Editing is Hard Work - How Do You Know Your Work Is Good Enough

Sarah Duncan has been running a great series of posts on editing. The latest one is here. The big thing is that editing is hard work. I can hear my inner student SIGH. I hate hard work or at least I did. I have learned to love it. Back when I mentioned I was on the 27th draft of August Rock people were amazed so I outlined my process (here). It's long and there are no short cuts. But in the past I would try and find them...The result was that I short changed myself and didn't get the result I wanted (an agent, a publishing deal and an audience for my stories).

Look at it this way...if you want muscles you need do strength training (unless you are still growing when it appears that food and sleep are the only requirement - casts glance at sleeping teens). If you want to be a concert pianist then you practice. If you want a publishable book you have to write, rewrite and edit. I know there may well be a few cases out there where the first draft was flawless but they are rare. So if publication is your goal embrace the work.

For make no mistake it's work and at times I rebel against this. I am lazy at heart. I don't want to read the damn thing 300 hundred times. I don't what to check my verbs, adverbs, adjectives....I don't want to look at each chapter, scene, paragraph and sentence. But I must if I want readers to love the story and not feel the writing. I make sure that each word, each sentence and so on is there for a reason - and just because I like isn't good enough. As Donald Maass reminds again and again in his books...tension is the key to page turning quality...this of course is another matter altogether but while you are examining your writing so closely that should be in the back of your mind....more on this later.

So coming back to that issue...how do you know your work is good enough? Does every word in your story carry its weight and move your story forward? Each sentence? Paragraph? Scene? Chapter?

Now be honest...have you looked that closely? If not check out Sarah's posts because they are a good starting point.

Kyoto Again and the Joy of Being with Another Writer

It seems ages since we spent the weekend in Kyoto and I posted the last set of photos - heck I've been to England and back - and I'm off again tomorrow! But i did want to share some of the photos from our last day in Japan.

We walked through a wonderful bamboo forest. I can still hear the clacking noise of the bamboo as the wind pushed the tall stems together. It was almost like a symphony of percussion.

We wandered through a beautiful garden that was filled with so many plants that reminded me of our garden in Cornwall - made me quite homesick for it. I hope this week that the wisteria will still be in bloom.

Colour abounded every where even on a grey wet day. In fact I think the dullness of day made the vibrant colour more alive.

Last night I was lucky enough to have Janet Gover (Little Black Dress author - Farmer Needs A Wife) over for dinner. Poor dh had to put up with two writers chatting away about unreal worlds and plot problems. It certainly helped me to hear that she thought there was more than enough meat in the story to continue going. So another day of reading Maass and maybe I will write on the plane tomorrow with better results than the last time and definitely no champagne as I am in my normal stop in the back of the plane.

More Tales of the Unexpected

So everyone was a bit puzzled by the picture of large puddles outside my villa and me wearing a old fur coat here in Dubai. Just check out what happened this weekend in the Emirates! Here's a link for more photos from Gulf News.

Now back to writing issues......The progress metre hasn't moved. I have actually gone a bit further but not much. This is not at all like me. Once I begin something I am normally full speed ahead. I know how I want to proceed. In previous versions of August Rock I have three pov - Judith, Tristan, and Toby. So in Anne Robinson style - Tristan - you are the weakest link so his pov is cut. Great! But that leaves me with a very little story in a way. I start thinking do I have enough? Well, no, I don't or at least not as the story stands.

Two things come into play here. One is a comment made by lovely editor who rejected AR (but did say she wanted to see future work). She said she found herself much more interested in what happen to Judith before she arrived in Cornwall. I know all about it of course - I have to I'm the writer - yeah.

Well, step two was pulling out the wonderful Donald Maass book - Writing the Breakout Novel again and asking myself his bloody hard questions and things start pinging as they always do. (When I finally see one of my books in print I will have to send the man a thank you note at minimum and if I ever set eyes on him in person he's getting one massive hug). Toby's story remains the same but poor Judith is going to have an even harder time! So no problem then filling in Tristan's vacated view! Phew.

I also realized while doing this thinking I had purely by mistake titled the book well for Judith herself. August Rock is only visible above the water's of Falmouth Bay in a few very low tides in any year - so what happens when it decides to show itself?????

