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Editing Process Part 2: Dealing With Feedback

editingThe following is part two of a guest post from my editor, Brenda Erricheillo. Part one is available to read here.

Once you know what kind of editing you’d like, you’ve selected a service, and submitted your manuscript, it’s time to wait for your feedback. Some editors will contact you during the editing process, and some won’t. It takes me a while to digest and think about things, so I will often wait to contact the author until I’m done reading the book. Other editors will fire off questions right away. Either way, you can expect the editor to return a copy of your manuscript with comments and changes. I do all of my changes in Microsoft Word’s track changes feature, so the writer can see my suggestions and approve or reject them, and my comments are peppered throughout the text in little bubbles, although I may highlight some book-wide concerns in an email or a critique.

The form and function of your feedback will vary depending on what you’ve asked your editor to look for, but there will be a few things you can expect from the feedback process:

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Editing Process Part 1: Choosing an Editor

editing processThe following is part one of a guest post from my editor, Brenda Erricheillo

From the outside, the editing process can be quite intimidating. When you send your book out into the world, it’s hard to tell how your friends will react to it, let alone a professional editor. Plus, you’re sending out your manuscript. You’ve been working on this thing for months, maybe years, and now you have to send it to a stranger? So they can change it? It’s no wonder the revision process is met with such dismay. It’s not easy to let someone else plunge their hands into your creative work.

Ryan did that very thing, however, when he contacted me to edit his recent release, What We Saw. While we were working together, we thought it might be a good idea to give everyone else some insight into what goes on behind the scenes during the editing process. After working with me for several months, I think Ryan would agree with me when I say that the editing process is a lot less intimidating from the inside.

So, what can you expect when you sign up to work with an editor?

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Writing in 2013: A Sneak-Peek of What’s Next…

writing in 2013I’ll level with you: I’m a little clueless as to what to write here. I’d planned an end of year post for quite some time, but I pretty much covered things in a series of posts, from the lessons I’ve learned to my favourite music releases. To cut a long story short, 2012 has been a good year. A very good year.

So, I’ve talked about 2012 a lot before. Enough about 2012! What are you writing in 2013? I hear you cry. Yes, it’s been a great year, and sure, it’s been twelve months of immense progress, where I launched not only two short stories (Something in the Cellar and Silhouette), but completed and launched my debut mystery novel, What We Saw, earlier this month. That’s all good. But what next? What about writing in 2013?

Well, a few things.

I don’t like talking much about work in progress whilst working on the first draft. I find it sucks the creative energy out of the process somewhat. I know people are split on this, but I find it works better for me if I can get the entire first draft out of my system and onto the page the way envisage it before seeking helpful and necessary feedback.

Which is why I’m delighted to say that I can talk a little about my upcoming second novel, because I’ve completed the first draft.

That’s right! Hot on the heels of What We Saw’s launch, I’ve got another bloody book written.

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2012 in Review: Best Albums of 2012

albums of 2012True fact — I wrote an albums of 2012 post last week but stupidly lost it. Thanks, WordPress autosave. Thanks a bunch.

Anyway… those who have followed my writing journey from its origins will be aware that in a previous life, I was a music blogger. I wrote for a few websites as well as a portfolio of my own, and I loved doing what I did. However, as the creative writing and blogging became more serious, I found it difficult to juggle responsibilities, so was forced to cut my music blogging short, at least for the time being.

The passion for music has certainly not died though. How could it? 2012 has been a sensational year for music. I usually struggle with these best albums lists, but the battle for the top spot this year has been something else entirely. The fury-infused experimental hip-hop of Death Grips; the two-hour soundscape-drenched synth-pop of Chromatics; the Lennon-esque riffs of Tame Impala… 2012 has been a headache, but the best sort of headache.

I’m well aware that this is a book blog, but as music is such a big part of my life, I find it hard to ignore. Also, I love lists. Bloody love them.

So, without no further ado, my list of the twenty best albums of 2012, in reverse order. No skipping to number one.

