Tag Archives: Editing

‘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.

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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

Writing in the margins – somewhere in between

06 Sunday May 2018

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

In spite of a lush sun trying to burn it off, the mist sticks. The swallows are back, Mistress Crow is in her tree & all’s right with the world. My bit of it at any rate. And for that I’m grateful.

With Book 3 still resting in the Dark Drawer, I’ve been busy Harassing the Hovel & restoring ten months of disorder. Apart from general cleaning, I’ve been decluttering, frightening the filth into submission & chalk-painting furniture. Larks galore! And not much writing done, frankly. I’m between [drafts], so to speak.

I don’t believe writers ever stop writing mind, even when they aren’t physically wielding a pencil, they’re at it in some form or other – ‘not writing’ their little socks off. ‘Not writing’ takes many forms, from actually not doing it to scribbling in your head. This is what I’m currently doing. With a Big Fat Edit looming, I’m already harking back (& forth) to scenes I know I’m going to play with (aka: mutilate.) The word birds are in whisper mode – they know how this works far better than I do. As I paint & clean & tidy, they slip notes into the mental chaos in the margins of my mind.

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I slipped in a few of my own too, last Sunday. As part of the Llandeilo Lit Fest I attended a poetry workshop run by the poet Kathy Miles. My admiration for Kathy’s work is huge. And the title of the workshop – The Changeling Poet: Writing Out the Narrative Voice – intrigued me enough to sign up. As did the description: A workshop which explores the persona poem, and how we can write ‘out of ourselves’. We will look at different ways in which the poet can write as animal, object, ghost or mythical figure, some of the techniques used to transform the narrative voice, and use these techniques to produce a piece of writing.

The persona poem form wasn’t unknown to me – it was absolutely not a motif I’d ever explored. (My forays into poetry pursued the patriarchy & shouted, ‘Watch out, the feminist is cross! Again!’) I wasn’t mistaken in my certainty that Kathy’s workshop would be useful. It exceeded my expectations & not only did I leave with ideas galore, I even wrote a poem that wasn’t livid & snarky.

A goodly number of the whispered words in my head involve my ghost. She’s different from Angharad in Snow Sisters & nothing at all like wee Dora in Ghostbird. Her voice has a quirky edge & I like the idea that I can play with it, perhaps create something unusual. The workshop definitely gave me food for thought – mine & my ghost’s.

I’m still working on it – Kathy has kindly offered some tips & I may one day be tempted to share my poem. Then again, I may not… In the meantime, I’ll keep writing in the mind margins, translate the whispers. Once the painting & housework are done, I’ll delve into the Dark Drawer & dig out Book Three.

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Losing the plot

04 Sunday Jun 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Recently, I checked out a self-published book only to be put off by basic grammatical errors in the first paragraph. Now I’m not saying traditionally published books escape unsullied by error. Of course they don’t – by & large though it’s unwitting, more proofreading slippage than lazy editorial faux pas. The latter grates & guarantees I won’t buy the book.

Moving onwards & a little bit sideways, I’m prompted to another of my ‘we all need an objective editor’ rants. Sloppy, basic editing apart – for which there is little excuse, frankly – I’m thinking more about content & the shape of the story on the page.

The other day I outlined the plot of what I hope will be my third book to my mentor: aka Yoda (only far prettier.) She listened attentively, asked for the odd bit of clarification & I thought to myself, ‘Hello! This is going well!’  She then proceeded to turn my plot on its head & ruin my reveal! (I know – some people?) It was however another one of those magical moments of instant recognition & I ticked the proverbial box.

This is what great editors do – they read between our lines & find the version of the story we’re meant to be writing. It isn’t the wrong story. Not unlike Eric, in The Morecambe & Wise Show, when he played delicious musical mind games with a bemused Andre Previn – I have the right words, but not necessarily in the right order.

As usual – & any self-aware writer will get this – I’m too close to the story not to miss the occasional crucial signpost. I have to take that reveal & do something smarter with it. And how clever the alternative! How simple.

My words birds like a nice tune & do send me some lovely ones. They approve the new plot. It’s still made of the same notes – I’ve just played with the order a bit. It’s all about perception. And tempo. About setting things on fire a bit.

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As for any errors – well yes – at this stage (draft zero) loads of them. But once I get to my first, proper one & begin sorting the sonatas from the scherzos so to speak, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll at least have my singular & my plural sorted.

Directions & snippets

23 Sunday Apr 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

In the aftermath of Epic Editing, a few days in a state of limbo seemed like a plan. With nothing urgent to crack on with I allowed myself to land, consider the accumulated muddle in my flat, admire the dust; look for a new set of directions.

I have a date with the Llandeilo Literary Festival next weekend & have been gathering the threads for my role as moderator on one of the panels. Otherwise – writing wise – apart from on-going note taking for books 3 & 4, I was at a bit of a loose end. Yesterday I decided to take myself off to a beach – by myself – to potter & ponder, trail along the sand, clamber over rocks like an elderly Brontë* on a day out to the seaside. (I don’t like jeans, preferring frocks; it’s amazing what you can get done in a skirt & sneakers…)

I drove north, to the seaside town of Aberaeron & the beach on the southern side of the harbour.

