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Making it up as I go along

Making it up as I go along

Monthly Archives: October 2016

Rewrite, recite…

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Editing, Reading Out Loud, Snow Sisters, Structural Edits, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #24

On my bathroom wall hangs one of those pretty plaques – the kind with an elegant font & soothing words. Mine was a gift from my writing sister, Janey (aka Hexica for those of you who know me/her on Facebook.) It urges me to Relax, Refresh, Renew.

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I have no problem with this – I love my bath & as I’ve mentioned before, have a great many writing light bulb moments whilst lollygagging in rose & geranium-scented water. While I worked on this recent, detailed draft of my second book, it occurred to me to add a post-it note to the plaque with the word Rewrite on it.

It took me seven weeks to complete this structural rewrite & I’ve spent the last few days line-editing it too. As well as checking everything in sight with my squinty eyes, when I do a line-edit I read the dialogue out loud. It’s the only way to make sure it’s authentic. Sometime during the process, I considered adding Recite to the mantra.

Living alone has many benefits – not being considered nuts by your nearest & dearest when you talk to yourself (and answer) is one of them. As I waffled away the cat showed up, hopefully translating, ‘It was under a dustsheet, in an old wooden trunk with a pile of moth-eaten clothes’ into ‘Knock yourself out, Misty, have a whole sachet of Dreamies.’ It didn’t work of course & Misty is the mistress of the affronted sashay. (I know – couldn’t resist.) Off she went & I returned to my waffling.

On Twitter yesterday I noticed another friend has been going through exactly the same procedure. Jenny finished her own out loud read through (& added it was time to celebrate with chocolate.)

Quite.

It’s a good trick, this reading out loud lark & one that can’t be over-emphasised. As is the one involving chocolate.

A draft is a half-formed thing

16 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Books, Drafts, Editing, Editor, Ghostbird, Honno, Ideas, Quotations, Reading, Snow Sisters, Writers, Writing, Writing Group

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #24

Earlier in the week my writing group sister & I were discussing a quotation she’d come across. Anyone who knows me knows my take on these things. The more ‘inspirational’ they are the less likely I am to be enamoured. This one is different. It’s less inspirational & more common sense. We were in agreement.

“Hard writing makes easy reading. Easy writing makes hard reading.”

Although the quote has been officially credited to William Knowlton Zinsser, an American writer, literary critic, editor & teacher, it’s also been attributed to Ernest Hemingway. It hardly matters. For the purposes of making my point, I’m happy to have Hemingway on my side too. Neither writer meant ‘easy’ as in ‘peasy’ – they meant that when a book is easy to read the words flow, the eye is mesmerised; the pages turn as if by remote control because the whole is the the result of dedicated hard work, often  written in metaphorical blood.

My first book, Ghostbird, was published in March this year. It took me years to write, rewrite & eventually submit. It got rejected; I rewrote it, resubmitted & so forth. It was hard, hard work & eventually it paid off. I got a publishing deal with Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press. I think I can safely say, even if it isn’t your cup of tea, my book is easy to read.

I’m currently editing my second. I began writing it approximately eighteen months ago. The first draft was completed in roughly ten months which seemed ridiculously fast until I recognised I must have learned a few tricks on the way. (And there’s nothing like being published to make you want to write another book!) After I’d written the second draft (& edited the hell out of it) I submitted it to my editor, the gracious & scarily perceptive Janet Thomas. Her input was, as it always is, positive with added ‘buts.’

‘Buts’ are what a great editor excels at. ‘Buts’ are what they say after, ‘I love this part…’ It’s when the light bulbs go on, the boxes get ticked & the writer realises she still has work to do. It doesn’t matter because the solutions to the ‘buts’ make her heart sing.

This is my third draft – a deeply focused edit involving a good deal of rewriting based on Janet’s wise advice. I have excavated the layers beneath, accessed my authentic story; I’m doing the best I can for my characters. I hope to have this version finished by the end of the month. It will still be scrutinised again & possibly taken apart.

And here’s my point. The initial idea for our stories often comes out of somewhere unexpected. They take us by surprise, fire us up & it’s incredibly exciting. (I had the idea, characters & most of the story outlined for this current book in two days!) It’s the filling that takes the time. Writing a book is hard graft. There is more to it than a great idea. And a padded outline isn’t a story, a single draft isn’t enough. Neither is a second proofread, friend-read one. Until it’s been picked apart by someone with no agenda other than to make the story the best it can possibly be it remains a half-formed thing.

Unless one is Margaret Atwood – or someone of that calibre – an easy, quickly written story is a draft. Unedited, it grates on the eye, has the reader reaching for her metaphorical black pen. If we love our characters, have faith in our story why would we opt for easy? In my view, easy is lazy. Nothing worth doing comes without effort; least of all writing a book. It takes time, dedication & resolve.

