This month, the arduous task of editing has begun once more. Whilst I'd thought that the book was ready to submit to agents in October (submission is number #1 on the Most Scary List), I was wrong. Very, very wrong. It needed another big edit to tidy up any little errors and tighten up the language, and don't get me started on Chapter #1.
The short retelling of that fiasco is that I've rewritten the first chapter.
The long story is I realised, in a bolt of lightning, epiphany sort of way, that my story really began 3000 words into the book, meaning I had about twelve pages of rambling exposition before I got down to the nitty-gritty. This eureka! moment has resulted in a major overhaul to start of the book. Stories in general, and novels in particular, should start with a bang; an explosion, if possible. Twelve pages of nothing -- even beautifully written nothing -- before the action gets going is the kiss of death for a novel, and I learned that the hard way.
Editing is about making difficult, sometimes impossible, choices with the aim of ending up with a novel for which agents and publishers would happily murder their kindly old granny to secure. If you don't feel suicidal or homicidal at least once a day during the editing process, well, my friend, you're not doing it right. Nothing is sacred. That favourite line, passage or character can be mercilessly cut, and though it may break your heart, in the end you will see the difference ruthless editing makes to the final piece.
Ask others, especially other writers, for honest criticism. The story might make sense in your head, but if that sense doesn't make it onto the page, you have a problem. Though positive feedback is wonderful, a boost to the ego and the soul, it rarely helps you improve your work. Negative criticism is good, the more brutal the better, so don't take it as a personal attack. Take the beating like a man, and take it with a smile. One day, when you've been published, you'll thank the person who ripped your masterpiece to shreds and made you feel like the world's biggest literary loser.
With all of the chapter #1 hoo-hah, and the rest of book #1's edit, I've hardly even started book #2's first edit. I got two pages in, saw a giant info dump and remembered how hard it is editing a first draft. For now, I'm going to finish editing book #1 before I tackle that particular mountain.
Aside from all of that, the most exciting thing that happened this month, is that 'Tender', a flash story I've written, came in as runner up in the Writers' News website One Word Challenge competition. It was only the second time I'd entered into this challenge, so I was thrilled to come in joint-second. As if it couldn't get any better, this month's judge, Col Bury, co-creator of the award-winning Thrillers, Killers 'n' Chillers e-zine, has posted my story onto said e-zine.
Read it here -- http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.com/2010/02/tender-by-victoria-jayne-lewis.html?zx=e7d2d6ab242f2364
All in all, not a bad month on the writing front. Here's to another great one...
7 Feb 2010
6 Jan 2010
Happy birthday to my baby!
With characteristic lateness, I decided that, on this freezing, icebound January night, I would wish my baby a belated happy first birthday. My baby is not flesh and blood, but it does have a life of its own.
On Sunday 3rd January, it was exactly one year since I had the dream that inspired me to start writing again. The dream that inspired a whole world to burst into existence. I can still remember every second of that dream, how frightened I felt, and how hard my heart was thumping when I sat straight up in bed, trying not to scream.
Since that day, I have been furiously writing, day and night, to bring that dream out of the shadowed corners of my mind and into the glaring light of the real world. It began with two hundred words, pencil scribbles in a notepad. It began with a kiss and a pair of bright blue eyes, and the sight of someone who scared me half to death. It began with the chase.
I didn't realise that, when I wrote those two hundred words, another two hundred thousand (and counting) words would follow. I didn't know it was going to be a book until it was, or that one would become two until odd, disjointed scenes started to drift through my head like memories from another life. I was convinced, when I started thinking about the third installment, that it would stay a trilogy -- until Monday morning this week. The dream I had the night before put paid to those thoughts. Turns out that this story will be a quadrilogy. I think. But, given a conversation I had with my brother last night, there could end up being at least five in the series. What's the word for a five-book series? Quintrilogy? Hmmm...
Right now, I'm quarter of the way through laying down the first draft of the third in the series. In two weeks' time, the hard, agonising, exhausting work of editing will resume on books one and two (deinitely-the-final-final and second drafts, respectively), and then I'll send book one out into the big, bad and brutal world of agents, editors and publishers. But, for tonight, I'm going to give my first baby its spot in the limelight.
Happy birthday, book one.
On Sunday 3rd January, it was exactly one year since I had the dream that inspired me to start writing again. The dream that inspired a whole world to burst into existence. I can still remember every second of that dream, how frightened I felt, and how hard my heart was thumping when I sat straight up in bed, trying not to scream.
Since that day, I have been furiously writing, day and night, to bring that dream out of the shadowed corners of my mind and into the glaring light of the real world. It began with two hundred words, pencil scribbles in a notepad. It began with a kiss and a pair of bright blue eyes, and the sight of someone who scared me half to death. It began with the chase.
I didn't realise that, when I wrote those two hundred words, another two hundred thousand (and counting) words would follow. I didn't know it was going to be a book until it was, or that one would become two until odd, disjointed scenes started to drift through my head like memories from another life. I was convinced, when I started thinking about the third installment, that it would stay a trilogy -- until Monday morning this week. The dream I had the night before put paid to those thoughts. Turns out that this story will be a quadrilogy. I think. But, given a conversation I had with my brother last night, there could end up being at least five in the series. What's the word for a five-book series? Quintrilogy? Hmmm...
Right now, I'm quarter of the way through laying down the first draft of the third in the series. In two weeks' time, the hard, agonising, exhausting work of editing will resume on books one and two (deinitely-the-final-final and second drafts, respectively), and then I'll send book one out into the big, bad and brutal world of agents, editors and publishers. But, for tonight, I'm going to give my first baby its spot in the limelight.
Happy birthday, book one.
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