's assume, for ease, that Partner A was the one who started it, Partner B replied to it. This would then be Partner A's first post that we are looking for.

Previously, Trim Reblogs just didn't work on legacy posts at all until a recent update to it. A way that I found to go around this was by finding the first post of the thread and editing it using the MOBILE APP EDITOR. Not the browser, the Tumblr mobile app for Android/iOs (in my case, it was iOS). By editing it and changing something small--bolding or italicizing a word was my go-to, you could even just bold or italicize a period or something--it sort of "forced" it back to the NPF style post, and then it would be recognized by Trim Reblogs as the new post format (NPF).

It's something I would test & see if it works to possibly get around some of the issues that happen when you're trying to convert old legacy threads to the new editor & Trim Reblogs just continually glitches out (it happens sometimes).

Also, something to note: unlike with the old xKit, you do not have to have your draft written before you save the post in drafts. You can save it as a draft with nothing in it, cut it, and then work on your post with no issues. It won't randomly post your drafts like the old Editable Reblogs did. (Posting drafts is why I got rid of Editable Reblogs myself, because it was just a no-go for me given how often I switch between drafts).

Thank you so much for your guide! I'm glad to see people switching over to the new editor finally, as it's been... a struggle to deal with not being able to cut posts for months now when I got annoyed with Editable Reblogs.

Thanks for the info! That trick of editing the starter post to switch it to NPF is really helpful for people who don't want to go through all the trouble of moving a thread to a brand new post -- I'll edit my couple of posts to include that. I did edit last night to add that you don't need to have your reply written before using Trim Reblogs anymore. I know that was the case before, but now it seems you can trim at any point, like you said.

About the randomly posting drafts issue -- if that is the same problem I've experienced, you can get around that by switching the save to drafts button to anything else, then back. I wasn't aware of this being an issue with legacy/editable reblogs, though it wouldn't surprise me, and I'm not sure if you'll still have the problem on beta. But I've just made it a habit to switch the button before saving to drafts if I know something isn't ready to post yet.

[fountainfaeries]

god did tumblr seriously get rid of the mass selection on the mass post editor. i was going to go back and fix a bunch of my old tags but fuck that honestly..

[joviantwelve]

TUMBLR QUESTION

Did they remove the setting to get rid of post slugs??  Like, the username.tumblr.com/post/122343/text-in-post/ style URL.  I had an option previously to change it to just username.tumblr.com/post/122343 and preferred it that way, but now I’m realizing I can’t find a way to change it.  Like.  Anywhere.

I literally just logged into my old account to see if there were any setting toggle differences between them, and...there aren’t???  Like not even anything to disable in my old account.  So I wasn’t like, grandfathered into anything there.  I made a post there just this year to advertise this new blog, and its URL is naked.  All of the posts there have 0 slugs, even in the present, and I distinctly remember that being a setting I turned on.

I have no idea what’s going on.  Legacy or Neue editor doesn’t matter.  Yes I understand their being called “slugs” is funny but it’s literally what they’re called.

Minor gripe overall; I just don’t really care for SEO and think the text makes it look messy when linking, especially since I’m a serial Post Editor and thus the first few words of any post I write are subject to change within minutes.  Just figured I’d ask since it’s been a few years.

[dertaglichedan]

Pro-Vaccine Journalist Who Called for Punishment For Refusing Jab Dies Suddenly

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A Canadian journalist who took strong positions in support of COVID-19 vaccines—including calling for vaccine passports and terminating police officers who refused the jab—has died suddenly.

Ian Vandaelle, a 33-year-old business journalist who worked at the Financial Post and earlier at BNN Bloomberg, was declared brain dead and taken off life support earlier this month, his partner, Stephanie Hughes, said in a post on X.

“I haven’t been on Twitter for a while because my partner, @IanVandaelle, has been in the hospital since Nov. 18," Ms. Hughes wrote. "It’s with a heavy heart today that I say he was declared neurologically deceased this week and taken off life support this morning.”

Mr. Vandaelle's death—the cause of which has not been disclosed—drew an outpouring of condolences among his current and former colleagues, many of whom took to social media to praise him for attributes like being kind and smart.

"Journalism has lost a great reporter, editor, producer, mentor, and all around great guy," Ms. Hughes wrote in a post on X.

But Mr. Vandaelle's death also stirred recollections of his ardent support for the COVID-19 vaccination push.

'Bring the Carrot and the Stick'

Mr. Vandaelle's public platform as a journalist led people to take note of his social media posts, especially those related to the controversial matter of COVID-19 vaccines and Canadian government measures that pushed shots in ways that many saw as draconian.

“I, for one, advocate we bring the carrot and the stick," Mr. Vandaelle stated in a social media post in July 2021. "Incentivize getting the vaccine however we like - ice cream, lotteries, literally whatever, I don’t care - and require vaccination to do non-essential things. Wanna go to a bar to watch the game? Passport.”

Vaccine passports were introduced in all Canadian provinces in 2021, though some allowed proof of a recent COVID-19 tests instead of a passport to access non-essential services or engage in non-essential activities. They were discontinued by April 2022.

In another post from August 2021, Mr. Vandaelle urged the Toronto Police to get rid of officers who declined the vaccine: “Take the jab or resign; anything else is moral and ethical cowardice. You take an oath to protect citizens? You get vaxxed. Shameful that we have to say this.”

In November 2021, over 100 Toronto police employees who refused the jab or did not reveal their vaccination status were placed on unpaid leave. In June 2022, the Toronto Police Service ended its mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy for all members.

