The Value of Editing, Revising, and Not Giving Up

I use Grammarly's free grammar checker because it's a nerdastically fabulous source to ensure that you don''t sound like a twelve year old with a MySpace account. 

My first novel took about 4 years. The 1st draft was giant binder full of handwritten pages. Then I was finally able to get a computer, but no internet and type it up. With dreams of book deals dancing in my head, I checked out the latest copy of Writer's Market and mailed out a slew of query letters.

Naturally, that didn't turn out so well. After a few months of dejection, I got an idea for another book.

I hand wrote the pages at work and was encouraged when a coworker snatched them from my hands and demanded to know what happened next. 

I finished it shortly before I was able to get the internet. I immediately googled agents and sent a flurry of email queries. I got a few requests, but mostly rejections.

I tweaked the manuscript and researched the industry and eventually made friends with other authors. Finally I found what I was supposed to have done in the first place: have other people critique it first. Many other writers graciously volunteered. 

Alas, none of them ever sent me feedback, except for one, who critiqued the first couple chapters and flat out said, "I stopped reading here. I'm sorry." 

Thankfully, one saint of a reader made her way through the whole thing and pointed me in the write direction on fixing it.

I rewrote it and found more beta readers.This time, all made it through and provided excellent feedback. None seemed to adore it, however. I rewrote it again before sending out more queries and getting MORE rejections. 

"My book SUCKS!" I wailed, and tossed it in the proverbial trunk and began a new book ...in a completely different subgenre. My 3rd novel, BITE ME, YOUR GRACE ultimately landed me my fist book deal. And that one also endured at least 6 revisions.

However, my previous book, WRENCHING FATE lingered in my mind. Using all I learned from my 3rd book, I completely overhauled and rewrote the 2nd one. It was practically my 4th novel.

I found more critique buddies and guess what: they LIKED it! Alas, with the publication of BITE ME, YOUR GRACE and working on the other books in that series, as well as working on other shiny new ideas, I had little time to work on WRENCHING FATE.

But that story never left my mind.

Whenever I had a spare moment, I utilized the feedback I received from my beta readers and critique partners and revised it again.

And again.

Now it's in the hands of the final batch of beta readers.

And guess what?

They're already messaging me to tell me they LOVE it!! 

The moral of this story is that if you know deep in your heart that you have a good story, it is indeed possible to make it a great, well written story. 

It just takes a TON of hard work, determination, lots of learning, and countless revisions. Utilizing sources like Grammarly, which I mentioned above, as well as reader feedback and learning from your own mistakes can aid you in your journey to success.  

Lessons in Beta Reading, Part I.

In the past 30 days I've read and critiqued 3 manuscripts. In return, my buddies have been working on mine as well. One thing I've learned from doing this is that it helps me to become a better writer. Many of the errors and mistakes I've found in my buddies' stories are often found in my own. Now when my buddies and I go through each other's work we go through it all the way, which means we point out spelling, punctuation, and grammar issues as well as add comments and feedback within the text. Over the course of my reading I've spotted enough patterns to merit two blog posts.

Part One: Common Errors in Spelling, Grammar, and Punctuation.

1.) Its vs. It's. Its = belonging to it. It's = It is. Example: It's the biggest one I've ever seen! Its girth is terrifying! (Hey, I'm a romance author. Of course that's the first thing that came to mind.)

2.) Loose vs. Lose. Loose= opposite of tight. Lose = loss of something. Your corset is loose. Your girls may lose their support.

3.) Your vs. You're Your = belonging to you. You're = you are. Ex: Hey, hot guy, you lost your shirt. You're making my tummy flutter.

4.) Each other = 2 words. I had a nasty habit of making it one. Please say I'm not alone!

5.) Questions end with question marks! I blame JR Ward for this one. For some reason her characters turn their questions into demanding statements to emphasize how manly pissed off they are...or something. It worked for a bit but got old fast. "What are you doing." = wrong. "What are you doing?" = no headache.

6.) Plural nouns vs. Names anding with S. For some reason a lot of people want to treat a main character with a name ending with "S" as a plural noun, which is incorrect. Proper use: Silas's breath caught at the girls' incredible music. Wrong: Silas' breath caught...etc.

