I'm putting up FOUR chapters today, because I have to keep moving with this ms. If I don't put more up, you won't get to see them all before I start submitting. It is such a tiresome job transferring it to the website so that the blog page can link up with it. It goes from Word to a totally different format, and everything changes on the screen. It's excruciatingly slow. But, I said I would do this, so I won't be quitting now. I worked out that I only get that strange neck pain when I'm editing, particularly when I'm correcting wrong quotation marks, that kind of thing. The actual writing gives me no pain at all!
I wonder if we will still be friends in our blogs, when our books are picked up by a publisher - not necessarily famous or rich, because we know that's rare with writers, but expecting to satisfactorily sell in our favorite bookshop. I'd hate to think we would just lose interest in our various support sites. It seems to me that we'll have even more to offer, once we've signed a contract to publish. What a story that will be! I thought we could design some sort of logo for our page - something like Obama's "We Did It!" kind of thing. I trust all of you are writing fervently and confidently (with or without neck pain) towards this goal.
I hope you'll let me know what you think now that the story is unfolding more.
Don't forget to send off your first chapter, suitably polished, to Firebrand Literary for the contest I mentioned last week. It started today. See their link in the sidebar.
See you on Wednesday.
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label editing. Show all posts
Monday, December 15, 2008
Friday, December 5, 2008
Chapter Three Today
I've had a very interesting morning. I woke up at 5 am and couldn't get back to sleep, so I just got stuck into my usual internet ritual.
I've found a useful site for all of you who would like more feedback on their work, called Authonomy. It's not much use to you if you haven't completed at least 10,000 words, because that's their minimum, but you then simply download the material, one chapter at a time (save them to separate doc files).
The manuscript could be reviewed by HarperCollins, as it's their site, and there are so many writers to critique your work, and everyone seems really friendly. Do check it out. I've just put the first three chapters of Hafan Deg there, so will let you know what kind of feedback I get.
I cannot believe the errors that keep popping up in my MS. I have been using a lot of expletives lately at my apparent blindness. How is it that I have proofread this book so many times, yet still they present themselves? I was an editor for years on a rather stuffy business directory, lots of names and figures, and I don't recall it being as tricky as this has been. I think, when we're working on our own words, the flow of them is already embedded in our brains, and we simply think we've transferred them that way to the page. With the business publication, it was so fact-oriented, it had nothing to do with that creative flow.
Somewhere or other, I have a nice poem on this subject, if I ever find it for you.
Do read Chapter Three. The story is now truly unfolding.
I've found a useful site for all of you who would like more feedback on their work, called Authonomy. It's not much use to you if you haven't completed at least 10,000 words, because that's their minimum, but you then simply download the material, one chapter at a time (save them to separate doc files).
The manuscript could be reviewed by HarperCollins, as it's their site, and there are so many writers to critique your work, and everyone seems really friendly. Do check it out. I've just put the first three chapters of Hafan Deg there, so will let you know what kind of feedback I get.
I cannot believe the errors that keep popping up in my MS. I have been using a lot of expletives lately at my apparent blindness. How is it that I have proofread this book so many times, yet still they present themselves? I was an editor for years on a rather stuffy business directory, lots of names and figures, and I don't recall it being as tricky as this has been. I think, when we're working on our own words, the flow of them is already embedded in our brains, and we simply think we've transferred them that way to the page. With the business publication, it was so fact-oriented, it had nothing to do with that creative flow.
Somewhere or other, I have a nice poem on this subject, if I ever find it for you.
Do read Chapter Three. The story is now truly unfolding.
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