Shank's Pony

gday gentle reader

(My last post, "Oh! the pain" was published? or re-published? Friday, I don't know which. When I began this one I found it sitting in the blogosphere in draft. This one has suffered a similar fate. It was drafted late Friday on a long weekend (in South Australia) hence it is only getting edited and published today 3 days later - life gets in the way of my writings - frequently)

I don't care what colour it is, forget the horse I'll walk.  The two most important lessons I learned/learnt (choose your own) from the Voyager submission were

Firstly - the editing method that suits me best is the same as I used to write the damn thing - I need to set a solid achievable deadline and daily/weekly milestones by which I can measure my progress. It's a common business ploy that works for me.

However with this book [book 1 "Break"] the Voyager deadline was too tight. I  was fooling myself that it was ready to publish and all it needed was a tidy up. I was wrong (I often am). During the edit I uncovered highlighted notes throughout the book suggesting  "needs more"  "rework this"  "new scene here" Notes I had forgotten even existed.  

The fact that I did get it done and send it off, is testament to my wife's forbearance. As said in my last post "midnight oil was burnt - rest of life put on hold." 

Secondly - by reading the novel thoroughly (looking for places to tighten it) in a compressed time frame with nothing allowed to distract I got a much better sense of the story as a whole; probably for the first time since writing it.

So two weeks  ago I set a new deadline to finish editing the trilogy on 31st July this year 2013 and divied up the remaining work ( stopped - while I fretted and waited for the voyager result). 

Yesterday I caught up the backlog and went into the black for the first time. Today I stayed there. I'm not fussed by the number per se, I edit to the nearest POV change that keeps it black. 

By  coincidence I am almost half way (49%) through editing book 2 and the whole trilogy at the same time. What continues to alarm me however is the size of each keeps growing. I thought editing meant cutting. (simultaneously I occasionally edit the scenes of book 3 that I want to parse through my writers group - hence a mild increase there)  

The only figure in the seemingly complex tracking sheet I alter at the end of each writing day is   new total   the rest is automatic. The  edited total  for bk2 only gets adjusted when I think about it. On a daily basis it's up and down like a yo-yo.

One day when this trilogy is properly published I will look back and marvel at the Machiavellian machinations I had to use, to convince myself, to get on with it and get it done.

ooroo until my next post
rob

"Oh, the Pain,"

as Dr Smith Lost in Space said frequently. 


gday gentle reader, 

   back in October last year I posted that I had

"205,000 word to edit in 10 days, leaving a couple for the synopsis and query letter. 20,500 a day - midnight oil was burnt - rest of life put on hold. It got done, it got sent. It is not as good as I would have sent if I had continued as I was."

That was Book 1 out there at last, and while I waited I thought to edit Books 2 & 3, just in case. As November and December evaporated I slowed down. Then Xmas got in the way. The editing slowed further as the deadline for a result approached. I watched the site daily for an update and frequently checked my emails.

Such is the nature of Hope 

Last night, while I was sleeping (perchance dreaming of publication) I received their boringly standard polite rejection.

Despite that writers have (or should have) an expectation of rejection, when it comes it is not without a degree of pain, the mild pain of disappointed hopes, as Zachary's expression "Oh, the pain." exemplifies.

Don't get me wrong I really appreciated the fantastic opportunity to submit my manuscript direct to a potential publisher. the result though not as I might wish, is nonetheless enlightening. Their "thorough and fair consideration" means the work needs work. 

I knew that. Its good but it aint yet polished to high gloss.

I posted my result to facebook (as one does these days).

"Yippee I just received my first rejection for 'Break' - 19 to go ...
 

 Now I can get back to editing it properly. (i.e. the trilogy as single unified story.)  write better, edit harder, submit elsewhere. "

One, long-time writing colleague responded and I replied - Here is our exchange of approaches to publishing. 

I'm cynical enough to agree with Jo but I want to try the traditional avenue's first - I'll see how I feel after a few more rejections.








ooroo until my next post  
RoB

A horse of different colour

gday gentle reader 

Taking a quote from my novel, and extending the wriding metaphor of my last post, "First rule of mounted troops, care for your animal or walk."  The animal I had been riding was the trilogy but I got back on a horse of different colour, a new short story, and paid scant attention to the one that had carried me so many miles. At the time the theory seemed sound - to quote from last post - 

It worked until I finished the short story, which then had to edited - oops. I now had two animals needing attention and I was walking, it all became too hard, I fell off - again. 

  And that's about as far as this silly metaphor will stretch without surpassing it elastic limit.

Then Harper Voyager opened their transom for unsolicited manuscripts for 14 days a magnificent opportunity too good to miss.      

 
205,000 word to edit in 10 days, leaving a couple for the synopsis and query letter.  20,500 a day - midnight oil was burnt - rest of life put on hold.

 It got done, it got sent. 

It is not as good as I would have sent if I had continued as I was. I now think however that with out the impetus of Harper/Voyager's deadline it might never have got finished. 

There was so much more I wanted to do. For example the story takes place over a year. I have a chart with every POV characters birthday marked. Another has the daily temperature and rainfall for every day of the year. telling details which never got used. 

Then (of course) as soon as it was sent I found an error on the first page - consecutive snatches of dialogue from the same character and the response from the other character in the scene  (supposed to be between those snatches) was missing. 

   

I now have a new editing philosophy, which works the same for me as the "write book three in a year" did to get the trilogy finished, 
to wit: For book two I've given myself until the end of the year to edit it (overly generous I now think) The total words divided by number of days give me a daily target to edit. Since today's target was reached yesterday I had time to blog about it today  

ooroo until my next post 

Rob