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How to Trick Your Editor’s Eye

I’m not officially editing my next novel because I haven’t finished writing it, but I do some editing as I write. While I’m waiting for the next scenes to come to me, I go back and read parts I’ve already written, changing bits here and there.

When it’s time to edit the completed work, I use a few tricks to help my editor’s eye read as though I haven’t been staring at all those words for months. I print it, read the story aloud, and send it to my Kindle. That helps me see, and hear, typos, grammar, and punctuation errors, as well as discover the words and sentences I need to move, add, or delete.

Recently, I’ve been editing some short stories, and I created a .pdf of each to share with some critique partners. Yesterday, I sent them something I don’t normally share—a partial first draft. I gave them the first 6,000 words of my WIP as a .pdf, not for them to critique, but for them to give their opinion on the tense I used.

I didn’t take time to read the file at the time, so when I did that yesterday morning, I saw immediately that I’d misspelled a name. I also flagged a few places where my hair-trigger comma gun misfired, a couple of things that needed clarification, a few weak word choices, and a sentence or two I’ll move for better flow and stronger narrative.

Now, I know that reading my work in .pdf format helps me read with fresh eyes. I suppose it’s akin to reading it on my Kindle, but it’s much easier to click Save As in Word and, within a minute, be reading it in Adobe Reader. When this book is fully written and ready for editing, I’ll employ my usual methods, but for a quick peruse of a chapter or two, I’ll be using the .pdf method as another way to trick my editor’s eye.

Your turn: What tricks do you use to make your manuscript look fresh to your eye for editing?

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A River of Words

One thing I often wish for writers in my tweets and comments is that they will be blessed with a river of words. That’s how it feels to me when the mental dam breaks and sets the story free.

Unfortunately, I seem to be an expert dam builder, though I can’t say I know how I do that. I can never see a specific pattern leading up to these obstructions. Once I build that dam, I’m just as much in the dark on how to tear it down.

I want to write. I need to write. I cannot write.

That frustration only reinforces the dam, which leads to more frustration, which reinforces—well, you get the picture. I lay blame on this and that and the other. I distract myself. I pretend patience. I use force, trickling out a few words at a time. Eventually, I decide I have no talent and should give up.

For a while now, I’ve pretended—if I positively affirm that I’m a writer, that work on my WIP is going just swell, thank you, it will be so. Ahem. I only know that about ten days ago, I faced up to a dam of terrifying proportions. I felt like a total fraud. I was convinced I was a one-book writer. The voice in my head was screaming, “Shut up. Shut up! JUST. SHUT. UP.”

So I did. I shut up. I gave up. And that seemed entirely logical. Gloriously freeing. Long overdue. I decided to give away one more copy of Brevity, and then quietly slink away.

I planned another blog, where I could post my thoughts under a fictitious name. I would write about anything EXCEPT writing. It would be like a virtual witness relocation plan. Maybe a few people would find that blog and I could start a new online life. Eventually, if I were lucky, I would look back at my experience as a novelist with amusement.

Only, that’s not what happened.

What I thought were just my usual allergy problems turned out to be a virus, and this one settled in my chest, which for me, means a deep, wrenching cough. Naturally, this frequently interrupted my sleep. I spent a few nights in a sort of half-dream state, in which, every time I woke a bit more with a coughing spell, I “heard” people talking to me.

Sometime during the third night, I realized the talkers were the characters in the WIP I had so recently shelved. The next day, I realized they were still talking and I sat down at the keyboard. See that photo at the top of this post? Yeah, that’s what it feels like. I have so many words rushing at me now that I have to force them to stop, so I can take a break, eat a meal, go to sleep.

I’m in writer heaven. My river of words is a roaring, rushing, riotous joy I seriously doubted I would ever experience again.

For every writer reading this, I wish you a river of your own.

Photo credit:http://www.dreamstime.com/rushing-river-imagefree193893

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Yes, we have a winner!

We have a winner in the book anniversary giveaway. I entered all the entrants’ names once, twice, three, four times per the rules and Random.org chose Christa Polkinhorn as the winner of the signed copy of The Brevity of Roses. Congratulations, Christa! Please send me your mailing address, so I can get your prize in the mail.

