Writer's Wednesday: Accountability

 Last week, I started something new: "Accountability" meetings. A writer friend invited me to be part of her accountability group, which entails a bit of Zooming during a morning dedicated to work--in other words, someone to be accountable to. After admittedly only one session, I have high hopes that this may help me move back into being a writer in a more meaningful sense. Our first session induced me to work on writing projects--mostly editing those short stories, some work on book covers, and answering a couple of writing-related emails--for a full three hours.

What this session made clear is that once I get to the computer and start working, I'm good. I feel good while I'm working, and I can lose myself in the work. Here's hoping I can sustain that, for the two days a week I've signed on for, at any rate! So far, I don't seem to be able to find that level of discipline without the external supports.

Still, the third of my flash-fiction e-collections is nearly ready, with a cover I like a lot. I'm still having fun with making covers, and learning more about Photoshop as I go.

This one will be out as soon as my proofreaders finish and come up with a blurb.

Meanwhile--my wonderful cover artist, Danielle English, has finished the cover for Death By Donut! Watch this space for a cover reveal, or sign on to help me spread the good news!

Writer's Update

Time for a quick update before Thanksgiving. 

As I've noted, I'm being a NaNo rebel this year, not trying to draft a novel, but rather to sort and edit 50,000 words of short fiction into collections. And how's that going? Well, I think. I passed the 40k mark (including whatever else I've written this month, and the final edits on Death By Donut) late last week, and have three collections ready for final edits and formatting, with stories for a fourth tagged but not yet edited.

I have also written a guest post for the WEP--watch for that to come out on Wednesday, I think--and tackled some challenging computer issues (which turned out not to be as bad as expected). Editing mode has been good to me, and as readers saw on Friday, even led to writing a whole new bit of flash fiction just for the heck of it.

That being the case, I feel like I do have something to be thankful for this week, in addition to friends and family who are holding me together, largely from afar. 

To my US readers, have a good, and safe, holiday. To those elsewhere... be thankful anyway.

Write on!

Writer's Wednesday comes on Thursday: Fun with Flash Fiction

Last Wednesday, for IWSG day, I announced that I'm being a NaNo rebel and working on selecting and revising short stories/flash fiction for some anthologies this month. I am happy to report that this work is proceeding nicely, and that I am really enjoying the process. 

Editing novel-length works is often challenging and discouraging. Working with a story that can be read in five minutes, and has already been through the editing process once, if hastily, is a breeze by comparison. The best part about what I'm doing is that I'm no longer constrained by the 1000-word limit imposed on most of my flash fiction. I'm able to add those little bits that make the story more rounded, without (I hope) losing the tightness that makes short-short fiction work.

I was even inspired to write one new story wholly from scratch (well, almost--I was writing in a universe already invented in other stories), with an eye toward tying the anthologies together. At this point, I've got stories selected for a "bar stories" anthology, and a collection to comb through for one on libraries. I think the third collection will be mystery stories, and I believe I can tie that one together with the others, as well.

My intention is to bring these out as three 99-cent ebooks of 11-13,000 words each, but to assemble them, plus a couple of other stories perhaps, into a single paperback (thus making it thick enough to have a title on the spine). Honestly, though, my main intention was to keep being a writer, while giving myself a break from novels.

And hopefully, to give myself time and space to figure out just what happens in that little town where Seffi Wardwell went for a quiet retirement...

Next challenge: to create my own covers, since I don't expect to sell enough of these to pay for one of Danni's spectacular covers. I'm open to advice!

Writer's Wednesday: NaNo, anyone?

Since I'm off in the Maine woods and more into kayaks and moose right now than I am writing (and this is an automated post because we're out of range of wi-fi), this is meant to be a quick update. 

The editing in which I rejoiced last week in my IWSG post is still going on at a pretty good rate. I've hit some of the harder bits, the places where I need to rewrite if not rethink stuff, but I'm still hopeful of finishing by the end of the month. Some of the 47K I've finished with are actually new words, part of the 10K or so I need to reach my target novel length.

Finishing the draft and sending it to my beta readers would be good, because I would really like to give the new cozy series that's brewing in my brain a chance to come to life. For now, I'm keeping it under wraps--it's too soon and I don't want to risk an early frost nipping it before it's even begun to grow. But much as I love my Pismawallops PTA crew, I'm excited to invent a whole new world for a new heroine to find corpses in. [Note: I simply cannot write that sentence without ending it in a preposition. Tough.]

And, I'm going to take a shot at flash fiction again, hoping for a story for the WEP posting next week. We'll see, but it might be a good test to see if NaNo is realistic.

 Because... yes, it's almost National Novel Writing Month again, and once again I'd really like to leverage the energy that creates to jump-start the next novel. In other years, I've had no doubts. This year, I'm simply going to give it my best shot and let it go at that. Any words written are a triumph, so I'm pretty sure to be a "winner" not matter what. 

