I was talking to a friend today about my punctuation problems and she raised the point that it's because I'm dyslexic, which I hate to admit probably has something to do with it.

She then went on to say that I should mention this whenever I submit material to agents. Personally I think it's an insane idea and I really bringing it to people's attention but could she have a point?

I think the Agents' attitude would probably be, 'if you know you've got a problem, you should get someone to copy edit it for you prior to submission'.


- NaomiM

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. I think she was trying to suggest that I somehow use it as a selling point!

I agree, I wouldn't mention it, any more than you would that you're short-sighted and need thick glasses to see the screen, or whatever. (Unless the book's about dyslexia, of course! Have to say I haven't noticed anything glaring in your posts here, so it must be quite slight.

Emma

Yeah maybe one day they'll actually pin down the definition of dyslexia as it's very broad in terms of what it covers, I do have problems with spelling and still trip up sometimes on simple words, switching homophones tends to be more problematic as does structuring sentences/passages/ideas. My organisation is terrible! Punctuation is also another thing that really causes problems, no matter how much I study the rules I don't think i'll ever have a natural feel for it and as you'll see from my writing I have a good bash at it and then someone like Susie will be kind enough to point out that there's too many commas and ones I have are in the wrong place.

Just been looking for copy editing services on the net but if anyone can recommend a company that'd be great. The cheaper the better

Geoff, at least some of the editorial services - Writers Workshop, The Literary Consultancy, etc. - have copy-editors on their books as well as the usual kind of editor. There's also a Society of Copy-Editors and Proofreaders, I think - the Society of Authors website will have the link, I'm sure.

Emma

<Added>

And I know what you mean about the structuring problems - it's the side of dyslexia people don't know about. My son's dyslexic/dyscalculic, and though his spelling's actually pretty good, the essay-based humanities subjects he prefers are really testing him.

Emma