Tag: editing

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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“Four On Kyrios”

I’m feeling breathless, worried, and giddy today. You probably suspect that it’s the smoky air because I’ve been complaining about the wildfire smoke so often in July and August. Well, you’d be wrong, suckah. We have good air today.

I’m breathless and giddy because I completed the first draft of Four On Kyrios today. The novel has officially made the transition from beta to first draft. At the same time, I received feedback from two friends who volunteered to read the beta version as a second pair of eyes. They’d finished reading the manuscript and offered their comments. Both were enthusiastic and are ready to read the next book in the series. That pleases me, but I’m worried because, as a writer, I’m unique among writers, and worry whether others who read what I wrote will describe it as gilded garbage.

That was decent sarcasm, wasn’t it?

Four On Kyrios is the first book of the Incomplete States series. It didn’t take me long to read, edit, and revise it. I attribute that speed to several points.

One, it was the third book in the series to be written. That advantage means that a great deal of thinking about the concept, plot, background, and setting was already completed.

Two, I edit and revise as I write. My organic writing process drives this pattern. Writing what’s already written helps me connect with the muses and continue discovering and telling the story. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that I fix grammar, punctuation, pacing, and continuity issues when they’re discovered. (Are you surprised?)

Three, Four On Kyrios is the smallest of the four novels in the Incomplete States series. MS Word clocks it at ninety thousand words and three hundred seventy-five pages.

Four, of the four novels, it has the simplest plot and the fewest characters. Those factors keep it easy to read and edit.

As this is the first novel in a series of four, it’ll stay in first draft status while I read, edit, and revise the others.  The four books were written to tell one larger tale, so they’re interconnected. I came out of the editing and revising process with one page of notes. Some are reminders, a few are continuity questions, and the rest were issues. All of the issues except two were resolved. They’ll remain open until I complete the other three books.

Most of the changes in the novel were more about expanding some scenes to slow down and let the characters breathe. I’ve been reading a lot since I finished the beta draft of the four books. Reading others’ published novels impact my ‘sense’ of the book. To me, this is the instinct we develop as writers because we read. It’s a feel for what seems right and correct about something we’re reading. It’s about flow and story-telling.

Just for the record, I’ve read Lincoln in the Bardo, A Visit from the Goon Squad, Godless, The Midnight Line, Time’s Eye, and Diary in the past few weeks after finishing the first three books of the Dire Earth Cycle. I’m now reading The Pagan Lord and The Order of Time and searching for The Triggerman’s Dance. I think La Rose might be up next on my reading, though. The Order of Time is a fascinating book about time, physics, and quantum mechanics by Carlos Rovelli. I don’t agree with all of his points, but it’s fun thinking about them.

Now, on to the next novel in the Incomplete States series, Entangled LEREs. I’ll begin editing and revising it tomorrow. Right now, though, my stomach is posting orders for something to eat.

I think I shall comply.

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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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Wandering the Dark

Man, was it dark. At first, I saw and heard very little. When I did hear or see something, I’d type like crazy to capture those impressions. They were the starting position. I thought it was the beginning, but it turned out to be toward the middle.

Hearing people talking and moving, I followed them. Drawing closer to them, I started glimpsing their figures and faces. With greater exposure, I came to understand them. Soon, I could slip into their thinking and understand what they’re doing and their motivations.

But the paths and area remained dark, forcing me to explore. Some paths were easier to follow. Others became dense with forest, slowing me down and forcing me to feel my way. I stumbled over things unseen underfoot, slipped along muddy sections, got stuck, and sometimes fell.

I kept going, though, mapping it all in my mind and typing up details. Sharp turns, switchbacks, parallel paths and hidden ways surprised me. Cliffs and walls were encountered. Following a grade, I climbed to the highest area I found, thinking, from here, I’ll see and know where I’m going. But it looks different from up here. The details aren’t visible from this level. It’s the details that must be known and understood.

Hours of typing become days of typing that developed into weeks, months, and then, years. But at last, I think I fully understand the story problem and solution. I believe I see all the paths and connections. I think I know where everyone went, why they went there, and what happened to them.

Now that I know, I can finish. Finishing, I can begin revising and editing to ensure the story I see at the end, when it’s all been revealed, is the story that I wrote from the beginning.

Time to write 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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The Winding Road

As the current sub-plot and story line of my work in progress winds along like a leisurely country drive, I curb impatience to be done. If I had to describe myself, impatient is a word I’d consistently employ. I’m continuously monitoring and struggling with my impatient urges to be done, to move on, to get there, to get finished, etc.

Today, motoring through the scenes I planned to write, I realized that I wasn’t as close to being finished with the work in progress that I’d hoped and believed. I’m enjoying writing it. It’s weird to say that it’s a leisurely write, because I write several thousand words a day (knock on wood – don’t want to scare off the muses), and edit it every day. Yes, I’m a writer that edits as I go, because my writing is an organic garden in progress, and requires constant attention. I usually edit the volume in progress (number four), but sometimes jump back and edit the others. They’re all beta, and will require more work when they’re done before they’re finished.

I want this series done so I can go on to other books that I’ve begun or planned. One is from a story idea a fan sent me. “What can you do with this concept?” she asked. Answering her, I ended up writing about forty pages. I stumbled across it last night, and enjoyed what I read, and remembered what else was planned, and I feel like I owe her to finish it.

The second project that I want to continue is the third novel in my Life Lessons mystery series. Readers of the first two books have asked several times, “When is the third one coming out?” Soon, I promise, as soon as I finish this work in progress. I’d written five chapters of it before getting distracted by the current concept, and read some of that last night, and remembered, “Oh, yes, there’s so much to write here.” I had several more sequels planned in the series and had a broad outline of that developed. And, as I write this fourth volume of the current WIP, a fifth volume keeps tugging on my sleeve.

Not enough time, you know? Those are just a few of the dozen items in the writing bucket. But, c’est le vie, this is the writing life.

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

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