And that's about it. I'm in Maine, so it's all about the fall colors.

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 All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

IWSG: What's a "Working Writer"?

 

 It's the first Wednesday of the month, and that means IWSG posting! 

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the October 7 posting of the IWSG are Jemima Pett, Beth Camp, Beverly Stowe McClure, and Gwen Gardner!

Every month there is an OPTIONAL question. This month's question:

When you think of the term working writer, what does that look like to you? What do you think it is supposed to look like? Do you see yourself as a working writer or aspiring or hobbyist, and if latter two, what does that look like?

 

Well, that's a fine question to ask as I struggle to keep myself convinced I'm a writer at all! Seriously, though, I think it's very relevant, and I have multiple answers.

On one level, I think of a "working writer" as someone who is  writing full-time, maybe making a living at it. That's a pretty narrow selection of people, and I imagine someone who approaches the work like a regular job, with the discipline to sit down and write at set times and to work on writer-stuff for a full work day. 

But I have another take on it I like better. In that one, many more of us are "working writers," because it looks like this: someone who writes or works at writer-business pretty regularly. Maybe not every day. Maybe it's only on Saturday nights, but it's something they prioritize and do routinely. In other words: anyone who is working at being a writer.

By that definition, of course, I'm a working writer, which is a better description (or one I like better) than "aspiring writer" (a term I really dislike; "aspiring" suggests to me someone who is thinking about it and wishing they were a writer, in which case... nope) or a "hobbyist." The latter comes closer to describing those of us who don't rely on our writing income, but it doesn't feel right, either. For me, watercolor is a hobby--I do it purely for my own pleasure, and would certainly never expect anyone to pay for the results. Writing is something more.

Maybe I'll put it this way: I pay taxes on my writing earnings not as a "hobby", but as a business. If the IRS says I'm a working writer, good enough for me! (For the record, the distinction does have to do with making money. I think you have to turn a profit 3 years out of 5 or some such. I've yet to lose money two years in a row, so I'm still paying self-employment taxes).

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Okay, that was fun. So what about my writing? 

Well, I've been traveling again, and I'm still struggling with the focus issues that seem to come with grief and loss, so the writing hasn't been impressive. But aside from nights in the backcountry (backpacking) and a couple of reallllly long driving days, I've been working on Death By Donut every day. Maybe I just do edits on a couple of paragraphs, but I do something, and I'm working my way through it. 

Apropos of that... I'm hoping to have an edited draft by the end of the month, and will be looking for beta readers. If you are willing to help out, let me know. The book is the 5th in then Pismawallops PTA cozy mystery series, and I'd love to have at least one beta who hasn't read the other books, so I can find out if it works for new readers.

No short stories or submissions this month. But I've put over 5000 miles on the new car since the start of September, so maybe that's no surprise?

Here I am, working on the edits in camp at Great Basin NP:

Writer's Wednesday: Some Writing Errors to Avoid

 I've been reading and listening to books more than I'm writing, but my writer brain is clearly turned on, because I've stumbled on--or over--some writing mistakes that I certainly felt shouldn't have gotten by the editor. 

The worst, a constant irritant in an otherwise pleasant (if somewhat saccharine) series, have to do with what I'd have to classify as info dumps. I'll call this one, "The dog had three legs, he remembered." The particular author I'm listening to (who I see no reason to name) has a tendency that I don't think I noticed so much when it was on paper, to use "John remembered that blah blah" in order to get info dumps out there. To make it worse, some of them don't really even matter to the story at any time. 

A subset of this, equally a clunky device for sharing background the reader may need but shouldn't trip over (from a different writer, whose works I also usually really enjoy), is, "She remembered she'd been meaning to ask about X." Apropos of nothing, we learn of something that suddenly will become important to know.

Back to the first author, another thing that's irritating me as that at times the books, set in an Irish village, read as though they are meant to introduce the American reader to the language, customs, and culture of Ireland, rather than just to tell a story. I wonder at times in an editor told the author he needed to explain all this stuff for then poor idiots across the pond. The result is lots of awkward leveraging of "he knew the Americans would call that soccer." (In fact, do I have hold of an edition meant for the US market, or is it all that way, because the sport is consistently referred to as soccer by the narrator and I think even the characters, which jars on my ear every time).

Enough of my ranting. I think it boils down to: if your backstory and local colo(u)r don't fit into the story organically, leave them the heck out! This is a hard one for me to believe sometimes, but: your reader doesn't need to know everything you do about the characters, the setting, or the history.

Writer's Wednesday: Doing what we can

Well what do you know? Here it is, Wednesday again, and time for another writer's update.

I have sadly little progress to report, on either my writing or editing my photos (and I haven't done my taxes yet, either). I think there's no getting away from the truth: I'm goofing off, procrastinating, and not working very hard at much of anything.

