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.

Another Duke Underway

Duke Noble 2 got its start Friday night.  It's standing at 4441 words right now.  I like the idea and I like where it's going.  

For those of you who aren't aware, I never know what's going to happen in a story until I write it.  It's my process.  And for me, doing it this way keeps it fresh and it keeps me interested.  The one time I mapped everything out in a story before I wrote it*, the writing bored the hell out of me.  I knew what was going to happen.  It comes out better if I don't know ahead of time.

Sure, this means I occasionally write myself into a corner and have no idea how to get out again.  Generally, I cut a window and climb out.  Sometimes I walk across the paint and start anew.  Either way, I'm not bored.  And if the writer is bored writing the story, the reader is going to be bored, too.  None of us wants that.

So, I'm feeling my way through another Duke book.  And like I said, I like where it's going.  Right now, it picks up after Rumor Has It - with Duke arriving back at his office in the city where he gets a call that sends him racing out the door to solve another mystery.  A dead body, a mistaken identity, a missing man... and that's all I've got right now.  Should be fun finding out what happens, though.

I've started gathering things for the cover shoot.  Right now, I'm thinking a drink and a cigar.  Maybe an old revolver, if I can find one that won't break my budget.  

In other news, I set up a sale.  A Model Curse will have all its books on sale starting tomorrow.  99c each.  I'll post something about that in the morning.

If you're a writer, do you know what's going to happen in your books before you write them?  If you're a reader, what do you like better: mysteries you can solve or ones that keep you in the dark until the end?

*My second book - Nature of Fear (aka Caldera) - which probably won't ever see the light of readership.  I'd read some stuff that suggested a writer needs to know where the story is going in order to write it.  Man, was that ever bad advice for me.  It might work for some, so I'm not trashing it for everyone.  Just for me.  Bad idea, B.E... and I haven't done it since.

Updates and Stuff

Yeah, I know it's not a day when I usually post here, but hey, it's good to shake things up a little every now and then. 

Anyway, I finished the edit-note phase of Duke Noble: Rumor Has It.  (Still not sure about that title.)  I ended up with thirteen college-rule, notebook pages chocked full of notes.  Typically, it takes me about an hour to input a page of notes.  I'll start that today.  If I can squeeze three hours out of each day to edit, I'll be done by the end of the week.  However, the chances of me editing for three hours a day is slim.  I hate editing.

The saving grace of editing is that it's a step toward having this book published.  I love the thought of that.  Having this book out into your hands is the goal.  Editing moves me toward that goal.  Thus, I will edit.  

Let me amend that slightly.  Having this book out - and worthy of being read by you - is the goal.  I could write THE END and shoot this sucker into space right now.  But it would suck and I can't do that to you.  You deserve better.  This book deserves better.  So, I edit.

And I bitch about editing.  Heh.  It's my process.

In case you're new here and haven't seen the process before, it goes like this: 

1) Write the book.
2) Send the book to my Kindle and read through the whole thing while making notes in a notebook.
3) Input the notes
3) Repeat steps 2 & 3 until I feel it's ready to send to readers
4) Send to readers
5) Input notes from readers
6) Read through entire manuscript again, making notes if there are any
7) Input notes
8) Format for publication
9) Publish

The other day I had a gal who read Dying Embers ask me how long it takes me to get a book all the way through from start to publication.  If all goes well, I can complete steps 1-9 in three months.  Things rarely go as planned.  Lord knows, this book has taken longer.  I started writing DN in August.  In August and September, I got about 8000 words down and then the wheels fell off.  I restarted this in December, finished it 6 weeks later.  It took me two and half weeks to actually do this edit round.  It should roll faster now.  Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

I hope to have this into the hands of readers by the end of the month.  They'll take however long they take.  Once they're done, publication won't be too long after that.  End of March maybe?  

I still have to make a cover.  Blerg.

So, Duke Noble will be born into the hands of readers soon.  Well, soon-ish... for varying definitions of soon.  Sooner than traditional publishing could make it happen.  =o)

The Process Has Begun

I have begun the process of editing Ugly and the Beast.  My process for attacking any first draft looks like this:

Step One: email the manuscript to my Kindle.
Step Two: sit down in my recliner with my Kindle, a red pen, and a big notebook.  (I use 5-subject, college ruled.  Single subject are too flimsy.)
Step Three: read the entire manuscript, taking notes of anything big that needs to be changed, added, removed, expanded on, etc.
Step Four: input notes into manuscript

Once that's done, we move on to the next phase of pre-editor edits.
Step Five: repeat steps 1-3 (also addressing smaller edits like commas, word usage, typos, etc.)
Step Six: Input edits along the way (i.e. make a page of notes, enter that page into the manuscript.)
Step Seven: repeat the steps again if necessary, as many times as is necessary to bring to book to a level where my editor won't want to throttle me.

