Romaniac HQ has been revision central of late. In this week’s Life Cycle Of A Writer, I talk about how in my first set of revisions with Carina UK I’ve moved my manuscript from three points of view to one.
My next set of revisions came in yesterday afternoon, so I’ll be a busy Romaniac for a while. Please send chocolate, ready meals and babysitters.
Catherine x
Last Friday we gave you notebook love.
This week it’s all about the pens.
No drooling, please.
Debbie: Ahh, ‘The pen maketh the writer …’
There’s nothing quite like gripping the cold, silky length of a Parker or Mont Blanc fountain pen, allowing the words to flow and then blowing or wafting paper until the ink dries. There have been three special ones in my life over the years but alas, each has succumbed to the special place in the sky where all the lost things go. For now, my trusty pencil, sharpened down to a two inch stump must do. The flow is still there and that is what matters.
2015 continues at a pace and we’re doing our best to cram as much in this year as possible. We’ve had lots of edits between us recently so it’s been a bit quieter than usual, but the good news is that means we’ll have lots of NEW BOOKS for you to read in the near future. Here’s what we’ve all been up to:
Catherine: Signing my first contract with Carina UK and discovering what it is to be a real author. I’ve had my first set of revisions and lots of plans are afoot for 2016 when my new title and front cover will be revealed. And getting the second book ready so it’ll be available for pre-order by the time book one is out!
Laura: I’ve had a bit of everything going on – school holidays, a DD with her leg in plaster, and edits for book 3. I have a few events coming up, about which I am excited, but more on those nearer the times.
Lucie: It has been an incredibly busy time for me but unfortunately, not a lot of it is book related. What with the summer holidays (always a time that I struggle to get writing done) and work, I have found it difficult to get on with my edit. I start university today, too, so that will mean I need to start to manage my time a lot better! I have also just started a new vlog series on my blog, so that will hopefully help free up some time. Just need to work out how to fit in everything now…
Celia: Drank lots of wine, wrote like a mad woman all summer and notched up 60,000 brand new words for my WIP – a psychological coming-of-age story. Now back at work and have been The Boss for a while so no writing progress made; the next big push is to finish, edit and submit. Also limbering up for Tirgearr edits on the new one due out in January – Moondancing; a prequel to Little Boxes. Lastly, made the short list for the Exeter Story Prize. Final prize giving on October 17th so off on a jolly to Exeter with everything crossed.
Vanessa: School holidays have meant less writing time, but I’m deep into a new draft of my work-in-progress now, which will hopefully be ready to send to my agent in the next few weeks. I also had a lovely phone call to say I’ve made the Wells Literary Festival short story competition shortlist!
Sue: I’ve been a busy bee finishing my work-in-progress which took a bit longer than I had hoped but is now out and under consideration. I’ve also been working on a novella which I’ll be self-publishing with the Romaniac Press. I’m looking forward to sharing the cover and blurb here very soon.
Debbie: It’s been four long years and four re-writes but having finally managed to write, ‘THE END,’ I’ve taken to eagerly stalking the postman each day as I wait for my work-in-progress to arrive back from the RNA NWS. In the meantime (and in an attempt to distract myself) I’m working on the first chapter of the next novel.
Jan: EDITS! EDITS! EDITS! Working through her edits for As Weekends Go, the winner of Choc Lit’s Search For A Star competition, ready for publication. She’s now recovering.
All that in EIGHT WEEKS. I think it calls for another refill of the cake tin at Romaniac HQ.
I have an ear- worm, and the best way I know to rid oneself of an ear-worm is to share, so here it is: Bananarama’s Cruel Summer.
The six-week school holiday mostly passed by in a blur of grey skies, grizzly, drizzly and occasionally torrential rain, and dim light.
My children didn’t seem to mind. The damp days were an excellent reason to stay home and play computer games, draw, and read, and, bless them, they didn’t object to me spending some of that time in the edits cave with What Doesn’t Kill You.
With the years whizzing by, I’m keen to spend as much down-time with my children as possible – their adulthood is lurking around the next corner – so I kept my daylight editing hours to the minimum. I saw 3:00 am a number of times, and worked right through until 5:30 am on the last night/day to ensure I returned my work on time. This is no reflection on my editor – she is lovely and actively encouraged me to spend time with my children over the holidays, but once I get stuck into edits, it’s better if I keep going, so I can keep a mental track of the changes. Last year I explained the process to my youngest in this way: Imagine you are calculating a sum with lots of different actions – brackets, additions, subtractions, equations – working out each sum as you go along, trying to hold all that information in your head so you can give a final answer – that is what editing is like for me, except with words, plot and structure.
There were a few sunny days when we managed to nip out for a spot of fresh air and exercise. We live five minutes away from the beach, and although we’d hoped to make more use of it this year, it was not to be. Thankfully, I took lots of photos of our trips out – days that earned the hashtag #summerholidaysinoneday. (I now have another ear-worm going on – Crowded House – Four Seasons In One Day, which, by the way, we experienced in one morning.)