Dr. William Makis, a Canadian physician who has been critical of COVID-19 vaccine mandates and expressed concern about the safety of mRNA vaccines, wrote on Substack that he saw Mr. Vandaelle's pro-mandate social media posts as problematic, accusing him of having "supported medical fascism, tyranny and some of the worst abuses of our lifetime."

[oldsalempost-blog]

The Old Salem Post

Our  Local Tamassee-Salem SC Area News each Monday except holidays                                          Contact: theoldsalempost@gmail.com                              Distributed to local businesses, town hall, library.                                            Volume 7 Issue 26                                                                                                  Week of July 10, 2023                https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/oldsalempost-blog                                                         Lynne Martin Publishing

EDITOR:  If you care at all about your tax dollars, the next multimillion dollar school consolidation, and trying to prevent our Tamassee-Salem Elementary school from closing, now is the time, probably past time, to rally against the Oconee School Board of Trustees.  TSE is on the chopping block along with Keowee Elementary to consolidate.  Older schools are often  not maintained as they should be in order to give a good reason to close the school.  WGOG radio reports that the Board has seen very little opposition according to their website, where you need to access to give your opinion.   I feel people are best represented when they rally peacefully in massive numbers, and use the media to present the side that is unheard. LRMartin  

Town of SALEM:  Need Softball and Soccer players all ages! Sign up at the SalemTown Hall.  944-2819              

Jottings from Jeannie:  Time to Enjoy Kitty Cats   It would be just terrible to only have one pet and to have to decide between a cat or a dog.   I love them both.  Mama wouldn't let us have cats in the house, but then I married into a CAT family and fell madly in love with a succession of kitties.  I wasn't there, but "they" say that cats were domesticated 5,000 year ago.  Ancient customs and folktales record love between kitties and kids all over the world.   News to Me! If you meet a kitty with the tip of his left  ear cut off, that identifies a kitty who is feral (wild).  Kind folks have trapped, neutered, and vaccinated this kitty, and then let it go so it could roam the countryside catching mice.  I once tried to make friends with such a kitty, but he would not cooperate! He did stop by for a dish of milk every so often.  Miz Jeannie loves you!  Take time to cuddle your kitties and fix them a little dish of melted ice cream!

JOCASSEE VALLEY BREWING COMPANY,(JVBC) & COFFEE SHOP 13412 N Hwy 11 Open  Wed–Sat-Sat 8am-9pm. Sun: 12pm-7pm.  Events this week: Thurs: Old Time Jam 6:30pm. Fri– Food: RadDads at 5pm  Music: LUKE DEUCE at 6:30pm.  Sat–Food: IRON PIG Music: DOGDAY BLUEJAY at 6:30pm.  Sun 12pm-7pm Food: Lobster Dogs.  Music: Cornbread Heads 4pm.  Coffee shop features Pisgah Coffee Roasters and Dough-Dough pastries. More information 864-873-0048   PAINT & PINT or SIP ART CLASS: Paint a local landscape.   Sept 7. 6pm. $$45 Preregister. 864-873-0048

TAMASSEE DAR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM:  Sign up beginning July 3 for the Tamassee DAR Afterschool program that begins August 3.  Call 864-944-1390   for more details.                                                

Health & Recycle Tip : Freeze fresh water in a recycled plastic water or soda bottle to grab and take along with you on a short trip to town. Or, place many frozen ones in your cooler for a long trip.  It will keep you other foods cold along the way.  Drink the fresh cold water as it melts.  LRM                                                Conservation Corner:  Un-tethered growth has a cost:  Traffic, over crowdedness of once serene areas, need for additional services in law enforcement and emergency services, and loss of community…To Be Coninued ...E Martin                                                                                    

Have you ever heard?:  Sprinkling grits over a fire ant bed is supposed to get rid of those red hot heaping mounds of ants.  Placing a shiny penny in a ziplock bag filled with water and nailing it above your door entrance or windows is supposed to detour flies from entering.  

DID YOU KNOW?  If you are retired from Duke Energy and you are volunteer for community projects,  Duke Energy  will match your volunteer hours by donating $10 for each hour, up to $2000  a year to a nonprofit of your choice.  

QUOTE this week by Joyce Meyer:  If you are busy trying to change people you are too busy to allow how God is changing you.

(Adult )MOVIE RECOMMENDATION:  A Christian friend recommended we all need go to the movies to see  Sound of Freedom.  

DAR SCHOOL STUDENT FROM 1942-46 RECALLS EXPERIENCES - (Fifteenth Installment of Pauline Kelley Cannon's Memoir). . .On December 13th of our 10th grade year, Maggie's boyfriend, Leroy, came home on furlough, and he and Mama came to New Jersey Cottage and carried Maggie home. They did not come to see me. After they left, Mr. Cain told me Maggie and Leroy were getting married and she would not be returning to school. . .It really upset me that they didn't come to see me and tell me what they were doing and let me say goodbye to Maggie. I wrote Maggie and Leroy a letter to let them know how I felt about the situation, and Leroy wrote and told me that was the best reprimand he had ever gotten. I also wrote to Mama and let her know just how I felt. . .I was heartbroken and felt so alone. I had not seen any of the family except Maggie since early spring, as I had worked all summer to pay my tuition. But I talked to the Lord and soon got over it. . .MY 11TH GRADE (SENIOR) YEAR, Mr. Dupree was our class sponsor. That year seemed to fly by at breakneck speed. . .For our last prom we decorated the dining hall again, and it seemed even more beautiful than it was for the first one. Ernest was again my date, of course. . .Everyone had a wonderful time dancing and reminiscing about our school years. I don't remember all the menu for our meal, but I do remember we had brick ice cream for dessert. It was so delicious. . .My uncle, James Broome, and his band provided the music for the dancing. . .After it was over we had to clean up the dining hall and put it back in proper order. We were so tired after that, we were ready for bed.--TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

                                     EAGLES NEST ART CENTER                                    501c3

Located 4 Eagle Lane, Salem SC 29676  DHEC kitchen available & rentals                                                                                                                      

INDOOR YARD SALE at ENAC  Friday, July 14, 1pm-6pm and Saturday July 15, 8am-1pm.  Please call  or 864-280-1258 if you want to rent a table for $5/day.                                                                                                                          OCONEE MOUNTAIN OPRY:  July 15, 2023 at 7pm-9pm we will hold our 4th Oconee Mountain Opry featuring Spaulding McIntosh, Amelia Hawke, and The Waterkickers.  Tickets are $10 at the door, the day of the event. or online.                