7.) Commas and the word "then." I don't know anyone, including myself that hasn't had an issue with this. There is no comma before then! Ex. She filled the pitcher then carried it to the table. NOT She filled the pitcher, then carried it to the table. Don't ask me why that's wrong, it just is. (HEY, DEAN, IF YOU ARE READING THIS, PLEASE TELL US WHY, OH FELLOW NERD PAL!)

8.) Proper punctuation with dialogue. This is was a disease I had until a wonderful beta cured me. Wrong: "Blah blah blah." He said. Right: "Blah blah blah," he said.

I know there's tons more, so please feel free to chime in! Next time I'll focus on structural issues.

10 New Things I've Learned as an "Experienced" Author

After having written eight novels, multiple A-grade academic papers, and a couple award winning short stories, I feel I have the right to call myself "experienced."

However, I am still a newbie in the grand scheme and I have learned a ton of things in the last few years. Some are laughably simple, especially the ones involving formatting manuscripts. Please don't laugh at me, more technically inclined people.

After all, the first one and a half books I wrote by hand in large notebooks because I couldn't afford a computer. So of course when I finally got one, I had to learn how to use the thing along with Microsoft Word. And let me tell you, after nearly five years I am still learning Word. So about half the things on this list will deal with that. :)

Without further ado, here's a few things that have improved my job.

1.) Holy Crap there's a difference between "enter" and "tab?"

Apparently hitting tab instead of enter not only adds an extra space, but it also screws up the format. Paranormal Romance author, Terry Spear, directed me to the little paragraph symbol on my MS Word toolbar. Tabs are revealed as arrows and extra spaces....

2.) Whoa, a better way to find extra spaces without relying on eyesight alone?

That nifty paragraph thingie also reveals extra spaces as dots. When you have them before a paragraph break it looks like the paragraph symbol has a nipple and that makes me giggle. Then I sigh in gratitude that I don't have to rely on my eyes alone anymore.

3.) I will always need fresh perspectives on my work. 

No matter how many tips I've received from other writers or how much I think I've improved, there are still times when I think I've written my best work ever and have others reinforce that belief...and I still need to be struck down by those who know better. Because one's work can and should ALWAYS be improved.

4.) More in depth outlines really help me.

I'm like a hybrid between a "plotter" and a "pantser." I always have the characters and at least a scene or two in mind before I start a project. Then I slowly make placeholder notes of scenes between whatever I'm writing.

However, once you're contracted with a publisher you need to have the synopsis and other plot details figured out often BEFORE you write the first sentence. As daunting as it is, I've noticed that doing so makes writing the book go a whole lot easier as it clears a path away from too many rabbit holes.

5.) Habit words will never cease to haunt me.

Like a persistent and constantly mutating virus, habit words infect EVERY manuscript. Most recent ones have been "Was," "That," "And," "But," and "Now." Critique partners and beta readers are priceless for spotting these buggers. The "Find" feature in Word really helps too.

6.) You can set your preferred font.

I don't know how many times I reopened word to have it automatically reset itself to Calibri 11 and exploded into screaming expletives. I mean, who the hell uses that stupid font? I think I manually reset it and shrieked, "Times New Roman 12, bitch!" for over two years before someone, not even a writer, pointed out, "Hey, you can go to 'set default font' y'know."

It was too much of a happy day for me to kick myself for being a moron. Speaking of which...

7.) Inserting page breaks REALLY helps!

Seriously, I spent 8 manuscripts and countless revisions scrolling up and down entire documents and manually tweaking stuff so each chapter is neatly centered on the top of a new page. Then someone's all "Insert Page Break is a lot easier, y'know." This is another D'oh! moment.

8.) How to center stuff like chapters and scene breaks.

I am so grateful for the times I brought by laptop to the bar. Especially the time my drinking buddy leaned over and said, "Control E."

9.) Other authors are incredibly supportive!

Seriously with everything from promo help, advice, and a shoulder to cry on, other authors have been there for me in ways that have me overcome with gratitude. I hope to repay the favor whenever I can.

