The Insecure Writer and Being on Vacation

 

Today is July's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

Why makes me an insecure writer this month?

Right now, nothing. I'm on vacation up in northern Michigan, so today's post will be short. 

I'm still waiting to hear back from my editor that she's ready for me to send her the changes I made to my manuscript after her first pass. Thanks to some lingering effects from Covid-19, she's still not working at one hundred percent, so I don't know when the final draft will be ready for publication. In the meantime, I've been working on the sequel. I was hoping the writing would proceed more quickly this time around, but I'm realizing that's not necessarily the case. It's easier to spot where the problems lie within a scene now, but figuring out how to fix those problems is still the hard (and slow) part for me. Sigh.

July question - If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose? 

I know this may sound like a trite answer, but I'd want to live at Hogwarts. I don't want to meet any of the characters of that world. I don't want to relive any of the adventures from the books.  I just want to live there. Teaching Potions in a castle that's filled with magic would be my dream job. Oh, and the fact it's in Britain would be an added bonus. Sure, I'd miss the Internet and my smart phone, but it'd be worth it. I just don't know what I'd do with my family in the meantime. :)

P.S. I suppose I could solve that problem by using a portkey to commute to and from Hogwarts every day, but it sounds like all the fun stuff happens late at night over there, so I'd rather sleep at the castle too.

 

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Marching Forward Into 2022

 

Today is January's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

Why am I an insecure writer this month?

Because I look back at all the goals I set last January and see how few of them I actually met. Even worse, last January’s IWSG post was all about how I’d failed to meet my 2019 goals. Hmmm… I’m beginning to see a trend here.

But dang it all, I’m putting all that behind me this year. This year I'm going to meet my goals. I’m feverishly working my way through the edits sent to me by my editor, and while some of them will take a bit of work to solve, they’re not insurmountable. I will finish them and my manuscript will be ready to publish this year. 

Except that I need a cover first. And a final proofread. And for the manuscript to be properly formatted for both electronic and print versions. Oh, did I mention that I don’t plan on releasing this story until I have the sequel all ready to publish too? Hmmm…. No wonder I’m feeling insecure.

Then there’s setting up my author website, collecting an email list, starting a newsletter, and all the other little things that need to be done in the meantime. In other words, all the goals I’ve failed at the past couple of years. 

Hopefully, with my manuscript ready for publication, I’ll find the drive to get all that other stuff done too. I can't put them off much longer.

Here’s wishing that all your New Year’s resolutions work out too.

January's question: What's the one thing about your writing career you regret the most? Were you able to overcome it?

My only regret is that I didn’t begin writing earlier in my life, and that I waited so long before truly taking writing seriously. I'm not sure it's possible for me to overcome those actions, because I'll never get the time back that I frittered away. Unless one of you science fiction writers come up with a time machine or something.

This month’s co-hosts are Erika Beebe, Olga Godim, Sandra Cox, and Sarah Foster! Be sure to stop by their blogs and wish them a Happy New Year!

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Being Happy the Editor Is Still Working On My Manuscript

 

Today is November's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

The good news is that my editor only has fifty pages left to edit. The bad news is that she only has fifty pages left to edit. 😔😔

I'm been pretty relaxed (meaning unproductive) on the writing front these past couple of months. I work on the sequel whenever I can, and I spend lots of time reading about marketing. But as far as my original manuscript is concerned (the one with the editor), out of sight means out of mind. I hardly ever think about it--except when my editor sends me a update on her progress and my bowels tighten a little more. 

Eventually the manuscript is going to be returned, and that's scary. God knows how many changes I'll have to make, or how long it will take to make them. I've sometimes found it hard to buckle down and work on the sequel, but once I get my manuscript back from the editor, I suspect I'll be finding all sorts of reasons to work on the sequel instead of dealing with the edits.

November's question: What's harder to do, coming up with your book title or writing the blurb?

Writing the blurb, definitely. A blurb has to convey so much to the prospective buyer. Who the main character is. What he/she wants. What's stopping them from reaching that goal, and what are the stakes?  

A title just has to sound cool and make the reader say hmmm....

Besides, a title is way shorter.

 

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Sending Your Baby Off To The Editor

 

Today is September's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

The fact that I just sent my debut manuscript off to my editor.

I’ve always felt I had a pretty good handle on my manuscript, at least as far as typos and errors were concerned. I have a knack for spotting them, and considering that I’ve reread every chapter in my manuscript at least a hundred times (minimum), I assumed simple errors would have been stamped out by now. But as I read through the manuscript one last time before shipping it off to the editor, it became clear to me just how easily errors can slip through.

