Category: editing

I Find

The first two parts of Entangled States, ten chapters, are like reaching a coast. The direction doesn’t matter. You hit the stretch where the land and sea meet. It’s turbulent, with crashing waves and hissing, seething waters. Taking it all must be done in pieces. There is the sea and the land, and there’s also the sky. Each exercises its own elements, colors, and behaviors. Once you pass this borderland, you’re released from the complications inherent to progressing from sea to land and freer to relax and take more in.

Now into part three of the book, it settles down again. I remember writing all of this, and recall thinking about the parts, and the placement of these chapters and scenes, and how they’ll interact. At that point, it was like being too close to a pointillism piece of art. Distance is needed for the colors to blend and become something more than blobs.

Wild, to think, while writing it, I saw these blobs and strokes, and applied them, and now I need to step back to comprehend the whole. I was realizing the whole on one level while I already saw and comprehended it on another level. Then, not so wild, as I write to help clarify and understand what I think.

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Nerves

I’m nervous as I’m editing this second book in the Incomplete States series. The series’ first book, Four On Kyrios, was straightforward for the most part. This book, Entangled LEREs, is well-named, with entangled stories and characters. It reminds me of Slaughterhouse Five meets The Sound and the Fury, Cloud Atlas, and Lincoln in the Bardo. Editing becomes intense for me. I imagine readers asking themselves and the book, “What’s going on? I don’t understand.” Makes me want to revise it to make it clearer and more linear.

The muses push back against that impulse and insist that I don’t change anything. And there it goes, I’m cringing and sweating, thinking, what am I doing? “Trust us,” the muses urge. In response, I hold my head and rub my forehead and temples, and think, pitting desire to change things against the muses’ directives.

The muses remind me, “You’re in the middle of the series. Don’t make any major changes until you’ve gone through all four books.” Right, because the mud settles later, and it all becomes clearer. These are mysteries in mysteries, all part of the concept and story. Yes, I remember writing these chapters and battling the muses about it back then.

Man, it makes me nervous, though. My jaw hurts from gritting my teeth. Should a writer have such a love/hate relationship with their muses and the novel in progress? I remind myself that I was going all in, that, yes, I knew when I was writing it that it would be way out there. I remember those battles with myself from back then. I hope readers can get through it and find the effort rewarding. Even as I nurture that hope, I remind myself, I write for myself. I’m my only guaranteed audience.

I think it’s time to call it a day.

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Going On

Have you ever seen a movie or read a book about a prisoner who uses a spoon or other small implement to chip away their rock or cement prison and eventually escape? I was thinking about that the other day as I was editing Entangled LEREs and realized, that’s not how it feels editing the second book in the Incomplete States series.

It also doesn’t feel like I’m struggling to move the needle. Nor does it feel like I’m climbing a mountain or swimming an ocean.

It feels pretty damn good.

I miss writing like crazy each day, truly. I resent, too, that it’ll take sooooo looong before these novels will be published. By ‘sooooo looong’, I mean like months or more. Yes, I’m indulging in some hyperbole to expose my natural impatience.

I’m not good at this persistent, slow stuff. I eat fast, drive fast, think fast, and talk fast. I like doing things fast. I like being intense and immersed.

But, I’m enjoying this leisurely editing and revising. I’m reading other books as I edit, novels that are best sellers or prize winners, prizes like the Man Booker, Peabody, and Pulitzer, or books by authors who won a Nobel Prize for Literature. I used to avoid reading such lofty others while I’m writing or editing. Correcting myself, I used to avoid reading most published literature while I was reading and writing because I often felt that my writing could never achieve such heights, and it depressed and demoralized me.

I’m more confident about it now. While I still enjoy and admire the aforementioned sort of books, I’m not cringing from my efforts when I go back and forth between the two. More often, when I find something special by someone else that I’m reading, I pause to understand the passage’s impact on me and explore what the author did and how they did it, hoping that I can learn how to do it.

The process has helped. I can see improvement in my writing. I sometimes find beauty or insights in my work that startles me.