Okay - now head back down. How's your work going?

Recovery Time Required

Finally after much blood letting this rewrite of A Cornish House is done and dusted. I was beginning to think I would never get there. I hope that for all the pain it caused (which included my mother desperate desire to read the end before she left which was 4 am this morning) it is a stronger story. I do know without a doubt that it is more Maddie's story than Serena's - so even if it's crap I have at least proved to myself that I could re balance and intensify the story. For this I owe a debt of gratitude to the lovely Julie Cohen for reminding all things have been written before but it's what you bring to the story that makes it different and the Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook.



Now I will not touch it until Monday - I promise. I need the distance to get perspective. However as I woke early this morning (Have been rising about five every morning to have peace and computer time) I was twitching. I think if I begin rereading on Monday that gives me a clear two weeks to play with it and then I can send it of to the RNA New Writers' Scheme as an unpolished but complete work. It was the best I could hope to achieve with the end of August deadline.



I have to say there is a part of me also that is itching to begin writing the book in my head which began brewing last summer at the RNA conference. However that must wait until September even thoughI have found the house that will be the basis for the setting......

So Close I Can Taste It

I haven't been blogging - not for nothing to say but the time issue again. My parents are here which is bliss. My house is now sorted and the kids are sorted. Life is good but time keeps disappearing. DH arrives today :-)

Yesterday I woke at 4:30 and couldn't fall asleep again so I crept downstairs and began revision work. I had spent the six hours the previous day while the car was being serviced this week. I sat at the kids table in the local vauxhall garage with a printout of A Cornish House and Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. I began at page one and worked through his chapters and the connections in my head started flying. My poor heroine is having more and more dumped on her but best of all - it all fits.

This leads me to the marathon revision day yesterday. So I revised from five am to six pm yet I didn't reach that crucial stage where these new key scenes need to go. I know what I have to write and I now know where they need to fit in the story but truth be told I might just be a little bit afraid to write them. Why you ask? Well, they will hurt Maddie and me. I will have to pull on all those dark corners of pain that we shove away to make these scenes work and I'm just not sure if I can do them justice.

I have wrestled this story from Serena's (the bolshy teen) grip and placed it back with Maddie but it has come at a huge emotional cost for her. I keep saying what else can I throw at her? So now I sit on the edge of writing some pretty painful stuff.......DH keeps saying as I mention what else is going to happen to her - and this is going to have a happy ending, it sounds more like a slash your wrist job. But Maddie will have her happy ending, I promise, it's just that both she and I will have worked bl**dy hard for it.

Have you had any scenes that it took all your reserve to write because you knew how much it would cost your hero/heroine?

Finally some links - over on C. S. Harris's blog there is a great post on lessons learned.
And finally from d.o.t's blog I found this blog How Publishing Really Works which carries much worth while info......

Laughter and Learning

I had a very high brow post planned for today but my day began with hysterics after DH read this headline from the Gulf News - "Lovers fight after man breaks wind. " You can find the full article here. It's well worth a read. I am still trying to recover.

Things for A Cornish House are starting to fall in place, I think. Having the lightbulb moment, while reading Pillow Talk by Freya North, that I haven't given Madde a voice I realized yesterday working with Donald Maass's Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook that I hadn't really given Madde much of a story. Now, I know that sounds funny but it's very true. Here's my protagonist and although her story is interesting and touching it just isn't enough to balance out the story of Serena. So this is why she takes over even though she controls fewer pages in the story - her story is more compelling. So when I had been pounding the pavement around Safa Park here in Dubai in the mornings I worked through some aspect of Madde's story that I could change but it seemed pat as I said a few days ago. But then Julie's words...The key is to write them in such a way that only you could have done it.

So the brain went into overdrive with the questions posed in Donald Maass's book. I could make this work and tell it my way which would make it unique. So while I circumnavigated Safa Park this morning more of the new plot line fell into place and it will make this Madde's story and Serena will take second place. However I know this won't be an easy rewrite. I just hope I am up to the task because I will have raised the stakes and I don't want to let Madde down now that she has become more vulnerable and more flawed.

I finished Pillow Talk earlier this week - Delicious. The book is a pleasure to read and I enjoyed every moment of it. A truly romantic story for the Romantic Novel of the Year award.