And that keeps me up at night.

Well, so what, you say. Who cares if a few errors slip through now? I’m still in the editing stages, and more errors will inevitably slip in later while I’m revising based on the editor’s suggestions. But what about later when all the editing is done and I’m finally ready to publish the darn thing? Will I be able to click on that "upload manuscript" button, or will I keep searching my manuscript over and over again, searching for that last elusive error?

I know that errors are inevitable, and that all books have them, but that doesn't make me feel any better.

September's question: How do you define success as a writer? Is it holding your book in your hand? Having a short story published? Making a certain amount of income from your writing?

I’ll consider myself a successful writer the instant I upload my first book to Amazon. Period. It’ll be an ebook, of course, but that’s okay by me. I’m sure I'll eventually put together a print version, if only so I can have a physical copy or two of my own to sit on my desk. 

As far as income goes, I do have  a target in mind, but whether or not I meet that goal won't determine if I'm a successful writer or not. All that will determine is whether my writing is a career, or an expensive hobby.

 

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

P.S. Do any of you know any good proofreaders?

First Response From My Editor

Ha! Two non-IWSG posts in a row. Armageddon approaches. 

The sample edits for the first ten pages of my WIP came back this week, and I was happy enough with the editor’s comments that I’ve decided to go with her. My biggest concerns with my writing revolve around my word choices, pacing problems, and poorly constructed sentences, and her edits definitely focused on those areas. 

One aspect of my story that bothered her, however, was the way I portrayed a secondary character. He didn’t seem real to her. She felt "Mr. Fielding" was too much of cartoon caricature. My critique partners had mentioned something along the same lines, so this wasn’t a complete surprise. This chapter was written a long time ago, back when I was simultaneously working on my Hogwarts fan fiction. For those of you who remember reading the Harry Potter books or saw the movies, I was envisioning Vernon Dursley when I wrote this character. Short, a bit overweight, and a bit of a buffoon who was more worried about himself than others. 

Now I want this story to be fun, so I have plenty of crazy characters sprinkled throughout the story, but my presentation of Fielding was apparently a bit over the top. More middle grade than adult. I’ve reworked the chapter many times over the years to solve this problem, but apparently, I still haven’t gone far enough. So its back to the drawing board again. Fortunately, there’s no hurry. It’ll be many months before the editor can fit me in. 

So tell me, what was your initial response the first time you got something back from your editor?

ChemistKen

Putting Things Off, But in a Good Way

I’ve been in edit mode these past few weeks and, as usual, I can’t help but notice most of my revisions involve rearranging the order in which my sentences are written. Sometimes it’s only a sentence or two, but often it’s whole paragraphs. Occasionally it’s entire scenes. I don’t seem to have the knack for writing things down in the appropriate order during my early drafts.

No surprise there, but what really surprised me was that most of these changes involved moving the words farther back in the story as opposed to moving them forward. I rarely tell the reader stuff too late. My problem is telling the reader stuff too early.

Now I’m sure this happens to all writers to some extent. Most of us infodump in the early drafts, and that pile of information needs to be whittled down and moved back until the reader absolutely needs it. But even when I have a paragraph or two of information I wouldn’t consider an infodump, I’ve discovered it’s still better to move the information as far back in the story as possible.

I suspect my difficulties stem from teaching chemistry classes and giving research seminars. I’ve grown accustomed to explaining a topic in a nice linear fashion that maximizes understanding and (hopefully) decreases the number of questions I get at the end. It doesn’t occur to me to leave out information just to leave the class wanting more. So when I have the characters in my stories explain something to other characters, I usually have them spill everything they know about the subject. Good for teaching, not so good when writing fiction.

In real life, most people explain things in a haphazard manner—wandering about the topic, leaving stuff out, and often contradicting themselves in the process. And good writers take advantage of this quirk. Think about the conversations in your favorite books or movies. Rarely does the character explain things thoroughly. The information usually comes in snippets, with just enough to make you want to know more. And how many times have you seen a character leave out important points during a conversation so that another character (and the reader) can be surprised later?

So even when it makes perfect sense for a character to mention A, B, and C when talking to another character, the story is often better served by mentioning A, vaguely hinting at B, and ignoring C altogether. The trick is to dole out just enough information to leave the reader asking more questions.

Choosing Between Your Darlings

It’s been said that, to be successful, a writer has to learn to kill his darlings. Darlings, if you haven’t heard, are those sentences, paragraphs, scenes, or chapters you love as a writer, but which don’t fit into your story. Maybe they slow the pacing, or confuse the reader, or perhaps they’re just unnecessary. Whatever the reason, no matter how much you love the beauty or cleverness of your words, you have to get rid of them for the sake of your story.  Even if it hurts.