I've not been completely idle, though. I *have* been working on my book. I'm not sure it's productive, but I've been producing a very lovely multi-colored outline of the book, tracing the clues leading to the perp, all the red herrings, the distractions, and the secondary mystery. Why? Well, for one thing, it's pretty :D  For another, I'm hoping that seeing how all the bits fit in will help me see where to fit in the bits that got left out. It might even be working.

Meanwhile, I'm 1/3 of the way through one of me 2 beta reads, with the second queued up. In fact, I've decided that it's probably more to the point to work on other peoples' books right now. I feel more responsibility to them, for one thing. For another, I can actually do it. And finally, I have found in the past that editing for others helps me get my brain going to edit my own work.

So that's how the Ninja Librarian is coping. That, and chocolate.

How's your Corona life going? Share your triumphs and frustrations!

Oh, yeah. And pretty pictures, because I can. Today's bonus is atmospheric water and bergs. But first--I finally found the (obvious) way to add a video. So here's one of a penguin.

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All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2020, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Writer's Wednesday: Goals? What goals?

Two weeks ago I shared some writing goals, which I then didn't look at again until yesterday. Somehow, the whole business of settling down and working has been very slow to ramp up since our return home.

But--some good news: while I didn't do everything I said I would (I forgot about editing that second story about the cruise), I have managed to finish the current trip through my MS for Death By Donut. Granted, that trip was really just a quick read with a few notes to refresh my memory about the story and what needs doing, but I did do that. I'm ready now to print it out and get serious about the structural changes needed.

My last novel I was able to edit completely digitally, without ever printing it. I think that's only possible when things are pretty well organized to start with, because this time I really need to be able to lay things out on the floor and draw arrows and scribble notes. I apologize to the trees.

All of this has been made harder by the fact that I'm not sleeping well, for reasons I can't quite pin down.

Me, even after that first cup of coffee.

I have a couple of other editing tasks besides the novel I need to deal with, and I'll be prioritizing a beta read for a fellow sufferer, and the short story written aboard the Plancius while we wondered if we'd ever be allowed ashore.

In the next couple of weeks I also need to do our taxes (so glad we  got a reprieve on those!), and create the large-type edition of Death By Library. (If anyone has an old mum who likes "real" books and needs big print, I have released the first three books in the series in large type, suitable for libraries in senior residences).

Finally, we're getting closer to the release date for Voyagers. I got my bookmarks today, and they are beautiful. I look forward to getting my copies of the book soon!

Like an iceberg, a lot of writing happens below the surface. I hope.

Also: Visit this week's IWSG Anthology blog, discussing the power of words. I'll be offering my thoughts next week.

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All images and text ©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2020, unless otherwise indicated.
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Writer's Wednesday: Editing

This week, since I'm not really in a different place than for my last "Writer's Wednesday" post, I thought I'd share some thoughts on that first edit. The NaNo people have been sending out a lot of stuff on that topic, and I've even looked at some. Go take a look if you can--some of what they say is pretty basic, some is possibly helpful.

Every time I hit this point in a novel (i.e., the first draft is done and has steeped for however long I allow it), I find myself re-inventing the editorial process. The reason, of course, is that editing is hard, and there's no magic formula. But I have found a few things that seem to be good places to start. In my list below, "you" really means "me." Your results may vary.

1. Create a detailed outline. No, not before you write. An outline, scene-by-scene, of what you actually wrote. This time, I started adding location and time to the header for each scene, and halfway through, I realized I needed to include the weather (so embarrassing if your character mentions it's been raining for a week, but three scenes back the sun was shining).

2. Insert notes in the text (I use Bold brackets [ ] to make them easy to find) about things you think need fixing. At this point, struggle to avoid trying to fix them.

3. This is where I get fuzzy... how best to fix the problems? Maybe I can't find a neat plan for it because it's a unique process each time, depending on what needs fixing (in the current WIP, for example, I have a couple of characters who need to appear sooner and more often. I have to figure out where I can put them, and how that changes everything... ugh).

4. After a lot of revision, I get back to stuff I'm pretty clear on. At this point, usually 1-3 rewrites in, I send the book to my beta readers, and do something else while they work on it (I recommend writing short stories. What I usually do is go hiking, which is also a pretty good approach. The key is just not to fret about the story while it's out of your hands).

5. When you've studied the readers'/editors' notes, you get to either return to step 3, or move on to polishing.

6. I have several well-established steps for polishing, which I *thought* I had already written about. I can't find those posts, though, so I'll list them here.
    A. "Final" read-through to tinker with sentences and word choices (repeat as necessary).
    B. Use the "search" function to find and deal with about 15 problem words (some of these are common to most writers, some are personal. I think the list is a post for another day). This is also where in my Pismawallops PTA mysteries I now do a search to make sure that JJ's son Brian didn't become "Brain" anywhere.
    C. Read it aloud, making fixes and adjustments as I go. Ideally, I'd also do this a few steps back, but it's not my favorite thing to do (danged effective, though).
    D. When I'm really sure I'm done, I send it to my proof-reader. When she's done, I'm not allowed to mess with anything more (unless someone tells me about a typo or similar small problem--no rewrites that would let new issues sneak in).