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It’s less populated than the one to the north & like the beach in Snow Sisters, hardly anyone goes there.

Snapping the book shut and shoving it in her pocket, she was about to go down to the stile and onto the beach when she spotted a figure, close to the cliff near the stone dragon. No one came to this end of the beach. It was a dead end and didn’t lead anywhere.
   The tide surged across the sand, closing in; leaving only a narrow strip of shingle to walk on. Ducking low, Verity scrambled down to the stile, peeked over the ledge and saw him. Tall and dark-haired, wearing a jacket with the collar turned up, his hands thrust into deep pockets.
   A tall man in a dark coat…

This location is based on another beach I know well, also situated at the southern end of a long strand made of sand & pebbles intersected by a harbour. To the west, across the bay, lies Ireland & my ancestors.

A boat appeared on the horizon, a flash of a distant sail.
   Meredith shaded her eyes. ‘Where does the sea end?’  
   ‘Ireland.’
   ‘Imagine if you were in a boat and you went on forever, not getting anywhere. Just rowed and rowed in your little boat.’
   Verity shivered. ‘Or swam.’

Quite. Much as I love to swim, I can’t imagine swimming to Ireland…

As an Air sign, the direction I most identify with is east. It’s the place of beginnings, where ideas are conjured & possibilities emerge. That’ll be the copy-edits proper then, the proofing & so forth. And a new cover. A new book!

I don’t do even numbers, so here’s a third snippet.

It’s the opening line…

My name is Angharad and I am not mad.

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*No comparison to any Brontë sister is implied.

Editing & learning my craft

16 Sunday Apr 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Two weeks, dear reader, & not so much as a single scribbled paragraph.

Editing! What larks! What long days spent in PJs looking like the hedge everyone gets dragged through…

The first time I saw the copyedits for Ghostbird I genuinely gulped. What has someone done to my nice tidy text? Copyedits look as if a spider has slit several of its wrists & bled all over the page. There’s so much red, it makes your brain hurt. And the comments! Listed like mini ‘To Do’ lists down the side of the page, each with its own identifying code. [In posh brackets.] Once you get the hang of how the formatting works, technically, it’s pretty simple. What is less straightforward is the content.

For health reasons, my beloved editor, Janet, has had to step back. After an eagle-eyed overhaul of the book with her, I’m now in the superbly capable hands of Caroline, aka the Boss! A new eye inevitably means a fresh perspective. With  this second edit, I’m being taken on – yes, let’s call it by its name – a rather fascinating journey. A full-on, nitty-gritty attention to detail one.

With Ghostbird I relied almost entirely on Janet, an anonymous copy editor & proofreader; a cover designer & so forth, to get everything right. (They did – brilliantly so.) This time, I’ve taken more responsibility. I know what to look for now, how vital cross-referencing & checking ad nauseum is. I’m learning my craft & I’m proud of that. And I did write the story! But in terms of a finished, professional product, that will once again be down to the team at Honno.

I’m at the hard copy read it through again, “Bloody hell, look at all the STUFF that still needs fixing!” stage now.

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I absolutely love it. I love being published by such professional, caring, involved people whose single aim is to make my book the best it can be.

Best crack on…

Miscellaneous meandering…

19 Sunday Feb 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

The mist took a while to lift giving an authentic island feel to the morning. A scattering of birds on the still stark branches decorated the birch tree. This leaves the process – & where I vaguely falter…

At last Thursday’s writing group with Janey I talked about being run aground in the third draft of Book 3 (nicknamed RiverBook) at around 15k. Due to Vital Plot Changes the rest is now an unholy muddle. I confessed to a wobble: knowing where you need to be is one thing, how to get there is another.

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Talking through our various wobbles (& the glimmers of what’s needed to smooth them) is the foundation of our writing group. I never leave a session without feeling encouraged. There were places I needed to be over the weekend but in the gaps I thought hard about why my story was stuck in the shallows. Even though, technically, it still is, as I began reading yesterday, I realised how daft it is to be afraid of my own writing. One of the glimmers has become ‘An Interesting Aspect’ & I’m running with it.

I’m wearing Wellies which may mean more miring. And yes, alliteration is a favourite writing thing.

If it was good enough for Shakespeare…

The writing life & the art of patience

05 Sunday Feb 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

There is an ‘in between place’ writers’ inhabit. It takes various forms: the one separating the initial idea & the execution of a first draft. The one between drafts, the forays into research that tip over into sneaky trips round social media. And those we give names to: writer’s block, procrastination, ‘real life’ (as if writing wasn’t.) We hover in the spaces between chapters, between words. We dither in edit mode, take half a day to decide if a paragraph stays or gets consigned to the Dead Darlings file.

Eclipsing each of these is a place we find ourselves once the story is done. Our best endeavour – edited to a fault & printed out on top quality Bright White – is submitted, offered up, let go, relinquished.

