Temptations Involved in Self-Publishing

If you saw my semi-ranting book review on Tuesday, you may remember that the book in question was self-published.

Now, don't go jumping to conclusions. I've read plenty of self-published books in my time, and several of them are quite good. Sure, perhaps they shouldn't be judged the same way as one would evaluate a traditionally-published book (although some indeed can, e.g., Michelle Davidson Argyle's Cinders), but they tend to be good...

...if the author puts in the proper amount of time, energy, and possibly money.

I think there's a strong temptation these days to hop too quickly into the self-publishing route. I know I've thought about it, and I'm sure I'm not alone. There can be several factors involved in not having a book accepted by an agent or an editor that have nothing to do with the quality of the work: it's not the right time; the market's already flooded with similar stories; there's no market for similar stories; the agent/editor was in a bad mood that day; it got lost in the slush pile; etc. But, we all know that sometimes it IS the quality of the work that's the problem.

For many of us, we go back to the drawing board, edit, slash, burn, revise, repeat.

Some, though, may go the self-publishing route.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad option. It's hard to get a break in this industry, we all know. But with self-publishing comes heavy responsibility to make sure that your book can attempt to stand among the more traditionally-published books.

Taking that book that never sold and publishing it as-is on CreateSpace is not the way to go. And just because you're best friend/spouse/neighbor/mother/sibling/cat think it's the best story ever written doesn't mean the general public—a.k.a. those people who don't know you from the annoying neighbor who doesn't clean up after his/her dog—will agree.

So, what needs to happen in the route of self-publishing? Here are my top three recommendations.

First, good critique partners. I suggest people you don't know in the real world, i.e., people who won't be afraid to tell you the truth. All of my critique partners, I've met online through blogging, and with most of them I don't even discuss my personal life. It's all about the words. Keep the relationship professional and potentially brutal. It's the best way to get honest opinions. They should spot technical and factual errors, comment on awkward phrasing, and tell you when the pace slows, when they're bored, or when you've strayed too much from your original story. Take those opinions and edit, slash, burn, revise, repeat.

Second, after you've ripped and shredded—which you might think you did before querying, but, hell, do it again! what could it hurt—hire a professional editor. You may think you know grammar, but this professional, if properly doing his/her job, will make you question how you managed to pass elementary English. This editor should have strong opinions on the Oxford comma (either pro or con, doesn't matter, as long as it's a strong opinion—and here's mine) and a sharp eye. S/he should not only cover your manuscript in so much red ink that it makes your HS English teacher blush, but this person should also once again be reading for factual and technical errors in the content. An editor that only edits for commas and typos isn't worth the money, unless you specify (and, dear God, why would you?) that that's all you want. A good professional editor is worth his/her weight in gold nuggets, so be prepared to shell out accordingly. In the end, it's worth it.

Finally, don't let your 12 year old design your cover. You may firmly believe in his/her talent, as do your spouse and the 7th grade art teacher, but, again, the rest of the world is full of brutal cynics like me who will take one look at the cover and decide never to read the book. Paying for a professional artist who has experience in cover design is worth the money. Don't think you can cut costs on this just because your brother's best friend's ex-girlfriend's roommate had a minor in art in college ten years ago. Just pay the cost.

Do you have any experiences in self-publishing? What do you think of the self-publishing option these days? Have you ever considered it? Would you?

Review: Murder Most Trivial

A few months ago, I won this on Goodreads. I don't normally read mysteries, but this one touted itself as a YA mystery. With fond memories of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, I though, why not? Upgrade the mystery (I'm pretty sure Nancy never investigated serial murderers), and it should be a pretty good read, right? Ideally...

The Blurb (from Goodreads): Murder, is that your final answer? High school senior Jason Greevey seems to think so. When winning contestants from a local restaurant's trivia contest begin turning up dead, runner-up Jason worries that he will be the next weakest link!

Now, I'm not one to look down on self-published novels. In fact, I've read my fair share (by Michelle Davidson Argyle, Allen Russell, Carol Riggs, among others). They generally have to be judged within their own category, and not in comparison with books edited by agents and publishers who rip books to pieces (for the betterment of the book, of course) for a living.

And, yes, I checked. This book was published by DPL Books in VA. I found their blog, and their listing on a self-publishing consortium. Honestly, I didn't even find a company website. Beyond those, it was mostly links for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. I find this odd.

But I digress...

