Wonderful Monday

[chris_gerrib]

Apparently, I am on programming at Duckon. I offered to do something on self-publishing, but never got a confirmation as to what or when.

In other news, I had my writers' group meeting Tuesday. Jackie Powers convinced me that I really needed to make a second pass at Space Rescue before I tried to sell it. She was right, of course.

Now, John Scalzi is famous for, among other things, being a writer who doesn't own a printer. I know John Scalzi. John Scalzi is a (virtual) friend of mine. I'm no John Scalzi. So, I printed out the entire novel and stuffed it into a three-ring binder, then read it over the weekend, pen in hand.

Few indeed are pages that don't have some chicken-scratch on them, noting something to fix. There are two advantages of editing in hard copy. First, the different medium helps you see mistakes that you miss on the screen. Second, because you can't make changes right away, you're able to get through the whole thing first, rather then getting bogged down actually making the changes. So, the word count is back, but the "percent complete" will stay at 100%.

Word Count for Space Rescue
Complete (62,209) Goal (80,000)
100% complete
Since Last Post = 900 words

Things accomplished in fiction: First re-write, got to the end of Chapter 2.

Comments

[jeff-duntemann.livejournal.com]

This is good. Describe more of your processes as a writer: How you conceptualize a plot, how you scope out chapters, how you design background elements (technologies etc.) how you research, and so on.

Don't feel too old-school. I still print chapters (and whole books) to paper for copyediting and proofreading. As you imply, it helps us to prioritize potential changes by requiring us to think a little more and take a little more time to write them down. This makes it less likely that we'll do easy but pointless changes.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Good suggestions for ways to fill this space - I'll take you up on them.

[eclectic338.livejournal.com]

You're really going to hate me when I tell you that you have one more draft to go after this one. *grin*

1) Draft 1: Blurt out the story onto paper.
2) Draft 2: Fix everything you know needs to be fixed.
3) Send it out to a private group of beta-readers for comments.
4) Draft 3: Fix everything you didn't know needed to be fixed.
5) NOW you start the process of sending it out to agents/editors.
6) Start the next book.

After you've published about 25-30 books, you probably know enough to skip steps #3 and #4.

For the historical I'm working on, Draft 1 took 5 months, Draft 2 took 1.5 years, and I'm working on Draft 3 with the clock ticking at over 3 months so far and I just started on fixing actual words a couple weeks ago.

The hardest parts of Draft 3 is tranlating what people tell you into something actually fixable. People will tell you the symptoms and what they think the fixes might be, even experienced editors, but the real trick for the writer is to ponder if that's really what/where the problem is.

Had a professional editor read mine and tell me the beginning needed "more emotion". When I asked her to explain, she did, saying I needed more physical descriptive reactions to the character's emotions. Which sounds great, except that the real problem was that the readers weren't getting enough insight into the character's backstory to be able to connect with the emotion the character was expressing. If I'd have done what the professional editor said, I'd have been wrong.

So, you're not at the end of the tunnel, yet. :-)

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

I don't hate you - you're giving me solid advice based on your experiences.

[eclectic338.livejournal.com]

Very diplomatic. Well done. **smile**
See you at the con.
Jackie

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Not diplomatic - honest. If I wanted "you're great" critiques, I'd ask my mother.

See you at the con - alas probably not until Saturday due to sudden day job problems.