TALENT SHOWCASE:  August 12th.  This will be a fun evening to show off your talents on stage.  Please sign up by July 30th.  Please call 864-944-2490  or email eaglesnestartcenter@gmail.com.                                                                               

*****The T-S Class of 1978  is having their 45th Class Reunion at ENAC, July 28,  6pm-8pm. Come visit us!******

                                              CHURCH NEWS                                                                                                                                                                               Salem Seventh-Day Adventist Church:  Join us for Vacation Bible School Sunday July 16 from 1-4pm. Theme: The Creator Is My Friend/What Do You Feel? Featuring “The Critter Keeper.” Ages 4-14 years. Children under 4 years must be accompanied by an adult. Come dressed for water play and bring a towel. See you soon!

CHILDHOOD PRAYER:   God is Great! God is Good! Let us thank Him for our food! By Your Hands we are fed. Give us Lord our Daily Bread!   Amen                                                                                                                                                  I missed you! Glad to be back this week! Lynne R Martin                        

[hyba]

Apologies for the late reply! This has been sitting in my drafts for a while and it slipped my mind for a bit ^^'

Blogger is very simple! At least, it is the way I use it 🤭 All I did was choose a template and got started posting. I've never used Wordpress so I'm not sure about the whole plugin bloating issue, but I don't think I've had that issue with my Blogger blog so far...

I'm going to say it's not super easy to customize, probably? You can change your layout and choose from a limited set of widgets or elements but there are a lot that are missing, though I personally use it on a very simple and straightforward level so I never feel the need for other features.

As for customizing the theme itself, I think that could be a bit challenging. There are a range of themes to choose from, and most of the designs are quite old-fashioned. I'm sure you could customize it with HTML and all that good stuff - pages and posts have HTML editors - but I just don't have the brain power to do that, so I've only ever tried small things, like using HTML to add tables to my blog posts.

It's free to use (if you have a Google account you already have access to it), but if you want your own domain URL you'll have to pay (otherwise the general URL looks something like mine: blogname . blogspot . com). I don't think there are any widgets or whatnot that you need to buy unless you're getting them from an external source 🤔

One small note is that Blogger has undergone some changes in the recent past that have made me wonder if Google is planning to get rid of it? I hope not, but that's always a thought looming in the back of my mind because the transfer of all those blog posts would be a nightmare. 😂 I should really back up my blog just in case 👀

Time for some pics!

In terms of the dashboard, here's what it looks like:

You can see the number of views your posts have gotten, the number of comments, when they were published, and you can filter your posts by tags. You can also see your drafts, and toggle between published posts and drafts. As you can see on the left, you can go to a Stats page, a Comments page where you can see all your comments, a Pages page where you can edit or set up pages, and you can edit your blog's layout and theme as well.

When you click on a post to edit it, you get something that looks like this:

You can write your post, change fonts, text type, font size, colors, etc. You can insert images and videos by uploading them from your computer or using a URL. You can insert links and emojis/symbols. You can have quotes and indent text and all that good stuff.

Very straightforward and simple. Not a lot of features, and there are definitely a couple of things that I personally wish could be added, but I don't think Blogger is getting any updates anytime soon.

One of the things I wish was better on Blogger is the sense of community? You can add other blogs to your reading list, but you have to go hunt for Blogger blogs on Google 😂 It's sometimes hard to find them, and to find blogs that are active.

I can't think of anything else to note here, but let me know if you have any other Qs. As far as blog platforms go, it's alright. It has the necessities, and I don't mind the limited set of features. If that sounds like something you're interested in, give it a go for a little while. I recommend giving yourself a good month or two so that you can make up your mind if you're interested.

Hope that helps!

I’ve been thinking about getting back into creative blogging (short stories, reading things) and been looking into different platforms to use. I gave myself a bit of a headache yesterday researching it so I wanted to get other people’s perspective.

I’ve worked with Wordpress the longest but am itching to start fresh. I’ve been looking into Ghost. Dabbled a bit in Medium & Substack.

Thoughts?

[safyresky]

Frostmas Year Nine: Behind the Scenes

Prologue | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 | Y8 | Y9 | Y10 | Y11 | Y12

(in Kermit the Frog voice) Let's begin!

I straight up thought this chapter would be fairly short, because when I wrote it out in point form the events didn’t seem like they’d have a lot of action. Then I began writing it, and I was DEAD wrong

I listened to the opening scene of the North Pole Resort SOO MANY TIMES to hear the lyrics to the song perfectly. I had to ask my wonderful housemate to take a listen to try and figure out the “santa t-shirts, santa ties” line and WHEN I FINALLY WATCHED IT ON DISNEY WITH SUBTITLES, HEARD THAT I GOT IT W R O N G! It's Santa SIZE. I'll have to change that up lol

FUN FACT! “at this point I’ve adopted a stance of the less I know, the better” is my family’s motto up until recently

“I like the cut of your berg” is one of my FAVOURITE frosty-fying slang lines I’ve ever done! It’s a frosty version of “I like the cut of your jib” which was used in sailing in the 1700s ish to describe if an incoming ship was frens or not frens

-> I originally thought it was just some funky 20s slang, then googled it to make sure I was right and learnt the above!