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Five Writing Lessons I Learned in 2012

writing lessonsAs I noted the other day, 2012 has been a pretty big year for me. I’ve not only finished a book, but had it edited, had a nice cover designed, published it myself, and sold copies. That’s, like, a few dreams in one.

But 2012 has not been a year without writing lessons. And I’m not talking school lessons — although I do study at university and enjoy my degree, as it were. I’m talking about Writing Lessons with a capital ‘W’ and ‘L’. Those big life-changing flashes of light. Y’know, the ‘and the moral of the story is…’ type of lesson. Lessons that aren’t necessarily taught (as helpful and beneficial to my writing as those writing lessons are) but learned through experience. Yeah, 2012 has been pretty jam-packed with such experiences. A week, or day, rarely goes by without learning some new trick or finding a new method that I enjoy. That’s the beauty of the game — we’re always learning, always adapting. So, without further ado, five writing lessons I learned in 2012…

1. I CAN finish writing a book.

Writing a book has been a lifelong dream of mine, but before this year, it always seemed somewhat out of reach. It was one of those things that I always intended to do, but ‘next year’ or ‘when I’ve finished doing… WHATEVER.’ So, to complete the first draft of What We Saw back in June after starting a couple of years earlier was a great feeling.

Sure, I had some motivational and confidence stumbles along the way, which is probably why it took so long, but now I know I can write a book. That knowledge… I can’t even begin to describe how amazing a feeling it is. Imagine all the confidence in the world rolled up into a big, electric ball and injected inside you to work its way through your innards, and you’ve pretty much got it. Just nowhere near as, um, painful as that sounds.

I had false starts. I had ideas that I thought I wanted to explore, but ditched a few pages in. And I had crises of faith surrounding What We Saw itself. But I shut my inner critic up and wrote through it. I finished a book. Life ambition reached at twenty. Everything from here is a bonus. Of course, the first draft wasn’t perfect, but that leads to the second of the writing lessons I learned in 2012…

2. It’s okay for the first draft to be a bit shit.

Back before writing What We Saw, I kind of thought there was only one way to write — tear my hair out over every minor detail, word-by-word. Finish a page. Read it. Correct the errors. Change my mind about things. Rewrite it. Burn it. Stab it. Rinse, repeat.

But then I started reading a few writing guides and blogs, as well as my Creative Writing classes, and a lot of the advice seemed to lean towards just getting those words down on the page. It’s difficult at first — ignoring the red squiggles underneath words can be torturous — but it definitely accelerates the process and keeps the ideas flowing.

From now on, I try to write my first drafts without much thought on word choice and the like. I have a rough plot-arc outline of where my story is headed so that it doesn’t go off on some crazy tangent, but everything else kind of just writes itself and is a great journey for me too. If the writer can surprise themselves, then imagine how the reader will feel…

So, yes. It’s okay if the first draft messes up names, uses the word ‘bonkers’ around five times per page, and kills then reincarnates a character. All that can be sorted out in the rewrite. Just get those bloody words down and get the story out of your system.

3. I’m not as good a writer as I thought I was.

This isn’t intended to come across as cocky, but I’ve always been rather proud of how I write. Writing is something I’ve always excelled at and always been told I’m good at, so naturally, I kind of started to believe that idea.

But critical feedback and advice, both from fellow colleagues and lecturers at university, has been greatly enriching. Furthermore, structural advice from my editor has highlighted a few common issues with my writing and how to solve them. Things that seem small on the surface, but definitely look more obvious to a passing reader than to myself.

So, while I’ve always been wary of adverbial crush and the like, I’ve learned about comma overuse, about the stricter-than-I-thought rules of past/present tense. These skills are for life, and although I technically learned this lesson in 2012, it’ll be something that I continue learning for the rest of my writing career. Like I say, that’s the beauty of it.

