Wandering Thoughts of a Writer: editing

Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts

Last week I was asked by the wonderful Yawatta Hosby, if I would answer the following four questions. Like myself, she’s an author. She writes psychology, horror, suspense, books. You should check out her Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Yawatta-Hosby/e/B00CX7PPOO/

I read her first book called, One by One, and I really liked it. Her new release that I plan on reading is titled, Something Amiss.

It so happens Yawatta is also a fan of my books, and I’m guessing that’s why she thought of asking me to do this blog tour with her.

Cool beans.

I’m up for it.

Oh, btw. If you're an author reading this, I tag you. I'm sure other peeps would like to know your answer to these questions, I know I would. Heads up. You have to tag another author.

So here we go with the questions and my answers.

1. What am I working on?

I’m working on Tangled Roots. It’s a companion to the Beyond the Eyes trilogy. Carrie and Tree are the main characters in this book. I did a post on the blurb. You can check it out here:

http://themusingwriter.blogspot.com/2014/03/tangled-rootsa-beyond-eyes-spin-off.html

Tangled Roots will be out this summer.

2. How does my work differ from others in its genre?

My stories are unique. I created a new mythology in my Beyond the Eyes trilogy. One of the loglines I use to market my books is this: Vampires and werewolves are cool but what about a new mythology?

Another one I use is this:

Forget about zombies. What about dark spirits dwelling in soulless people?

3. Why do I write?

Writing makes me happy. I love it. It entertains me. I don’t think I can ever stop writing stories. It’s who I am.

4. How does my writing progress work?

It starts out with an idea. I write it down. Then the characters make themselves known to me. I do a character sketch on each one. If a name doesn’t come to me, I’ll research names.

Google is my friend.

I Google almost everything.

Once I have the basics for a story, including a plot, I’ll plunge in and write. I always have a notebook beside me. I write down things I might forget and need to remember later on. I also use it to write page numbers down. For example, say on page 15 an angelic being visits Tree. Well, I know later on I’m going to forget what she said to him, so I write the page number in my trusty notebook with a sentence like, a female angelic being visits Tree and gives him important information. That way, if ten chapters later I need the information, I won’t have to scroll back and try to find it. It’s a timesaver and makes my life a little easier.

Once I get the rough draft completed, I’ll read over the entire manuscript and fix whatever problems I come across. After that I send it to my beta reader for her honest opinion. If there are more changes to be made, I’ll make them. From there, I’ll send it to my editor and make the changes he tells me to make. Then I’ll read it one last time before I get it formatted and published. I might this time around send Tangle Roots to another beta reader, just in case I miss something. I had missed a few things in The Devil’s Third which bugs me. They’re minor but being a perfectionist when it comes to my work, I’ll more than likely go and fix them when I have more time.

Anyway, that’s my process. It’s a lot of work, but when I receive comments like this one—I just finished "The Devil's Third." The books were great! I couldn't put them down. Even with a full time job and a young child I finished all three in a little over a week. I hope this isn't the last we hear about Nathan and Paige. I feel like there could be a many more great adventures in their futures. Thanks for writing such great stories! Erica—it’s so worth it. J

authors., beta reader, editing, revisions, rough draft, writing, 2 Comments

Lately people have been asking me questions regarding writing and publishing, so I figured I’d do a post on it. I mean, maybe whoever is reading this might have been wondering the same thing, right? Okay, here goes . . .

Should I publish my book even though I’m afraid nobody will buy it?

Absolutely. Don’t ever allow fear get in the way of your goals. If nobody buys your book or your sales aren’t very good . . . so what? Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it would hurt your feelings, but like the old saying goes: Rome wasn’t built in one day. If you love to write and are determine to do it for a living than keep writing. Try not to focus on sales or compare yourself to other authors. It’s hard I know, but we all have our own paths to take. You just have to believe in yourself and trust in it. If writing stories makes you happy, don’t give up. Walt Disney’s first animation company went bankrupt. He was also fired by a news editor because he was told he lacked imagination. And he was turned down countless times before he got financing to create Disney World. So just think if he would have allowed his fear or all those rejections get in the way of his dream; this world would have missed out on a lot of cool shit.

If I get a bad review, I’m going to cry. How do you handle bad reviews?