Unfortunately for L. K. Ellwood, all those other self-pub'ed books left this one in the dust. Overwrought with typos and factual errors, this book floundered on its way to finding the end-game--which I had difficulty believing. I found myself skimming way too often as I had to read random bits of backstory about minor characters who hardly play a role (e.g., I don't need to know that Mrs. Rice somehow managed to run all of the volunteer committees at church while raising 5 kids when she only appears in a phone call and the final scene of the book). What this story needed was a good editor, and I don't necessarily mean from the publishing house. The author needed a solid, tooth-and-nails critique partner or set of critique partners who weren't afraid to rip the story apart. It's really too bad that this author didn't have have one (or several) to point out that, for example, a morning newspaper goes to press well after the 11pm news, or that a person who has designated herself as an organ donor would not have anything taken from her if she died from an allergic reaction to drugs administered in the hospital.These are only a couple of several examples of factual errors, not to mention the list of typos and awkward turns of phrase that appeared on almost every page.

Oh, and did I mention the constant head-jumping? At one point, the POV changed so frequently between father and son that I no longer knew who the "he" was. Even mid paragraph the shift in POV would occur. Extremely disconcerting.

The bottom line: Don't bother unless you're sending a heavy list of edits to the author. And since the pub date is from 2002, I doubt she wants to see any.

By the way, I'm not only planning on complaining. Stop back on Saturday for some of my thoughts on the temptations involved in self-publishing.

Back from the Brink

Oh, boy, folks, have I had a crazy few weeks. Grab a cuppa coffee/tea/wine/beverage of your choice and let me tell you all about it.

So I needed a mini break of blogging because I hadn't quite figured out how to manage my writing, my "new" job, family, life, and blogging all at the same time. I think I've figured it out now, so we're gonna try a trial of me blogging on Tuesdays and Saturdays for a while, and see how it works. Please bear with me as I reintegrate myself into the blogosphere.

This is your brain on editing.
Any questions?

Then there was the writing. In late October not only was I trying to manage some pretty intense revision on my novel (currently listed on my WIPs page as FIGHTING FATE, though I plan to change the title to IN FLAMES). I wanted to get a full round of revision finished before NaNoWriMo started, while also juggling my NaNo prep. That took a LOT out of me, and I edited until my brains turned into liquid goo. Seriously. It was messy.

My own personal NaNo shield

On November first, having finished that round of editing, I was happy to accept my NaNo fate. I greeted it with a warm, strong handshake. And on the fateful afternoon of November 1st, I had an extra meeting with my boss, wherein he asked me to work overtime in preparation for our display at an upcoming conference (I work for a small, specialty academic publisher). And in my inner ear, I heard my NaNo plans go *squish*. My boss and I negotiated trading the days in early November for days around Thanksgiving, so not all was lost, but it put some stress on my NaNo plans nonetheless.

As of November 12th, one-third of the way through the month, I had only written about 14K over the course of 4 authentic writing days. Ouch.

On the morning on November 13th, as I'm leaving my house to pick up a friend, I grab my phone to let her know I'm coming, and see that I have a missed text message from my boss--who, I might add, never sends me text messages. It said, more or less, that he was in the hospital, post-surgery after having had a heart attack. Everything okay. Call to talk about conference prep. SERIOUSLY. My boss is in the intensive care unit on a Sunday morning and wants to talk about conference prep. Now, granted, the conference started on the 17th. My boss isn't really all that Type-A, but we did still have a lot of work to do, and that essentially took the editorial side of our house from 3 to 2 employees doing the bulk of the work (we have a few work-study students, but regular employees, we are three). So now add more overtime work to my schedule over the next three days, making the first day of the conference (Nov 17th) day 5 for writing. Not a good sign.

See how the Jell-O powder gets all goopy with a little water?

Not to mention that on the 17th and the 18th I was about as worthless a writer as an uncooked box of Jell-O, from working 10hour days three days in a row, and the emotional turmoil of talking to my boss on the phone while he was doped on morphine and falling asleep. Yup, powdery Jell-O.

Somehow, though, I managed to pull a few days writing between 5-6K. Don't ask me how. Perhaps some superhuman feats of strength that even kryptonite couldn't squelch. Who knows? But I have to attribute at least a little of my success to Hart Johnson and her stupendous idea for hour-long sprint-writing sessions. I think those were ultimately my saving grace. Coordinated over Facebook, I would periodically join Hart, among others, on these sprints, and both the time and the community support helped a ton.

And, imagine, through all of that, I actually won!

Granted, according to my word verification, I only have 50,002 words, but I don't care! I'm 2 words over what they need (although, according to my Scrivener file, I have 50,019), and that's what matters.

