Beta reading: I am currently helping out as a prereader for WrittenWithJoy on her wonderful Bella-Jasper story, Longing. If you haven't read it, go do it. It's awesome.

Aside from that, I am pretty flat out with life. I am happy to beta the occasional one-shot or even two- or three-shot, but I don't have the capacity for another long story at the moment.

Proofreading & punctuation: I have worked as both a copy editor and a proofreader, but really, proofreading is not my thing! BUT—if you would like me to read over a few pages or a chapter to correct your punctuation, with comments about what I am changing and why so that you can do it yourself in future, I am happy to do that. That is, not correcting typos, but correcting actual punctuation errors. For instance, do you know how to punctuate dialogue? Did you know there should always be a comma before a name or endearment when it is used as a form of address? Do you know the difference between an em-rule and en-rule, and when to use an en-rule (en-dash) and when to use a hyphen? I can teach you all of that.

More about me: I am an Australian mother of 3 (now including two teenagers!), a literature graduate, and an ex-editor (non-fiction). In my day job these days, I help people reduce harmful chemicals and create less waste. I have a website, totally unrelated to writing, which you can find if you turn "Sustainable Suburbia dot net" into a URL with no spaces.

I am part of the sandwich generation. That is, I have three fully dependent kids (one still in primary school) and ageing parents, one of whom now takes up a LOT of my time (though he doesn't live with us!). I am super grateful for my job (I run my own business) that allows me the flexibility to manage all of that and work more or less depending on what else is going on. Too bad it doesn't give me more time for writing though.

Repetitive Dreams NO it is NOT abandoned!

I work on Repetitive Dreams in my very limited spare time. I'm currently trying to get the rest of part three all drafted so I can go back to publishing weekly - expect that to begin again sometime in the second half of 2020. (hahahahaha... Or not. But I am still working on it.)

*Random Punctuation and Grammar Trivia*

I use way too many em rules (aka em dashes—like that). I'm trying to wean myself off them...

Grammar and punctuation rules are there for clarity. Sometimes, it's okay to break them, for effect. Especially in dialogue. But don't do it too often or by accident, or your readers won't trust you. (I am talking to myself there, lol.)

And for pity’s sake, ALWAYS use closing punctuation inside your quotation marks for dialogue. Always. If there’s not an exclamation mark, question mark, ellipses or em-rule, use a comma (if it’s followed by attribution) or a full stop (if it’s not). Like this: “I told you do to it this way,” she said. “I don’t want to see you close your dialogue without punctuation ever again.”

In British English, you can use "that" in place of "which" but never the reverse. "Which" still always takes a comma before it. In US English, they are not interchangeable at all.

It's perfectly okay to start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction (and, but, so...). The 2017 Elements of Style said so. It's also okay to split your infinitives and finish with a preposition: "To boldly go, creating new worlds and ideas, no matter where they come from." Unless you're writing in Latin, in which case, no split infinitives for you!

And finally, any website (or person) who tells you "you must" do something, as far as style goes, is usually wrong. Unless they tack on "if you want to follow the AP Style/Chicago Manual of Style/whatever." So there. Eg Closed ellipses (...) and open ellipses ( . . . ) are both acceptable. As long as you are consistent.