That's pretty much the plan (with that giant hole in the middle where the real work happens). I'm considering trying something the NaNo Revision Guide suggests (see chapter 7): actually rewriting, or retyping the story. They suggest that you open a new file and rewrite the story. Not copy and paste, but type the words again. Even ignore that first draft and (using the much more detailed and reorganized outline and notes you created in Steps 1 & 2 above) rewrite it from scratch. It seems a bit radical, but also maybe fun? Maybe just another way to procrastinate, too--I wonder if I'd get anything any better the second time around?

What I want to know--has anyone tried that radical rewriting approach? Let me know how it worked--or didn't!

IWSG: On the Road Again

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds! Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to the IWSG page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! If it links to Google+, be sure your blog is listed there. Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

 This month's fantastic co-hosts:  J.H. Moncrieff, Natalie Aguirre, Patsy Collins, and Chemist Ken! 

IWSG: On the Road Again

OPTIONAL IWSG Day Question: If you could use a wish to help you write just one scene/chapter of your book, which one would it be?

Before I get to the IWSG question—which is kind of a fun one—let’s play catch-up on the news. First and beyond all expectations (though I hoped for it), I have beaten the draft of Death By Library into a shape I’m willing to share with beta readers.

If you’d like to give the book a read, let me know! It is Book 4 of the series, but will stand alone (and it’s always good to have readers who haven’t read the previous books). I really need at least 2 more readers, and the schedule is lax—I don’t even want to see it again until June!

Here’s the gist of the matter, since that effort hasn’t left me time to polish a blurb:

JJ has a new job at the library, and everything is looking peachy. But when things in the stacks turn deadly, she has to figure out who might have killed the local gadfly. It’s not like she has a lot of spare time. Her personal life just keeps getting more chaotic, and there’s never enough time to spend with her sweetheart, police chief Ron Karlson. That’s especially true with Thanksgiving on the horizon and her mother coming to visit!

This is unquestionably the fastest turn-around I’ve ever done from first draft to something I can share (of course, that’s because usually I alternate, and in January I edit the book drafted a full year earlier; this time I ploughed straight through). I like the continuity this provides, and may try to keep it up.

On other fronts: after 2 months of semi-settled life in Christchurch, NZ, we have gone back on the road/trail. In fact, this is posting automatically while we are kayaking and hiking in Abel Tasman National Park. I’ll respond to comments and make visits as soon as I can! This is kicking off 2 full months of travel—I don’t expect to be settled again until  June. The thought is kind of daunting—especially when I consider that we aren’t 100% sure how things will work when we finally get back to California.

Now for the question: if I could use a wish to help me write just one scene (of the book just finished, I’ll say), I’d pick the one where we unravel the mystery. That gave me trouble, and I’m hoping my beta-readers won’t tell me I failed :) That’s a good scene to pick anyway, since so much depends on that moment being convincing and reasonable, but not visible from a mile away.

How about you? Share your news, or tell me what part of a story is the hardest for you to write!

Writer’s Wednesday #amwriting

Plenty of distractions still in my life, but I’m here to say I’m still writing. In fact, progress on Death By Library has been good. I’ve completed the first read-through and made extensive editorial notes, and am about halfway through the MS trying to apply those notes.

That’s pretty much all the writing—even this blog has fallen a bit by the wayside—but I did manage to submit one short story last week, so that my March submissions so far are... 1.

Oh—and I wrote an opening line for the WriteClub19 contest. So maybe I’ll even manage to enter that!

That’s about it for writer activities. We had a few nice outings in the last couple of weeks, but Friday’s horrible shooting in Christchurch rather put me off of everything for a few days. In the end, I found that the best thing I could do for my own sanity was to crawl inside my MS and stay there, though today it all came out in a horrible all-day headache.

Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees. Sometimes you can’t tell the shadows from reality.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2018 As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated.

IWSG: Pet Peeves

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group (click on the badge above for the list) and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

Be sure to stop by and visit other IWSG members and our wonderful hosts for the month,

Christine Rains, Dolarah @ Book Lover, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Yvonne Ventresca, and LG Keltner!

The question this month is about your pet peeves when reading, writing or editing. Since I don't want to talk about my writing (what writing?) right now, I'm diving into this one!

As a reader, my pet peeves are poor editing and poor writing! Okay, that's a cop-out. But I will dump a book if the opening chapters have too many typos/errors, and I will dump a book faster than you can blink if it has anachronisms and problems with a consistent and believable tone. I am actually more likely to finish a book with a weak plot than one with errors of that sort--they just irritate and distract me too much, while I'm probably too good at the willing suspension of disbelief.