Anyway, now it's December. A little over two weeks until the holiday break comes, which will entail lots of time with family, friends, and fruitcake. I'm already celebrating by eating too many sweets and listening to Christmas music while I cook and bake. And, dangit all, I am MAKING these cookies if it kills me. I just have to find some sweet rice flour first...

Be seeing you around the blogosphere!

Pronoun Usage and Same-Sex Characters

Image courtesy of FreelanceWritingGigs.com
and Comedy Central.

I learned something today. (Cue cheesy end-of-episode South Park music.)

It's probably something obvious, and it's little, but something I hadn't noticed before.

Sometimes it's difficult to decide which pronouns to use. I'm specifically referring to a close 3rd POV narrator in a scene with another character of the same gender. When do you use "he" and "she" (or "it", depending on your genre of choice)?

In this latest draft of Fighting Fate, I followed my linguistics training, adhering to supposed rules of pragmatics to dictate when I used "he/him/his" or "she/her/her" instead of proper names.

An example:

Roger took several steps toward her. Marcus tried to followed, but Roger’s hyper-awareness picked up on it right away. He paused and glanced over his shoulder at Marcus. Even if for a second, it made Marcus stop.

Here's the breakdown. In the second sentence, I used "Marcus" because, according to pragmatics, "He" should refer to Roger as the subject of the previous sentence. After "but" I used "Roger" again, because "he" would refer to Marcus. In the third sentence, "He" is Roger, being the most recent available subject to refer to. Then we get "Marcus" again, BUT it's in a prepositional phrase, so the last sentence repeats "Marcus" because the most recent SUBJECT to refer to is "Roger".

I don't think this is wrong per se, but it's clunky. Do you feel the clunky? I felt the clunkiness even while writing it, though wasn't sure how to fix it.

I sent it off to a crit partner of mine, and this is how it came back (some suggestions hers, others I adapted based on what I'd learned from several of her line-edits). Because it's a little out of context, please note that the close 3rd POV narrator is attached to Marcus in this scene.

Roger took several steps toward her. He tried to followed. Roger paused and glanced over his shoulder, his hyper-awareness tipping him off. Even if for a second, it made Marcus stop.

Less clunky, no?

But is it clear?

So the dilemma continues. I've rewritten it again, because another crit buddy was confused (and I can't say I blame her). I've changed the second "he" back to "Marcus" because pragmatically the reader is going to assume "he" to be "Roger" otherwise. Right? Or not?


So what's most important? Ditching the clunky or maintaining it for the sake of clarity? How do you deal with a close 3rd POV narrator and multiple people of the same gender in one scene? How do you use pronouns? Any advice to the poor, recovering linguist that is moi?

Visionary (#atozchallenge)

Welcome to today's post on the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge. My challenge, as I have chosen to accept it, is thus: I have asked on my Facebook and Twitter accounts for people to contribute random words beginning with today's letter. From Random.org, I have selected one of these words, and will below challenge myself to connect said word to writing.

For the letter V, I received 54 suggestions. Random.org selected number 9: visionary.


Visionary

When I first started writing again, I had a vision. No, literally, a vision. Well, okay, it wasn't one of those show-my-destiny-through-mental-images vision, but it was a message my brain wanted to tell me. A repeated scene in my head over and over. My psyche whispering to me in my dreams. Too bad my psyche really wanted to scare the pants off of me... and succeeded, to be sure.

But this vision turned into something. It's the climax in my first (hefty) manuscript, something that no one will ever see but me, one supportive friend, and my super-supportive sister-in-law. But that's not the point.

The point is that we're all visionaries in our own worlds. We create from nothing but the synapses in that gray matter under our skull and some personal experiences. We have visions.

Yeah, yeah, are you bored with my "we're the awesomest" speech yet?

I bring this up because sometimes the original vision isn't the best. My writing instructor once told us that revision and re-vision aren't the same thing, and I believe her. I've seen it in action. Sometimes moving scenes around and editing the syntax aren't enough to provide the best story within us. Sometimes you have to delete a third of a novel and rewrite it, re-visioning how it should play out. Sometimes you have to rethink a character's actions. If, upon further inspection, that character wouldn't do that huge action that creates the tension for the rest of the novel, then something needs to be re-visioned.

