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Showing posts with the label editing

The Craft of Writing: Revision, or Re-vision

Perhaps because my new book-- A Coastal Corpse-- has been such a challenge to write, rewrite, and revise, I feel like I ought to have something helpful to say about the process. After 10 novels and countless short stories, I have learned something, right? Some days I'm not so sure about that (Maybe this should be an Insecure Writers Support Group post!) In all seriousness, though, I do have a few thoughts on the subject, some of which might be helpful to others. Today I'm going to talk about the radical things that may have to happen after I've finished the first draft and let it sit a while. This is all in 1st person because who knows if any of it applies to anyone but me? What now? I've let my MS rest for however long I need (2 weeks to 6 months?). I've re-read it and made notes. What next? Things can go two ways at this point. I might decide that the basic structure is sound, and move on to the next level of editing (a topic for another day). More commonly I fin

Writer's Update: Submissions, editing, and other messes

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"Messy" does seem the best way to describe most aspects of my life just now. Personally, I've been very distracted by moving my younger son out into his own new adult life (along with a certain amount of my furniture...) and preparing for my own upcoming move in a couple of months. That's caused a lot of literal mess as I sort and discard, and pull my things off shelves in a hurry when we decided he would take this or that dresser or bookcase. Submissions have been slow, but I do currently have two stories out. It took a lot of looking for find a place to send one of them; if you know of markets for lighthearted fantasy basically for kids/YA (though it's not explicitly non-adult), let me know in the comments! And the novel? When I'm not too distracted by moving, it's actually coming along. I'm nearly done creating the new outline, and will start drafting the new version as soon as that is done--hopefully by the weekend. It's a mess, but one I have

Writer's Wednesday: Accountability

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 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

Writer's Update

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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

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 stori

Writer's Wednesday: NaNo, anyone?

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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

IWSG: What's a "Working Writer"?

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   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"

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 sh

Writer's Wednesday: Doing what we can

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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 mor

Writer's Wednesday: Goals? What goals?

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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

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 t

IWSG: On the Road Again

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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

Writer’s Wednesday #amwriting

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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 shad

IWSG: Pet Peeves

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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,

IWSG: Editing Hell

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  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

IWSG:

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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 t

Review: Self-Editing for Fiction Writers

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  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 particul