10.) How to be assertive about my "I need to work" time.

Being a writer is a work at home job for the most part. Some are lucky to have an office to lock themselves in. I am not. My writing area is the couch with my laptop sitting on a TV dinner table. Couple that with 3 kids, a husband, 3 cats, a dog, and surprise guests and it's damn near impossible to get anything done.

Over the years I've had to learn how to make it clear to others that writing is my job and when I'm on my laptop, I am AT WORK!!! Sometimes it gets through their heads. And sometimes I need to have the feline overlords guard me.

An Author's Ka-Tet.

I'm rereading Stephen King's DARK TOWER series again. (Hence my slacking on the blog) and I've been thinking a lot about the concept of a "Ka-tet." "Ka" is the word for "fate" so, (Quoted from Wikipedia):   "A ka-tet is a group of beings brought together by ka. "We are ka-tet. We are one from many," says Roland Deschain on the day before the Battle of Algul Siento.^[1] Ka-tet is the belief that a group of people can be tied together by fate, or ka. It is said that a group has shared "khef" or the water of life. Sometimes the symbol of water is used literally, as in a ritual Roland and his ka-tet performs the night before the battle of Algul Siento. In the seventh novel, Susannah Dean, who ends up understanding ka maybe more than Roland himself, comes to the understanding that in simple terms, "ka-tet" means family."

I'm all down with this. I firmly believe that some people are meant to become part of each other's lives. And when my crit group formed, our skills and accomplishments sky-rocketed. We are definitely a ka-tet. :)

Who's your ka-tet? Or have you found them yet? 

My 2011 Recap

Some things I did okay. Others....not so much. Either way, it's been a great year. 

1.) Get the first two books in my BRIDES OF PROPHECY series polished enough for my agent and then ready for her to submit to publishers: I got them polished, though I'm still tinkering. My betas are raving about em, but other things happened with another project and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this series. I'm still working on them, though. They will have a home someday.

2.) Complete another manuscript. I completed a few short stories, a novella, and wrote the beginnings of 3 more novels. Hooray for progress!

3.)Blog at least twice a week. I nailed this goal, for the most part.

4.) Have at least one awesome guest author every month. Not so well here. Some months I had none, others I had four.

5.) Become more regular on Twitter and Facebook: Ironically I did better with FB than twitter.

6.) Get up to 3000 followers on Twitter: For reasons stated above, I only got to 1650.

7.) Keep the house clean and organized. HAHAHAHAHAHAH! No.

8.) Lose 20 pounds.. I think I lost about 8. Well.....I lost 10, gained back six, then lost four...or something.

9.) Learn how to use a sewing machine to make/ repair clothes. Didn't happen...although I did find someone willing to teach me how to sew by hand.

10.) Keep my marriage healthy, happy, and full of passion. I think I've done well with this and I still have a big crush on my husband.

11.) Become a better mother. I noticed I've been yelling a lot less. :)

12.) Get a tattoo...or 2.  I got one!

                                                      

So, I think I did okay. Especially since I achieved my long time dream of getting a book deal! 

OTHER EVENTS/ Accomplishments:

On May 30th, I celebrated my 1 year wedding anniversary (though we've been together for 8 years). I drew him a portrait of our hero, Ronnie James Dio:

This really helped me get back into art so I also did a painting of a '64 Volkswagen Beetle for my neighbor:

And a poster of the IRON MAIDEN album, "Killers." 

My husband grew an excellent garden this year, yielding around 200 lbs of tomatoes (making several jars of salsa,tomato sauce, and stewed tomatoes), 20 quarts of pickles, 24 cabbages (which made 3 gallons of saurkraut)  And lots of lettuce, broccoli, and peppers. Our herb garden thrived as well, along with our strawberries. 

He also got his deer, so we filled our freezer with meat.

I'm finally getting the hang of making friends, so not only did I get to know more awesome writers and formed a critique group, I've also branched out with other friendships. I'm pleased to be doing karaoke again. 

I think 2011 was a great year and I hope 2012 will be even better.