Tag Archives: Editing

Mrs Woolf, the word birds & moments of fear

01 Sunday Nov 2020

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In the interests of honesty, the following quotation isn’t one I ‘randomly’ came upon during my morning dip into Mrs Woolf’s A Writer’s Diary. I deliberately searched for it. I know the book well enough to roughly recall where to look for what I need when it’s specific.

Two chapters away from finishing my fourth novel, Only May, I’m acutely aware of how I need to take it slowly and get it right. This is the shortest book I’ve written, the most compact in terms of scale. It takes place over the course of the month of May. Four weeks to tell a story doesn’t afford a lot of leeway to create a viable plot. It’s easy to obsess over the minutiae, at the expense of moving the story on. And because it’s a little lighter, wordwise, the temptation to rush is ever present.

“I shall solve it somehow, I suppose. Then I must go on to the question of quality. I think I may run too fast and free and so be rather thin.“

What with one lockdown and another, I’ve found it easy to stick to a writing schedule. In fact, I’ve been up with birds these past few weeks, eager to see what my feathered friends have left for me. They haven’t disappointed.

The best thing about writing a novel is the way, in spite of the fear, there comes a point when you allow yourself to believe it might be working. For a while, when I hit the halfway mark I’d convinced myself I was kidding myself. And it was a character who saved me – one who I had initially introduced simply as a convenient hook to hang my central character’s dawning realisation on: her conviction that things were not as they seemed. She has developed into a crucial reality and a woman of solid substance.

The fear by the way is real. I’ve scribbled about it before. How sneaky it is, how insidious. And yet how necessary. Once we begin believing, because we’ve had three books (pick a number) published, we might be a legend in our own lunchtime, we’ve lost our way.

Which bring me neatly to ‘the question of quality‘ Mrs W refers to. She means editing. She means structure and shape and how the thing sits on the page. Wordcount notwithstanding, once I have these final chapters down, I shall have to mess it up. (Technical publishing term – honestly.)

May is my new favourite (sorry Other Characters) largely because she has challenged me. For a while I wasn’t sure where we were going. She did. I’m so pleased I trusted her.

Instances of the abandoned blog & ghosts of words already written…

16 Sunday Aug 2020

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‘Hello Book 4 my old friend…’ are words I have uttered over the past month, on too many occasions to record. Each rekindling of the relationship with my newest story has been brief. The ups & downs of my personal hibernating life mean there have been too many days when my current story has languished. The result: too few reasons to write a blog post. I guess it’s a symptom of the current zeitgeist; like everyone else, writers are under pressure of one kind & another. Add unexpected drama into my particular mix & is it any wonder I’ve been tardy?

In précis: I’ve been hors de combat.


Unexpectedly & not without a little drama. The one is boring, the other – well, dear reader, who knew one small fall could result in so many bruises! Recovering well now, I finally find I need to chat, to myself if to no one else, about my newest foray into storytelling.

Had I been told, in 2016 when Ghostbird was published, that four & a half years later I’d be writing my fourth novel, I’d have imagined someone was kidding. And yet here I am, almost 40k into an odd little tale I’m growing extremely fond of. Considering I’ve been writing it since last year though, 40k is a meagre wordcount. Before lockdown, because I was sure of the story’s simplicity, I believed I would have a first draft done in a few months. Ha!

Another thing I’m learning about this writing lark is, when a story exists on a very small canvas, the intricacies become more crucial. Intimacy requires as much attention to detail as any sweeping saga. In addition, I’m being ‘told’ by my characters what they want to do (it was ever thus.) Plot tangents have flung themselves into the mix with gay abandon; new characters charm me & a far better version of the end lifts my heart. But even though I have all this – literally: a beginning, a middle & an end – I somehow find myself stuck on pause. I’m back & forth through what I have already written, faffing & rewriting, endlessly (unless I’m not – cos ‘drama’) playing with ‘perfection’ rather than moving the story on. I am continually haunted by the ghosts of words already written: ones sitting nicely on the page, thank you very much.

For goodness sake, woman, be brave! Write another, fresh, 40k!

Essentially, I’m elevating my ‘edit as I go’ inclination to new & ridiculous heights. Fear of failure is a factor for sure (sorry/not sorry: excessive alliteration.) Goes with the territory. Largely, I suspect it’s a case of ‘drama’ in a time of lockdown causing creatus interruptus. I may have to conjure a plan.

Just checked diary. It’s a new moon on Wednesday.

That’ll do it. Fingers crossed!

In which I am proofed by a pro

10 Sunday Nov 2019

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The other day, regaling a non-writing friend about my editing process, she commented that it seemed as if most of the work was done after the book was written. She has a point. And most writers would agree: if the road to a publishing deal is long, the one we have to negotiate in order to create a finished book can seem endless.