-> the berg is short for iceberg--B likes the cut of Jacqueline’s iceberg, being the idea to maybe get rid of the awful recordings :)

Sometimes I’m like ‘these things don’t really need explaining’ but I get excited about my own work and then have to share how I got the ideas with everyone so ONWARDS I SUPPOSE

Man I miss multi-level lists! this Frostmas BTS has been in my drafts for FOREVER, and was the last one I did before tumblr switched to the new post editor

WHICH DOESN'T LIKE MULTI LEVEL BULLETED LISTS!

So it's kinda all over the place. My bad lmao.

LET'S KEEP ON KEEPING ON

Jacqueline realizing that she hadn’t updated everyone on what the elves thought of her nonsense was a BLESSING because I realized that I hadn’t addressed it, so thank you for that opportunity, Jacqueline

Archie's Guide to Important People in the North Pole: Big Man->Santa. Boss Man->Bernard.

I would like to take this moment to credit @shittyelfwriter with Archie’s existence in those few chapters of ROE, because I love him and always picture him as the elf playing the piano and going UGH and facepalming during Jack’s rendition of North Pole, North Pole (pictured below). THANK YOU FOR NAMING THE BOY, ANA!

The conversation between Jacqueline and Archie, that dripped sarcasm, was my favourite thing to write this chapter :D

The scene with Chrys give you weird vibes of all manner? Yeah, that was intentional. "Perfection" can be unsettling, after all

Bernard is definitely so DONE this year and it SHOWS -> That is exactly what I was going for, especially since I know that he's not normally

Okay so. Let's Talk About Chrys. TW: Sexual Themes

very embarrassing, but I got the concept from a series of fantasy erotica novels and I wish I was joking

(they’re called the World of Hetar series, very good, very very VERY smutty. I’d say it’s 60% SEX, 30% PLOT, and 10% SEX DRIVEN PLOT)

(I know people who know me are like YOU READ SMUT? YOU?? AN ACE??? and yes, I did, I read exclusively smut from the ages of 12-17 because my Dad worked for "Trash Romance Novel Company" and brought home books for free every month, and the books were, in fact, mostly if not totally smut)

Erotica aside, I quite liked how the author had built up the magical world, the beings, and how magic works in it

In the third or fourth book, called “The Twilight Lord”, the fairies ally with the desert princes who are some kind of magical fae themselves, and they create the Perfect Wife for the corrupt leader of the neighbouring continent to distract him from starting a war

She was a mix of his current 2 wives and the things he liked about them, and looked like the protagonist, Lara, who cursed him to not be able to fuck I shit you not and who he ALSO had a big huge thirst for which was GROSS because he was old as fuck and even though she’s half fairy, she was like. 12 or 13

And this new wife is able to GET IT UP with him, hence how he’d be distracted--he really liked sex (reminder: this is an erotica series)

So he’s too busy fucking her and then on top of that, she would divide the other two wives and basically bring the house down from the inside, neutralizing the threat of this corrupt sex loving mofo

And that’s where the idea of Chrys came from!

So basically tl;dr: Chrys was inspired by a spell a sexy bunch of desert princes in an erotica series did to make the perfect wife for their enemy and knock him right tf down :)

How this works with Cheri’s magic: same concept, less sex

Chrysanthemum is a Perfect Being, who is bound to a specific magibean. Chrys’s purpose is to be Jack’s Mrs Claus, and because she was made with dark magic she drains energy of those around her (except for jack’s energy bc he’s the person she’s bound to) and magnifies bad ideas

spoiler alert: in the long run, Chrys will be TOO perfect and TOO agreeable for Jack and he’ll grow tired and it adds to the whole “I thought this would get me everything I’ve ever wanted but it didn’t” long term theme I have going for Jack as Santa

but yeah

end tw for sexual themes. away from chrys we go!

battled with the “cultural appropriation” bit because I felt as though it may be insensitive but then I wrote it anyway because that’s what it is at it’s base :\

it was supposed to be a stand in? I'd go back and change later? then I didn't. We're rolling with it now lol

Have you ever heard Elf’s Lament by the Barenaked Ladies?

Because it’s where I got the Union Comment from

Then I was like “but DO THEY HAVE UNION???!?!” and remembered the “accident or design” thing and realized “OH they ARE their own union” and figured that in terms of a Santa like JACK, The council would step in (which they’ve done. and tried to do stuff. but haven’t had luck bc PLOT)

god Frostmas is exhausting. Villains are underappreciated for all the effort they put into for being on TOP of things

(in Korvo Solar opposites Voice) what fucking scene are we on. why are these so long. why did i do this to myself. FUCK

ANYWAY CIRCLING BACK TO THIS MESS OF A BTS!

This uniform thing was unplanned/meant to be just a footnote. Then. Well. THIS.

It is a decent feature of the Resort in the movie so, I guess it works out :)

FUN FACT: I was playing a very good dnd campaign at the time! And that's how Davian got her name, lol. One of the amazing NPCs was named Davian, and we had a really good session with them and the name stuck and boom! Into Frostmas it goes. Once again, Frostmas is proving to be a time capsule reminding me of wtf I was doing while writing these bad boys :)

I miss my friend's campaign ):

And yeah, this fight is one Jacqueline cannot win. this is on the elves. So what does she do? Goes back to her hyperfocus of destorying SantaJack

How? By figuring out wtf Chrys is >:)

STUPID DUMB CHRYS

Alright. Scene subheadings are back! Right on.