As a writer,  my biggest pet peeve is me. I mean, I'm bugged by the things that keep me from writing, and as Pogo Possum once said, I have met the enemy and she is me (okay, I paraphrased that). On a maybe more useful note, I have a problem with diving in without an adequate plan, and I hate it when I do that!

If we want to talk about my pet peeve as being what I struggle most with, that has to be editing, which is made all the worse when I dive in without an adequate plan (see above). Editing is hard under the best of circumstances, though the more I do it the more I have come to enjoy at least some elements at some times. This, of course, brings me to my favorite pet peeve about editing my own work (as for editing other people's work, I don't really have a peeve, because fixing those things are what I'm there for).

With my own books, I struggle with the step from seeing the big view of what needs fixing ("make this character more distinct" "provide more justification for this plot point") to actually implementing it. It's not that it annoys me, but that it's danged hard. I do dislike it when I'm supposed to be doing big-picture editing and I get all caught up in polishing sentences.

Over to you. What will make you put down a book and run, not walk, to the nearest exit? Or what will make you want to throw your MS out the window and take up a new career as a greeter at Walmart?

IWSG: Editing Hell

 

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group (click on the badge above for the list) and connect with your fellow writers - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

Time for the red pen!

And now for my own post: Editing Hell (and you can take the first word as a verb or the whole thing as a compound noun).

This is a live(ish)* report on the editing progress for Book 3 of the Pismawallops PTA mystery series (tentatively titled Death By Adverb, though unless I do a bunch of work, that's not going to make sense). Maybe my process will offer help to someone, or at least the consolation that you're not as messed-up as I am.

Day One (about 9 January):
Re-read the draft. Really, this isn't half bad, right up until it turns messy and then abruptly ends without quite resolving things.

Day Two:
Build an outline of what's there. This is kind of fun. Oops. A few things are off, threads dropped or inconsistent. Still, really, what was I worrying about?

Day Three:
Building a plan for revisions. Okay, I need to change some characters a bit, and I think that I need to be clearer in my own head about who did it and why. But we're doing okay.

2 a.m. Holy seaweed, Batman! There's a plot hole you could drive an aircraft carrier through. And who the heck killed--oh, geez. Where was she, anyway? Return to sleep hoping these things won't look so bad in the morning.

Day Four:
They look even worse by the light of day. This MS really is a hot mess. Spend the day wondering how to address the problem. Still not settled in my own mind whodunnit. It's important to know that, isn't it? Give up and write flash fiction.

Day Five:
More procrastination. Start looking at the major gaps and weaknesses, and develop a pretty code for marking where to deal with each one. Look at Facebook. Contemplate long-distance hiking trip reports. Oooh! Pretty scenery! Maybe I should start planning our summer trips.

Days Six through Eight:
Still trying to get a grip on the means, motive and timing of the murder(s). By the end of Day Eight, a glimmer is beginning. Grab a pen and start jotting ideas until they begin to take on some form. This might be enough to go on with.

Day Nine:
Okay. I can do this. Making tons of notes, and marking more placed in the outline that need to be changed.

Day Ten:
Enough notes. Return to the MS. Since the beginning isn't bad, this brings back some of the confidence of Day One. Begin marking the MS for modifications.

Day Eleven:
Continue re-reading and marking for changes. Start re-thinking some of the alterations I wanted to make. That one will be a lot of work, and it might not be worth it. Begin looking for a work-around.

Days Twelve through Fourteen:
Repeat Day Eleven. It's a weekend. Dang, weekends mess with my working schedule. Maybe they're supposed to. Isn't that what weekends are for?

Days Fifteen & Sixteen:
I'm into the weeds, the part where everything in the first draft is wrong. It's not so bad, though: all I'm doing now it thinking about what I'll do to fix it. The challenge will come when I have to translate those notes into actual revisions. This may be a long process.

Day Seventeen:
Had an insight late yesterday about a major plot point. Changing it means a significant re-write of the second half of the book. It looks like the way to go, but I've changed my mind about the ending so many times...don't trust myself. Have to commit to one way or the other before I can continue.

Day Eighteen:
Took a long walk with a writer friend, followed by coffee (wonder what other patron of the coffee shop thought about our conversation, which was all about plausible murders...). With her help, I got a grip on the changes that need to be made. I can see my way clear now. I think.

Day Nineteen:
Got most of the important notes down, and sent them off for further input.

Days Twenty through Twenty-two:
Life intervenes. The MS sits there. It's in my mind, though, and one thing I contemplate is how to handle changes that will thread through the whole thing. I think I'll have to rewrite the second half first, and then go back and make sure the first half supports it. Does that make sense? Will be hot on the trail of the editing plan again tomorrow!