For me however, it’s never a chore. I embrace every aspect of the procedure & always have. It may be my inner researcher – I’m curious by nature – when writing a book I need to know how everything works. Not just the story as it unfolds through various incarnations & drafts; I’m fascinated by the editorial side too.

The final version of the copyedited manuscript of Wild Spinning Girls with notes from the proofreader arrived a week after my cataract operation. Generous editor offered to clear up the ‘bits’ for me but as I explained, my sight was pretty good & thank you, kindly, only I want to do it all myself.

In the end, there wasn’t that much to do, although any part of the process is always an exercise in careful observation. (Oh, look, another sneaky strikethrough no one spotted. *Polishes halo*) There were issues though – which is why we need proofreaders.

And thereby hangs my tale. With regard to copyeditors & proofreaders, most of us don’t know who we’re going to get. The published authors amongst you will have heard about them: copyeditors on a mission to willfully misunderstand your story, proofreaders who take every single semicolon you’ve ever conjured & turn them into commas. And don’t get me started on the fiends who were clearly born with a genetic resistance to the Oxford Comma.

I’m a lover of semicolons & yes, I overdo them. I also fail, repeatedly, to hyphenate that which requires hyphenating. I know I’m going to get a pasting, frankly, & wonder what the latest proofreader has up her sleeve.

I am here to tell you: Not All Proofreaders!

Did I get lucky or did I get lucky? Yes – semicolons have been thoroughly disarmed & replaced by nicely behaved commas. Quite right too – fair play. I have been allowed to hang on to the ones that matter & even been given a couple! Some nicely place colons too – who knew? It’s a joyous thing to have your words & authorial style respected. To have the corrections made with professionalism & an obvious eye to relevant detail. Even the single thing I disagreed about: a ‘voice’ quirk I insist on keeping – was critiqued with respect to ‘the author’s style.’

There are so many stages to creating a book: drafts & edits when you think, this is a load of rubbish, what the hell am I doing? Even when you accept you may be on to something, there’s a fine line between liking your story & loving it. And finally, there’s the last line to be crossed: the falling in love with it one. Now it’s done, thanks to the dedication of a fine editor, followed by the professionalism & respect of a proofreader I’ll probably never meet, I am finally in love with Wild Spinning Girls.

Four years ago I had only the vaguest idea what a copyedit was or why proofreaders were so essential. With only a few months to go until publication date – 20 February 2020 – I have no idea how this third book will be received or if I’ve pulled it off again. And that is also part of the process.

Fingers crossed, dear reader…

Learning curves

22 Sunday Sep 2019

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My initial idea for this post could be summed up in the cliché: If I’d known then what I know now. My list of pre-conceived notions about How Publishing Works is as long as the proverbial piece of string.

In the early, heady days of securing a book deal, I thought I knew a lot of things. How editing would be a matter of having my story checked over for grammatical errors & perhaps shifting the odd scene or one. Even when I understood the purpose of a copy editor, I still had some vague notion it also had to do with ‘checking things’ – in some random, nothing-to-do-with-me sort of way.

Lol, as they say…

Working on my first book was an enormous learning curve & soon disabused me of many notions. In spite of the terror, I began to enjoy the editing process. At heart, I’m a reviser & have never found it a chore to listen to my inner critic. And formal editing has taught me to respect & be in awe of the professional editorial side of creating a book.

Another preconceived notion of mine was, you get the cover you want & nobody will question the title of your book. I am here to tell you, this is only partly true. As someone published by an almost unique press that meets its authors more than halfway, I’ve been inordinately lucky with my titles & covers. There have been a few changes & tweaks but I love all of them. I know there are authors still weeping because they hated the covers imposed on them. I can’t imagine how that must feel & it took me a long time to learn that in Big Press World, it is industry practice. Small presses rock, in more ways than one!

For years I was a cover/title snob. All those books with ‘Girl’ in the title & all those girls, wandering off, away from the camera. I swore I would never, ever become part of that particular club. I was yet to grasp the fact that it’s what happens in the bookshops that counts. It’s shelf appeal, dear reader, pure & simple. (And there are copyright reasons why so many girls & women on covers have their faces concealed. Apparently it can cost more if the model’s face is visible.) Add the fact that readers prefer to make up their own minds about how characters look & it all falls into place.

Back in April last year, I wrote this:

Like it or loathe it, Girl in the title of a contemporary novel, however ubiquitous, appears to sell books. As a woman who writes largely about women (albeit about girls as well), I have long eschewed reaching for the Girl word. And yet I find myself unexpectedly in love with a title I conjured several months ago for this story.