"Myles would be proud AND would probably have been able to connect the dots and figure out what was up, and then place it on a neat presentation board, to boot."

LEGATE DROP! Myles is Tooth Fairy's Legate! He's v sweet, a lil bit clumsy, SUPER into conspiracies--hence Jacqueline being like "MAN I WISH THAT KIDS WAS HERE, HE'D KNOW WTF IS UP"

So let's talk about BLINTER. Just to clarify: THEY WERE NOT ABOUT TO GET IT ON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DEN. This is just a typical post work day for them: start a fire, make a blanket nest, be cozy until kid 2, 3, or 4 come to harass them

Blaise is pouty bc they didn't even get a single cuddle in before Kid 2 came in like

And I was 100% referencing the meme lmao.

god tumblr killed the quality. I'll post it separately. ANYWAY

the Blinter and Jacquie scene was fun to write! This is one of the scenes where I was dropping very strong hints that Jacqueline was freezing--and Winter AND Blaise were noticing. Winter'll explain it all in Y11 ;)

FINAL RESORT

"You could really tell that graphic design was Chrys's passion"

another meme reference:

I think we, as a collective people using slang, should bring back "gag me with a spoon". Also some older slang! I try to sneak those in when I know of some to show. Y'know. AGE.

This whole scene with Jack and Chrys actually was me laying the ground work for FINAL RESORT. Trying to get in all of the booths we see, the petting zoo, and the different announcements about various activities set up before the double digit years! That was my goal :)

THE ELVES UNION AT WORK

Ah yes. the walk out. God, this uniform thing was meant to be small, but lord did it EVER go big. I'm actually okay with it--my y9 notes were so lacklustre, I was concerned it would be (you'll laugh I know) TOO SHORT lmao

No. Fr. Look at them.

"Because those outfits are a joke, and you wouldn't catch me dead wearing those."

Sassnard. We Stan.

"I'm so proud of all of my crew," said Davian. "Crimes against fashion should NEVER be tolerated!"

"And the break from the constant ruined showtunes, what a relief!" said Archie, leaning very far back in his stool."

The elves have their priorities lol. I Bet Archie and Davian are biffers.

Curtis on damage control was A) a stroke of genius on my part and B) the way I decided to start laying the groundwork for Customer Service Sales Person Curtis we see when Scott gets to the Resort! God, there is SO MUCH GROUND WORK FOR VARIOUS ITTY BITTY BITS WE SEE IN THE MOVIE, IT'S ACTUALLY INSANE. No wonder you all dig Frostmas so much. good lord

And then, we have it! Final Resort. Wholly heckeros! And yes, I did indeed name the Fire Marshall. Marshal. I'm a genius 🙃🙃🙃

""Course! It's lunch. I doubt anything will happen during lunch."

Famous last words, B-Man. And yes, I did that on purpose >:)

CHRYS UNMASKED. AND ALSO, IT'S CHERI!

Cheri's...interesting

While she is master of the dark witch arts, she isn't evil? Very chaotic. Kind of lets it slide a lot of the time when Witches use "dark" magic. Everything has a price, blah blah blah, it's not her place to tell people off about it--that's the other Grand Witch's place, Gwen, aka, Glenda, master of the light witch arts

And also, dark magic will take what it needs in response. She just makes sure people don't use it SUPER illegally. Otherwise she kills em. It's her favourite part of the job :)

Lawful Evil?? Idk.

FUN FACT: She gave Gwen the nickname Glenda, like the good witch in The Wizard of Oz (derogatory), and Gwen went, "oh! Glenda, like the good witch in The Wizard of Oz (affectionate)? you're such a sweet sister I'll take it :)" and now everyone calls her Glenda much to Cheri's (dis)satisfaction.

Cheri is very not serious and hates being called in for business unless murder is involved. She does NOT ignore any summons, ESPECIALLY from Mother Nature.

Hence why Tara had a easy enough time getting her in

But Cheri does NOT make things easy for people, nope!

"Hay, Jacquie" a la Catra going "Hay, Adora". I was watching SPOP at the time. It's a DAMN good show, Catra/Adora my BELOVEDS

FUN FACT: Only recently decided how Warlocks worked in my universe! They know everything and can guide ANY castor. It's like a reverse of Warlocks in DnD. They don't need a patron; they ARE patrons!

By RETIRING Cheri means that a lot of Warlocks went into Rosehaven with the Call. They were making BANK on the feuding fae factions.

Petty vengeance->one night stand with Jack where he said he'd call back, and didn't, which Cheri expected but any excuse for petty revenge is a good one! Good karma->Cheri explains it herself: if it helps the "good" forces, and she contributed to it, she gets a bit of a pass on being The Worst :)

OH SHIT I FORGOT ABOUT THE SNAP BACK INTO THE PRESENT

this was an idea I had had since like, the BEGINNING. Halfway through or so, Jack would bug Jacqueline in the proper timeline, to check in and also let her know that he'd like a turn and also, as a plot device so I could remind everyone it's a story of the past being told from the future, and plant the seed of "wait, is Jacqueline going to forget it? Or is she going to remember it?"

Is she? Well, you're not finding out until the Epilogue :)

It is just as jarring as I had hoped it'd be, especially since I forgot all about it! I was ready to title this section THE END and talk about Bernard's amazing exit.

But yeah, it was a fun reminder that this takes place POST redemption, TECHNICALLY, which is a lot of fun! And that was so pleasantly jarring. I'm pleased >:)

anyway

THE END: BERNARD'S STELLAR EXIT

if you listen to this version of the halo theme song on loop, you may enter the space I entered when I wrote this bit

anyway. i love Jack. He is. the Blorboest Blorbo EVER. But he did, in fact, steal Christmas for his own holiday and turned the park into a Resort. Implying that there is an overnight stay. Especially with a pamphlet THAT THICK. It;s not even a pamphlet. It's a fucking guide book. FUCK.