Day Twenty-three:
Spent several hours immersed in the story plan. We may be ready to start rewriting.

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*Note: I totally faked this. It does pretty well reflect the process, but I didn't keep up the "live" aspect very consistently.

Since my own post is so long, I won't go into the question of the month, just suggest you might answer it in the comments, or tell me about your own editing hell! The February question is, How has being a writer changed your experience as a reader?

IWSG:

This month's question: How do you know your story is ready?

This is a great question for me just now, since I'm in the final stages of editing, revising, re-editing, and cover design for my next book, the 3rd Ninja Librarian book (see below...).

Whether you are an author-publisher or have gone the traditional route, this is a question you have to address somewhere along the line. Whether the question is "is it ready to publish?" or "is it ready to send to agents?" you get to edit and revise and second-guess yourself more or less endlessly (having an editor and a contract might be helpful here, since someone will be telling you to finish it already). So how do you know when it's done?

I have no idea how you know when your book is done. For me, it's a gradual process and a fuzzy decision. I gather my feedback, do everything I can, get a little more feedback...and when I reach the point that I really don't think I can make it any better, I give it to my proof-reader, which puts an absolute end to my chances to make changes. But even then...when I re-read my first book, I want to make more changes. I'm never really satisfied, and so in some ways, it's a totally arbitrary line. I remember when I wrote my dissertation, and my director sent it back to me again and again until I drew a line and told her "this is as good as I can/am willing to make it. Take it or leave it" (there may have been some profanity involved there, at least in my mind). You never achieve perfection, but you want to come as close as you can, and then stop.

I think, with the endless possibilities for revision offered by ebooks and print-on-demand publishing, a more interesting question might be: when do you know you should unpublish and revise again? I haven't done that--yet--with any of my books, though I did have to re-proof one book after I released it, when early readers found more typos than I was comfortable with. (That was my fault--I didn't use my usual proof-reader, shame on me!). But I have considered pulling The Ninja Librarian--not for any big changes, but just to tinker some more with the language, smooth out some bits, and remove my efforts to show the characters' speech through idiosyncratic spelling.

What about you? Have you considered--or done--a revision on an already-published book? I realize this is only an option if you are your own publisher, but even if you aren't--have you wished you could?

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The Problem of Peggy is scheduled for release Nov. 28. Watch for advance sales information!

Review: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

 

Title: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers: How to edit yourself into print

Author: Renni Browne & Dave King

Publisher: William Morrow. Second Edition, 2004. 278 pages.

Summary:

This is a step-by-step walk through the major areas in which fiction can go wrong, below the plot level (the book discusses things that affect plot, but they do not discuss the big plot issues of story arc, etc.). It includes checklists, exercises, and a list of top books for writers.

Review: 

Each chapter of this book addresses a different area of concern in your manuscript, and includes lots of examples. At the end of each chapter there is a summary checklist of the things you might want to do/look for in your book, and a set of exercises to try. I failed to notice until I finished that there is an appendix with the authors' take on how those exercises might be completed (these are editing choices. There is no one right answer). 

As I read through the book, I marked things that I thought were particularly likely to be issues for me, but the fact is that somewhere in the editing process I'll want to revisit each chapter's checklist. It's not that this is the be-all and end-all of editing books, just that they hit the main points and they provide a layout that makes it easy to use it as a guide. 

The authors go out on a limb, and their examples include not only texts created to make the point and things presented in their workshops, but also classic works. And that was where I found myself not always in agreement. I get that they are saying that styles have changed, but it just felt weird. I also could NOT agree with one section, where they suggested using comma splices to make writing more contemporary and "natural," particularly in speech (but their examples were not all dialogue). Sorry, but while I'm okay with deliberate sentence fragments, for some reason the comma splices completely set my teeth on edge. I won't be using that technique!

Recommendation:

This may not be the best writing book in the world, but it's good. I'm glad I responded to Jemima Pett's review and got a copy to add to my library. I look on all the writing books I've read as adding little bits to the skill set I bring to my writing. This one adds a pretty good bunch of skills, and presents them in a way that's easy to reference and use.

Full Disclosure: I checked Self-Editing for Fiction Writers out of my library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." 

Being an author-publisher looks a lot like work...

I don't have a review ready to go today. I could blame it on having been on the road with my oldest son, visiting colleges (colleges? We're just getting some traction on this parenting thing, and it's almost over?). That would even be partly true. But I'm also working hard on all the final details for Halitor the Hero, which is still on schedule for its Nov. 30 release date!

There's a lot to do. Once the MS is clean and lovely as far as content goes (got there last week), the formatting begins. I spent yesterday in battle with MS Word getting it to where the ebooks should be perfect (I often wish my books had illustrations, but I admit that it is easier to create an ebook without them!). Now I'm working on the print version, which is easier in some ways (no need for live links!) but requires more of what I'm less good at, i.e. an artistic sense. This font or that? And I set myself a big challenge this time: I hired my amazing cover artist, Danielle English, only for the front cover. I'm doing the back and spine myself. In theory, this is well within my skills. In practice...the jury is still out!

