When someone should slap your hand away from the keyboard...

Writing is not always about writing. Sometimes it is:

dreaming
imagining
re-imagining
fiddling around with unrelated stuff to unblock the drains on your brain
refreshing - the mind
                 - your email
being stuck
researching help/publishers/agents
preparing queries/submissions/synopses

But it's not called 'writing' for nothing, so a big part of what we do is getting the words down and arranging them into a coherent and fresh assemblage that we hope will win readers over. We create the story and then move on to the second and third tiers of writing:

revising
editing
titivating
second guessing yourself


Revising, editing and titivating are related, but are not the same thing. Revising is clocking rubbish sentences, it's thinking 'no, I can't kill Mrs Kilgour in Chapter 3 after all cos she's the only one who can slip the note under the door in Chapter 7'. Mrs Kilgour's demise must therefore be moved to Chapter 8. It's activating passive sentences and changing that eleventh 'ambled' into a fresher synonym, killing darlings that just don't belong no matter how hard you ply the shoe horn and fighting cliches tooth and nail. Its moving action around and making the narrative more sensible and the language and sentence structure stronger. It's taking out the obvious 'writing' so the reader won't notice the seams, or the authorial hand if you like. It's what you do before you send your MS out to a publisher or consider it ready for self pubbing.

Editing comes after you feel the MS is done. It is essential and, I always think, best done by another eye. It's grammar and punctuation appraisal and correction. And it's 'Mrs Kilgour really should be gone by Chapter 4, unless you give her more to do between then and Chapter 8. Or maybe just find another stooge to slip the note, or send a text or pigeon post instead.' It's a fresh reader saying 'I don't get why this is happening,' or 'no one talks like that these days' or 'that eye colour change better be the result of new contact lenses but you might want to mention that in the text.' You can't be the objective reader. No, really, you can't. You can be for revising, but not for editing. Trust me on this.

And then there is titivating: the final spruce up that may or may not be necessary. It can easily become a delaying tactic, more a manifestation of the fear of taking the next step than it is a means to improving your work. And titivating is a distant relation and sometimes a precursor to second guessing and if you have reached this point, someone should probably just slap your hand away from the paper or the keyboard. Second guessing is related to self doubt, and is just as useless. It's wondering and fixating on what will make the publisher accept my story, the purchaser pick my book, the reader love it and review it, the judges select it as a finalist etc...that I haven't already included. It sometimes comes before you finally send your story out, and sometimes it happens after a few rejections or indifferent reviews. And the bottom line is you can't know. Your best guide is you. Tell the story the way you want to. Read it and see if it moves you, makes you laugh or cry, or both. Sometimes, and I'm sorry but this is an unpleasant truth, your story might actually be perfect and still not find a home, with publishers or purchasers or readers. A semi-proof of the pointlessness of second guessing is that while 5 publishers may reject your work, the 6th (or 26th) one may love it and can't wait to put it on shop shelves. If you had tried to please the second five by second guessing your work and altering it based on supposition about why the first five didn't accept it, it might no longer be the story you had so much faith in, and loved. And it might not catch the eye of any of the publishers, be they the sixth or the nth one because it is no longer the work of your heart and possibly has even started to show signs of being overworked.  Of course, if twenty publishers or 20 members of your critique group (okay most groups aren't that big but I'm just trying to make a point here so bear with me) all point to the same problem then you revise. But trying to fix a story that isn't broken is fruitless. Second guessing can give you no greater guarantees of success and quite possibly might just tie you in knots.

So to sum up, revision is good, editing is best outsourced, titivating is procrastinating and second guessing is the path to madness. Let's be careful out there people.

Edit...or...

I thought it might be useful to talk about editors. What are they? What do they do? What don't they do? Whether you are traditionally published or self published you cannot send a book out into the world without the advice and assistance of an editor. And why, exactly, do you need one?

First of all - some definitions. Different kinds of editors/editing do different things.

1. A commissioning/publishing editor: this is the person at a traditional publishing house that chooses the manuscripts from the slush pile that they think deserve publishing. They champion these manuscripts at acquisition meetings and contract with the author for the work, if the acquisitions committee agrees to publish the work.

2. Copy editor/editing: copy editing is about spelling and punctuation and grammar. Do your sentences function effectively and mean what you want them to mean? It's also about consistency; of spelling, comma use, etc... UPDATE - a good editor will also fact check, e.g. place names, dates of events etc...(Thanks Sue!).