Until we finally move on to...
Step Eight: Send to the editor and wait.

This process can take me anywhere from 2 weeks to a month, depending on how messy the first draft was when I got done with it.  I could shorten it up a bit by putting my shoulder to the grindstone and end up a crispy writer at the end.  (Been there, done that.  Don't like it.)

Really the first step is Write the Damn Book.  Which was the hardest step this time around.  Some books are easier than others.  Sometimes it's the book, most times it's me.  This time, it was totally me.  I started UatB last summer after I got Sleeping Ugly in the publication chute.  Then my gumption fell into disarray.  But it's done now, and that's all that really matters.

What's your process? 

A Time for Everything

This morning, Elizabeth Spann Craig had an interesting post on her blog on balancing business and writing.  As always, she makes some interesting points and gives her take on things.  And I agreed with pretty much everything.  Except she says she gets the writing out of the way first. 

As you've probably heard me say before, I don't write in the morning.  Years of homeschooling got me in the habit of writing at night.  And while I haven't had to homeschool in years, I'm still in that habit.  Plus, now Hubs isn't going off to a day job either, and we share an office, and the majority of his work has to be done in the morning.  You can see where I'm going with that, right?  The office is nice and quiet at night. 

And now my pay-job is busiest in the morning. So shifting the schedule to write during the day is not going to work for me.

So, I write and edit at night.  I do business stuff - marketing, networking, emailing, spreadsheeting, etc. - in the morning, too.  That stuff is easier to pause when something comes up than writing.  I like a nice uninterrupted stretch of an hour or three to put new words on the page.  Or to get really rolling on edits.  I start after dinner and work until bedtime or brain fatigue kicks in.

But that's me.

Now, I don't think Elizabeth was saying her way is the only way to write.  Of course not.  She was simply giving what works for her as a template for what might help other writers find their balance between writing and the business of being an author.  And I'm certainly not saying my way is the only way.  As I've always maintained, there is no right way to do this crazy thing we do.  You've got to find your own stride.  And if your stride isn't working for you, try something different until you're in your own groove.

My groove ain't for everyone. 

Now, you might notice that I talk about working in the morning and writing at night.  What about afternoons, you say?  Well, I'm pretty much a useless toad from lunchtime to dinner.  I don't write, I don't work, I don't exercise, I don't do housework.  If it doesn't get done in the morning, it ain't getting done until the next morning.  Except for writing.  And unless I'm on a deadline.  Then all bets are off and I work whether I'm a useless toad or not.

How about you?  When's your most productive time of day?  Are you a morning person or a night person?  If you're an afternoon person, I am in awe of you. 

The Story Behind the Story: Blink of an I

Years ago, I had this idea.  I wanted to write something similar to Fahrenheit 451, Anthem, Brave New World, 1984, etc.  So I got to thinking...

What would it take to get the world to a point where it becomes the world in Anthem or Fahrenheit 451? 

That's where Blink of an I started.  A pondering of what steps would lead to those dystopias.  Now, obviously, I couldn't write a book about all the steps.  Good lord, that would take forever and be thousands of pages long.  Whatever book I wrote would have to be way smaller than that. 

But where to begin...

I started with one character.  One simple, unassuming person.  So unassuming, in fact, she needed a totally bland and forgettable name - Mary Jones.  And she needed to be nothing.  Or rather, she needed to think of herself as nothing.  Because she'd been taught to think of herself as nothing. 

In Anthem, the main character doesn't even have a name because individuality has been wiped out.  The blink of the 'I', so to speak.  And there's where I got the title. 

And so it began.  As I said, I'm a sort of pantser.  More so when I started this book initially back in 2006.  I had no idea where I was going.  I just started walking and waited to see where it would lead me.  Thus, I had numerous starts - all of them wrong.  I trashed them and started over.  And over.  And over.  I can't even remember when I had a full, finished first draft of this.  And even then, I worked it over too many times to mention. 

I queried agents with this sucker.  Erm, yah.  Didn't go well.  Then I put it away. 

Last year, when I began a way to fund my publishing empire without having to wait on the book sales to do it, I dusted Blink off and sent it to my editor.  Well, perhaps 'dusted off' isn't quite correct.  I sent it to AWE dust intact.  (And, man, if was WAY dustier than I thought.) 

Anyway, it's in the process of being scrubbed and polished.  It'll finally be available next month sometime.  (Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.)  This one took me roughly 11.5 years to get out there.  YEARS.  And I hope y'all will enjoy it.

Any questions?  Comments? 

Speaking of Blink, I did promise to announce a winner in the Cover Contest thing.  Since only two people commented, they can both win.  Deb wanted a copy of this, I believe.  (Email me whether you want a PDF ARC or a PDF of the finished version, Deb.)  Stacy didn't say what she wanted.  (Email me your preference, Stacy.  Do you want a copy of this when it's finished or one of my other books (e-copy or paperback)?)