And like, there were no hotels that we saw. Maybe there are inns! I mean, the Winter Wonderland has rooms. But I digress.

REGARDLESS, something needed to happen to really get B-Man, well, GONE. And this was the final straw: Elf's houses for you to stay at, with your own personal elfsisstant!

It HURT to SUGGEST Jack would make the elves like. SERVANTS so I tried really hard to avoid that sort of thing--but yeah, they'd be like hotel staff but live in. Imagine being an elf and having to NANNY HUMANS?! FUCK

"That's what your emotional support sprite is for," I said.->Meme alert! "sir this is my emotional support x" meme lol.

Jacqueline gets to kick down doors, once again. Idk why she slams doors open so much? She just does lol

"...It's perfect," Jack said. "It's everything I've ever wanted." I tilted my head. There had been something about the way he said that that made me think that he did not believe that anymore"

I'M LIKE, DROPPING HINTS NOW AT JACK'S ENDGAME FOR FROSTMAS (since we already know Jacqueline's)

AND JACQUIE IS PICKING THEM UP!

I wanted to avoid "servant" related words, but B-Man is way more blunt than I am and we thank him for it tbh

"Really? Cause this is me, walking away."

SO THIS RAW ASS LINE WAS GIVEN TO US BY @shittyelfwriter YET AGAIN! WOMAN'S A GENIUS! We were chatting about BMan's exit and she sent a snippet with that line and I went "Ou. Yeah. That's GOOD" and did a bit of "do it different so they can't tell it's copied"

but credit is given where credit is due lmao! Ana's mind is like, BIG BRAIN when it comes to writing and connecting dots n shit :)

and there we have it! Frostmas BTS: Y9. Y10 coming to you SOON I hope! I'm clearing out my drafts. They're all just. Frostmas BTS and wips that have yet to see the light of day :3

[winterhawk-olympic-bang]

How To Edit Your Writing

Guest Poster: Chronicwhimsy

Here is our final Writer Workshop post, written by Chronicwhimsy. Have a read and then head over to the Discord Server where we have a channel for you to take part in a discussion based on the post, with chances to share your own ideas too.

Editing: a drive-by guide

Hi, my name is Claire, and I’m an editor.

(Hi Claire)

I’ve been asked to give a quick guide on tips for editing your stories, as I’ve been a beta/editor for various fanfic writers over the years. I’m a professional editor, working for a publishing house in the UK, and I offer independent freelance editing too, via my website. I’ll be on the Discord server answering questions this evening, but I’m also happy to chat to people either through my website or even if you wanted to drop me a line on tumblr.

The key thing to remember about editing is that the end goal is to make your story the best it can be, and make sure your initial idea comes across as clearly and purely as you first imagined it. It’s about ensuring that the lines of communication between you and your reader are 100% open.

To do that, you need to have finished your story, because you can’t fix something that doesn’t exist.

Then you edit.

What now?

So, you’ve finished your Winterhawk Olympic Bang Fic, and you’re wondering what to do next?

The very first, and most important thing you should do? Celebrate. I mean congratulate the hell out of yourself, pat yourself on the back, and have some cake. Finishing stories is hard. Getting through a first draft is one of the trickiest parts of writing, so you should be proud of yourself, and proud of your story.

Because in a short while, editing is going to make you hate both.

I mean that in the nicest possible way of course, but you absolutely are going to be thoroughly sick of this whole thing by the time you’re done, and you’re going to question everything you’ve ever written. You’re going to get a close-up view of all your narrative bad habits which will make you think you’ve never had any skill at all, and you’re going to re-read your work so many times that it’ll feel trite, old, uninspired. This is normal and it is your brain lying to you. If you remember nothing else, remember that!

“The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.” Jonathan Safran Foer

Don’t lose faith! Editors and editing exist for a reason, no first draft is perfect. You’ve done something amazing in finishing, and now you’re going to make it incredible.

Before You Start - Take a Break

You know the phrase “can’t see the wood for the trees”? It could just as easily be “can’t see the story for the words.” It’s never recommended to go straight into editing as soon as you finish writing, and part of the reason for that is because you’re too deep in the story to be able to assess it objectively, or to catch things that are missed out because you know they’re there, but the reader wouldn’t.

“Once it's done, put it away until you can read it with new eyes. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before.” Neil Gaiman

Most writers and editors advocate putting a story away for a month or so before returning to edit, so you’re looking at it with fresh eyes. Obviously, with a Big Bang (or other fic event) this sort of time is usually at a premium! Try and make as much space as you can while still leaving yourself time to edit.

If you really don’t have any time, one trick that can help is changing your location. If you write in your room, can you relocate to your kitchen? Or a café (if you can safely)? Could you print it out? (Printing Top Tip: if you do print it, try and do it double-spaced - this makes it easier on the eyes, and gives you room to make notes. Also, serif fonts can often be easier to read than sans serif fonts, as it gives stronger distinctions between different letters.)

The Filter System

I like to think of the editing process as a series of different filters which, when used one after the other, produce a finely-sieved finished product. Each filter stage has slightly smaller holes than the one before it, as you look increasingly closely at your work.

Filter 1: Structural editing

Does the story make sense? Is the pace okay? Do all the scenes work where they are, or would they be better elsewhere? Do some scenes need to be there at all? Is the characterisation consistent? Does anyone change names halfway through? Did you forget what time of year it was set halfway through?