4. Self-publishing is accessible and legitimate!

I’ve told this story a gazillion times already, but when I finished the first draft of What We Saw, I had no intentions of self-publishing it. I still thought self-publishing was, like, a place where the rejected or lacking in quality reside, and although this is true in many cases, I discovered a whole host of writers who were self-publishing and making a respectable living off it. Some writers were even leaving publishers to independently release their novels.

I found out about CreateSpace and about KDP, and all the wonderful opportunities for professional editing and cover design. I probably spent too much time inside the house researching last summer, but it really paid off. The moment I decided to independently publish What We Saw was the moment everything really became clear to me. It was the moment I realised that, shiiiit, this could ACTUALLY happen. No, more like, ‘this is GOING to happen.’

I didn’t submit What We Saw to any publishers but not because I lack faith in the thing, more that I feel self-publishing is the best route for new authors at this moment in time. While a hybrid model of self-publishing and traditional publishing is something I’d be interested in trying in the future (hey, publisher! Look at me! I’m selling pretty well!), I’m happy releasing my work on my own and making a bit of cash from it until that point.

5. I am an author, not a brand

I hear a lot of talk about author branding. In a sense, it’s a good idea — creating this concrete version of yourself for people to trust in, using your social media account to share content based on your brand image, etc etc.

I did this initially but I soon became jaded with it. I used to love Twitter and expressing myself, but now I was basically a ‘useful content four times per day sharer’. Perhaps this gained me more followers and fans, I dunno, but I think it’s important to remember that yes, you are kind of a brand, but you’re an author too.

I like my personality to shine through on Twitter. It’s a pretty cool tool, isn’t it? Offering snapshots of life, balancing that with useful content. So, I think one of the biggest things I learned about social media is to only use it if you enjoy it, truly. Sure — useful link sharing can be good to grab a few followers, but everyone shares so many links these days that it’s practically impossible to sift through them all. Although these links are not technically ‘spam’ (as in sales links, ‘like my page’, etc) I am finding myself switching off to them.

Be social. Be engaging. Be an author. You’ll get fans that way, not just followers.

There we go, my top writing lessons learned in 2012. Really, this list of five barely even scratches the surface of the stuff I’ve learned over the last twelve months. I’ve got a few things to work on in 2013 though. Learn to spell necessary without the help of spellcheck. Learn to discipline and motivate myself better.

Oh, and learn never to trust WordPress’ ‘autosave’ feature in future. I may just have lost a 1,600 word blog post on Wednesday.

What writing lessons have you learned in 2012? Or any lessons for that matter? Has 2012 been a significant year in your career?

What We Saw, Ryan Casey’s debut novel, is now available in paperback and eBook formats. Click here for Amazon.com and here for Amazon UK.

Image courtesy of Vandy CFT via Flickr.

2012 in Review: Top Writing Influencers of 2012

writing influencersI’m a regular reader over at Wise, Ink, and I recently stumbled upon a piece where they suggest ten year-end author blog post ideas. What better than to run with all ten and give them a shot in some sort of Christmas/end-of-year special?

2012 has been the year where things changed for me. Back in June, I had an 85,000 word first draft of What We Saw complete, but I really didn’t know what to do with it. A friend and colleague of mine, Stuart Meczes, had recently independently published his debut novel, The Awakening, to fanfare and acclaim, so I began to do a little digging and research.

By July, I knew that independent publishing, at least in the early stage of my career, was the best way to get my work out there.

Now it’s December, What We Saw is on shelves. It’s receiving good reviews. People are buying it. It’s early days, but if you’d told me I’d be a published author at the end of 2012, I’d have struggled to believe you back in June. These are five people/resources who have made it all possible. Drum roll… my top writing influencers of 2012.

Note: a lot of people have influenced me in 2012. This post is not intended to identify the sole five writing influencers. Instead, read it as a post of those who have dramatically changed my mind/made me see new opportunities, etc. Don’t be offended if you aren’t on the list, basically. I’m grateful for the support of everyone. In no particular order…

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