I’ve had to do this myself. A lot. (sniff) I’m so much better at coming up with ideas than I am at converting them into words, so I generally have way more ideas than I can wedge into a scene. When I’m writing the first draft, I’ll jot down every idea that comes to me, even if they’re contradictory, figuring I can always decide which ideas to keep once I know the direction the scene is headed. This means a significant portion of my editing process involves deciding what stays and what goes. And when I decide what goes, I often appease myself by moving the passages to another computer file with the promise I’ll use them one day in the future.

But sometimes, this pile of ideas coalesces into two distinct camps, two different ways I can accomplish the same scene. And instead of buckling down and deciding which route I should take, I waffle about and try to find a way to fit both concepts into the scene. Occasionally it works, but usually all I get is a mess that brings the writing to a screeching halt for days, sometimes weeks. (Yeah, I can be stubborn) Eventually, I build up the courage to pull the plug on one of them and get on with it, but it's hard. Once my ideas have been transferred to the page, having to give one of them up is like having to choose which child is my favorite.

But my goal for the rest of the year is to write faster, so I’ve become more ruthless about making these decisions earlier in the process. Can I maintain this ruthlessness for the rest of the year? I’ll let you know in about six months.

 Do you have any special rituals to make you feel better when you get rid of your darlings?

How Do We Know When Our Stories Are Finished?

Every day I receive a “Kick in the Pants” email from David Farland’s blog. They’re filled with valuable tips about writing and I always look forward to them. Last week, he posted a link to a Q & A video about writing, and one of the participants asked the following question: “I still wake up at night with new ideas and revised dialogue for my story. How will I know when my story is finished?”

David’s response was that as long as his brain was still sending him new ideas then his story wasn’t finished. In other words, this was his brain’s way of telling him the story wasn’t ready for prime time. While I see his point, I’m not entirely sure I agree with it. At some point, I think you have to put an end to the tinkering and say “enough is enough,” even when your brain is still churning out ideas.

Although I’m writing my own stories these days, I still occasionally work on the fanfic story I began writing over five years ago. I learned a lot about writing during that time, and my fanfic has gone through countless revisions as I applied everything I’ve learned. Yet despite the fact that some of the earlier chapters have probably been edited and revised umpteen million times, I still occasionally dream up new ways of tweaking them. (Usually during a shower or while I’m driving to work.)

The question is: Do these changes really make the story better after all this time? Sometimes yes, but usually not by much. I suspect these new ideas are more like shiny new toys, perhaps some new technique I just discovered in a writing book. Fun to think about and experiment with, but not really improving the story. Different perhaps, but not better.

So I’ve come to understand that I’ll never stopping thinking of new ways to write a chapter, even long after the chapter has been finished. At some point, I’ll just have to force myself to write “The End” and move on. Because if I wait for the ideas to stop rolling in, I’ll never publish a story.


When do you stop making changes to your stories?

The Value in Being a Critiquer

As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve run into a bit of a stone wall with regards to my new MG fantasy. So this week I dedicated myself to going back and working on my fan fiction story. Since it’s in the revision stage, I get to utilize a different part of my brain, which lets the creative side get some much needed rest.

One of the things I’ve noticed is that the quality of my chapters varies significantly. The first several chapters flow nicely (finally!), but later chapters aren’t as smooth as I remember them being. I suppose this should make me sad (and it does), but not as much as I would have expected. Though I’m disappointed these chapters need more work, I’m pleased my inner editor’s eye is getting better at spotting problems. Paragraphs that seemed fine six months ago now seem weak and flabby.

So why is my inner editor improving? I suspect it’s because of all the critiquing I’ve been doing lately. Searching for bloated paragraphs and inconsistent logic in someone else’s work makes it easier to spot the same problems in your own work. After I've dinged an author for using an awkward sentence structure several times in a chapter, I can't help but spot the same problem in my chapters.  So my advice is to never stop critiquing. And remember, no matter how great your inner editor becomes, you still need to let someone else critique your own work. You’re too close to your own story to see all the problems. Besides, by letting someone else critique your story, you’re helping their inner editor grow too. It’s a win-win situation.

Hmmmm… Will my inner editor ever stop getting better or am I doomed to forever return to my previous chapters and discover they need more work?  Scary thought.