The Ways of Writing

 Everybody has their own way of doing things.  For instance, I like to do dishes in the morning, but my mom shudders at the thought of leaving dishes in the sink overnight.  But I'm usually working after dinner, so the dishes get left until morning.  (Thankfully, Hubs is totally cool with that.)

Just like dishes, there are different ways to write a book (or do anything else, come to think of it). 

There are two basic ways to write in the world and two basic types of writer - the plotter and the pantser.

The plotter plots out the whole book before they write it.  The pantser doesn't plot out a damn thing and writes everything as it comes to them (hence, writing by the seat of one's pants = pantser*).

Of course, there are varying shades of both.  Personally, I consider myself a plansterer.  I have a plan in mind, but I write it all by the seat of my pants as it comes to me, and it changes - sometimes without my wanting or needing it to.  A friend of mind calls herself a puzzler and puts her books together like a sort of big jigsaw puzzle.

Some people outline.  Some people write the last chapter first.  Some people write a bit here and then a bit there.  Some people write straight through.

Personally, I'm a straight through writer.  Start and the beginning and when you get to the end, stop. (Yes, that is the Mad Hatter talking there.)   Totally linear.  I can't do it any other way.

Which, of course, doesn't mean that any other way is wrong.  They're just not right ways for me.  I've also tried outlining.  :shudder:  It didn't go well.  The beginning of that book, before I gave up and pantsed it, is so bleh I could cry.

Anyway, there was a point to this post when I started it.  Right now, I'm working on editing Early Grave.  I wrote it like I write all my books, with one exception.  I started it and then stopped and then wrote some more and then stopped, then I got stuck and didn't write on it for a while, then I unstuck myself and wrote the rest of it in a fury.  So, it's in a line, but it's a severely dotted line - like Morse code done by a madman.  I'm reading along making notes and I'm like 'wait, what', which leads to furious scribbling of notes on how to fix what obviously went very wrong between one spot and the next.  It's the definition of 'hot mess'.  :shudder:

I did it that way because I was trying to write that book between editing several other books.  And I now know that way of doing things makes editing out the other end a pain in the buns.  Unfortunately, I may have to do it again because the publication schedule waits for no man.  I can't just say 'hey, can you pause this for a six weeks so I can get this first draft written?' :shrug:  It is what it is.

What way do you do it?  Have you ever tried another way? 


*Not to be confused with the Panzer, which was a German tank.  Although, there could be a tank-like roll over everything element in there, I guess.

Early Editing

Good Mornin', Everybuddy,

Since I am editing - slowly, but still - I thought I'd drop some edit notes down for you.

This is for Early Grave...

>> Rewrite beginning. Make stronger.
>> If they're in the common area, Tess can't grab the quilt off a chest.
>> Mr. Harpton?  Ah, the groper.  Make these two separate people.
>> paychecks calling to Tess.
     ^ Not. She's living off inheritance.
> what she suffered through  (Tess
> whether he had any  (he would have
>> Add more descriptors to beg. Ch 2
>> the word of one woman
      ^ Nope. One detective, etc.
>> 13 old people @ 3 facilities?
>> His mother raised him to think
   ^ grandmother
   ^^ fix whole 'mom' thing
> Laurel Matthews?  Corey?
>> pissing contest in the first ten
    ^ make stronger
>> Eva Brown?? Seriously?  (Yes, played with it on purpose later.
>> You mention going to the funerals but never show it.  Why?
>> No page break before Ch4

That's most of the first page of notes - with super spoilery ones left out .  I realize it probably looks weird and isn't very understandable, but you get the gist of what my edit notes to myself look like.  Early on, I don't make a whole lot of notes about grammar.  I'm hitting the high spots on the first run through.  Grammar will come later after I tackle the big stuff - since I will probably insert even more typos and mistakes during the big edits.

Any questions?

The Process

Cross posted from The Writing Spectacle because, duh, I was supposed to post this here and posted there by mistake.  Hey, we had storms in the middle of the night, so I was up from 2am to like 3:15am and then I couldn't get back to sleep because of the coffee, so cut me some slack.  ;o)

Ahem...

The Process

Every writer has their own process.  Correction, every writer has a process and adjusts it as needed.  Or maybe the adjusting is just me.  Anyway, here's how the process is working out for me...

Step One: First draft - write as many words as I can every day so that it takes me about a month to get the first draft done.

Step Two: Set the first draft aside and work on something else for a week or two.

Step Three:  Read the first draft all the way through on the Kindle, taking notes as I go in a big 5-subject notebook of anything I see that needs fixing.  This can be as small as a comma or as big as noting that I need to rewrite an entire chapter.

Step Four: Second draft - Input notes all the way through.

Step Five:  Read through the second draft, taking notes as I go and inputting them when I take breaks.  If I did my job in step three, this should be small to medium things.

