Blurby McBlurberson

 Here's the blurb I came up with for SONG OF STORM AND SHROUD.  It sucks, but I think you get the general idea...

Before anyone who lives in these lands was born, the Great Lady created the Shrouds and locked away those beings who would bring harm to her children.  Since then the Lady sleeps and while she sleeps, the Shrouds decay, loosing monsters upon the innocents.  Their only hope lies with the mages.

Aryl never wanted to be a mage, but the Lady chose to gift him and when the King's envoy arrives seeking those with the gift, he has no choice but to comply.  Thrust into the Academy to train with other young folk like him, he longs only for his home and the twin he left behind. 

The Lady could grant both of his wishes, but the cost may be higher than he expected to pay.  With Lyra beside him, they will learn to use their combined magics to fight and win.  But when visions of a dragon and destruction tear them away from their training, their meager skills may not be enough to save their home, let alone sufficient to save the Shroudlands.   

Yeah, I know, but I am clueless when it comes to writing blurbs.  Especially this one.  Do your worst.  One way or another I have to have something to toss up as marketing copy when I upload the book.  

On another note, I found something in the manuscript last night that I think requires an explanation I hadn't provided before.  Derp.  I'm working on it now.  If I can stop the distractions, that is.  It's a very distracty-full morning.

I'm still hoping to have this live on or before April 1st.  I worked on it all morning yesterday, took the afternoon off, and got back at it after dinner.  I want all my books to be the best they can be, but this one especially.  And, if you haven't written fantasy, it's probably the hardest genre to nail.  I know it's the hardest book I've ever worked on.

Anyway, I should toddle off and see if I can't weave this thing in and make it seamless.    

This Edit Round is Deep, Man

I am deep in editing.  This particular round involves me reading the book on my Kindle and making notes in a big 5-subject notebook.  Once I get a page of notes or so, I enter them into the manuscript.  (As opposed to the round when I waited until I was done with the whole book to enter the notes.)  :shrug:  It's my process.  

I use a 5-subject notebook because it's thick enough to be stable on the arm of my recliner.  And college-ruled, so I can fit as much on one page as possible.  But I only write on one side of the page.  

The other day, a writer friend of mine expressed that my way of doing this would drive her nuts.  And that's okay.  Everyone has their own process.  And the process might not necessarily be set in stone.  As I've said before, I'm big on letting people do what they do.  I'm just talking about what works for me.

So, here I am, reading my own book, looking for anything that makes me stumble as a reader - typos, wrong-words, crutch words - as well as taking note of anything that makes me wonder 'WTF?'  Like inconsistencies in the world or the writing or what have you.  There's a whole place where a character's pent-up anger bites him in the ass and afterward they're all wondering whether the same thing is going to happen to any of them, but I hadn't delved into the MC's considerable load of pent-up anger making him a prime candidate for this particular ass-biting event.  So, I was all like WTF? and then I addressed it.  Voila.  

I think all of this work is making a better book.  I hope.  We'll see.  Actually, it is making it a better book.  The question is whether the 'better book than it was' is better than other books on the market.  That's what we'll have to see about.

Anyway, I'm usually hitting this first thing in the morning, after my coffee and web-surfing.  Then throughout the day.  Then after dinner.  Seeing as it takes me about an hour to make a page of notes and then another hour to enter those notes, I'm only 154 pages into what is now a 371 pages book.  It's not a fast process by any means.  It is what it is.  

Now, back to your regularly scheduled and me back to work.

It's That Time Again

I'm at the point in my editing where it's that time again.  What time is it?  It's Crutch Word time!  That glorious time when I search through my manuscript for specific words and then eradicate them.

This is not as simple as Find and delete, delete, delete.  No, no.  That would really screw things up.  This is Find, fix, Find Next, fix... on and on until you've gone through the whole thing and then repeat with the next word.

Actually the first thing I do is Find each word and then click Highlight All, so it gives me a total.  Then I write the number down on my handy-dandy list of words.  After I have all the numbers, I start fixing them.  After I complete each word, I get a new total, so I can see where I'm at and whether I need to scour for that word again.  

