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Tag Archives: editing
Nov
10
Bacon Bowls and Updates
Yes, that is a bowl made out of bacon. I can think of few things more perfect than a bowl made of bacon, particularly this morning. First, I want to give a massive shout out to Simon Larter for getting a short story published in this Friday’s upcoming edition of Short Story America. Congrats, my friend. Second – had an awesome lunch yesterday with Sara McClung, a local writer that I’ve been meaning to get together and hang with for ages. She is awesome and I just want to thank her for the company and awesome conversation over dumplings at PF Chang’s. (And can’t wait to do the David Garrett Meet & Greet with her in Feb!) Third, I’m unfortunately going to have to announce that Danielle Poiesz is no longer my awesomesauce editor. (She’s still full of awesomesauce, actually…just not in the world of editing.) I won’t say I’m…
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Nov
9
Cliffhanging
So I had a mild epiphany this weekend. Book 2 requires a cliffhanger. Not that that was something I actually planned on. I can even dig up my outline that I turned into my editor a few months ago. There’s an actual ending there. It’s sort of neatly wrapped up, even.One of the glories of being a panster, I guess – tangents can wind you around and take you some where entirely different. But the last week or so, (after discussing it with several other writer friends), I’ve come to realize that part of what’s been making me drag my feet a bit is that it’s just too much. Too much story to wrap up in 10k – not neatly, anyway. And I feel like I would be doing the story a disservice to rush it – plus I’ve got enough potential material to take me 1/3 of the way…
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Sep
20
Comparisons
The problem with writing the draft of a sequel when you’re also going over the first pass pages of the first book, is that the draft starts looking crappier as you go. Or at least, that’s what I’m finding, anyway. And yes, the rational part of my brain continues to insist that the original draft for BoD wasn’t that great either, but memories have a way of being a bit hazy, especially when the brain is confronted by the finished product. And it’s probably not fair to compare the polished and edited piece of something that’s close to going to print with the sometimes rambly and random sentences that are attempting to make up a solid second story – one that seems to be changing as I go. But, deadlines are deadlines. I’ve managed to write about 40k in the last few weeks, and I’ve got about 30k left to…
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Sep
5
First Pass Pages!
I have to admit there’s something very, very cool about actually seeing a book really start to come together. My FPPs came in on Saturday – and essentially it’s the book, set with the fancy type-set that will be used when it goes to print. And hey, look! I have a *faery* for each of my chapter headings!!! 🙂 (The pages aren’t bound, but you can see the edges where they would be cut for the real thing.) I get a few weeks now to do another proof-read and make sure the changes I wanted got added (or removed) and that there aren’t any glaring typos or mistakes. And awesomely enough the due date pretty much coincides with the weekend I’m heading up to New York anyway (and having lunch with Danielle and Suzie, yay!), so I’ll be able to save on postage and just hand it to Danielle directly.…
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Jul
22
Wielding the Green Pencil of Death
My copyedits came in yesterday. Along with a house style guide, a legend of obscure short-hand symbols, and a magical green pencil, all provided by my awesome editor, Danielle. It’s a tad intimidating, I’ll admit. In between my gilded words are copious amounts of colored notes – Danielle’s line edits in grey, the copy-editor’s in red, Danielle’s rebuttal to some of those red marks…in green. It’s almost like Christmas came and barfed all over my book. I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course. It can be hard to see your words and sentences shredded – but honestly, the editors aren’t changing my writing voice, so much as refining it and making it stronger. In the writing world, less really is more – and prose often needs snipping to keep it crisp and fresh. So now I’ve got two weeks to go through all these little changes and…
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