3. Structural editor/editing: does your plot work; does it sag in the middle; is everything in the right order; are your characters believable; do you have too many characters; too few; do their interactions ring true; does the action propel the plot forward effectively? Structural editing is also about consistency - does the hero have the same eye and hair colour all the way through; is their personality consistent? and so on.

4. Manuscript assessment: an editor might offer a manuscript assessment service. Usually this focuses primarily on structural editing and the general impressions about whether your manuscript is publishable.

I love editors. I know my weaknesses. I have a tendency to lose control of my commas, and my use of them is inconsistent. Usually my spelling is pretty good but I have writer friends who need help with it. Sometimes my sentences veer toward the passive. And I have to have an impartial reader confirm that my stories make sense and work like I hope they do. Even if you believe you write perfectly, it is worthwhile having a fresh pair of eyes confirm this. But seriously, every story can be made better. I like my stories being sharpened up.

An editor is not there to massage your ego and praise your genius. They are not there to tell you what you want to hear. You can tell yourself that already.They are there to recognize and help you realise the potential of your story. They will point out any errors, inconsistencies and problems with the narrative. They may encourage you and help nurture the development of your writing. If they are experienced and good at their job, if they have edited stories that have gone on to be successfully published, then you should trust their judgement.

They are not a guarantee of the publication or success of your manuscript. No one can guarantee that. You do not have to accept or implement everything they suggest. You decide. It is your story. Your name is the one that will be on the book cover. But their only interest is in improving your manuscript. They have read a lot of manuscripts and have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I pick my battles, and only question their advice if i can prove to them and myself that I was on the right track to begin with.

This article also talks about the function and benefits of editors - and the fact that if they do their job well, you can't see where they've been. The best are invisible.

A good editor will cost. That's fair enough. They are providing a service and their expertise. Its worth it to get your story into the best shape to be a book. Make sure when you contract an editor to work on your manuscript that you discuss and confirm with them what type of editing they will do - copy, structural, assessment, or some combination of those.

A good rule of thumb for picking an editor is to choose one with proven experience. Anyone can call themselves an editor but it's a skilled job requiring a depth of knowledge and familiarity with the requirements of language and publishing standards. Word of mouth can be a great way to find one, or through the acknowledgements section of books you've admired. Some good local freelance children's editors that I have worked with are:

Christine Dale - ex commissioning editor Scholastic NZ

Sue Copsey - ex editor Dorling Kindersley, Pearson Education.



Well folks - I hope this is helpful.

Ch..ch..ch..changes....

Using a clay bowl, sShe scooped some water out of a large pottery jar into a clay bowl and gave it (the bowl) to me. It The Water tasted stale and flat (?). It didn’t matter. I was thirsty.

She watched me drink it all.

“Now you must leave,” Hella said.

“Are you kicking me out?”

“No kicking,” she said raised an eyebrow at me. “But you should go.”

“I only just got here.”

“It is too dangerous for you to be here.” 

I wasn't sure if she meant for her or for me.

“But it’s dark…and freezing-bloody-cold out there,” I whined. I sounded so pathetic. Some brave Viking warrior, I was. Even in this light I could see Hella’s raised eyebrow, her smirking lips.

"You might stay alive in the dark and the cold," she said.

"Maybe..." I muttered.
(break here next two lines drop to new section below)

 “There is no more food. You must go into the mountains … join with Stig.”

“Stig?”

She lifted the lamp onto the floor and drew a map in the dirt to show me where to go. A slanted tree, a standing rock with a sign carved in it, a cleft in a cliff face. I wished I had something to take notes with. And on.

She gave me a hat made of some matted fabric. It smelt funny and for a moment I wondered if it doubled as a smoked fish holder, but I took it anyway. I picked my knife back up and put it through my belt.

“Got any arrows?” I asked. I thought it was worth a try. (where’s the bow been all this time??)

I jogged, even though my limbs seemed to be made of pulse with lead and my lungs felt raw inside. It was dark and freezing cold – keeping moving felt like the best option. Still, the sound of five precious arrows knocking around in the quiver/horn (research) at my shoulder back cheered me up. Hella’s quite a magpie. And it wasn’t just the arrows and quiver. The thick blanket slung over me and pinned with a brooch at my shoulder was pretty handy as well.

She’d said head east and south, although all my orienteering experience (half a day a few years back for EOTC – check first book) had been in daylight in the southern hemisphere. I had no idea how to tell the direction at night.  And how slanted was the slanted tree (she told me to turn right at)? 25degrees, 45 or 60 perhaps? I hadn't bothered asking Hella. Like me, I couldn't imagine she was much chop at trigonometry.  