Like many writers, I’ve found that writing is a progression. With a little talent and heavy loads of persistence and determination, we can improve what we’re revealing and how it’s revealed as we tell the stories that flow through us. This progression shines in the editing process. Further away from the fiery crucible of creativity where the flow is so intense, I can apply the lessons that I perceive. I’m more mindful. While I’m doing this, my appreciation for the diverse processes of writing/creativity and writing/editing/revising increases. As with many facets of our existence, it’s a spectrum.

Of course, on the obverse of this coin, when I read portions of my earlier published works, I cringe. There’s a plan afoot to edit and revise some of that stuff stirring in my head. What’s that? Don’t look back? You might have a point.

Time to resume editing like crazy.

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Editing & Rewards

I’ve learned more about myself, again. I’m happy to report this. I think it’s important to recognize that we’re always changing. That means that we always have some mystery about who we are that we need to confront and resolve. (At least I do, but I suppose others like to leave some mystery to themselves.) Some changes are as slow to witness as a snail’s progress across a patio. Other changes can be seen like a meteor’s flash in the August night.

One thing that I’ve learned is why I like editing, a lesson learned and forgotten. Writing like crazy in my finest efforts is primal, immersive, and intense. It’s also rewarding. Reward is associated with solving problems that are created as part of exploring the plot and understanding the characters. Reward also comes from the tangible progress of putting words onto pages until hundreds of pages are done and a novel is completed. That’s very tangible and satisfying.

Editing, though, lacks that sense of progress and reward of writing like crazy. I miss both of those things. But I’ve found that the editing process grounds me. As it’s more relaxing than writing because it’s less intensive, it has a gentler and more reflective quality in it.

Writing like crazy is also exhausting. That might seem strange to people who don’t know how much thinking is involved in writing. Editing, being less exhausting, leaves me with more free energy. Weirdly, I don’t know how to use that energy. I end up reading more. Conversely, reading more triggers the write-like-crazy impulse in me. But I’m editing, so I need to shun that. It’s a frustrating dynamic.

There is a sense of progress inherent in editing. It’s measured in the number of pages and chapters read, the number of notes made to check on this, and the number of those items that become resolved and checked off. But creative writing is problem-solving; editing isn’t, to me, so different areas of my brain are engaged. When I’m editing, I’m mostly reading. Remembering, I’m reading and editing my own work. I’m familiar with it. That’s exactly why others need to edit it for me when I’m satisfied that the draft is sufficiently complete to hand it off to someone to edit.

Done editing for the day. Not a great deal was accomplished in the sense that I didn’t cover many pages. (Ten, actually, when I go back to see how many I read.) That was because I discovered a name was spelled incorrectly. I was surprised to find that I’d spelled it wrong in the manuscript and in my bible of information. Global find and replace was needed, but to reach that point required research and decisions about which spelling to use.

That’s editing though, finding and correcting the mistakes, along with revising the story to improve flow and clarify.

At least in my mind.

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Beta to First Draft

I miss writing like crazy every day. I’m editing and revising instead, trying to turn the beta iteration of the first novel in my Incomplete States series into the first draft. My imagination is chaffing. It doesn’t like being shut down.

To say ‘It’s going well’ is so sloppy to the thinking, writing, and creative process that I eschew using it. What those three words mean is that I haven’t encountered any “OMG WHAT IS THIS CRAP?” moments. I’m enjoying reading the novel. Not many changes have been required, although there are some notes on potential changes to make later, depending on what happens in the next three books in the series. They’re waiting their turn.

Writing like crazy is the fun, addictive part. That’s what I like about writing, spin up the imagination and release it on hyperdrive. Every day, my muses and writing addiction attempt to trick me with the “Let’s write something else today” game. But I know me. This part is necessary. I was thinking last night, I have ten other unpublished novels that I wrote and completed as a first draft that I never did any more with because I prefer the writing-like-crazy excitement over the “Let’s edit and revise this mother into something presentable” stage where I now dwell.

