Picture time

The fourth and final draft is done. It feels so dang good to have this story put to bed for the time being. I met someone at work who has a friend who wrote a book and gave me some advice on submitting to an agent.

Some of it I'd read up on. She helped me understand what I'd need to put inside my submission letter/profile, and that most editors will ask for the first 3 chapters. This is a concern. I don't think the story starts off too slowly... but what if it does? I have a prologue, which isn't a traditional chapter long. Does this count as one of the chapters? Do I have to 'beef up' my story to be more punchy? I don't know. I think I've done ok, but it would be really nice to get some feedback at some point. A lot of what I've been doing is pretty much making it up as I go along, and listening to the internets for advice. I'm sure it'll be fine. It helps me fix my tech problems, so why not? Who wouldn't believe everything they read on the internet?

There was other advice. Mostly around getting an editor. There are freelance editors around, and I know the book needs editing, but for a high level look at the work, the one I was recommended came in at about £500. That's... That's a lot in my world. a Hell of a lot.

I know the story would be better off being under an editors 'tender' graces. I know the book is too long. I also know that since I'm unable to see it for myself, the smart move is to leave it as it is, start thinking about the other bits, and once that's done - move on. Next book. I'm hoping guessing I'll probably learn way more from writing another story than going round in circles.

So next steps: Focus on getting a cover, understanding how ISBN's work. There's a site called Nielson which gave me the pricing for ISBN's. Although I could buy more, the lowest two pricing packs are £132 for 10 ISBN's (£13.20 for one) and £318 for 100 (which works out to be £3.18 for one). Someone, somewhere would probably understand the economics a lot better than I do why the pricing discrepancy is so large. I mean come on - 1000 for £846? So big publishers are paying eighty-four freaking pence for the same thing I have to buy at £13.20? I understand economies of scale, but that's off the hook! Still, to get in the writers club, I think that's just the cost of doing business.

Why am I worrying about all this stuff about covers and ISBN's if I'm going to look for an agent? Because like everyone else, agents are rather busy, because they're all probably looking for something with that certain je ne sais pas. I don't think my first book necessarily has the x-factor, to borrow a tv trope. I don't know that it hasn't, but I don't have any feedback. I think I've covered this already. No, tell a lie, there has been one person who's been wonderful enough to challenge me to think about my story and keep challenging me in order to make it better. It worked. Does 'better' mean 'good'? We shall see. So, I'll do the research into agents and offer it out and keep track and wait all those months and offer it to just one agent at a time in the format that they've asked for (hard copy? Really? Do people still want that IRL?) and anything else that's required - oh yeah, more on that later. That'll take a while. Maybe it'll take years. 

In the meantime, I think I'll just go ahead after a while and self publish.

Who says my story will actually do well on Amazon rather than Barnes & Noble? Who says it'll do well at all? No one. Not a soul. That doesn't mean its not worth a shot. I mean, I've already done all the hard work, right? What would I have to lose?

Also, I still have to pay someone who can draw/paint/do arty things.

Oh, before I forget - my other blog colleague, the one who was also supposed to be posting stuff up on here? They mentioned they read the blog for the first time. No mention on whether they liked what I'd put up, or if they have cold feet and just can't be bothered. Not a peep on whether they have any impetus on doing something now they see if I can do it, anyone can do this. Nada. Zip. I'm not surprised. I'm not disappointed. I'm holding out hope.
In other news, I've gotten rid of the picture I was using as a background. It just didn't work and looked like a 5 year old created the blog. That's harsh, I know. Most 5 year olds have at least some artistic sensibilities.

Cover up

I've been lazy. I haven't done a darned thing that's been literally writing related for at least a week and a half, and now I'm starting to get a little antsy.

I've got some type of video queued for me the moment I get in from work, which pretty much tells you where I'm at mentally. Naturally, once I'm at home and watching the thing, I feel some vague feeling of discomfort, so there’s a lot of fidgeting and trying to do other things at the same time instead of just taking the time out to appreciate. 

I guess its my inner self trying to cajole me on, but there's always something more important to do, or something to prepare for, or some other reason why I'm not getting up and off my backside to actually do one of the things I need to do. In my admittedly very limited defence, I've also been trying to figure out what the heck my book cover will look like. With as much as I've learned on this journey, one thing I've come to the conclusion is that I can't see an editor or an agent being interested in picking this story up. Its not that I think its bad - I'm proud of where I've come from and what I've created, but I'm not sure my writing is that the stage where its publishable by a big publishing house... maybe not even by a small one. That's not to say that I won't consider sending it out to agents once finished is actually finished, but in the meantime, there's nothing stopping me from putting it up as an ebook at a less than paperback price where hopefully someone will enjoy it.