Filter 2: Line editing

Is this phrase as tight as it could be? Have you repeated yourself anywhere? Does this sentence add anything or does it throw the pace off? Have you gone overboard with adjectives and similes? Have you been too sparse with them?

Filter 3: Copy editing

Is your style consistent? Did you start writing in present tense and switch to past tense? Could this scene transition be snappier? Are there any bits that you want to tidy up? Have you left any half-finished sentences because you got distracted before you could end it?

Filter 4: Proofreading

Is everything spelled correctly? Have you caught all the strange grammar mistakes?

Some of these things might be picked up by your beta reader if you have one. Different beta readers have different styles, and also they will work based on their relationship with you and what you prefer. Some may stick to proofreading and consistency-checking, others may be more confident to dive right in and look at structure, pacing and characterisation. Some may work through the process with you as you write, others may only look at the story when it’s complete so they can get a full overview. There is no right or wrong answer, and having a conversation with your beta about your respective styles at the start can help you work better together!

Filter 1 - Structural Editing

For this stage, you want to read your whole story through from start to finish, and resist the urge to tweak anything to begin with! You will want a way of making notes as you go through because as you do, you’ll make yourself a cheat-sheet to help you with your line edit. Things to keep track of:

Character name spellings

Character ages

Character relationships (drawing a relationship web can be very helpful to visualise this!)

The time span of the story - the date it starts, the date it ends.

As a subset of this, I find it can be very helpful to set up a spreadsheet with a timeline of what happens in the story, and who is involved. Doing this both chronologically for the characters and in order of how it happens in the story can help you keep track of what characters know when, and also when the readers find out certain information. You might have one of these from when you were planning your story (as detailed in Sara Holmes’ workshop). If you’ve kept it up to date with changes to the plot and structure as you’ve written, this will be super helpful.

At this stage, you’re looking to see if everything works as a consistent story. You want to check to see if it feels like it’s the right pace, or if there are bits where it drags or rushes through the action. Why is this? Are there scenes which aren’t adding anything to the progress? Could they just be referred to in passing, or removed entirely without impacting the story? Are there other scenes which need to be added to provide more detail and growth? Is there anything that you as a writer know that is essential to the story, but you forgot to actually put in the text?

“Crafty writers...don't allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.” Ursula K. Le Guin

You’re also looking to see if the characters feel true to themselves all the way through. Do the relationships spark? Do they sound like themselves? Can you hear them in your head?

Some people recommend doing several structural edits, with a different focus each time. One pass to look at the pacing, one pass to look at the characters, one to look at the story arc. You’ll work out what floats your boat, but you will be re-reading this story a lot of times before you’re done editing - which is why it’s very important to write what you love and want to read! You’ll go through many stages of hating this story before you let it go, and that will be even harder if it wasn’t something you enjoyed in the first place.

Filter 2 - Line Editing

So you remember I told you to make all those notes during your structural edit? Here’s where you’re going to use them. Now’s the time to go through your story line by line and check that the details in your cheat sheet are correct all the way through the story. I’ve written a novel that I initially set in November, but by the time I finished it, I’d decided it was taking place in early May. I had to go back and fix all the dates and weather descriptions to make sure the action hadn’t actually been yeeted forward six months spontaneously in the middle of a conversation.

Arguably, the line edit will be the most painful part of editing. At this stage, you will be taking a fine-tooth comb to everything you have written, examining it to within an inch of its life, and casting judgement. You’re going to find every stylistic tic you have (for me, everyone is constantly quirking their eyebrows and smirking like they’ve got cramp in their facial muscles), and you’re going to get rid of them (a person only has so many eyebrows, and they can only quirk so far). Now is the time to kill your darlings - don’t hang on to anything unless you feel it’s really doing a job to further the story and the characters.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.” Stephen King

If you have ever worried about the unbearable sensation of being Known, the line edit is where you will experience that with every word, and you’ll be doing it to yourself. This is when the doubts will really start to creep in and you will maybe feel like everything you write is unoriginal, derivative trash and unfit for human eyes.

Here I’ll reiterate what I said above:

This is a normal feeling, everyone experiences it when editing. E V E R Y O N E.

It’s a lie. No-one else will ever read your story in this state, no-one else will ever read your story this closely. Of course it feels obvious and uninspired to you - you wrote it. It’s your idea, and you’ve read it several times, it holds no surprises for you. (I may be projecting my feelings from every time I’ve edited something here, but…)

You’ll also be catching any ELEPHANTS or whatever your mammal of choice for placeholder text is that you’ve stationed throughout the story as a flag for you to come back and add in a name, or a food, or a song title later. You know, the things you decided were a problem for Future!You. I have bad news, the future is now.

Top Tip: if you have changed someone’s name halfway through, DON’T for the love of Mike, just do a straight find and replace to correct it. Because that’s when you suddenly find out how many other words actually contain names (Mark became Bill? That’s great, until your characters are going to the superBillet to buy groceries). Some word processing programmes have a “whole word” option which is your friend, otherwise ensure to put spaces either side of the word when you search. If you don’t, you’ve just made another horrible job for yourself...

Filter 3 - Copy Editing

Once you’ve made it out the other side of the Line Edit (and given yourself a nice treat to congratulate yourself because that stage is HARD), we get onto copy editing. This is basically the set-dressing stage. You’ve built the house, you’ve decorated the room, and now you’re just making sure every bit of furniture is in the right place for optimal feng shui.

Here’s where you go through and go, do I really need a dash here, or could I just use a comma? Could I use fewer commas? Could I go in and move all of @kangofu_cb’s commas around because I’m the sort of person who will come into your house and change how you hang your toilet paper or where you keep your ketchup.