Step Six: Repeat Steps 4 and 5 until I know I can't make it any better on my own.

Step Seven:  Send to my editor.  Wait a month.  Work on something else while I'm waiting.

Step Eight: Receive edit notes back from editor and input those.  Takes a week or two depending on how bad it was and how driven I am.

Step Nine: Send the manuscript back to the editor.  Wait 2-3 weeks.  Finalize cover and blurb while I'm waiting and find something else to work on.

Step Ten: Receive final edit notes from the editor.  Input those.  Also takes a week or two depending.

Step Eleven:  Read through the book on the Kindle again, checking for mistakes I made or missed.

Step Twelve: Format book for publication.

Step Thirteen: Publish

There are probably things I missed, but that's the gist.  And it seems to be working for me.

I started this particular process back in November, I think, with Natural Causes.  Step 1 was the month of November, then I jumped into Step 2 almost immediately.  Went through Steps 2-6 from the end of November until February 1st, when it was due at the editor.  Then I spent February doing Step 1 for Wish Hits the Fan.  Step 8 for Natural Causes begins this week. After I send NC back to the editor again, I'll be hitting 2-6 for WHTF and hope to have it ready to send to the editor by May 1st, which will be after the launch of NC in April.  :fingers crossed:  While she has WHTF, I'll be working on finishing the first draft of Early Grave.

Good lord willin' and the creek don't rise.

Now, you may notice I don't have early readers anywhere in there.  Yeah, I don't have any of those.  I have a couple people I could send to if things got really bad and I needed an ear, but those people are also really busy themselves, so they're for emergencies only.  Anyway, I'll talk more about that Friday, I think.  (If I remember.)

Any questions?  Thoughts?  What's your process like?

The Long Look Back and Moving Forward

Next month will mark the 11th year since I started writing seriously.  Well, actually next month marks when I started what would become my first novel.  I didn't get serious about it until a month later when I realized I'd been working on it more diligently than anything I'd started before.  The rest is history, but hey, maybe you'd like to see some of that history.

So, here are my timeline of books written - and partially written - in as close as I can remember to the order I wrote them in:

2004 The Comet - which then became several other titles before being shopped as Spectacle... which then became Fear Itself.  (suspense)

2005 Caldera - which is now Nature of Destruction.  (suspense)

2006 Be Careful What You Wish For - unfinished (SF)

2006 Blink of an I (dystopian)

2006 Wrongful Termination - written but not edited - working on it (suspense)

2007 Redemption - unfinished (SF)

2007  Nanotechnology - now Bloodflow - written and working on edits (suspense)

2007  Cut & Dried - unfinished (mystery)

2007  RTL (dystopian)

2008 Manhunter - now Dying Embers. (suspense)

2008  Fertile Ground - unfinished but still working on (suspense)

2009 Djinnocide - written all the way through one way, then all the way through another way (both in 3rd person).  Rewritten all the way through in 1st person. (urban fantasy)

2010 Unequal - written but not edited, but I'm working on it (dystopian)

2011 Darklings Rise - unfinished (fantasy)

2012 Djinn 2 - written but not edited - will edit in 2016 (urban fantasy)

2013 Sleeping Ugly - unfinished (urban fantasy)

2014 Djinn 3 - written but not edited - due to edit 2016 (urban fantasy)

2014 Arthurian UF - this one is partially done and I'm still really excited about it, but now I'm way too busy.  Maybe in 2015, I'll find time.

So there you have it.  With a few short stories scattered along the way, and a few miscues on damn near everything, and a few started but never got more than a few pages in, so why mention those. 

Several of these have been queried and submitted, to no avail.  So that's why I'm moving forward with self-publishing.  I believe in my books.  All of my books.  The reason I'm moving ahead with Dying Embers is that right now, it's the one I thought was closest to being ready for publication (boy, was I wrong... so much editing... ugh) and it's also not currently out with any publishers. 

Like I've said before - but it bears repeating - this is MY journey.  Every writer is different.  For instance, I'm what they call a 'dirty drafter'.  I don't edit while I write the first draft.  (Well, no more than rewording as I go along if I catch something in the moment - like writing this blog post.)  Which is why there's a lot of stuff up there that says 'not edited'.  You mileage probably varies wildly. 

And it's also why my production looks like it slowed down.  I've been trying to edit the things I never really edited.  So no new writing for me until I eat my peas.  (Yeah peas = editing for me.)

So there ya go.  My writing life in a timeline form. 

Thoughts?  And please keep your snarky to yourself.  If you don't understand this is how I and I alone write, keep it to yourself.  It won't be posted anyway.

My blog, my rules.  I don't come to your house and tell you how to exist.  So there.  =op


I still feel like I'm missing someone - like the movie Home Alone, when the parents THINK they have all the kids, but they left one behind.