In order to do that, I'll need a book cover. I can't draw a full stop correctly, so I'm taking the time out to find someone somewhere who does have those skills that I can pay for. I went to a couple of my local bookshops to have a closer look at what book covers are like these days. It made me remember why I stay as far as I can from arty things. I've got the artistic skill of a cro-magnon trying to do fine art with a tree trunk as a pencil. Its been interesting to be able to pay attention, because one of the things that it made me do is look at my story and ask myself "who is the story for?" all over again.

And I still don't have a good answer. I know it wasn't written for an adult, and its not really a children's book. When I wrote it, I had my younger daughters in mind both in that not-adult-not-child-just-a-painful-to-cope-with in-between phase. It took me so long to get my thumb out of my nostril that they changed significantly in that period, so the voice I was using changed as well (That's one of the reason's I'm doing this passthrough, to have a consistent tone and voice as I can just feel there are two distinct styles of writing in first third and other two thirds).

I know it has a female protagonist, because, well - written for my daughters - why on earth wouldn't it? Does that mean I'm trying to target the female audience? not realllllly. Is it a tween book? I don't think so. Is it YA? Kinnnnda. I've given up trying to accurately categorise it. Its not a bats vs wolves type of book, so no picture of the heroine swooning, or of a suave and yet somehow dangerously cute young man on the cover. This is more adventure, less swash, but there's a little bit of buckle thrown in amongst everything else. There's a little bit of coming-of-age, but more coming-of-self, of finding and creating and identity, and most of all, of independence. I wanted my heroine to be the main character, and if she's doing any swooning, by gum there'd better be some time of legitimate biological reason for said swoon.

In any case, I have a vague idea of what the cover could or should look like. I need to be able to communicate that to someone crazy enough to take it on for the meagre amount of money that I'll have to save up to pay them for. Apparently I also have to write some type of contract. Woah. That is seriously not something I'd expected when I started this journey.

Still, as one of my favourite all-time characters, Dorrie says, "I didn't know you could speak whale!" Sorry, wrong quote. The one I'm thinking of is to make sure I keep plodding through it all, and "just keep swimming".

Before I forget, let me introduce to a new word that just sends chills running down my back: Typography.

Seriously? 

Say, don't spray

Maybe a week and a half ago, could be a fortnight ago, I was so glad. I thought the final draft was done. I thought I was well and away and I wouldn’t have to look at the thing again. Oh foolish, foolish me. It turns out that there are about three more rounds to go from what I've been learning in the interim, and I think this manuscript needs them. Maybe other stories won't. Who knows anymore?

At this point I’m past caring. I've had to step away for a while because each word or sentence is looking very similar to every other sentence, so I think a break from this story is a good idea. I’ll start working on the outline for the last part of another story I've been working on for a while, and its enough of a change of a genre to clear out my editing head. Once I’m done on breaking down the plot into chunks I can go back and do the last three passes on this one, which at this point I think are a details and description pass, a dialogue pass, and a line edit pass where I think is the stage where I go line by line and make sure there aren’t any stupid typos. I say ‘stupid typos’ because I've got a very uncomfortable feeling that the intelligent typos will be a lot harder to spot; they’ll be the the ones I’m blind to because I’m the one who wrote them - you know the things that sound just fine in your head, but come out a little bit weird on paper. They’re the ones I always have had trouble with, so it’ll be a fun challenge to figure out a system to be able to spot them. I’m not holding out much hope that I’ll nail all, or even most of them, but that’s ok. It yet another step I need to travel on, and I’ll get better over time.

The details/description pass is needed because although the story was intended to go at a fairly decent pace, it's also a little sparse in descriptions of things. In no way do I want to litter the book down with prose that describes every little thing, but a sense of place, or person, or location is kind of required if a story really wants to stand out and live inside the readers head. I’m not entirely sure I could do florid and evocative if my life depended on it, but there should be something. This is the pass where something gets added in. What does home look like? What was the stand-out thing that captured the protagonists attention the moment they arrived at the end of the journey? What was the last thing that stuck in their head before they suffered a tragic setback and now haunts them for the rest of their days?

After that, I reckon its going to be a dialogue pass. I don’t really need one of my characters to have a speech impediment, but I do need them to stand out from one another when they talk. Why not? My best friend doesn’t speak to me in the same way my old school teacher did, so I need a way for the characters, plot or relationships between them to stand out separate and distinct from each other when they open their mouths. Its going to be a tricky one, but its not impossible if I work through the people one by one. At least, that’s the way I’m going to approach it and see what happens.