(You can read the entire post here.)

‘This story’ is my third book, Wild Spinning Girls. I’ve broken both the rules it seems, & gone plural, but for all the right reasons. The details are in that previous blog post. Suffice it to say, telling the story of Ida & Heather; discovering the title within the finished narrative, convinced me Girl is good. Girls is even better.

Here then is my new book with its lush cover. With its pretty title.

Resting… or not, as the case may be…

23 Sunday Sep 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Dear reader, how nice!
It’s been a while, but there’s a clue in the subtitle: ‘process…’  For a while, as I waited, there was none – not so’s you notice. Waiting is waiting & must be braved. The joy is in the outcome: a measure of progress within the process, so to speak.

Having untangled the minutiae of the structural edit, I dived in again. That’s the beauty of smart, intelligent, instinctual editing – it makes you want to do better. And as it turns out, I’ve been aided & abetted by an injury to the plantar ligament in my foot. (If you know it, you know it… There aren’t enough versions of ‘ouch’… And no need to commiserate. Cake will be fine…) The only treatment is rest.

Rest & write then. My brain, a thing of furious, focused energy, unpicking my story & stitching it together again; my body inert & aching from inactivity. The ridiculous irony is, in this rearranged version of my story (starting in the right place this time), I’m writing about a ballet dancer who injures her foot…

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Go figure…

Into the stream…

02 Sunday Sep 2018

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I may not be blogging much for a while.

Structural edits are in. The End as I know it becomes redundant. One thing’s clear – I don’t always begin at the beginning either. Not the right beginning at any rate. Or end the way I’m meant to.

I’m off then, to wander – less aimlessly I can only hope. Re-assemble this story & say what I meant to, at the beginning, when I first had the idea.

Writers do a great deal of wandering off. What Virginia Woolf described as, ‘the line of thought [dipped] deep into the stream.’ The perfect metaphor for editing.

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See you, dear reader… I have to sharpen my pencils & grab my galoshes.

‘I hear stories…’

17 Sunday Jun 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

‘…It could be myself telling them to myself or it could be these murmurs that come out of the earth. The earth so old and haunted, so hungry and replete. It talks. Things past and things yet to be.’ *

The space in between finishing a book & beginning another is filled with confusion. The non-writer perhaps imagines euphoria laced with a self-satisfied grin of smug. I’ll concede a fleeting sense of relief. It’s done. You’ve done it (again, if you have) & jolly well done. Have all the chocolate & a vat of wine; abandon the pyjamas & see to the pile of ironing in your bedroom resembling an art installation.

The truth is closer to panic. Even after several (sev.er.al.) rounds of editing, a reasonably competent draft is only the beginning. The editing we do for ourselves is just that. Ours. It’s subjective & highly likely to be Not Good Enough. The manuscript must now line up in readiness to be perused by The Real Editor.

This space is called Waiting. Cue gibbering, a sense of doom & the utter conviction that you are pants. (The small, hopeful voice lurking in the corner, whispering ‘It’s really not that bad, you know’ is a fool & a trickster.)

There is only one remedy. Crack on & write another.

And hereby hangs my dilemma. My plan was to return to the now mythical manuscript known as The Next Book. It’s been the next book twice now. Working title RiverBook, I began it before Ghostbird was accepted & carried on writing it between Ghostbird & Snow Sisters. Abandoned it in fact to write Snow Sisters. And then again to write the one I’ve just finished. Now there’s a new story wearing down my pencils, insisting I write it. (I’m making notes in my head as I type this, for goodness sake.)

RiverBook feels like the past & yet I still love it. It has an older woman main protagonist & we need more of them. It references my (very sideways) take on the selkie myth. It’s a completed first draft. I have to make a decision, see which word birds whisper the loudest.

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Onward & sideways…

*Edna O’Brien
~ House of splendid Isolation

Letting go of the lovely…

10 Sunday Jun 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

It’s highly likely I’ve used the above heading before. (And I’ve definitely written about editing.) No matter – my blog my repetition. Apposite in any case. Editing involves digging out the repetition. And much more besides. I’m on the 84,670,943rd pass & the excess keeps on keeping on… Were it not for chocolate & wine I might well have gone quite mad.

My writing co-conspirator has her head down too. (For those of you who don’t know, Janey & I are are the sole members of the smallest writing group in Wales.) Since her hip op we’ve had to meet less often but we never stop comparing notes. (I think she’s on draft 62,897,504…)

I’m doing my best to stay serene. On the surface at least – drifting like a lily on a lake, looking as if I know exactly what I’m doing. Under the water, trust me, I’m kicking the mud.