If You Want to Make Your Story Better, Read It To Someone

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I've spent so much time getting my garden ready for summer, I haven't had time to post -- even though I have plenty to post about.
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One piece of advice you hear from agents and writers alike is that you should always read your work out loud to yourself. This gives your ear a chance to catch mistakes and pacing problems that your eyes might miss. Sound advice. But here’s a suggestion to make that advice even better.

Read the text out loud to someone else.

The previous sentence may have caused more than a few skipped heartbeats among the more bashful of writers out there. It’s hard enough handing your baby over to someone who’ll read it in silence. Trust me, I understand. But I cannot overstate the power of this technique.

Some critique groups operate by having everyone send in their submissions ahead of time, so that each member has a chance to critique the work prior to the meeting, saving the meeting for the actual discussions and arguments. My local critique group does things a bit differently. There are no pre-submissions. We show up and read our pages out loud. We often provide hard copies so that the group can read along and mark up the pages with comments as they wish, but many of the group members close their eyes and focus on their initial reactions to the words.

And one thing I’ve learned is that no matter how clever your words looked on paper, or sounded when you read them out loud to yourself, you’ll be stunned by their apparent lameness when you read them to someone else. The parts of your chapter that need work will stand out like spaghetti stains on a white shirt. Flabby passages will sear your eyeballs and make you wonder why you ever thought you could write. Most of the time, you’ll find far more problems with your work than your critique partners ever will.

Reading out loud also makes it easier for your partners to spot pacing problems. As readers, we’re used to skimming over sections of a story that don’t hold our attention—even if we’re not always aware we’re doing it. But when we listen to a story, scenes that drag stick out like a sore thumb. Try listening to a book on tape sometime and you’ll see what I mean.

I remember listening to a chapter at my critique group a few months ago that had a slow beginning. When I read back over the hard copy to mark the offending pages, I was shocked to discover that the boring section was only two paragraphs long. It had only seemed liked two pages when I was listening.

So if you really want your words to shine, force yourself to read them to someone else. You might be embarrassed, but you’ll be glad you did.

Sometimes, I'm My Own Worse Enemy

I’ve come to the realization that one of the biggest obstacles I face when editing my story is… me.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but after staring at a chapter for a while, sometimes over the course of months or even years (remember, I’m a slow writer), I find myself suffering from plot blindness. I get so used to seeing the scenes unfold in the same way every time I read through them, it’s nearly impossible for me to envision the chapter unfolding in any other way. And that can be a major hindrance if the chapter needs any kind of restructuring. I simply cannot see what's wrong, and so it usually requires an act of God for me to recognize the problem.

Although usually, it’s my CP.

Thanks, Sher.

Of course, even when I know how the story should be restructured, the battle is still only half over. Although I may understand that restructuring a scene is the right thing to do on a conscious level, deep down inside the recesses of my brain, I’ll fight that change to the death. The old version is still so ingrained in my mind that it can take weeks of work and internal struggle before I clean up all the rough spots.

Despite these obstacles, I finished just such a restructuring this evening, which explains the rather haphazard nature of this post.  It also means it’s time to send the chapter off to my CP. Hopefully she won’t discover another restructuring that I missed.

What Program Do You Trust Your Manuscript With?

Now that I have critique partners, I’ve discovered the importance of document format. I don’t mean the formatting of the manuscript into standard critique style (double spaced lines, left justified, etc.). I mean the format in which the document was saved.

I use Word for most of my editing needs. I’ve heard some people like Scrivener, but Word suits me fine and I have the added advantage of being able to edit my WIP pretty much anywhere I have access to a computer. And my CPs use Word too, which makes things convenient. But we don’t all use the same version of Word. I know this because one of my CPs sent a chapter in docx format, which Office 2000 -- the version on my wife’s computer -- does not recognize. I have access to other computers which can handle that format, so it's no problem, but it made me think about this whole concept of compatibility.

You see, my manuscript has been edited by more programs and on more computers than I have characters. I believe my very first chapters were conceived on an old laptop which ran Word 97 (or some suitably old version). Since then, my poor manuscript as been edited on Word 95, Word 2000, Word 2002, Word 2003, Word 2007, and Word 2010 -- all depending upon which computer I'm sitting next to at the time. I’ve edited it on a Linux-based computer using Open Office in Word compatible mode. I’ve even started editing chapters on my Kindle using QuickOffice, which can be a bit problematic as older versions of Word often crash when presented with QuickOffice edited documents, unless I run them through newer versions of Word first. In short, I find it amazing that I haven’t had more compatibility problems.

Needless to say, I constantly make incremental backups of all my chapters, just in case.

So which programs do you use to write your novels?