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The title of this piece references the debut novel by Eimear McBride – A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing. It’s an extraordinary book, innovative & challenging, written in a mind- bending style that’s demands every iota of your attention. Once you give it, fall into the flow & joy of the prose, you realise this is a book that can only have taken the writer on the hardest of paths.

Writing never stops being hard but I reckon it’s the closest thing to bliss I’ve experienced. I’ve just finished reading a book that made me cry (in a good way), shake my head at the perfection of it. It wasn’t written & published in a few months. It has excellence, faultless research & attention to detail on every page. As I read, the pages turned by themselves, the words conjured spells & this morning when I came to the end, I stroked the cover & seriously considered going back to the beginning.

The book? It’s by Louise Beech & called The Mountain in My Shoe. I’ll be reviewing it soon, if I can resist reading it again.

Unexpected book review in blogging area

09 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Book Review, Honno, The White Camellia

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #23

I rarely add book reviews here. I don’t have many followers & this is where I tend to rattle on about my own writing. If I can’t support a sister Honno author here however, where can I? Well, yes, on Amazon & I’ve done that – we all know who’s in charge of promotion & stats!

*Curtsies to Amazon*

Juliet Greenwood writes historical mystery stories with a twist. She lives in north Wales, has a penchant for Cornwall (as do I) old houses (me too) & a story with a secret (tick.) She is unswervingly kind to other authors. She also has great taste in frocks.

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The White Camellia, is published by Honno, the Welsh Women’s Press. It’s fabulous.

My review

This is Juliet Greenwood’s third novel and in my view, her best to date. Her writing has matured, settings are beautifully drawn; characters leap off the page insisting on being heard. And in The White Camellia, they have a great deal to say. The women in particular, although the author writes men well – the good, the bad and the ones you really couldn’t give tuppence for!

Anyone interested in the grass roots aspect of the women’s suffrage movement will be intrigued by this story. Set aside for a while the more famously chronicled activities of Mrs Pankhurst, her suffragettes and her campaign of direct action. Take a seat in The White Camellia tearoom; listen in to the less subversive conversations that nevertheless led to equally effective agitation. It was in tearooms such as this one where many women first experienced a level of independence, found their voice and began campaigning for the right to vote. This is an extremely well researched book about what it meant to be a woman at the turn of the century, fighting (literally sometimes) for the vote. A woman didn’t need to be aggressive or actively militant to be arrested or attacked by the police and the prison system. Simply photographing the abusive methods of the police could land you in jail and lead to force-feeding, a particularly vile form of torture that left many women’s health utterly ruined.

The story begins gently – the author creates a perfect sense of the time, with an undertow of excitement that gradually emerges. Set in London and in the author’s beloved Cornwall, we first meet Beatrice, in the capital, picking up the pieces of her family’s shattered fortune, while discovering her courage as a woman in a world where men’s voices rule. In Cornwall, Sybil moves into Tressillion, a house with a dark past. These two women – with more in common that they know – are gradually drawn together by an old secret.

j-gs-book

It’s an intimate book on a grand scale, full of real people you care for. It has all the elements of great historical mystery: adventure, suspense, secrets and drama. And the right amount of romance to lighten the mood. Above all, it’s a book about the bravery of women, our foresisters whose courageous struggle, sadly, some of us still take for granted. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

The place in between

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by Carol Lovekin in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

Birds, Book Fair, Editor, Island Life, Snow Sisters, Structural Edits, Writers, Writing

Island Life, Word Birds & Process #22

Waking early to a perfect Island Life scenario. Mist made of a million feathers, a sense of the Avalon barge, perhaps offering me a lift to the Isle of Apples. While my bath runs, I reread a handwritten letter from a friend & I’m reminded of what matters. Family, love, kindness.

Moments such as these stop me in my tracks. Gazing across the misty hill, I add writing to the list.

With another book fair behind me I confess myself – yet again – a reluctant self-promoter. I know it must be done & fair play, I do it quite well. It’s part of the process. I am indebted to Honno, my publisher; a bit of social media is the least I can do.

It was grand to be with other writers at the book fair, with readers who kindly bought my book.

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And yet, today I’m experiencing relief because the next one isn’t until December.

The place in between stretches, uncluttered, silent save for the sound of the birds. I have need of them. To my astonishment, I’ve made it through the first half of the first round of structural edits on Book 2. It’s the second half that will test me however. It involves big changes. Good changes (I hope.) I must dig deep & put into practice the wisdom of my editor.

September is my favourite month. A new moon is emerging. My pencils are sharp. I’ve organised Premium bird seed & meal worms…

Onward & sideways.

My novels

Wild Spinning Girls
Wild Spinning Girls
Snow Sisters
Snow Sisters
Ghostbird
Ghostbird
Only May
Only May
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