Wobble Wobble

Now for once this isn't a writing wobble so in theory I probably shouldn't share it with you but I shall. My best friend is getting married for the first time next week and I am over the moon for her. If anyone deserves happiness she does. It's been a long time in coming. I'm not wobbling about that at all. BUT I am wobbling about the wedding and party itself. I left the States nearly twenty years ago now. Lots of things have changed in those twenty years - I have the most wonderful dh in the world, three fabulous healthy children, I have seen and lived in many exotic places in the world, I have run a voluntary association of over eight thousand volunteers for multi billion dollar company and gone nose to nose with the CEO over family policy, and I have now written three books. All wonderful stuff and I try to hold onto them, I really do.

However then the wobbles takes over big time. Twenty years ago I was beautiful and two and a half stone lighter. Since the scanner is dead I can't give the before and after evidence. Let's put it this way I was good enough to be the second frontispiece in colour for Country Life back in 1991. So now years on I am feeling less than happy about myself. Wednesday I had my hair done which helped and yesterday I ventured into Marks & Spencer to find something that would do........ it was depressing beyond words (although I have thanks to India and Neris's Idiot-Proof Diet I lost ten pounds in three weeks) .

You see some of these people I have snogged in the past and there are few others who may turn up at the party that I might have fancied the pants off of and well I am now fat and forty-four with evidence of it blatantly on view doesn't help! Now all I can hope for is that time hasn't been to kind to them either but then that's not nice..........

I do remember the day is not about me and I know my friend will shine like the sun in her happiness and I will hopefully forget how I feel and just think about her but until then I will wobble like jelly.........


Now back on to writerly things.........yesterday I finished Any Way You Want Me by our own Novel Racer Lucy Diamond! I had to finish it. I have been savouring it at the end of each day but when at the hair dressers I read a huge chunk - wonderful. On the tube to M & S I nearly missed my stop so when I came home I thought sod the revision I need to know how this ends. Lucy, damn you - you made me cry. What a great read. It's irreverent, fun, sassy and compelling. Thanks :-)

So I didn't revise yesterday. I had a mental break which is probably not a bad thing as my head is spinning with more and more ideas of how to kick August Rock into shape. Today I should make some more progress although I will be printing out the 30,000 words I have thus far reworked to see if it makes sense. Plot improvement is the aim of this rewrite. My days in Budapest were spent being tourist in the morning then studying over Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel and making notes. Little bells were ringing continuously as I read. I now have written enough to understand what he meant. I know that sounds a funny comment, but just as with Sol Stein and over writing I don't think I had written enough fiction in a long time to understand what DM was throwing at me.

So back to the SS rewrite. I was pleased with my rewriting results. The script read better and was stronger but I was terrified to send it to Lucie again in case it wasn't good enough. I didn't want to blow my one chance to be read again if it hadn't worked. I ran into Lucie at the Romantic Novelist Association Winter Party and said as much to her in person. I told her I was thinking about sending it off to Hilary Johnson's Advisory Service (again which I heard about through the RNA). Lucie said a client of hers' used them and Hilary was good so go ahead. Next step that sent me on that route was a comment in the RNA magazine Romance Matters by a best selling author which said something along the lines that many writings don't invest enough in there work at the start. Writers need help along the way. That sold me. I took the money my parents had sent for Christmas and topped it up with my dh's pressie and sent August Rock off and tried to forget about it over the holidays - hah!

Early in January the script came back and I wasn't told to put it in the bin. The reader didn't pull any punches. So she wrote:

You write very fluently and pleasantly. (thank you SS, that part of the rewrite worked)................

She goes on to describe the difference between a plot based novel and a character driven one:

Although a lot of things happen in the course of the August Rock I'd actually put it in the second category (character driven), because the main events of the book are so clearly signalled in advance that there isn't that much suspense as to how things will eventually turn out. To a certain extent this is a failing in the story. (This is clearly a major difficulty with my writing but I have been taking heart from reading the Cruise/Mayer Workshop that Jennifer writes this way first then fixes it - so all may not yet be lost for me!)

Your dialogue is good and I'd like to see more of it. Aim for a balance of sixty/forty dialogue to narrative. (working on that as I rewrite now).

She goes through each major character and tells me the highs and the lows and where I fail particularly at my secondary characters......

