
Why a Freelance Editor Was a Gamechanger for My Blog - mtlynch
https://mtlynch.io/editor/
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marenkay
Few questions:

\- did you learn or research writing before blogging? \- how did you overcome
bad writing patterns identified by your editor? \- Actually, did you overcome
them or do you constantly battle them?

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mtlynch
Thanks for reading!

>did you learn or research writing before blogging?

Just in school/college. I also took the free Stanford course "Writing in the
Sciences," which I found very helpful for technical writing:

[https://online.stanford.edu/courses/som-y0010-writing-
scienc...](https://online.stanford.edu/courses/som-y0010-writing-sciences)

After working with my editor, I read The Elements of Style (aka "Strunk &
White") and found it to be helpful at making my writing more concise and
clear.

>how did you overcome bad writing patterns identified by your editor?

I started a checklist for repeated patterns. At the last stage of editing, I'd
run through the checklist to check if I was repeating any anti-patterns.

Some of them became automatic after 2-3 more posts. With other mistakes, I
don't notice I'm making them until I specifically do an editing pass for them.
For example, I tend to overuse weak words like "very" or "really," and I often
don't notice until I scan for them.

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mtlynch
Author here. Happy to answer any questions about this post.