I’m sorry you couldn’t all win, but thank you for entering—and tweeting, plusing, and facebooking. I appreciate the free advertising. :-)

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A belated anniversary and a giveaway!

This time a year ago, I spent the days swinging from elation to terror. The Brevity of Roses had just been published, and my talent, or any lack of it, was on display to the whole world. One moment I felt proud of myself, and the next I was aghast at my audacity. To be honest, a year later, I still have my swinging days.

One difference is that, now, I’m better at separating the Author from myself, though maybe not in the way you might think. I’m the one that writes, but that person with her name on the front cover—the Author? Well, I try not to think about her much. She’s useless at the keyboard. I let her check the sales stats and reviews.

This separation has made me feel I’m waking from a long sleep. I’m excited about writing again. I have two books in the works—a short story collection and a novel. My Muse speaks to me regularly.

And to celebrate Brevity’s one year anniversary, I’m giving away a signed print copy!

To those of you who know nothing about The Brevity of Roses, you can click the cover photo to read more about it. Here’s the bit from the back cover:

Told in gorgeous, poetic tones, The Brevity of Roses will take you on a journey delving into three unique characters as delicate and beautiful as a rose itself. Lewis’ rich understanding of relationships is phenomenal.” – Michelle Davidson Argyle, author of Monarch

Grief, discovery, anguish, pleasure, rejection, acceptance, atonement, forgiveness—the rhythmic odes of marriage, friendship, family. A fine debut novel that reaches deep into a poet’s beating heart, lays it open, vulnerable to the bitter betrayals, and the joyful loyalties, of this thing we call Love.” – Kathryn Magendie, author of the Graces Sagas, Sweetie and Petey, publishing editor of Rose & Thorn.

Jalal Vaziri has looks, money, women—and a habit of running from reality. When he abandons New York and reinvents himself as a poet in a California beach house, he thinks he’s running from a father who hates him, a career mistake, and endless partying. A fresh start is all he needs. After an intriguing woman enters his life, he believes all his dreams are coming true, but too soon, that dream dissolves into nightmare. Jalal flees again. Only this time, a woman blocks his retreat and challenges him to finally face the truth about what he’s trying to outrun.

The usual rules apply.  You can have up to five chances to win! Leave a comment below to enter your name once in the drawing. If your email address is not linked in your avatar, be sure to add it in your comment. If you Tweet, Facebook, or Google+ a link to this post, your name will be entered again for each mention.  LIKE my Facebook page (click the link in the sidebar) and your name will be entered yet again. (You’ll have to let me know you’re eligible for these other entries.)

The contest will close at 8pm PST on Sunday, April 22nd. The winner will be chosen by Random.org and announced in Monday’s blog post. Sorry, but because of prohibitive shipping costs, this contest is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only.

Let the contest begin!

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In the grand scheme of writing

I can be ridiculously petty, envious, and jealous. That’s something I wish I hadn’t learned about myself in the four years since I started writing for publication. And there’s no logic to these feelings.

Why envy the sales of an author who has fifteen published novels and a well-funded marketing team? And writes in a different genre—a hot one?

Why resent an author for being the darling of certain groups when I don’t even want to join those groups?

What sense does it make to be jealous of a writer who’s had umpteen stories published in literary magazines when I never submit any of mine?

And on and on and on. A waste of energy. A pathetic self-indulgence. A comparison of apples to oranges.

In all of life, a personal sense of success depends on your perspective. Pettiness, envy, jealousy, any negative emotion, keeps you lying in the dirt looking up. All writers publish because they want to share their work with others, and we all hope many others. There’s a larger market for some genres and types of writing than for others—apples and oranges.

One problem today is that authors, even traditionally published ones, are required to be more involved in the marketing side. It’s too easy to start comparing when so many authors are online shouting out sales figures and rankings, and giving advice—You too could be a publishing phenomenon, if you follow these six easy steps! Comparison leads to dissatisfaction. We see ourselves as less successful.