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My bête noire is a tendency to ramble. To embellish my stories with far too much exposition & description. My mentor & first editor calls it ‘the lovely’ & has, from the beginning of our collaboration, bid me be rid. She may no longer be my editor, believe me dear reader, as I edit Book 3 it’s like she’s in the room… Which is a good thing.

An old Facebook post from a very famous writer – who I’m not going to name in the interests of playing nicely – recently emerged. In it, she declared she was no longer going to allow her manuscripts to be edited. Quote: “I felt that I could not bring to perfection what I saw unless I did it alone.”

Lovely…

The thing went viral & of course, everyone has an opinion. Mine echoes what seems to be the popular view: Stop talking, famous writer! Shush now & be grateful! Being well & professionally edited is a privilege which we scorn at our peril. (And a best-selling author would surely have access to top-notch editorial advice.) There is a legion of writers out there who never get the opportunity.

And so forth. I’m off to unmuddy the waters. Please send chocolate.

Odd earrings

03 Sunday Jun 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

One of my writing rituals involves earrings. I have a designated pair. They’re not in fact a pair at all. They’re odd. One is a beautiful moonstone, the other, two chunks of amber. Both are set in silver & both lost their mates at some point in the past, the way earrings are inclined. Not least the ones we like best.  I loved both pairs very much so decided I may as well wear the not lost ones together. They’ve become talismans & when I’m particularly challenged (editing) they give me confidence.

Who knows if they have any power? Writers love ritual & I’ve spent a goodly part of my life indulging it, one way or another.

Numbers have power! The number of the moon is nine!! Merry meet for a lunar lark!!!

moonm

And so forth.

You get the gist: I’m not keen on even numbers. There’s something about their uniformity that grates. Too precise. I prefer the risky, more magical nature of a nine or a seven. And I like what the ghost in my new story has to say about them:

‘She preferred odd ones, she said they were feminine.’

This morning I finished the third pass. After some serious slashing, it comes in at 89,977 words & sixty-three chapters. The title is three words long.

So far, so far. (So far…)

‘What kind of language is this?’ *

20 Sunday May 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

My ability to ignore distractions is pretty good. So long as I’m at home writing, as opposed to hanging in a cafe or suchlike, I can concentrate reasonably well on my current work in chaos. The world at large is far too interesting & full of shiny. Paradoxically, silence is a complete no-no too – there’s no such thing when you live in even a small town & distractions abound. When I’m writing I need familiarity: a touch of Radio 4 in the background, music that fits my mood; add the view from Withering Heights & I’m good to go.

Background is the operative word. I don’t need to be able to distinguish particular words. My own are what count. So long as I’m where I belong, the lyrics to songs turn into a sweet humming & I can crack on happily.

What interests me though is how, when I’m editing, some words do get through. It’s only certain songs that can do this. I don’t have a play list – my choices are pretty random. Or are they? An album I return to over & again while editing (& writing) is Kate Bush’s Aerial. In particular, the second CD: A Sky of Honey. I know the words to every song almost by heart. If I could only take one album to that desert island, this would be it. And this week, as I began the first important pass on Book 3, I returned to these songs once more. In the background you understand, but as present as the real, word birds still edging their way into my consciousness. (They have shiny too & secrets.) More often than not they know far better than I how this editing process needs to go.

v brookland

Oh, editing… What fresh hell & all that. What gibbers (thank you dear Juliet Greenwood for this perfect expression of the editing writer’s almost constant state of mind.)  What terror as you approach The Bit You Know Will Need A Vast Amount Of Work Because You Kidded Yourself You’d Nailed It When Clearly You Have Done No Such Thing. That said I enjoy editing. For me, in the first instance at any rate, it’s the smell of printed paper, sharpened pencils & a different outlook. Literally – I hard-copy edit in my sitting-room rather than my study, sofa bound & cushioned & very familiar.

Five days ago, having rescued Book 3 from the Dark Drawer after a month of marinating, I began. And when I get fed up with Jenni Murray chatting earnestly about vaginas, when the state of Bob Flowerpot’s compost & Pippa Greenwood’s sweet peas lose their allure, when the news stops being news & sounds more like coffee adverts, I reach for Kate.

And even though I have the volume turned down, some of the words do get through. I pause & listen: What kind of language is this? / I can’t hear a word you’re saying… And yet somewhere I can. In some part of my edit-addled brain, the right words exist. If I try really hard, make sure I have enough tea & chocolate to sustain me through the gibbering, I’ll hear them. My best words are in there somewhere.

Better get on then – see if I can find them.

*Kate Bush