Just in case you wanted to know what I've been up to, amongst other things

It wasn't the story that needed to change...

Been mightily distracted by the horrible state of affairs regarding the filming of The Hobbit over the last week. I wish I could convey to Warner Brothers Studios how much keeping these movies in New Zealand means to so many people here. I am shocked that the actions of a shortsighted few people can have devastating consequences for thousands of people. What did they think was going to happen? What arrogance to imagine their own interests would be automatically embraced by the rest of the acting, film making, and general communities. And why these films? The sad thing is that its blown up in their faces but the fallout is the size of our whole country. Sigh. Sad times.

On a completely different note I was thinking some more about the whole 'flogging a dead horse' issue. You definitely do not want to be spending precious time and energy going over and over and over the same story that may never be the one as far as a publisher is concerned. As a writer you have to find some litmus test for yourself that says a story is finished. I trust my gut instinct (and am generally like to err on the side of slightly underdone anyway - like a good medium rare steak - slightly blushing on the inside). Maybe you need to limit the number of drafts any story can go through. Find what works for you, but acknowledge that the polishing process is never-ending if we let it be. There are things I would change about most of my stories in print (although I am at least content with most of my short stories) but they were publishable without that extra titivation.

On the other hand sometimes it takes a long time to find the right home for a story. This is not about polishing and re-polishing the story until it shines with a blinding light. This is about keeping the faith that your story is good and sending it out despite previous rejections. We've all heard the story about how many times the first Harry Potter book was rejected before Bloomsbury took the risk. Its happened to me too, on a somewhat smaller scale of course. But there was no questioning the enthusiasm of the publisher for my manuscript. And it wasn't that I edited the story after previous rejections - the story stayed the same. It wasn't the story that needed to change.

I'm sorry Madam, that horse was dead some time back...

Finished my last university assignment and posted it off. I had reached that point where I no longer wanted to look at it. It would have to do, as it was. As much as exams can be a drag, when you are writing hell-for-leather trying to show everything you know on the topic in 3 hours or less finesse flies out the window. This can be a good thing. Cos when the assessment is 100% based on assignments where 'theoretically' you have the time to massage and polish your work into a hard shiny gem all that finessing starts to wear you down. I get a related feeling about my creative writing. There comes a point when I feel as if I am polishing for the sake of polishing, editing because other people do 5 or ten edits before they submit it to a publisher, not because it's what the story needs. There are times when I observe other writers still polishing the same story year after year, trying to make it shiny enough to dazzle a publisher. Sometimes this is the right thing to do. A while back I linked to writer Steven Parrish who worked and reworked his story over a number of years until it was accepted. He had faith in his story and feedback he'd received suggested he was close to the mark. But other people are putting a lot of time and energy into polishing pumice - folks that baby is never going to shine. How do you know which group you fall into? It can be incredibly hard to tell. The kind of feedback you are getting might tell you but this is not foolproof. 39 publishers might pass with a form rejection and the 40th publisher will whoop with delight when they read your story and won't be able to ring you up fast enough. Or no amount of rubbing and cutting will make any difference. One thing I can be sure of is that if you want to have a writing career you will need more then one story. If you work on only one story till it is published you will have nothing to follow it up with. Sometimes working on something new will help you see how to fix something old. Sometimes it is your growth as a writer that makes all the difference. Try writing something fresh and new - a little holiday can make all the difference.

On the flip side of the coin sometimes we want to move on but can't get started. Writers are easily frightened by a blank page. They often get that manic stare, that possum-in-the-headlights look (which often precedes that flattened feeling), and have the five coffee jitters. Its closely related to the will-I-ever-get-published-again neurosis. I've been there and knew I needed help when I started looking for strait jackets in my size (10-12 with plenty of room across the shoulders). Experience has taught me that 'dithering' is a normal part of the process. Sure some writers are really disciplined, or like little sausage factories writing vast quantities of words every day and it works for them but I know I will have days where I have nothing to put on the page. And that's ok. Its only not okay when you fret about it. The minute you give your fear some attention it feeds on it and grows like Topsy (name that reference to win a prize of my choosing). Go watch some bad TV or read a bad book. You'll be back at the page in no time knowing you can do better then that.

BTW Nicola Morgan has had some fabulous advice on dialogue on her blog recently. Check it out here and here.

