Tricky Edits Column for March 2026

Tricky Edits

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

It’s About Keeping Creative Juices Going

Saving Homonym Worries ‘till Last Edit

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson, 
author of the HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers

Including the soon to be released Word by Word: A Vocabulary for Success

Today is a quickie and tricky—slightly altered for Dawn’s prodigious SPARREW newsletter subscribers. It’s on the editing process that will save you time and yes, keep you from interrupting your creative juices when you need them most:

I suggest to my editing clients they pay little attention to nyms words—Google lists some seventy of ones still being used today.

They’re words like antonyms, acronyms, etc. I call them the Terrible, Horrible nyms. I don’t want them to interfere with my clients’ creative process at a time when it’s most needed — nor yours.

Editing is not that time. That’s where one of my mottos, ‘the more we know…’ comes into play.  The ‘bewares and cautions’ I give writers throughout [my soon-to-be released Word by Word book], will make you glad to have them on your side just as you face the publishing process per se. That’s a time when you’ll need them fresh in your memory banks, too!

MORE ABOUT CAROLYN

Once a month Carolyn Howard-Johnson shares something writer-related she hopes might save some author from embarrassment (or make the task of writing more fun or creative). The third edition of The Frugal Editorfrom Modern History Press includes a chapter on some of the words most misused by the very people whose business it is to know them. It is the second multi award-winning book in her multi award-winning HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers. The Frugal Editor has been fully updated including a chapter on how backmatter can be extended to help readers and nudge book sales.

This article is an excerpt from a new vocabulary book written especially for career-minded authors that WinningWriters.com will give to those who enter their 2024 #NorthStreetBookPrize. Carolyn has been a sponsor since that contest’s introduction. This book is among the several value-added benefits Winning Writers contestants and winners are offered at no extra charge. Carolyn’s book will be released in early 2026 by Modern History Press. Find the entire series on a special Series Page offered by Amazon.

Carolyn blogs sporadically on editing at The Frugal Editor and at her SharingwithWriters blog on other aspects of the publishing world and welcomes guest posts with ample author credit lines and links and welcomes guest posts complete with credit lines and ample links for her guests. She also tweets writers' resources and tips at her Twitter account using #FrugalBookPromoterTips hashtag.

Carolyn Howard-Johnson brings her experience as a publicist, journalist, marketer, and retailer to the advice she gives in her HowToDoItFrugally series of books for writers and the many classes she taught for nearly a decade as instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program where has found a little humor can decidedly make a lot of learning easier on one’s disposition. 

The books in her HowToDoItFrugally Series of books for writers have won multiple awards. That series includes both the third editions of The Frugal Book Promoter and my The Frugal Editor.Published by Modern History Press, they have won awards from USA Book News, Readers’ Views Literary Award, Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Award, the marketing award from Next Generation Indie Books and others including the coveted Irwin award. How To Get Great Book Reviews Frugally and Ethicallyis still in its first (very frugal!) edition but please wait for the second edition from Modern History Press. 

Howard-Johnson is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list of “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts.