Not Exactly Writing

If you follow me on Facebook, then you know our house has been under renovation for two months. They were supposed to be done this past Sunday, Aug 7. I decided I’d better get busy with the outside work that we didn’t contract for them to do.

 Our lawn has lots of deep shade, so we have large swaths where nothing grows. Oh, an occasional weed might stick its head up, but not many. All summer, my husband and I argued whether we could get any grass to grow in these places. One of the workers recently suggested we cover these naked spots with mulch, which we thought was a great idea.

 So I measured these bare spots to figure out how much mulch we need, including in the front yard. Putting mulch in the one bare spot in front would provide a more ‘uniform’ look as a whole. As I measured, I couldn’t help but notice the terraces where bushes had once lived. “I’ve got to pull these weeds, too! They make the place look so… sloppy.” And that led my eyes to the house foundation, where the paint was cracked and peeling.

 So the chore of putting down mulch suddenly became the chore of ‘pulling weeds, scraping the foundation, painting the foundation, and putting down mulch.’ And in some areas, I also get to ‘find’ the sidewalk because dirt and grass have grown over the edges.

 I know a writer who puts out a newsletter every week. And it seems like almost every week, whatever chore she’s done could be compared to writing; whether she weeded her garden, fed the chickens, adopted a dog or played Guitar Hero with her son, it always bore a striking resemblance to writing.

 So as I’ve been doing this yardwork, I’ve wondered how it would compare to writing, if I were to adopt her perspective. And actually, I think it bears more resemblance to RE-writing. Once I have my rough draft, and I’m ready to make it ‘the best it can be’, I follow similar steps to this yard work. Let me explain:

 Weeding – Weeds make your garden or lawn look jumbled and keep your eyes from understanding what you are looking at. For me, draft 2 is when I go back and put in every explanation, every adjective and adverb and description I think a reader might need or want. Adding in all these things is different than pulling out weeds, but pulling weeds allows the reader’s eyes and mind to see what you intended for them to envision, and that’s what I’m trying to do with draft 2.

 Scraping the foundation – Scraping off loose paint lets you get down to a solid surface so that the final result is pleasing to the eye. In draft 3, I look at every word, phrase, sentence and paragraph with one thought in my mind; ‘Do I really need this? If yes, is there any way to shorten it without warping what I’m trying to say?’ Kind of like scraping off the paint that doesn’t want to adhere any more. I’m getting my story down to the basic core – the foundation.

 Painting & mulching – A coat of paint on a house’s foundation and some mulch can make the whole yard look prettier, cared for and cohesive. I call my 4^th draft ‘making it pretty’. I check the grammar and punctuation, my use of pronouns, keep an eye out to make sure I haven’t overused some word or phrase.

 And finding the sidewalk? I prefer a clean, broad sidewalk, rather than one with dirt and grass covering half of it. In writing, this does not take yet another rewrite; it is incorporated into all my rewriting efforts. I try to find tired clichés (dirt & grass) and replace them with what I hope are new phrases that will get the thought across to the reader (more sidewalk.)

 No, I won’t say the 9 very hot hours I spent last week doing this yardwork was the same as if I’d spent those 9 hours writing. I will say that if you use some imagination, you can find similarities between them. And, since most of this yardwork is fairly mindless, I did get some thinking done about the next scene I needed to write.

Help Wanted

Oh, the hassles of being a writer in this day and age! A couple years ago, I faced my growing frustration with submitting my work, only to get a “No, thank you” response. Everybody tells writers not to take it personally, but after a few years, you start wondering what is wrong with your writing. And the truth is, there might not be anything wrong with it, it’s possible you just aren’t hitting that market with that story at the right time.

A lot of authors - even established authors - were going into self-publishing, so... why not? Could it be any worse? A friend said she would help.

But then the novel we were going to start with (Cali) was accepted by a different small press. Great news! But it left us looking for a different novel to publish. I had a couple in the clean-up stage, but most were in the rough draft or 2nd draft stage. So we took on my husband’s sf novel (The Stone Builders) as our first publication. [Side note; since he agreed to this several months ago, he has finished a 2nd novel and started a 3rd. Apparently, he just needed some encouragement.]

I am no longer ‘just’ an author and free-lance editor, I am a publisher. I learned how to prepare manuscripts and format them, and I knew artists to hire for book covers. Editing can be time-consuming, but I was prepared for that. The big problem is the marketing involved!

We were trying to learn marketing even before we made this decision, because most marketing is left to the author anyway. But to be effective, we need to post on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, Pinterest, and any other appropriate social media outlets. Unfortunately, trying to do all of this has left me with no time to write, and my friend is more technology-challenged than I am. Plus, it’s driving us crazy, trying to come up things to say and learn how post in various websites. Therefore,

Help Wanted: Social media handler. Someone to help decide what to post, when and where to post it, and do the posting. Knowledge and/or willingness to learn is more important than experience.

Help Wanted: Freelance Editor/proofreader. Knowledge of American English grammar, spelling, vocabulary and punctuation a necessity. I do not want to be the final editor of my own work.

The pay for either position is crummy, since we are just getting started. Both positions are ‘as needed’. If interested in either, contact Tommee@MoonPhazePublishing.com

I think we’ve tapped the talents of family members as far as we can. If you (or someone you know) wants to break into one of these fields, this just might be the opportunity!

What Takes so Long?

What takes so long from an editor accepting a manuscript for publication and the book appearing in book stores? The process can take months or even years with a ‘Big Boy’ publisher.

Yet, there are exceptions: Books about some political scandal can appear days after the scandal comes to light; Biographies of a celebrity can be bought within a week of their death. So it can be done faster. Why isn’t it?

Small press and self-publishing don’t take that much time. How do they do it?

Editing. Every manuscript needs an editor. It may be the rare exception that only needs one comma added and one numeral (like 9) spelled out (into nine), but no publisher knows that until an edit is done. With the Big Boys, sometimes the editor who decides which manuscript to purchase is also expected to edit those manuscripts. Obviously, an established author’s manuscript will be edited before those by new authors. Small presses don’t publish as many books, and often use free lance editors, who fit their assignment into their schedule in order to meet their deadline. In my case, I ask for a month (and occasionally wish I had two).

Cover Art. This is, apparently, the next step for the Big Boys, because nothing else can happen without the pretty picture for the front. Of course this takes time, from concept through several renditions until it is ‘just right’. And then, it’s sent to somebody else to put the type (title, author, etc.) on it, and that may take several attempts before it is deemed ‘acceptable’. Remember, the Big Boys have many of these being done at the same time. Small presses, again, may work with free lance artists, who may even put the type on. Or they might use a stock photo, which takes even less time.

Reviews. I never paid attention to these myself, so I was surprised at how much emphasis is placed on getting them. In the past, reviewers expected to receive a printed book, complete with cover art, that they could read. This would be months before the book was officially published. Some still want it done this way, but others accept e-files of the book. Some small presses don’t get reviews early enough to quote them on the back of the book, so that cuts some time off the process.

Sales Materials. This seems to be a long, drawn-out ordeal for the Big Boys. Each book must get added to their catalog, the sales teams must be trained in how to best pitch it to the book stores... Many small presses don’t pitch to book stores, because the book stores won’t carry them. Therefore, their efforts for one book are simply added to the marketing of all the others they have available. Add it to their catalog and website, mention it in the newsletter and their social media comments. They might create fliers to send to gatherings of likely readers.

A typical Big Boy book stays on the shelf about 6 weeks. A small press may never ‘discontinue’ a book.

Is being published by a Big Boy worth wasting all that time? What do you think?

The Mechanics of Writing

I have the honor of being trusted enough to edit other people's manuscripts from time to time. Occasionally, I find myself giving mini-lessons in the mechanics of writing as I do so. Here are some examples:

In fiction, dialogue does not go on a separate line just because it's dialogue.

When one character is speaking for several paragraphs, do not put end quotes at the end of each paragraph, save them for the very end of that person's dialogue. Do, however, start each paragraph with opening quotes. This is a subtle indication to the reader that the same character is speaking these paragraphs.

Generally, past tense verbs are preferred over present tense verbs. Whichever tense you choose to write in, stick with that tense. Don't flip between present and past tenses.

If you are writing from Character A's point of view, he cannot tell the reader things he does not know. If B & C secretly meet to discuss something, A must overhear them - or be told about the meeting - in order to tell the reader about it.

'I' is for the subject. 'Me' is for the object of the verb. If you lump yourself with another person, and can't decide if you've chosen the correct pronoun for yourself, try reading the sentence without that other person. 'Mother and me went to the park.' = 'Me went to the park.' I don't know about you, but that grates on my brain. It should be 'I went to the park,' therefore, 'Mother and I went to the park.'

The best source I have found for learning some of these mechanics is the book, Elements of Style by Strunk & White. It is a whopping 85 pages long. It is clear and concise, without a lot of fluff to clutter it up. I try to read it every couple of years, just to remind myself of things.

This book, however, is not written with fiction in mind, so sometimes, a punctuation question comes up that is not addressed in its pages. This past month, I have discovered a blog by 'Grammar Gal', which has answered a couple punctuation questions I had. She seems to know her stuff, and explains it clearly. She has joined my 'resource' list as well.

My dad used to say, "If something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." I have to agree. So if you want to write, brush up on your grammar rules. It makes it much easier on the editor, who can then concentrate on finding any plot holes you might have missed.

Even if you aren't writing books, just emails to friends and family, being aware of the grammar rules will make those emails easier for them to read.

Practice What You Preach

I read a lot of e-newsletters. Some give me tips on how to write better, some give me clues about markets I might submit to, and some try to tell me how to market my work, once it gets published. Most of them I can read fairly quickly. But one of them I read this week... !

I don't remember which newsletter I was reading, possibly one on marketing, because the article seemed to be on what type of website to make announcements, timing and the type of announcement. After almost every website type/announcement type that it listed, the author expanded by saying you should edit, edit, edit everything before you sent it off into the world. The reasoning was that if you make an impression on potential readers with poor grammar, spelling and punctuation, they aren't likely to look up your book and buy a copy.

I have to agree with that sentiment.

A lot of people never learned these things in school well enough to know how to follow the rules, and therefore, they don't think it's really important. Texting, when it required hitting the same button a number of times to get one letter, further eroded people's ability to spell, it seems. But as long as the idea gets across, anything goes these days, right?

No, I can't agree with that sentiment.

I have re-worked and proofread and edited enough to be pretty familiar with most of the rules of the English language. It doesn't bother me to get a text on my phone with 'u' for 'you' and 'ur' for 'your'. I consider that a kind of slang.

But when I'm reading something that purports to be informative and professional, I expect it to be well edited. This particular article in this newsletter was NOT. Here it was, expounding on the idea that everything you put out there should be edited, and the author did not appear to know the difference between [its] and [it's], or where commas belong, or how to spell.

Now I'm left in a dilemma. Do I believe this author was knowledgeable in the field and take the advice offered? Or write the article off as a waste of time because the author couldn't be bothered to take his/her own advice?

Practice What You Preach

I read several newsletters and blogs to learn how to write better; how to open a novel and grab the reader, how to involve all the senses, ... that sort of thing. One of the first things I was taught was that your first draft is not your last draft. (Took me a lo-o-ong time to learn that lesson.)

Your first draft is where you get the basic ideas out of your head and onto paper - or computer file, or whatever. Then you spend time going through that project a few times to add descriptions, select a more precise verb, make sure the reader understands what you intended to say.

And then, you polish it.

Remember back in school, when you learned about subjects, verbs, direct objects, punctuation, and all of that? That's the stuff a writer worries about in the final polish. Because as a writer, you want others to see your work in its best condition. If your work is full of misspelled words, incorrect choice of pronouns, and 'sentences' that don't make sense because you forgot your punctuation, the readers won't be able to understand what your are trying to say.

I understand that bloggers and newsletter editors have a limited amount of time, but this is a very important part of writing. Unfortunately, not every writer remembers that before they post their blog or article. And I have found some that I am thinking of not following anymore because I have to work so hard to figure out what they are trying to say. Repeated words. Extra pronouns from when they rewrote the sentence, but didn't get it completely cleaned up. Missing commas that - if they were there - would tell the reader 'I've finished that thought, now I'm moving on.'

It's sad when a group of people manage to forget the lingual necessities that they continually remind each other are so important. I hope I never get that sloppy with my blogs. If you catch me at it, feel free to call me out about it.

Stuck in Rewrite

There are several steps to writing, but one of the first steps (not necessarily THE first step) is to scratch out a rough draft. It can be great fun, to let my imaginary imagination wings take flight and show me a new world filled with new people. Occasionally, the rough draft can also be a real headache, as words simply refuse to come to describe what my mind sees, or – even worse – my mind isn’t focused and therefore doesn’t see anything.

But the fun outweighs the headache (or I wouldn’t continue writing). It’s easy to see your progress with a rough draft, because your word count goes UP. Even if you have a bad day, by the end of a week, your word count will most likely be greater than what you started the week with. You feel like you’ve accomplished something.

For me, the 2^nd draft is where I add in every piece of description, explanation, background and all the modifiers I can think of, just to make sure everything is understandable to the reader. My word count can double from rough and 2^nd drafts, so obviously, I’m doing something.

Then come the further rewrites. I generally do a 3^rd and 4^th rewrite, and then a polish. Occasionally, I do a few more rewrites. I have one story in its 9^th or 10^th rewrite, and I’m still not happy with it.

Rewrite is not as much fun as roughing, but it seldom drags badly, either. It’s during these rewrites that I check for redundancies, passive verbs, -ing verbs, adverbs and that my pronouns refer to the correct antecedents. I might lengthen or shorten sentences, rearrange paragraphs. I might delete words, phrases, sentences, or change a 6-word phrase to a 2-word phrase.

It’s harder to keep track of your progress when your word count is going down. If you try to judge your progress by the difference in word count, it might take you days to cut a thousand words. That always made me feel stuck. So I started counting the number of words in the section I rewrote that day. I probably went through a section of 1200 words or more to wind up with 1000 words by the end, but each one of those words were carefully considered, so I have done a bit of work.

As you can see, 1 rough draft needs several rewrites. Most of my time as a writer is spent re-writing. I try to balance this out by working on 3 projects at a time; 1 short story rewrite, 1 novel rewrite, and 1 rough draft. Somehow, this past week, I have found myself doing 3 re-write projects, with no time left in my day for the rough draft. I suppose it was bound to happen, but it still leaves me feeling kind of ‘stuck’. Re-writing doesn’t set my imagination completely free. But it does still use it, so I do get some pleasure from re-writing. And since my short stories generally range around 5000 words, I should soon be done with that project, and can then return to that rough I was working on.

I won’t be ‘stuck’ in re-write much longer.

The Many Hats of a Writer

I’ve been writing stories since the fourth grade, maybe even before that. I read a bunch even as a kid, so I knew that spelling and punctuation were important. It did take me a few years to figure out that rewriting what I first put on the paper was a good idea. All in all, it was fairly easy for me to include the ideas of editor, copy editor and proofreader under the hat of writer.

Then I started trying to get my stuff published, and that brought new hats. I had to research agents and markets. Research and submitting wasn’t a difficult job – portions were similar to my day job – but it did take time away from actually writing, and I had to periodically squash the resentment that cropped up. Still, it needed to be done, so I did it.

Then MoonPhaze started publishing my stories, and I suddenly needed to add a new hat to my wardrobe – marketer.

They tell me there was a time when writers didn’t need to market their own stuff. It’s just another hat for authors to wear these days, and I think a new writer’s success depends a great deal on how good a marketer they are, not how good a writer they are.

I have no background in marketing. I don’t have any idea how to get started in this field. I have read books and blogs by other authors, watched youtube videos on marketing. The youtube videos I’ve watched so far all seem to be ads for companies who want to sell you their services. The books seem to be out of date. The blogs seem to be internet-centric, and want me to spend all my time doing internet things; tweaking my blog site, my website, my pinterest boards, doing the social network thing, tweeting … a whole long list.

Be on my social networks several times a day? I’m not great at small talk, so what do you suggest I say? Especially since this is supposed to be part of my marketing plan. I can’t go on Facebook 3 times a day and just say, “Have you read my latest story yet?” People would quickly unfriend me, and I wouldn’t blame them.

Also, the more time I spend trying to get my name in front of potential readers by tweaking my presence on the internet, the less time I have to write. It seems a vicious circle; if I don’t write, I have nothing to market. If I follow this advice on marketing, I have no time to write, and soon would have nothing to market.

Marketing may be just one more hat for authors to wear these days, but it’s not a hat I care for. Maybe I’ll get used to it, in time.

A Writer's Work is Never Done

I’ve talked about my To Do list before. Yeah, yeah, it’s pages long, in part because I have things on it that won’t come due until 2016, when I have a reminder that that’s about as long as we can expect the ‘new’ dishwasher to last. No, it’s not 9-11 pages of things for me to do today. I try to keep the chores for any one day down to a page.

I was looking at some of the chores that had somehow all cropped up on today’s date. Not the housework, not the personal chores, but the ones related (however slightly) to writing. Things like writing this blog, checking out several websites in search of tidbits to improve my writing, reading other people’s blogs about writing and leaving comments, looking for writing seminars, checking out some softwares that others have suggested I try, researching markets, sending out short stories, researching agents and composing queries .… It doesn’t even count actually writing.

Some of those chores I actually did tackle today. Some I put off for another day. I had enough of them all land on today that I could have kept busy for a full 24 hours, if I’d wanted. But I wouldn’t have gotten any actual writing done. And the best part of writing is the writing.

Working at home – and particularly writing – is a delicate balancing act. If you spend all your time writing, there’s no way to know if you are actually any good. If you spend all your time doing the other stuff, you never get anything written. Either way, nobody gets to read your stories.

Also, as a writer, you are supposed to be reading whatever you can get your hands on. This gives your imagination ideas to work with, introduces you to new styles and voices. Lots of reading, in fact, taught me quite a bit about sentence structure, punctuation and other facets of writing. Alas, ‘reading’ is not on my To Do list.

I think I need to fix that.

Peek a Boo

I've been doing some critiquing for an on-line critique group I belong to, and this story is about to make me pull out my hair. It looks like a rough draft; incorrect punctuation, strange sentence construction, incorrect use of pronouns, wandering verb tense ... The list goes on and on. To my mind, this story isn't ready for a critique.
I understand that sometimes people want to get someone's opinion about whether a story idea is viable. Fine. Get a friend to read it for a general impression. But don't waste the time of a critiquer on a rough draft.
In my mind, a critique will point out blunders you haven't noticed as you've tried to craft this story, and some of those blunders might be huge, while others are really tiny. But when you send out something with lots and lots of grammatical errors that you couldn't be bothered to fix, you are wasting their time, as they attempt to find a tactful way to tell you to clean up your manuscript. You have to clean up all those punctuation and verb tense problems anyway, so why not look like you are at least trying to do a professional job?
Like all those other writers who are taking the time to critique your work for you, I would really rather spend that extra 5 or 10 minutes working on my own story. I don't mind helping a fellow writer, if that writer seems willing to do a re-write by hunting down and correcting what mistakes he/she can find without my help. Think of it as a quest to turn out a perfect manuscript. If you can do that much for a critiquer, you are that much closer to having a manuscript that's ready to be seen by an editor.
My husband has joined me on vacation, so now it's two of us cramming blog posts into our occasional visits to the local bookstore with free wifi. Still, it wasn't bad this time. See ya next week.
Trudy

The Importance of Commas

I've been called a Comma Nazi. Usually by my spouse, who tends to feel commas are completely unnecessary. Critiquing each others' work can drive us both crazy. He tries to cross out 90% of the commas from my work, while I tend to insert that same number into his piece.

I don't claim to know – without any doubts – exactly where commas belong. These days, I review the rules listed in Strunk and White's Elements of Style on a fairly regular basis. However, I can't always quote what rule I'm following when I decide to use a comma.

For those who don't feel commas are all that necessary, I have an example for you. Same three words in the exact same order, with only the presence or absence of a comma to change the meaning:
"Let's eat, Gramma."
"Let's eat Gramma."

Is there a difference? Absolutely. The first one sounds like a small child asking for lunch. The second one sounds like a member of the Donner Party planning their next meal. I would expect the stories surrounding them would be just as vastly different.

Stories comprise of paragraphs, sentences, words, all of which shape the characters, the scenes, the plot. A writer can spend a lot of time choosing the correct words and putting them in the correct sequence. In my opinion, that writer should be just as careful choosing and placing their punctuation. Punctuation like commas can change the flavor just as easily as a different choice of word.

See you next week. Trudy