The very very last thing I will also need to do is go through what I’m going to call a tightening round. This is the part where I think I’ve got to chop about 10% from the whole thing to make it tighter. How on earth do you figure out how to get rid of eight thousand six hundred words and still keep the story feeling like - well, the story?

Not entirely sure, but it’ll be an adventure finding out. If I was able to spray that much wordage down on a virtual page, then I guess its my job to tidy it up into a leaner, meaner beastie of a story. I’m licking my lips in anticipation.

Do what?

A family member just asked what was going to happen once this story is finished. There has to be a point when you're done, right? So what happens next?

That one had me stumped. This is a purely personal view, but stories were meant to be read, or told, or even sung, but definitely shared in one way or another. That's how you're supposed to be able to tell if they're any good, and whether more stories should be let loose into the world. This one... This one just needed to be written and done with, but there's no aim - should it be shopped around for a traditional publisher, should it be posted up on a blog somewhere for free to be used as advertising? Is it good enough for that? Should it just go straight to ebook, or have a chat with the Amazon publishing imprint?

They're all good questions. The story is aiming for a particular market, so there's a start, however right now, I just don't care. It doesn't matter at this stage because no matter how the story is going to end up coming into real life for people to read, its not there yet. Until it is done, reread, checked and signed off on mentally, it can't actually go anywhere yet.

Who wants to read a half-finished anything? So yeah, the question will ultimately need an answer, because that will provide a direction of where it goes once it has actually been finished. That answer doesn't need to be given now.

I've done two revisions, and I think I'm going to either deal with one plot that isn't so much as dangling as needing a quick darn with a needle and thread resolution... and when I say quick, naturally the alternative wording is something like long and torturous. Everything seems to be linked to everything else somehow, so unpicking it is proving a real... ache. I'm learning. And I just need to keep in mind that it doesn't matter. I can just keep going and learning all the time.

I'm not done yet. And oh yes. This monster has grown to 85 000 words. For a young adult book. I'll also need to learn how to chop that sucker down somewhat drastically. At least 10%, but probably more like 15. When I'm done? I may never be done.

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About deadlines

After years of trying to do too many things at the same time and failing at most of them, I've spent the past couple of years trying to do fewer things.

It goes against a lifetime of habits. The one I'm working on right now?

Stop writing new stuff when I haven't finished the thing I'm working on.

I get the bug for doing new stuff. I used to tell myself that it was ok, because at least I was still writing something (of not regularly) and writing anything is better than writing nothing. And while that's true, it also means I have a grand total of one finished story that I've finally amazed to get to the end of the first draft, one epic dark fantasy that is still only two-thirds finished, and a pre-cyberpunk story that I currently guess am about sixty percent done. There was also a series of sci-fi books that are intended to go straight to ebook format that were being mapped out, and the first few chapters of a collaborative work which was intended straight from the get-go to be a series of novels. All of those I want to do. None of them are going to be looked at until I've finished this story right now.

Real life doesn't have neat lines. I understand that. But a grand total of ONE THING COMPLETED isn't what you'd exactly call a substantial back catalogue. 

This is a classic case of griping. It's also a classic case of learning a whole bunch of new things that are now relevant. I'm learning editing. I'm learning to make notes and where to make them, and how to confirm when I've resolved stuff... or not resolved. I'm learning about feedback, how to take it, when to listen to it, how to not argue, or explain, but also when to take what I hear into consideration.
I'm learning about grammar, namely full stops (periods, snicker), and how to do speech marks and commas in speech marks, and how to figure out when a chapter ends, and what makes a section rather than a full chapter and... 

The point is made. In order to finish a story, any given story, it's back to one step at a time. and figuring stuff out as they come up. None of this would be happening unless there was a first draft, however bad or fractured or grammatically mangled it is at the beginning. It's all another beginning. This time, its about beginning something to get to the end of it... of which said end is at the end of May. At least I'm into the second draft, and that's hopefully starting to wrap itself up. There are more plot holes than words on the page. That's ok. One step at a time. Just do the thing I'm doing now, and leave the other stories alone, no matter how much they call out to be played with.

Numbers game

I took a look at how much more I've still got to go through before I see the end of the first run through. Turns out that I must have passed halfway a couple of days ago. Yep, 50%!! There is a light at the end of this tunnel.

I wanted this run through done by the end of the month, And I've given myself the month of May to work out all those other hundreds of things that need fixing (thanks sis). I promised a friend I trust that they'll be able to go through that draft as a "proper" beta reader. To say that it'll have me on tenterhooks would be an understatement on the same level as saying the Atlantic could get you wet. 

