Reading & Talking About Writing

Saturday was a great day for writing even though I actually wrote very little. I got to spend the entire day with writers at the Ozarks Romance Author's meeting who were talking about writing. Then later in the evening, I got to party with Sleuth's Inc. writers to celebrate our combined successes for JANO.

JANO was the local version of NANO (basically write a novel of 50,000 words in a month). There were several "winners". Winners were those who achieved the 50,000 word goal. One winner was a twelve year old boy. I think that is awesome. I hope Grace gets interested in participating at some point.

The meetings are very inspiring, and give me just enough of a push to keep me motivated. I haven't done any work on my novel this past few weeks since finishing it on MLK day. I have been letting it percolate. Today is the day. I am finally sitting down to start working on the editing. It's a pretty daunting job, but not as daunting as starting from scatch. At least I HAVE something to edit. You can't ever publish a blank page.

I've had my sights set on Harlequin Nocturne and still do but ORA has a conference in Springfield this June. Two agents will be there. They both buy paranormal romance and represent some very reputable authors in the genre. One agency even represents several Harlequin authors. That means, I have until June to get my shit together, polished and smelling like a rose.

I can do this.

Let the editing commence.

Editorial Errors

Okay, first off I want to apologize. I've been happily blogging along for some time now. Regardless of  how many times I read, reread, proofread my posts, the second I read it AFTER it's posted, I start finding errors.

It's embarrassing. I know how to spell. If I didn't this wonderful little program into which I create these works of literary art would bedazzle said words with a little squiggly line under my sketchy bits so I can be alerted and reconsider whether or not I really wanted to thhype that word. Or TYPE that word. See, I just totally ignored that squiggly and look what happened. A typo.

Word 2010 also alerts me to grammatical errors. Sometimes though, those errors are not really errors. I meant to do that. For effect. Other times, Word and this blog editor just totally bail on me and leave me hanging. As a result, you get a poor usage of the word THERE when I should have said THEIR. Seriously people, I know the difference. I utilized buckets of red ink during my three long dog years of teaching English to high school kids and correcting that very error.

My problem is not ignorance of grammar and spelling or even typing. My problem is my complete disregard for detail and a totally blind eye to my glaring imperfections. Maybe it's God's way of keeping me going. Maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe the type on this tiny netbook screen is growing smaller and smaller by the second and is almost down to 5 point type now and my 43 year old eyes are giving up. See there, that was totally a run on sentence, but it had a good effect yes? You got the point. Too many details to take in and no desire to correct that mistake.

You should see the other guy. You should see what I DO correct. I read these posts in the editor pane before I post them. Then I send it to preview mode and read it again. I find lots of errors and correct them that way. Finally, I schedule it to post. It posts a day or two later and then I get the email in my inbox saying Life In The Big Cedars has a new post! Yippee! Way to go! Yay me!

Then I read it and find all these embarrassing errors and have no way to correct them on my 3 1/2 inch iPhone screen while I'm driving down the highway in BFE. So I have to wait until I have free WiFi somewhere, crank up the blog and fix them. But the damage is done. You've already read it! You already think, "Damn, why am I reading this hack? She doesn't even know the difference in there and their.'" Rest assured I do know the difference.

I just really, really need a living breathing editor.

I apologize to any of you that I have corrected or judged in the past.

Editors feel free to apply. 

The rest of you feel free to offer corrections in the comments section below. We can make it a game. Think of it as our own little personal version of Where's Waldo.

Novel Success!

Five months of writing to the date.

86,456 words.

335 pages.

Having a finished novel sitting on my desk ...

PRICELESS

I finished my paranormal romance novel Reap 'Em & Weep tonight. You'll read this tomorrow sometime. It feels like a real accomplishment. I sort of like just carrying it around.

I have no idea if it will ever see the light of day but I always wondered if I could do it. Stick it out until the end. See it through. Turns out I can. That feels pretty damn good.

The only thing better than having a project is having a completed project.

My plan now is to let it sit and percolate for a couple of weeks per Stephen King's advice in his book On Writing. The idea is that when you go back to it and read it to do so in one or two sittings so you don't lose focus on it. Also, after letting it sit for a while and going on to new things, it will be like reading someone else's writing. You'll have more perspective on it.

I think that idea is swell.

Bryon is begging me to read it. Now that it's done, I'm chicken to share it. It's not ready. I know there are some plot inconsistencies I need to iron out. Other things I need to flesh out. Still more I need to take out. I think it will be like a scab that you can't stop picking. At some point, I'm going to have to share it. And I will, I promise. I can't keep a secret, let alone something this big.

Just not now. Just not yet. I need to pick at it a bit more first.

Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to do it. Thanks to Bryon and Grace who endured Ramen noodles and Beanie Weanies more nights than were probably healthy.

Tomorrow I plan to start another one. A rolling stone gathers no moss. This isn't a sequel yet, although I have at least two more in mind for a Reap 'Em series. God knows how I like a series.

I'll let you know a little about the next one when I get rolling, for now I can tell you it's going to be based on the Worst Case Scenario books. Did you know they have a paranormal one? They do my friend, they really do.

The Write Stuff

This is my novel manuscript so far. Today at lunch I sat down to start to rewrite it from the third person perspective. I didn't even make it through the first two pages and decided that was just nuts. I like it like it is. I like my character's first person voice. I'm not rewriting it.

Tonight I started editing it instead. Like riding a bicycle, marking with a red pen came right back to my inner English teacher self. It's been a month since I really worked on it so now it's like reading someone ELSE's writing, which is pretty cool.

That was one of Stephen King's suggestions in On Writing. Let it sit, then read through as much as you can of your work in one sitting and with that distance from it, it will be like reading someone else's work. He is totally right. Well of course he is, he's Stephen King, duh.

It's easier to be critical of someone else's work and let the red ink flow. Sort of like grading one giant paper. But a lot more fun. With no pesky teenagers to interfere.

At the last ORA (Ozarks Romance Authors) meeting a published author showed us her editor's change requests letters for two of her novels. One had only about twenty changes. The other had over a hundred and twenty. I decided to try that with my own novel so I'm making notes with page numbers and notations in a spiral notebook as I go so I can go back and fix/add in the big stuff when I get through the whole manuscript.

Then when I have it as good as I can get it, I'll let a couple of people read it. Probably my two paranormal romance loving friends Dawn and Carla. After that, if I have the 75,000 words I need, I'll pitch it to Harlequin. I know, I know Harlequin sounds cheesy but if you haven't read a Harlequin romance lately, you don't know what you are missing.

Mine won't have a secret baby, or a Sheik so no worries there.

They have a line called Nocturne specifically for paranormal romance and they have some very noteworthy and respected authors. Seriously, you should check it out. It's not your mother's serial romance anymore.

I still think I can make it into a series if I can get away with doing the next book from one of the OTHER character's perspective, first person or third, I still haven't decided. That may be a big writing no no but I've made this bed and now I'm going to lie in it.

Speaking of bed ... time for some zzzzzzzzzzzzs.