Short and sweet....

Feeling unwell today so will be short and sweet and then I'm off to rest on the sofa with a hottie and some bad daytime tv. I finished editing my WIP, then went over it again and reached that magic point where I felt I never ever wanted to look at it again (don't worry, its a normal part of the process for me), so I e-mailed it to a publisher today. (yay, yay, yay) Have also spent some time today going over the publisher's edit of one of my short stories to be published later this year. I must say a short story edit is a joy - just the right length, no chance to get too confused and done in minutes. And there is an illustration to go with it. Sweet! Did a short talk yesterday (along with 3 other writers) to school principals, teachers and librarians and although I'd been having trouble deciding what i should say despite a fair amount of brain application, and stressing yesterday as I wrote my speech notes I felt happy with the final result. Its very reassuring when someone in the audience nods at a nod appropriate time, or nods and then hurriedly scribbles down some notes. I think in amongst it all I said some useful things as I 'exploded some fiction myths' and provided some 'tips for creative writing in the classroom'. I'm off to tend to my unwellness and await the homecoming of my faithful and diligent slaves (yes i do mock) also-known-as my children.

Know the enemy...

MOVIE SPOILER ALERT - Lars and the Real Girl (you have been warned :)

I've been horribly slack about editing my WIP. My children are still off school and our routine is an anti-routine. My brain has curdled in the heat and doesn't like looking at constructed sentences for too long. Tis annoying as I want to get this thing finished - it s so close and yet SOOO far and the only person that can make a difference is me (oh the pain of responsibility). And editing can be one long 'moment' of doubt and fear. For me editing is fraught with extra fear as it is the opportunity to remove any suckage, tighten up the brilliance and make the story as rocking as its ever going to get. Ha ha .If you ever suffer from the illusion that writing is easy take note: pulling out my brain through my nostrils would be a simpler and less painful process. I know what I have to do on this job but that does not make it any easier. I think its the 100% vigilance required to not get slack and lazy and lapse into cliche and adverbs and tell. And most of all to keep faith with every plot development for the entire story. I cannot do B if I didn't do A. Is A in the right place? And if I have A and B then C must turn up in the right spot and do its job. And did he still have green eyes and freckles and behave on page 100 like he behaved on page 5. Is her character development credible and meaningful and supported by what has happened to her? Do we care? After watching Lars and the Real Girl the other night and crying during the sex doll's funeral I know what result effective character and plot development can have. I am now reading the second book in Steig Larsson's Millenium Trilogy and I care about the main character so much I am dreading what might happen next. I am compelled to read but have to steel myself when I do, just in case. There are annoying things about Larsson's writing style (if he makes one more list of technical info for his key characters latest purchase or tells me the square meterage of the house some minor character lives in I may scream), but these are not enough to stop me reading. Fascinating stuff. Folks if you ever need a reminder of one of the most important things you can do to improve the quality of your own writing, it is this - read more books!!! Yes this is one cliche I am happy to repeat ad nauseum and if need be to shout it as well. You cannot write if you do not read. There is no better writing education. And this does not mean reading only literary works of genius. One must recognise bad writing if one is to avoid it. Know the enemy. READ MORE BOOKS! Read widely, and find out what you like and what works, and what doesn't.

And I have also discovered that writing a synopsis can be a helpful method of pointing out any weaknesses in a plot. I have just submitted two stories to an Australian publisher and a synopsis was required for each. I usually write a synopsis/outline before I get writing but things always change during the writing process and a corrected synopsis is required for submissions. It is a great test of the brains of your story. Does this still make sense? Would real people behave like this? Does the journey create the result? And one of my personal favourites - was the payoff worth the reading effort?

In other news I am now officially enrolled for another university paper this year and I am very excited as I have been credited an additional paper as I can demonstrate meeting the requirements without any additional effort on my part. This is jolly decent of them and exceedingly handy. I now have to get only five more papers to complete the diploma. Oh and I recently wittered on in a brief and probably insufficient way about POV. For more in-depth smart advice go check out Nicola Morgan's blog post on this very subject. This writer knows her stuff.

just a little interlude...

Finished Coraline in a day. Must now confirm it to my list of all time favs. Believe Neil Gaiman may have been a cat in a former life or has cat ESP now. Very annoyed as book is so good. Glad I saw the movie as I think it added to my enjoyment of the book. Trying to figure out how often to re-read such books as too often will depress me and my writery self, but too far apart will depress me and my writery self.