I purposely did no other writing during the holidays as I find it difficult to swap from edits and characters in one novel to the characters and plot of the work-in-progress, so book 4, as yet untitled, remained untouched. I’m panicking a little, as I’m only 15,000 words in, and I have six months to complete and revise. So far, a year is the shortest time I’ve taken to write a novel …
The plan was to return to book 4 once the children were back at school, but those plans have been put on hold a little longer, as my daughter fractured a bone and tore a ligament in her knee in a Tae Kwondo accident, three days into the new term. We have come through the first week, so it’s onwards and upwards now.
Such is the life cycle of a writer …
Take care,
There it sat in my inbox.
‘EDITS REPORT’
The butterflies descended before I even opened the attachment.
The lovely email from my editor, introducing herself and offering me all the support and encouragement I could have hoped for, put a huge smile on my face, but I don’t mind admitting to you that, upon initially reading the proposed structural revisions for my first novel, the photo below pretty much summed up my mood.
I could hear my fellow Romaniac Vanessa’s voice in my head: “Freeze it for a couple of days, Jan, then have another read and things will look much clearer.”
Mr B, of course, agreed, and being as fantastically calm and reassuring as ever, came in from work the following day, clutching these:
Sure enough, upon reading through the report another two or three times, and accepting my lovely editor’s kind offer to walk me through it page by page, we arranged to meet in London.
I’d been a bit apprehensive on the train beforehand as, having absorbed the suggestions and feeling enthusiastic about ninety per cent of them, (even though I had no clue if I could actually implement them successfully!) I also knew there were one or two points we were likely to disagree on.
I needn’t have worried, because within ten minutes of meeting my editor and seeing her passion for my novel and my characters, and hearing her brilliant explanations of how the edits would help to enrich the overall story, I was eager to get cracking.
I’d wrongly been of the mind-set that we were on opposing teams. Why would I feel like that? Was it preciousness on my part kicking in? Over-sensitivity to criticism (albeit hugely constructive) perhaps? It was very much a two-way discussion, with my thoughts and ideas fully respected. To quote my editor: “It’s your book, Jan.”
And so I set to work. It took me longer than I’d hoped, with a fair few huffs and puffs of frustration at myself along the way (and much cake & choccie scoffing!) but when I read through the revised copy of my manuscript, and could see how my editor’s proposals had strengthened the novel, I felt elated.
I only hope my editor feels the same 😉
To say I’ve learned a lot from the experience would be downplaying it.
It feels great and very exciting to be part of such a fab team.
Next up … Line Edits!
Chocolate Button, anyone?
Jan x
Cardingmill Valley, South Shropshire
Wayfarers’ Church, Somerset
Quantocks
Dear Auntie Romaniac,
I’m suffering from a bad case of impatience. Life seems to be one long wait at the moment, mainly for emails that refuse to arrive.
I know it’s good to have lots of projects on the go and fingers in plenty of pies (am talking competition entries, submissions to agents etc, not real pies, sadly) but how can I get away from this constant, obsessive checking of my inbox? I still need to be at the computer to finish the WIP and it’s way too tempting to just have just one more little glance…aaargh, I’m doing it again!
Yours desperately,
Celia
Jan: You have my full sympathy on this one, Celia. I had to take drastic measures recently when I was working on my edits by actually unplugging the internet router/modem, you name it … Other than that, I find what (sometimes) works for me is to set the alarm on my phone (stick with me on this!) for certain times during the day/eve, say 10am, 1pm, 4pm, etc, and only look at emails/Facebook/Twitter at these points. I’m sure you will receive better solutions than these, so good luck! 🙂
Since my last Life Cycle of a Writer post where I talked about how I plot my novels with Post-It Notes (click HERE for link), and how I was aiming to finish the first draft of my WIP, I’m delighted to say that I typed THE END! Yay! That novel had been put to one side for quite some time while I worked on other projects, so having finally completed it and sent it out, I’m now waiting for feedback.
In an effort to stop myself constantly refreshing my inbox for any news, I’ve been keeping myself busy by writing a novella. It’s a romance with a mystery set in France called The French Effect, which I’m aiming to publish around the end of October.
As a family, we have a great love for France and have a second home in Southern Brittany. I’ve wanted to use the location for a long time and finally had time to work on this project. I’ve enjoyed writing The French Effect so much, I plan to do a few more novellas based in the different areas of France we’ve visited over the years.
I’m self-publishing this time, under the Romaniac Press banner, and the list of things to do has been a bit longer than usual, including:-
Cover design
Formatting for Kindle and Smashwords
Uploading to Amazon
Arranging paperbacks
Of course, there’s still the usual editing, revising and proofreading to add to the list, together with organising the promo and reviews but I’ve enjoyed the whole process. It’s certainly kept me busy. I look forward to sharing the cover and blurb very soon but, in the meantime, will leave you with a picture of our cottage in France. The door and windows are usually a lovely deep Breton red but they are currently in the middle of a facelift.
The Romaniacs 