Once that's done and all the chapter heads are just as I want them (and headers! footers! page numbers!), and I upload the whole thing, I'll finish that short story for Friday's blog and get back to your regularly scheduled entertainment!

Oh, and about that "NaNoEdMo" idea, where I was going to get Death By Trombone through the first round of edits by the end of the month? Not looking so good! But I am working on it, so I know I'll get there eventually. Maybe even by the end of the year (just in time to start the second round of edits in the new year).

Meanwhile, you can pre-order the ebook of Halitor from Amazon AND from Smashwords!

 

And don't forget the exciting pending release of the BookElves Anthology! I'll link up as soon as we have a pre-order page, because there are some cool holiday stories in there! Huge thanks to Princelings of the East author Jemima Pett for all the work she's doing on this!

And don't forget that Goodreads Giveaway for Halitor!

Writing Book Review: Editing Made Easy

Not the right cover

Title: Editing Made Easy: Simple Rules for Effective Writing
Author: Bruce Kaplan
Publisher: Upper Access, Inc., Book Publishers, 2012 (Revised & expanded U.S. edition); 112 pages
Source: Library

Review:
In addition to the title and subtitle (annoyingly all in lower case, which I find very weird for a book about getting everything right when writing), this book has the statement on the cover, "A friendly, practical guide for writers, students, business executives, Web developers--and anyone else who wants to write well." That is a decent summary of the book, which offers an extremely brief and easy-to-read summary of some key issues that will make your writing stronger. Editing Made Easy has a noticeable bias to journalistic writing, and scarcely acknowledges that matters can be different for fiction.

I found that bias annoying, especially as there were some examples (particularly in the section on pronouns) that came out clunky. I get the need to make pronouns actually align with the right subject, but repeating names too often is inelegant. Find a better way. And an insistence on shorter and simpler sentences is not all bad, but a writer of fiction needs to remember that there are times to take a different approach. I'm more of the "mix it up" school of writing that believes flow is optimized by using both long and short sentences and paragraphs. Again, I think this reflects the journalistic bias of the book.

Overall, however, the book offers a quick and simple reference for areas in which many writers go wrong: commonly misused or confused words (I LOVE lists that I can go to in a hurry to find out if I mean stationary or stationery, since I can't remember from one time to the next!), basics of punctuation, avoiding the passive voice, and some commonly overused words. I added a couple to my standard late-stage-editing searches: "of the" and "that" in particular, though again, not every instance of "of the" needs to be replaced with a possessive.

The book is very short and easy to read, so my time commitment was small (and I read it during a shift when I had to be sitting around in the library looking sort of official, so it worked well). I probably wouldn't recommend this for accomplished writers, but anyone who feels a bit insecure about some of the rules and regs could find it helpful to have around as a reference.

Mr. Kaplan really ought to find a better designer, though. Printing all the titles (of chapters as well as on the cover) in lower case is just wrong on a book of this sort.

Recommendation: 
For those who want a quick reference for tricky spellings and usages, or a fast review of things like active and passive voice.

Full Disclosure: I checked Editing Made Easy out of my local library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

K: Knowledge

This one's a huge catch-all.  The knowledge we need to write.  On one level, of course, all you need is to write.  (And if you don't write, no matter what you know, you aren't a writer.  See this brilliant summary by the ever-clever and profane Chuck Wendig).  So you need enough self-knowledge to know you want to write, and enough self-discipline to sit down and do it.

But it helps if you have some other kinds of knowledge: the mechanics of writing, grammar, proofing.  These things are pretty self-evident, and can be studied if you are weak in any of them.

And then there is the knowledge that I didn't even know I needed when I started this journey: knowledge of publishing and marketing and book design. .  . If you are starting out as an author-publisher, do better than I did and take time now to start learning about all of these.  Join the communities at Goodreads.com.  Start reading blogs (there are about a million that deal with all aspects of writing and publishing).  Start your own blog, do the A to Z Challenge, be a part of communities.

And get someone to make you an exceptional cover, and read my post on editing.

This is what I got when I did it myself

And this is what I got when I paid someone to do it right.

E: Editing

 

This month, Saturdays are time to talk about writing!  And since today is the letter E. . . let's talk about EDITING, even though that's sort of starting at the wrong end. Hey, I didn't invent the alphabet.

Since I've been in editing mode a lot lately, I've thought about it a lot (mostly while trying to avoid actually doing it).  So here are my three main things you need to know about editing.