Too often, I let envy and jealousy steal any sense of success from me. My perspective skews. I wrote a book that already hundreds of people have read! How can I keep forgetting that? And I’m not finished writing. Who knows what I might accomplish a year or twenty from now? In the grand scheme of my writing career, I’m just beginning.

How’s the view from your perspective?

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Writing Without Shame

Last week, a book I requested arrived at my library. I can’t remember who suggested the book, but I’m glad I paid attention. The book, Finding Your Voice: How to Put Personality in Your Writing by Les Edgerton, has caused me to mentally shout YES! several times, and I’m only a third done reading it.

Because I haven’t read the whole book, I can’t say I’ll agree with all Edgerton has to say, but I want to share something that made me put the book down and start writing this post.

I used to rail against the writing rules a lot around here. As a newbie writer, I tried to obey most of them. With more experience, I learned to follow what worked for me and ignore what didn’t, but there was one rule I felt conflicted about every time I bucked it.

Ever since I decided to write seriously with the aim of publication, I’ve read one particular bit of writing advice consistently. Write fast. Get the story down. Don’t worry about it being a sh**ty first draft, you’ll fix it later.

That Fast First Draft advice has always horrified me. Truly. Horrified. It’s so at odds with my nature that I think I’d rather quit writing than write that way. So, I don’t write fast first drafts. That’s a Writing Rule I never obeyed, but the advice to do so is so prevalent, I questioned whether something was wrong with my brain.

Not so, says Edgerton. That advice doesn’t work for him either. He says:

All my instincts told me this was the wrong approach for my own prose. Rushing ahead, getting stuff down just felt wrong. What I wanted to do was find the perfect word for what I was trying to say before continuing. I had this uneasy feeling in my stomach that I’d forget to change it if I went on. Even if I marked it. I just wouldn’t be able to recapture what I was feeling or “seeing” then. I got a feeling I ignored, but one I should have paid attention to. I’ll bet you’ve experienced the same thing, at least occasionally. You know what you’re doing is “by the book”, but it just doesn’t feel right.

Trust those feelings! Your wonderful, smart, cool, learned mind is telling you something important. Pay attention to it.

EXACTLY! If I don’t get the sentence, the paragraph, the scene down at least 90% right the first time, it’s likely I’ll lose the “magic”. I know this because it happens nearly every time I leave myself a “fix this” note and push on.

The popularity of NaNoWriMo, in addition to most blogs and books for writers, tells me that Les Edgerton and I are in the minority on this, but that won’t nag me any longer. I’m relieved. There’s nothing wrong with my brain—at least, not in this instance. :-) I will hold my head up while I write in my slow and precise way. The only “wrong” way to write is the one that doesn’t work.

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The Stack

I’ll bet you have one. The size haunts you, and you yet you can’t resist growing it. At times, you may look at it with a logical eye and know you’ll never reach the bottom. You know what I’m talking about. I didn’t need to add a visual aid this time, right?

For those of you who’ve gone digital, you have an extension to that stack, hidden away, where you don’t have to think how high it would stand if it wasn’t virtual. You’ll never reach the bottom of that one either—even if you live to be 109—because it grows monthly. Weekly. Daily?

Yeah, we’re talking books. So many books and so little time. I’ve had a very small book buying budget for over a year, so my literal stack has remained static except for three books I won in giveaways. Then again, my to-be-read stack was already three feet high.

And on my Kindle? Classics and freebies galore. That doesn’t count the list I’ve been making of digital books to download from my local library system. Add to that my regular library book list. If you consider how slowly I’ve added to my total books read in the last four years, and you’ll have an idea how far my TBR stack towers above reasonable.

My lists are flexible. Some books have been on those lists for two years. They’re good books. I really want to read them someday, but bright and shiny new books lead me astray. I never force myself to read a book I’m not connecting with, but when I feel the disconnect is not the book’s fault, I shuffle that book lower in the stack. On another day it might be just the book I’m looking for.

How do you manage your TBR stack? Are you disciplined, setting a size limit, staying loyal to the order you added the books and reading the next one in the stack no matter what? Or do you add unlimited books, willy nilly, and choose which to read according to your mood? And do you feel guilty when you realize a book has been waiting its turn for ages?