I'm currently rewriting the first, oh, third (the number above was either arbitrary or subconsciously apt) of my novel Fighting Fate. The original was poor. The tension lagged. People did some stuff, but, eh, people do stuff all the time. This time around, though, I'm rethinking everything, including the backstory, to get them where they need to go. And, if I do say so myself (*dusting off shoulders*), it's not too bad.

Ever had to re-vision your work? How far are you willing to go to rewrite your fiction/poetry? Are you willing to scrap everything but your basic characters and start over? How much re-visioning is too much?

My Own Personal Challenges

I've been reading (among many other things at once) On Writing by Stephen King. I enjoyed reading his books when I was younger. After having read every Christopher Pike novel published to that point in my life at least three times, Stephen King was the next step, moving into the world of adult horror/suspense/thriller/what-have-you. And, honestly, even if you don't like Stephen King's style or his stories or are simply jealous, you have to admit—the man's got something.

So when a friend loaned me his writing memoir a few months ago I thought, "Okay, sure. Seems like a good idea."

Then it sat on the shelf until I reached 50K for NaNo.

I thought to myself, "What now?" as I'm sure many other NaNo's do. So I picked up King's On Writing to see what advice I could glean on how to dust off my work boots and get back into it.

The book is full of fabulous advice. Above and beyond the tips like "Read a lot. Write a lot", he suggests setting a daily goal. Don't do anything until you reach your goal. Don't give up and walk away. Write while eating your lunch if you must. Obviously great advice, and something I could stand to implement into my own life.

But the piece of advice that has resonated with me so soundly today is about description. I tend to be an under-describer in my writing, particularly in my first drafts. As I read, I thought about my NaNo creation (whatever it may be) and about the setting. What had I described well? Ne, what had I described at all? Oh, it hurts to admit that I may have let the description slide some. But now I know at least one thing to focus on when I go back for rewrites.

There are plenty of other gems in King's On Writing. This is just the one that inspired me today.

What's some great writing advice you've been given/come across?

Game, SET... Edit?

This is about writing.  Stick with me for a paragraph or two, kay?

Ever play SET?  Give it a shot.  Click on "Daily Puzzle" to the left.  You have to find three cards that make a SET, which means the number, color, shape, and shading each individually all match or all mismatch.  For example:

In this picture, even though the three red cards have 1-2-3, they do NOT make a set because 1) there's no squiggly shape and 2) there's no solid.  The three purple cards also do no make a set, but they would if the single purple were an oval and not a diamond.

Sets here include the three singles in the bottom row.  The numbers all match (they all only have 1 figure), but all the colors are different, the shapes are all different, and the shading is all different.  Also the upper left three-squiggle-solid-green goes with the upper-almost-right two-oval-empty-red and the bottom-almost-left single-diamond-shaded-purple.

Okay, got it?  Go play (when you're finished reading).

I hear you.  What the hell does this have to do with writing, right?  It does.  I promise.  It's about...

....drum roll....

....self-editing.

When you play this game online, you have to find six sets in the twelve cards.  After a while, you keep seeing the same thing over and over because the cards don't go away (notice how, in my example above, the single-diamond-shaded-purple is used twice?).  There are obvious sets, but you don't see them right away.  If the stupid game didn't time you, I'd walk away, eat an apple, and come back.  My time today was under 5 minutes, but I was about ready to pull my hair out, since I got the first five sets in a minute-twenty.

When we self-edit, we have to learn to find the things that we wouldn't otherwise see.  These are faults that we can easily see in someone else's work, work that we haven't dedicated weeks/months/years/decades/lifetimes to, and so we're not emotionally invested.  Pick up our own work, and it's really hard to see it.  Is there too much backstory?  Is this dialogue stilted?  Is that character really necessary?  The first few edits, you may see the first five problem-sets, but if you just keep staring at it, that last set of edits can elude you for months.

I try to get around my own blindness by walking away.  For me, that's the biggest help.  When it comes to spelling and punctuation, I read backwards (bottom to top, right to left), because then I can't become emotionally invested in my characters' lives on the page.  Read it on paper or a computer screen (whichever way you don't write it first).  Read it aloud.  Print white words on black paper/background (color changes do amazing things, or so I've come to learn by accident over the past couple of months).  And, when in doubt, ask a friend.  I realize this goes beyond self-editing, sort of. If the friend is a comma-commando, then that's "typical" editing, but if the friend is reading for content, s/he can help me at least see the problem.  It's still up to me to FIX it.  Just remember that too many friends/readers can spoil the plot--something I forget ALLLLLL the time--so be selective.


What are some tactics you use to help you self-edit and see the faults you wouldn't otherwise?