1.  Revision, rewriting, editing and proof-reading are all different things and every piece of writing needs them all (to a greater or lesser degree).  Re-vision: to see again.  Really big-picture changes.  Re-write: make the changes, big and small, that make the text read well.  Edit: clean up all the awkwardness and excess adverbs and little words you love to overuse.  Proof-reading is what you do the last thing before you submit the MS, to catch every typo.

1a.  Why can't you do your own proof-reading, even if (like me) you are pretty good at it and can proof someone else's MS to near-perfection?  I knew the answer to this and went ahead and did it anyway, just to prove the point.  Two reasons: first, you are too familiar with the text.  You've read it 20 times, and you will see what you expect to see.  And second, the author will always want to tinker.  Tinkering introduces new errors.  I've uploaded a corrected version of Death By Ice Cream, after a friend found far too many errors (not awful ones, but more than I want and enough to make me a bit embarrassed).   So, again: do not attempt to be your own proof-reader!

2.  If you haven't read your book aloud, you haven't finished editing.

3.  No one is good enough to do all that alone.  Hire, bribe, or barter for a big-picture edit and a proof-reader.  Your readers will thank you.  Note: if this is a term paper we are talking about, it has to be your own work, but there's nothing to stop you bouncing ideas off friends, and proof-reading exchanges with classmates are completely legit. As is asking your mother to proof-read, if she'll do it (and if she spells better than you do).

And that's my word on editing.  Many of us love the rough-draft composition stage, and dread the editing phase of writing.  But after publishing three novels I can say: it gets easier. The feeling of taking an amorphous blob of text and molding (or beating) it into a well-formed piece of readable prose can be as great a high as the initial pouring forth of the idea.

 

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Now, enter the drawing to win an e-book of Death By Ice Cream-with the errors removed, thanks to (you guessed it) an external proof-reader.

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Progressive Book Club: Writing Short

 Time once again for the Progressive Book Club!  I thought I was going to have to punt on my writing-related posts, but thanks to a lot of time sitting in airports, I not only finished reading

 but I even got a response written and--this is important, as you'll see in a moment--edited.

Title: How to Write Short: Word Craft for Fast Times
Author: Roy Peter Clark
Publisher: Little, Brown, 2013.  272 pages.
Source: Library (ebook)

This thought-provoking little book should be discussed in tweets and haikus.  If I had more time,I would.  Being short of time, I shall pick out a few key ideas and riff on them.  Clark has made this easy by dividing his book into very short chapters, each followed by a set of assignments for the writer to practice brevity.

Clark first really got my attention with Chapter 8, "No Dumping." (Given the brevity of the chapters, this was only minutes into the book.)  The chapter appeals to my possibly somewhat anal conviction that no piece of writing should go out into the world without edits (no, I don't edit my diary.  I don't share it, either).  The rule applies all the more, Clark makes clear, to short writing.  If a piece of writing is both short and unedited, odds are it doesn't make much sense. The goal is to use the fewest possible words to do the job.

Assignment #1 from Clark to me and my readers: "Make a list of the informal texts you would be least likely to revise: emails, tweets, status updates, website feedback, instant messages.  Resolve that for one week you will refrain from dumping these on your readers and will take a few seconds to correct and improve."  Take the vow along with me.

In Chapter 18 Clark discussed the 6-word memoir project*. The obvious assignment #2: write your own.  One of my efforts: "Always wanted to write.  I do."

In Chapter 19, Clark asks us to consider if we are putter-innerspring or a taker-outers.  Do you put in everything including the kitchen sink and then edit out the unnecessary bits, or frame the bare bones and expand?  I vote for both: my stories often draft as bare bones, my sentences have the kitchen sink.  When I rewrite, I often shrink the sentences and expand the stories.  Which are you (or what combo)?

A final assignment: write aphorisms, adages, and epigrams.  Those are among the classic very short forms of writing.  They also strike me as a great use of twitter for an author.  Have fun with it: "I fought the slaw, and the slaw won.  #needcleanshirt"

Oh, yeah: write t-shirt mottos, too.  I almost bought one this weekend at the Book Festival: "Oops.  I accidentally bought another pile of books."

Shakespeare said it best: brevity is the soul of wit. I believe that's wit as in intelligence, as well as humor. Funny that I think of Shakespeare as using a lot of words because really, writing in iambic pentameter constrained him far more than I constrain myself!  And every word he used had to be chosen for meaning and meter.

So there are your PBC assignments.  Feel free to share the results in the comments!

Oh, and since I ended up with some spare time, the haiku review:

Fewer words may serve
Vital communications
Better than you think.

*If you haven't heard of this, Google it.  Check out the NPR Race Card project while you're at it.

Full Disclosure: I borrowed Writing Short: Word Craft for Fast Times  from my (digital) library, and received nothing from the writer or publisher in exchange for my honest review.  The opinions expressed are my own and those of no one else.  I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

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In related news: only six days left to enter to win a paperback copy of Death By Ice Cream.

Click the link above or in the side-bar!