You need to toughen up, missy. Every single artist has had bad reviews. You can’t please everyone. When I get a bad review I have the sudden urge to explain to them why the things they didn’t like about the story was written that way. I want to defend it like why my main character in Beyond the Eyes is stubborn, naive, seems selfish and cries a lot halfway through the book. There’s a reason for it. However, it’s best to let it go and move on. Don’t ever base your self-worth on other people’s opinions. If all your reviews are bad, it just means you need to improve on your writing or story telling. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure. You’re not. You wrote a book for Christ sakes! You are the bomb.

Should I copyright my book?

That’s a personal choice. Legally your book is already copyrighted. However, if you pay to get it copyrighted it goes into public record, and you get a certificate of registration. So if somebody were to steal your work, it would be a lot easier to press charges because your story is registered.

I have a critique partner, and I’m really good at editing. I don’t have the money for an editor so I think I’m going to go ahead and publish my book without having it professionally edited. What do you think?

Bad, bad idea. I know money is tight, but you need to have your book professionally edited. I don’t care if you rock at editing. You need another set of eyes who edits for a living. If you don’t have the funds, try the barter system. Go to some writing forums and see if you can hook-up with one there. I did that with my cover artist who designed the cover for Beyond the Eyes. The deal was this: she would do my cover for free if I’d mention her in my acknowledgment page. It was a smoking deal. She did an awesome job & is now working on my cover for my next book in this series.

What are the things you’re doing to market your book?

I’ve been doing everything I can think of to spread the word about my book. Soon I’ll have to do that with Dark Spirits as well, which is going to be a whole new can of worms. But anyway, to answer your question I’ve done the following . . . blog, Goodreads, Podcast, book signing, radio interview, press release, book bloggers, giveaways, blog interviews, TV interview, and I just created an author page on Facebook. Oh! I’m also on Twitter, Pinterest, Book Daily and some other sites as well. So yeah, I’ve been marketing the shit out of this book, but I’m still learning about it.

Sales are not my thing. I’m horrible at it and much rather write.

Yeah, me too! I’m hoping someday I can pay somebody to do most of my marketing because sales are not my thing either. However, even if you traditionally publish, you’ll still have to market your book. So buck-up because marketing and selling your book is part of the package. Writing books is a business. If you really want to succeed and write stories for a living, you’re going to have to sale it. Sorry. It sucks ass. I know. But it is what it is.

So those have been the questions I’ve been asked lately. If more comes my way, I’ll share them with you. I hope this helps some of you. I know I didn’t know some of those things when I first started writing.

Have a good weekend! J

copyrighting, editing, questions, writing, 2 Comments

I am not a hand sitter when it comes to my books. I'd spent yesterday going over, Beyond the Eyes for the millionth time, and I’m still going over it. It has been critiqued already, polished, and I think every scene moves the story forward or is relevant to it, but still I feel the need to go over it. Maybe it’s the perfectionist in me when it comes to my work. I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll find an agent soon who will love this story, but the reality is it could take months or maybe years for that to happen. I had heard from another agent in London the other day, and she told me that she enjoyed reading, Beyond the Eyes (I had sent her the first 50 pages), but they only have four people on staff and it’s not right for her list. She also told me that she’s sure another agent will pick it up. So I’ll keep plugging away at it and continue writing the sequel, which by the way, I need to start on the next chapter. If worse comes to worse, I’ll turn it into a script or self publish. But like I had said before. . . . I really want to get it traditionally published, even though it usually takes 2 years to publish.

Anyway, that’s where I am on the writing front. It’s a long ass process because not only do you have to write the book, you have to edit it, rewrite it, edit it, get it critiqued, rewrite it, edit it, do a query letter, do a synopsis, research agents, etc. And then once you get an agent, you go through your manuscript with her and rewrite/edit parts of it before she sends it to publishers. Once you get a publisher, you do the same thing with them. After that, you start marketing your book because really it’s a business and you need to treat it as such. It’s not like once your book gets accepted by a publisher you can kick back and collect the royalty checks. No. You have to totally promote your book and get it out there. It’s a lot of work, but I love it. Sometimes I feel like one of those people who likes pain and pleasure in sex (sadomasochist?), because it’s painful at times, but yet satisfying. Maybe that’s a weird analogy to describe it, but it works for me :).

Now I better get to work before the morning whips by me.