Am editing as if a snail at the moment - about a couple of pages a day with much going back over earlier stuff. This is probably why I took out tricky plot element in the first place, as it is a beggar - a) to get right and, b) to fit it in properly. This may be enough to send me back into the arms of my equally challenging YA. Why do I do this to myself. Oh, that's right, I'm a masochist, whoops, I mean writer. I will keep my nose to the grindstone. One thing keeping me going is the feeling that the end is in sight.

Procrastination is the evil twin of motivation...

So Nicola Morgan threw a fab 1st birthday party for her blog and she really knows how to throw a party. I always meet the most amazing people at her place . Go check out the blogs of these folk, SF, Lorelei Armstrong, Debs and Karen Jones Gowan. Writers have always sought out the company of other writers (William Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats and Leigh Hunt, Justine Larbalestier, Scott Westerfield, Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson to name but a few) and I just love that I can communicate with writers all over the world as well as the ones in my own country and home town. Even while I'm meeting new writers in other countries (check out this quote on Lorelei's blog) I'm also talking to one in Dunedin (check out this post by Libba Bray brought to my attention by TK Roxborogh). Of course this is what I'm actually doing when I should be fixing my current manuscript. There is no official deadline but a publisher has said they will read it when its done so there is sufficient motivation (of which procrastination is the evil twin - mwahahaha). I've checked facebook a couple of times and got up to-date with a few of my favourite blogs. I played several rounds of 3 card draw computer solitaire at which I am embarrassingly fast (pb 39 seconds) and did the disturbing task of accompanying my eldest as she gave out CV's in the search for a part time job at the local shopping mall (disturbing only because its another unquestionable sign she is growing up and away despite her protestations she is never leaving home). I had another look at my grade for the university paper I did last year and yay - it is beautiful and IT HASN'T CHANGED - and I enrolled for another paper this year (although over $1200 for one paper just about made me have apoplexy: I am applying for a distance learning rebate post haste). And finally because damn-it, no publishers are beating down my door yet this year, either via e-mail or post, and I have to rest my leg cos I pulled a muscle JOGGING ON THE SPOT (sad and pathetic huh?) I have finally started the edit. This will be the final fix up before I have it read by a trusted pawn from my cabal of supporters of my plan for world domination. Then it will be off to the publisher. Stories are NEVER finished but as Libba Bray says, (to paraphrase) they just become someone we used to be close to, but now we've moved on.

we all have that 'moment'...

TK Roxborogh's comment on my last post reminded me of a past post I wrote about reaching that moment when you decide your novel is the biggest load of c(beep)p the world has ever come across. My old post was in response to something I read on this blog (Hey, There's a Dead Guy in the Living Room) but I can't remember when it was - sorry folks (I'll have a rootle round and see if i can find a link). I think this reaction, this self-doubt, this loss of faith in your own writing probably happens to around 95% of all writers. I know it happens to me. Usually more then once per story but not the entire time I'm writing it. Most often it happens just over half way, near the end and when I'm editing it and in that moment I know my story couldn't blow any harder than it does and that was the biggest waste of (three months, six months, 9 months, a year, 2 years, some other length of time, select as appropriate). In that moment you wonder how you ever thought you could write. In that moment you know you will never show the story to another living soul. In that moment your heart sinks and you want to cry. But (and this is my favourite part) you keep writing, finish the story and edit it till its done and 99 times out of 100 that love for what you've written comes back and months later you'll read a bit at random and think - ok, maybe I can do this and in THAT foolhardy moment you print it and post it or e-mail it to an agent/publisher and you enter a totally different phase of this masochistic business. What reading ill-written best-sellers teaches me (when its not teaching me that the world works in mysterious ways) is that my writing isn't the cr(beep)eist there is.

I have been in a bit of a 'moment' recently whilst editing my latest completed WIP. When I originally began this story some years back I had a particular key plot element woven through the story which eventually became an albatross around its neck. The plot element had withered away along the course of the story and had to be surgically removed if the story was going to survive. It took me awhile but I figured out how to fill in the holes left by the surgey and I subsequently completed the tale. Then this morning i decided to put this plot element back. The story was missing something and I now understood how to make it work. Its the right thing to do but I do feel a certain sense of frustration that I had to go through this entire process to reach this conclusion. I am now looking at a mountain of work and fell a little daunted by the climb but I've invested too much time and effort in a manuscript which I think has some potential. If you see a dent in my head its just because i've been bashing it against a brick wall!