So, yeah, this must be done. And yeah, I remind myself, I need to attend the business end of advertising and so on for the other novels published because they will not sell themselves.

Covers are done for the four books. Yes, I know, why are the covers done if you don’t have a first draft completed? It’s a carrot thing. Having the covers help me visualize the completed novels as something tangible. And I wanted to have covers, so nah-nah-nah, I made some. Yes, I made them.

Changed the first novel’s title too. Kyrios wasn’t working for me in the completed visualization process so the title became Four on Kyrios. Who knows what it’ll end up being? That title feels right for now but it felt right with the last title, didn’t it?

Time to edit like crazy. Just doesn’t have the same feel to it, does it?

 

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Another Complaint to Make

My characters are irritating me. I’m itching to get to the action, but here they go, talking it all out, establishing what they know. It’s maddening.

“Come on,” I shout at them. “Let’s go.”

But, no. They continue to challenge each other’s memories, grasp of what’s going on, and what they’re supposed to do. It rankles me.

Yet, I understand it. They’re people who have been forced together, selected for what they don’t know and what they haven’t done. They’re not the same people they were earlier in the series. Of course they’re confused. Some are also resentful, angry, and suspicious. In this situation, some don’t speak, but watch and listen. Others must verbalize it all.

I thought, hey, let’s initiate an attack on them.

No. That was rejected.

Not even a sniper killing one of them?

No.

A fight among them?

No.

An interruption, something that disrupts them and forces them to action, a realization, perhaps, or a sense of urgency? Only Richard has a sense of urgency. (Richard has assumed the mantle of mastermind at this point. The other character that’s restless and worried is Seven. But she’s an imaginary character, existing in imaginary time, biding the moment when she acts, waiting to see what happens, because she thinks she might have screwed it up.)

No; they’re talking.

They’re doing pages and pages of talking.

It’s too much dialogue, in my opinion. It kills the pace.

Sorry, the characters and muse answer. Pace isn’t our concern.

I guess I’ll let them talk for now, and then see if I can edit or revise it later. Honestly, working through their dialogue seems like the only way to move forward.

It was a frustrating day of writing like crazy. Thank god for coffee.

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Funny to Think

Next month will mark the end of the second year of working on the Incomplete States quadrilogy. I hope to finish writing the fourth book in the series soon. At least, I sense the end feels near. Then I’ll have a beta version of all four books in the series.

Then the work begins, yeah, the real work. The creative writing part, hell, that’s fun and easy. Just turn your mind lose, and then tidy it up so it resembles correct written English and aligns with everything else written until then – to the best of my memory. I know from previous novels that I’ve finished that, in two years of writing these four books, I’ve forgotten a lot of what I’ve written. In fact, novel writing often feels like I’m a channel, a conduit through which the words and ideas flow. I write without remembering large swaths. That’s why the work begins after the beta versions are completed. Hidden in these four books are dead-ends and roundabouts, wandering paths and cliffs. Motivations have been established, shifted, and challenged. Facts must be checked and confirmed.

So on completing four books and about a million words in two years, it’s staggering and funny to realize, the work is just beginning to take the books from beta to first drafts to final drafts to publication. 

Once I finish the fourth book’s beta version – I call them beta because they tie in so completely with one another, they’re not truly a draft until the ties are cleaned up, so they have all the major features, but they’re not complete — I’ll probably take a break and write something simpler. Fans have been asking, where is the next book in Life Lessons with Savanna mystery series. Those books are usually less than one hundred thousand words, and a lot easier to write and finish.

Another day of writing like crazy has to be stopped to attend to real life. I love the tension of this moment, stopping while writing, when so much remains to be written. Makes me eager to jump back into it.

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Cringe Writing

Philea continued to dominate my recent writing sessions. During yesterday’s effort, she took me down paths that had me cringing. It wasn’t the sort of stuff that I generally write. It was contrary enough to my normal voice and style that I considered whether it should be continued. I wondered if she’d breach the series’ borders and was taking off into the wrong direction.