Still, there's only one way to learn all this, and that's by doing it. Then all I'll need to do is learn how to chop the big chapters up. And learn paragraph spacing. And grammar. Lord, that spectre looming over me with my bad grammar is going to bite me on the derrière like a Doberman chowing down on a tasty snack. 

I know it's just anthropomorphising, I really do. And yet at the same time I can't help but to think that the whole subject just takes one look at my face and drool begins to dribble down its literary chops. 

In ones' defence, I started listening to the Grammar Girl podcast over a year ago. Please let me have remembered something after all this time.

:edit: Just because it was a personal goal, the end of the first revision was hit pretty much on the last couple of days in April:

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Family time

My sister came to visit over the last weekend. We caught up, drank, talked about stuff, and she cooked, so I have food in the house. Food. Nice.

The funny thing about having family around is that when it happens infrequently enough that it's an honest-to-goodness event, it's important to take advantage of that time. That shouldn't mean I don't do any writing things, but that's exactly how it feels. I had this little 'tick, tick, tick' in my head, letting me know that whatever I'm doing at the moment may be fun, but it's not editing. 

I should be editing. I should be spending at least a little time staring at this pile of words and trying to beat it into submission. On the plus side she finally read my first draft and really liked it. 

And then - at my request - she poked holes in it. Lots of holes. Some of them I have a way to fix, and others I have no blooming idea on how to fix yet. There's still that big horrible plot hole that I need to find and fix. 

I'm glad she came. New things to do once I've finished the thing I'm doing. This writing stuff certainly isn't boring. Now to go do some more editing, and at some point I know I'll need to figure out where I've accidentally left a good third of the printed pages that I left scribbles over. 

Maybe I could have asked my sister.

New things

First times are great. Except… when they’re not.

This is the first time I've succeeded in finishing a story of anything over short story length, (courtesy of nanowrimo, which boosted my word count from 25 000 words written in what, two years -  to something around 75 000 words) and the first time I've had to really think about editing.

Editing is a joyous thing. Its taking the drek that seems like some never-ending thing that I can’t see the good parts from the bad, and working through it to find the rough diamond that I’m reliably assured lies in the heart of all manuscripts. Its picking through the dumb lines, mistakes and typos. Its finding out that time after time, I've used the same word two sentences running, something which I think would annoy the hell out of me were I reading it.

Wait, I am reading it, and it annoys me. It also bores me. My goal was to run through the whole story looking for the things that don’t make sense, the plot elements that go nowhere, the missing bits. After reading the whole thing through, I was bored. I bored myself with my own writing. Yep, there were fun bits, and certain parts I thought were quite clever. Yep, in all probability, those are the parts that are likely needing stripped out at some point.

Yeah, its almost definitely true at some point.

Currently I’m at page 55 of approximately 8 million as far as I can see. I won’t give up, but I think I started this some time back in the stone age. At the rate I’m going, I think humanity will either have evolved into a higher state of consciousness, or nuked itself over so many times that our mutant forms may actually be able to mate with spiders.

In any case, woven through all this new editing stuff is realising that there’s something wrong with the story. Its the way the climaxes don’t work properly or something, maybe the beats are wrong (if that’s what I’m actually talking about), or off. Its there. I can feel it, and I don’t have enough awareness of story to tell me what it is. Hopefully I’ll figure it out in the next pass.

Yes. The prospect of doing this all over again is filling me with excitement.

Really.

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Funny that

I can't remember where we heard the phrase, but it goes like this: "Life is funnier than shit."

At some point yesterday, I smiled for a photo. Right now, I don't know exactly when or why. Later on that day I found out my daughter was dead. She's 18. I know I should be using past tense. I know this. I also know that from this point on, she'll always be 18.
Right now, I just don't know what to do with that, but I have a family and they're hurting, and I know what my function is at the moment. 

There are lots of people visiting at the family house. They aren't my friends, but they are there to console the family so I can appreciate that. My friends - the ones I want to have close - aren't near. They have families. As far as I'm concerned right now, they should be with their family whenever they can.

I didn't want this to be my first post, but if anything is going to give me a kick up the backside and do something with my life, it would be this.

I have access to social networks, but i'm not in the mood to share with all and sundry. This is a brand new blog. nobody will read it, and I really need somewhere that I can write this out.

Life is funnier than shit. I'm not one for swearing (in public), but under the circumstances, I'm ok with this one. Yesterday, I went to work, smiled for a photo, and my daughter died.