Yesterday, I did THAT and LIKE and about 2/3rds of SAID.  It took me about 5 hours - an hour in the morning and a couple hours each in the afternoon and evening.  I intended to keep going and stay up late, but I got to the point with SAID that I was skipping instances without really looking at them or changing anything.  It's time to stop when it's no longer working.  I'll hit it again today.  

And when I get it all done, I'll hit the manuscript with the spelling/grammar checker to make sure I didn't screw anything up while I was fixing things.  

I will have this ready to go out before bed tonight.  If it kills me.  Which it just might.  (Heh, not really.)

Once it goes out, I'll take some time to write the blurb.  And think about what's next on the writing schedule.  And maybe just chill out for a couple days.

What's up in your world?

Out the Other Side of Edit Hell

I did it.  I'm done.  And it's off to the proofers.  Those last twelve manuscript pages wound up garnering 2 full pages of notes.  I think I fixed everything.  We'll see.

Oh, I'm sure I'll have missed something.  A comma here.  A missing word there.  Little things.  I hope.  The big things, like plot holes, should have all been ferreted out and eradicated.  :fingers crossed:

In the end, this edit pass ended up with 20 pages of notes.  It took me 10 days - 9 of them in a row - to complete.  Right now, the book is 189 pages and 63785 words.  (Like I said, manuscript pages don't equal published pages.  When I format, I'll change the font and its size, paragraph spacing, sentence spacing, etc. and I don't format until the book is done-done.)

It's now in the hands of the proofers, so I can take a deep breath and chillax a little.  

Last night, after I sent it off, I played a little poker and read most of the rest of the book I was reading, and watched a whole TV show without working through the commercials and then missing stuff after the commercials were over because I forgot to unmute.  Then I went to bed and didn't lay there thinking about the book.  (I still laid there thinking, but it wasn't about the book.)

Today, I plan to not think about the book.  It'll be my day off.  Of writerly pursuits.  I have life stuff to do - like dusting and vacuuming.  If I feel like it, I might go fishing.  If I don't have pay-job stuff to do, that is.

Tomorrow, I'll figure out what I'm going to do while this book is out of my hands.  Work on one of my many unfinished books?  Definitely write the blurb.  Maybe some marketing stuffs.  And a sale or two. 

So, here I am, out the other side of edit hell.  :blinkblink:  It's kinda bright out here. 

Deep in Edit Hell

First off, Blogger hasn't been emailing me every time I get comments, like it's supposed to.  If your comment doesn't show up right away, you have my apologies.  I'll try to remember to check the comment thingy more often.  

Now, on to what I had originally thought about posting today...

Editing is exhausting.  This edit in particular is sucking the energy right out of me.  I've already done 13.5 pages of notes and entered them into the manuscript.  And I'm on page 121 out of 189.

What I do in this phase is read through the book on my Kindle and make notes on every little thing I catch (because all the big things should've been handled in the last edit phase).  When I get a page of notes, I come in here and fix them.  Making a page of notes can take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour, depending on how many flaws I find.  Fixing those errors can also take 20 minutes to an hour, depending on how extensive the problem was.

The problems here range from commas to typos, extra words and missing words... 'I thought I caught all the instances where Precious was called Pinky, dammit'...  Gus' turned into Gus's... crutch words and rewording...  Sometimes I read a paragraph and every freakin' sentence needs an adjustment, leaving me wondering what the hell I was thinking when I wrote it.  Either my brain was on vacation or my fingers had a mind of their own that day. 

I had hoped to have this finished and into the hands of proofers by the end of this week.  It's Friday, so I'm guessing that ain't gonna happen.  

I hope you'll all maintain your patience with me. I'm tired and I want to just chuck the rest of the edits and say 'eh, it's good enough'.  But I won't do that.  It wouldn't be fair to you or fair to the book.  So I'll keep slogging along, mainlining coffee and cigarettes, until this is done.

But I'm tellin' ya, once this is off to the proofers, I'm taking a day off and going fishing.  Blerg.