This prompted a guidelines review in my post writing walk. They were good reminders.

  1. Write like crazy. I’m still finishing this book and series. (The series is Incomplete States, and this novel, the fourth, is Good-bye, Hello.) Basically, open the doors, portals, floodgates, valves, lit the fuse, whatever metaphor works, and let it go. Editing is for later, when it’s all done.
  2. The characters are allowed latitude to explore themselves and the story. This has the additional benefit of allowing me to explore the story and characters.
  3. I’m an organic writer. While I know where I expect to end up, the paths I follow are being created as I go. That’s the same with the characters. A compass is used to keep us going in the correct general direction, making corrections as necessary.
  4. Let the readers decide. Readers bring all kinds of conceptions and ideas to stories they’re reading. They find their own interpretation of truths and myths, and apply them. They won’t all enjoy the same books, or even the same parts of a book.

That last point, about readers deciding, emerged from early critique groups. I’d noticed several biases develop in a writing group. Not surprising, as they’re all readers before they’re writers.

  1. Some like to be told everything. They don’t want any gaps in what was said or happened. They don’t want it to be abstract. Others prefer that their imagination fill in the gaps, or that, this is like life, and we don’t always know all of the answers.
  2. Some writers/readers like a leisurely style. The want to slow down and breath in the atmosphere.
  3. Some prefer style over substance, or substance over style. 

I tend to write in a very active voice. It’s my preferred voice. But, I use multiple POV (sometimes first person, but third person dominates). In giving latitude to characters, I notice some of them don’t like a direct, active voice.

After thinking about that, I realize, well, of course. I don their skins and minds when writing from their POV. When I do that, I try staying true to them and their voice. Just like real individuals, they have styles of observing, thinking (and applying knowledge and lessons learned), interacting, and taking action. They carry emotional and physical baggage. These traits direct their voice when the story is being told via their POV.

This wasn’t something I developed on my own. I’m always developing on other writers’ shoulders. This specific point came through an epiphany I had while reading J. Franzen’s The Corrections about fifteen years ago. I later cemented my impressions while reading Wally Lamb, Michael Chabon, Louise Erdrich, Tana French, Kate Atkinson, and others.

Of course, in a qualifying pause, I change up styles to reflect pacing and tension. I use shorter sentences and words in confrontational scenes, epiphanies, fights, and arguments. That brevity contributes to a more direct and intense feel, speaking for myself — yeah, it’s my blog post, right, so who else could I be speaking (or writing) for? — as a reader and a writer. Your preferences might vary.

As a reader, I’m not married to any one style. I like enjoying books and taking what I can from every one of them. Many books end up surprising me, and I like that most of all, as a writer and a reader.

So I cringed and wrote Philea’s part about Holes and The Stipulations. I won’t predict whether it’ll make it into the published version.

Time to get back to writing like crazy, at least one more time. 

 

 

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Writing Time, Again

Chug, chug. My muse is a dependable locomotive engine this week. I sit down, and the words and scenes chug out. It’s not wholly effortless. I hit some grades that slow the pace but the muse keeps chugging, and I keep going. Writing-like-crazy bursts are followed by introspective editing and revising to get to the point where scenes and chapters are completed, and then I go on to the next one.

Once upon a time, I would have thought, hey, it’s written, revised, edited, and finished. Submit and publish, thank you. Now I’ve learned, naw, that writing, editing, refining, and polishing is part of my writing process to achieve completing a first draft. When the draft is done, the work of editing, revising, and re-writing begins. I usually find kinks caused by story or character inconsistencies, flimsy story-telling, or awkward phrasing that requires thought and deeper processing. Sometimes I find a bridge missing that I’ve marked to write later.

But I’ve learned from editing and revising in the past, and I’m more mindful of my process. I can think through the process, story, and words on the fly more than I used to be able to do, a result that comes from application, application, application, via writing every day. It’s all part of a immersive, relaxing process. Writing is my therapy and sanctuary.

Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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