In conclusion she says:

You write well. August Rock is a pleasant and literate read with no loose ends and a collection of characters who make amiable companions. But - and I'm afraid it's a big 'but' - I felt that the book didn't make enough demands on me. I liked the storyline and the characters who appeared in it. But because the end was so clearly signalled at the beginning there wasn't enough incentive to read on. It was a little to predictable and the pace too even. I would have liked more twists, more surprises, more spanners in the works, more to indicate that things might just be in danger of not turning out the way I expected. As the book stands I don't feel that it if offers enough commercial opportunity for a mainstream publisher. It's a near miss rather than an absolute certainty. Sharpened and tightened and with a few more variations of pace the book could well make the grade.

Well, I sat back and tried to absorb the report of six single spaced pages of criticism. It all seemed too much at that point. A few ideas rattled around in my brain but her parting comments were. Put the work aside and work on something else then come back to it. So I put my heart and soul in to A Cornish House and left August Rock aside. Well, almost as there were a few issues raised that led me to Caroline Upcher. That I will tell you about later.

I want to go back to Lucy's book above because as I read Anyway Way You want Me I could clearly see what my reader had been talking about. Lucy lead me and my emotions on a merry ride that kept going off in unexpected and some times expected routes. However when the expected happened the next event threw me into doubt again. I found my emotions engaged even though some of the things Sadie was up to were frankly repulsive to me yet I loved her and wanted her to make it through. That is what I need to achieve with August Rock. I don't just want a pleasant read. I want emotions engaged.

Now, you are thinking this post will never end! I have been tagged several times over for a few things but mostly for eight random things about me. I've been tagged on this by Jess, Lisa, Cally and Rachel

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

So here are my eight random things...

1. Having just read Jess's latest post about the best romantic smooches on http://www.ecataromance.com/home_page reminded me that I won the best kiss in my dorm in university. We all puckered up with red lipstick and kissed the wall. My 'perfect' pout won!

2. I am an optimist - the glass is half full and preferable filled with good wine

3. I am a closet country music fan

4. I embarrass my children as frequently as I can just because it's one of the best things about being a mum of teenagers ( I still can't believe I'm old enough to have teenagers)

5. I am still 28 years old it's just that my body doesn't know it

6. I am an only child and therefore wanted to have six children that is until I gave birth to my first one!

7. I love reading Green Eggs and Ham aloud to children

8. I love being a writer!

I won't tag anyone else at the moment as I think most people have been tagged but if you haven't jump on board and let me know!

Novel Racer - Cally

Here's one of newest Racers, Cally, http://callytaylor.blogspot.com/.

"I’m in my early thirties and am one of those annoying people that claims to have been writing since she knew how to. As a child I loved to write and draw and created lots of little ‘books’ that I hole-punched and tied together with wool. I even sent one off to Penguin when I was eight. It was rejected, of course, but I received a lovely rejection letter (probably the nicest one I’ve ever received) and it didn’t deter me from writing more (ah, for that kind of youthful determination again!).I’ve continued to write on and off since then (mostly terrible, terrible poetry during my teens and early twenties) and started my first novel in 2004 – a YA effort. About 52,000 words in I suffered a big plot wobble (was it too dark for a YA audience?) and stopped writing to think about the plot and…never got started again. Instead I started writing short stories which I instantly loved writing because there was much less slog and you could produce a complete story so quickly. Since then my stories have been published in print and online and last year I was Runner Up in the Woman’s Own short story competition and my story and photo (eek!) were published in the magazine.In February this year I saw the ad for the Waterstones/Cosmopolitan chick-lit competition and decided to enter. I’d had a kind of chick-lit with a twist idea for a novel for a while and it needed writing. It’s probably too ‘out there’ for the competition but I’m loving writing it (despite my constant protestations to the contrary) and I’m determined to finish it. When it’s finished I’m going to go back and finish my YA novel. 52,000 words is too much work to abandon so cruelly!"

So, I am waiting to hear from all the other racers. I have one more profile to post and then we're finished.........come on and don't be shy!!!!

I'm back from Budapest and its good to see the sun shinning here. I am all fired up to begin the rewrite of August Rock. I read Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel. This fueled my notes and now begins the transformation! I'll keep you posted.