It can be an oddly dark space this one – furnished with anguish & the shreds of our nails, the walls lined with helpless hope. It’s the waiting room of doom where we wait while someone we almost certainly don’t know makes the crucial decision about our story & our potential future as a writer. They have temporary custody of our baby: the pristine version of our tear-stained (yes I know, pushing it now – my blog, my drama) months & more often, years of work.

In spite of it being second time round for me, the waiting remains a factor. Contract notwithstanding, there is still work to do; decisions have to be made that don’t necessarily involve me: administrative, creative, production etc. In the traditional publishing world – not least with a small press – however supportive your team, patience is the order of the day.

(Please, dear reader – with huge respect, if you are self-published don’t be tempted to insist how much easier ‘having total control’ makes the process. Consider your choice honoured!)

I love being traditionally published, I’m proud & honoured to be with a prestigious press, however small. I wouldn’t change a thing. It takes as long as it takes & while I wait for what comes next in the process, I sit in the space in between, read delicious books; scribble at book three & make notes for book four.

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It’s the writing life that matters, every aspect of it, even the waiting…

“The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace…” *

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

Earlier, writing my daily Letter to America, I mentioned the mist (it’s an Island Life this morning, dear reader & no mistake) & that only a small, solitary bird graced the highest branch of the birch tree. It never lasts, this daring do. Sooner or later, Crow arrives, evicts the interloper and claims her place. Today she came with friends, three dark shapes against a rain-drenched sky, elegant itinerants.

They’re gone now. Crow has business elsewhere. If the mood suits her, mine tarries long enough to leave a few words, a line or two I may find a use for. Lately, I’ve sensed her shaking her black hoody head – Kraa – you are procrastinating, writer.

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She isn’t wrong. It is however procrastination thinly disguised as editing. When I set aside my current new story (was Book 2, now Book 3) to write The Snow Sisters (the usurper) it was a vague second draft. I knew it was chaotic, that parts of it were going to need serious attention. In the back of my mind, a confused muse wrestled with chunks of ubiquitous backstory (my nemesis) pronouncing it superfluous to anyone’s requirements.

Knowing I was about to embark on another draft, my first reader (the recipient of my Letter to America), put up her hand. Her eye is astute & she asks the right questions. Checking ahead, I spotted where the chaos began & faster than a rat up a drainpipe, scuttled back to Chapter One. I’ve spent the last week meticulously & very, very slowly, editing the first ten chapters: back & forth like an over-keen copy editor on Kalms. These chapters are so edited they are faint with exhaustion, begging to be left in peace.

And still, Chapter Eleven waits. Or as I like to call it, the place where it all goes pear-shaped, backstory crash-lands onto the page & I have no idea how to deal with it. I’ll work it out – it’s only words, yes? Kill a few (several hundred) off; tidy up the telling, dump the debris…?

If I ask nicely, maybe the words birds – my beautiful vagabonds – will take some of them back…

* John Burroughs

Begin at the beginning

01 Sunday Jan 2017

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Island Life, Word Birds & Process

onceuponatime

Once upon a time is the place where most stories begin. The writer will rarely know for certain where her latest story came from, only that it did. The initial trace will have landed in the bit of her brain marked ‘story.’ From there, if the thing has wheels, in the excitement, that first spark may get forgotten; a once upon a moment lost in the thrill of the story taking shape. It doesn’t matter. It is what it was: a glimmer, a dream or possibly a first line – & even that’s likely to get side-lined.

My favourite first line was written by the immaculate Dodie Smith in I Capture the Castle – ‘I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.’ The image conjured is perfect & instantly the reader wants to know where, what, when & why.

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Our original first lines rarely make it to the final cut – editors often see to that – it’s their job. In the event they don’t make us change it, we have almost always done so ourselves, many times.

First lines are the bane of a writer’s life because readers devour them & we have to get them right. Like a cover or a blurb, a memorable one can mean the difference between a sale and a rejection. I always imagine my first lines are pretty cool. I’m often wrong & have a good laugh/wry smile when the real one emerges.

The story I’m currently working on is in third draft. It began with some pretentious attempt as a series of mise en abîme which, by the second draft, were rejected in favour of a simple epigram. Although I liked it – I’m fond of epigrams – by the current draft I recognised these few lines worked better within the narrative. (What I now have is a secret.)

So far mind, the beginning of chapter one hasn’t changed. As first lines go it’s pretty ordinary – ten words, none of them startling or uppity. They do set the scene. I hope I get to keep them. And out of the blue, a few days ago the word birds dropped by with the first line of Book 4. It’s lush.

Onward & sideways!

Oh yes, while you’re here, I wish you a joyous 2017. If you read Ghostbird, thank you. If you reviewed it, I adore you. If you are writing your own story – may the New Year gift you a cooperative Muse, a fabulous first line & this little hackneyed, clichéd, perfect mantra.

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Rewrite, recite…

26 Wednesday Oct 2016

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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.