Now is the time to be as picky as possible, like you’re an interior designer for the most demanding client in the world and the ornament must be exactly equidistant from both ends of the mantlepiece and facing precisely south-west. Things that may have just survived your line edit will be measured again, and if they’re found wanting, then they get binned.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” Mark Twain

Another thing you might like to do here is check that all your features and things are correct. Did you make a wild claim about the lifecycle of salamanders, or the average price of corn and then never go back to verify this? Take a second to just do that now. It may be that you decide it’s not a problem (I received one copy edit note saying that an idiom used in a book wasn’t recorded until 200 years later, and I made the editorial decision that no-one would care), but for bigger things you may want to make sure you’re accurate.

If you google it (as I just did, to make sure I was definitely giving you the right information), copy editing is often conflated with line editing, and that’s because in reality a lot of the elements of copy editing actually wouldn’t usually be done by the author, and are probably irrelevant to fanfic. The copy editor is responsible for ensuring the book has a consistent grammatical style in line with the preferences of the publisher (em-dash or en-dash, curly quote marks or straight ones, how you deal with acronyms, what needs to be italicised, etc. etc.), which isn’t necessarily required for fanfic. In reality, for fanfic I’d use this stage as a second, lighter line-edit to see where things can be tightened up in phrasing, as well as perhaps a preliminary proofread where you start to mark up any spelling errors.

Filter 4 - Proofreading

By this stage, you’ll be exhausted, and sick to death of the blasted thing. But the end is in sight! Now you’re onto the proofread. This is another close read, where you go through and check for spelling errors, typos, missing full stops, strange formatting stuff (which probably will be less of an issue as AO3 basically makes everything uniform anyway).

Before you even start this, change your font.

We’ve all been there, thought we’d caught every spelling error, every weird typo, only to spot six immediately after posting. That’s because after a certain point our brain becomes used to the font we’ve written in, and will automatically correct things that aren’t right. AO3 has its own unique formatting - colour, spacing, font - and the minute your fic appears on there in this new format you brain wakes up and is like “oh shit, yeah, that’s not how it should be.”

By changing the font before you proofread, you preempt this step.

Another thing to remember: it’s unlikely you will ever catch every mistake. Published books regularly go out with a smattering of typographical errors throughout the text - how many first editions of books are valuable because of misspellings that slipped through the net? You’re only human.

“Connie's other job was proof-editing which she did very badly. Transferring the author's corrections to a clean sheet of proofs was something Connie was unable to do without missing an average of three corrections a page, or transcribing newly inserted material all wrong... she put angry authors' letters about the mutilation of their books under the cushion of her chair to deal with later.” Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington

Often, spelling errors and things you would look for in a proofread are things that a beta reader will pick up as they go, as they’re the easiest things to spot, but it’s also worth looking over yourself for anything your beta might have missed.

Whether you decide to follow any or all of these steps, always do the proofread last.There is no point carefully spellchecking a chapter you are then going to delete, or proofreading the whole thing, but adding loads of new paragraphs later that either don’t get looked at or mean you end up having to proofread twice. That’s the only hard and fast rule when it comes to editing, and it will save you a lot of unnecessary work!

FREEDOM

And then, finally, unbelievably - you’re done. Your literary child is ready to leave the nest. Resist the urge to keep re-reading and tweaking. Instead, click “publish” and give yourself a nice little treat. You’ve earned it.

Miscellany and Disclaimers

These editing stages are ones that would be applied to a published novel. An author would probably do this several times - once on their own to get it ready for submission, then perhaps again with their agent, but the really heavy work would be done with their editor. The structural edit would be done under the advice of an agent or editor where the author looks at their comments, rejigs things accordingly, and lather, rinse, repeat until everyone’s happy. The editor would undertake the line edit, and the author would decide what they wanted to keep or change. The copy edit and proofread would be done in-house or sent to freelancers, with queries and changes wafted past the author for clarification or approval.

Self-published authors will often hire freelancers to help at various stages to get feedback and advice.

Very rarely would an author go from draft to final published piece by doing all their editing alone. Because it’s hard fucking work, and because your brain will get exhausted.

In light of that, you need to remember:

You’ve written a fanfic

The editorial standards of fanfic are significantly less stringent than published books

Editing by yourself is really hard work that many people are often paid to do for published books

No-one is paying you for your fanfic

Fanfic is supposed to be fun

Some published authors will edit and rewrite and edit and rewrite again and again. At a panel I attended, Joanne Harris said that if she didn’t rewrite her work at least five times she was being too easy on herself, while Joe Hill said he usually aimed for three rewrites - Joe edited as he went along, going over the previous day’s pages before continuing, where Joanne completed her manuscripts before editing. Elizabeth May has talked about her stages of drafting, starting with her Trash Draft, then her Clean Draft, and then rewriting and editing after that.

These are people who are writing professionally, getting paid for their work, and so the time they put in has monetary results. If you want to write original fiction, their advice is extremely valuable.

For fanfiction, it’s a large time investment for something you’re doing as a hobby for free. If I’m strictly honest, I’m fairly lax with my fanfiction editing. I do structural discussions and tweaks with my beta reader as I write, and then a spell check. I’m also aware that my fanfics aren’t narratively complex, nor do they seem as polished, rich and deep as some of the other works out there. That’s fine by me. You simply need to find the level you’re happy at, where you can still feel proud of your work but you’re enjoying the experience.

In the end - it’s all for fun!

Resources:

Online

Curtis Brown Creative: An Editor’s Guide to Editing Your Novel

Joanne Harris: Ten Tweets About Editing

Joanne Harris: Writing Resources

NerdsLikeMe: Beta Reading vs Proofreading vs Editing

Books

Stephen King - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Ursula K. Le Guin - Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew