Tag: editing

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word-working

Most weekends are set aside as time for writing/editing/other book related ings. Sometimes I dump several thousand words onto a page. Sometimes I strike a couple hundred off the page. Sometimes I tweak little things.

But there also days when I research odd things, fall down a rabbit hole of baby names sites, draw (badly) maps to help me keep directions straight. And then there are days where I’m looking for an agent, or I’m banging on promo work.

Very rarely, I get to use this time just to enjoy my own work, or lose myself into a new project, whether that’s a new book, a short story, a poem.

I do some of these things during the work week too, but I don’t have whole days to devote to them the way I do on the weekend. At least a half hour every day I am poking words in some way, shape or form outside of the wordworking I do in the day job.

This weekend I am diving deep into the world of The Blood Witch, part editing/part writing, as I attempt to patch up some plot holes and get some of the stuck bits moving again.

I love these characters, and this world. I look forward to being able to share them with you all one day.

Have a great Sunday, Readers! Stay safe. Stay cool. Maybe tuck into a lovely book.

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love what you do, do what you love

Every story I write, there comes a time somewhere in the writing or editing (or both) where I decide the whole plotline sucks, when I’m ready to chuck the whole thing and give up writing forever. Every single time. Sometimes at multiple points in the journey from concept to published story.

I’ve recently hit this again on The Blood Witch. I’ve pulled the complete set of stories together so I can work through some continuity issues and plug some plot holes, and as I’m reading/editing to weave pieces together, I hit a point that I’m sure it sucks.

Fortunately, having been here before, I know to step back and stop until I’ve sorted through what in the plot is bugging me. Always, when I remember to do this, I come back after a few days of rumination and I re-find my love of the story.

And, Readers, I do love this story so much! I love the characters. I love the way the plots of each of the three books is different, and takes us new places. I love my MC’s voice, which is important since she is telling the story. I love getting to play with mythology and mythical creatures.

I’m not sure of the ending just yet, but I’m getting there. And really, getting there is the better part anyway!

Okay, off to prep for a meeting for the day job. And maybe more coffee. Coffee is life!

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about time

We’re almost to the end of June already! Is it just me, or does it feel like we’re barreling through this year at breakneck speed? Are we making up for the dragging pace of last year? Are we trying to outrun the virus?

Time is such an odd thing at times. It messes with my head!

How is it that the week can be dragging and speeding at the same time? Like yesterday and Tuesday seemed to go on forever and ever, and yet today feels like it should only be Tuesday.

Life is crazy busy at this time of year, though this year, without SF Pride eating up a chunk of my time, it’s not quite as busy as usual. I guess that contributes to the strangeness of time these days.

My big work project eats up a lot of time during the day, and I have writing time and editing on the Sirens anthology, and I have a crochet project I need to finish.

Speaking of which, I should pour that last cup of coffee and get back to the day job. Happy Thursday, Readers! Make it a good one!

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the creative spark

I am a creative person. I’m pretty sure anyone who has read much of my blog realizes that. I’ve been thinking lately about that creative drive and how it affects my entire life. I see my life in creative turns…whether it’s cooking a meal or caring for my garden, writing, painting, crochet…it is a huge part of who I am.

I can not go long without craving creativity. I’m currently feeling drawn back to old loves, things I’m not necessarily good at, but love doing: wood working and painting.

At the same time, I have three crochet projects that I’m in the middle of, a trilogy of novels I’m working on, and a short story anthology to edit. I work in a profession that feeds my creative needs as well. If only I had more hours in the day!

I need to spend some of today in the garden, as I have some plants to get into the dirt, and I need to thin out my succulents and transplant a few to new homes. If I am very lucky, I’ll find a little time to make something pretty with yarn or paint or clay.

First up though, is the words. Today I need to finish polishing up a short story and start edits on the stories submitted for the anthology.

I hope today sparks some creativity for you too, Readers! Make something wonderful!

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the enemy of good

I am a perfectionist (…somewhat recovered). I hate making mistakes. Even more so when those mistakes are visible to the greater public. This is a reason why my first novel took me so many years to finish, and why every crochet project gets ripped back at least once.

In my day job I often have to balance my desire for perfection with the truth that good + fast is often more important than perfect.

It’s a lesson that’s taken me years to learn, and when I’m working on a huge project (as I am right now) that gets built behind the scenes, it is easy to fall back into the idea that it must all be perfect before I throw it into the public arena.

Fortunately, this current project also plays into my obsession with organizing information, clarifying language and teaching, and it is all going on where most of my company won’t see it until I show it to them. That means I can keep tweaking it and perfecting it as I go along, so long as I meet my deadlines.

But, now, Readers, my coffee cup is empty and I have a meeting to prep for. I hope your Wednesday is wonderful!

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the beauty in brevity

There is something I love about the freedom in a short story. There is no obligation to begin at the beginning, in fact it is sometimes more fun to jump in somewhere in the middle.

Short stories ask more skill of us authors, in some ways, than a full length novel. There is the challenge of brevity, which is a thing I often struggle with. If you have five thousand words to tell the tale, each of those words becomes important. Your characters need to be able to convey not just story, but personality and point of view quickly, but without making your reader feel rushed.

Often when I’m working on a short story, I throw words on the page to start, far more words than necessary and often imprecisely used. Then I use my first edit pass to tighten up the language, replace the imprecise with something more fitting. I boil down descriptions to the best words. I render ten words down to three or four.

All the while, I’m whittling away at not just the word count, but at the story itself, distilling it down to a more perfect form. Think of it as a block of stone. We know that there is a work of art inside of it, but we have to work to chip away the parts that obscure it.

There are a bunch of short stories on my hard drive in some state of doneness, some begun for a specific project, others just to get the words out of my head. Maybe I’ll consider an anthology of these works at some point, but for now, I am off to finish polishing and buffing one for this year’s Sirens anthology.

Happy Saturday, Readers! I hope the coffee is good, the sun is shining and your day is filled with kindness.

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to office or not to office, I’ll just stay home, thanks

This has been a tough week, and I’m not even really sure why. But the good news is that we have made it to the Friday and there is only about 6.5 work hours between me and the weekend. I’ll admit to a certain amount of anxiousness about this whole “returning to normal” thing that is starting to happen.

To be fair, I really love the whole working from home dynamic, and would not welcome a return to the office even in “normal” times. It suits my agoraphobic, introverted self quite well. But I’ve noticed an increase in bedtime anxiousness, an inability to turn my brain off and put my phone down, almost as if I’m expecting some disaster to befall us while I’m asleep.

I’m happy to have found a company that values me and has no issues with the working from home forever dynamic. There are so many companies out there that treat their employees like high school kids who need to be controlled. Worse even, because even in high school they trust you to do your homework at home.

I get that working from home isn’t for everyone and some people need the daily interaction/schedule to do their best work, but I will never understand why people whose work can be done at home aren’t allowed by so many to do that.

In my experience, I get more done in less time at home than I ever do in the office, and I’m not burning my batteries with the commute and being social, so I have more me left over at the end of the work day.

Another thing I’ve noticed about working from home this last year is that it helps me treat my non-work writing as I treat my job, which means that I have times set aside to do that work, and I don’t see it as eating into my “free time” anymore. I don’t have to choose between writing and all the other things. There is this “this is writing time” and “this is time for other things” dynamic to my entire week, not just Monday through Friday.

It is, however, as I said, Friday. That means another cup of Death Wish Coffee and writing time that is on the horizon. I hope the day is good to you, Readers, and that your weekend is filled with love.

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the state of Thána

I finished a first edit pass on the second Blood Witch book not too long ago and have set it aside to start the third book. The idea for the third book came to me a few months ago, and has been building for a while.

I continue to love these characters with every fiber of my being!

Thána is like me in ways Amara never could have been. Writing in the first person allows me to immerse myself into the character. When I’m writing, I can lose myself in the narrative and shape the worlds she moves through.

Each book moves Thána into a new realm with new challenges and new characters to meet. Usually, when I start a new book, I have the basics of the world and an overarching view of the plot, though the details don’t ever come until I’m actually writing. My characters can surprise me, and often do.

I prefer to write straight through, making notes on things I will need to go back to add in or change, rather than stopping where a new plot point arrives and immediately build it in. So I usually have a file open with the story, one with notes and in the case of these books, one with spells and foreign words I use in the stories.

Then, when the zero draft is done, I take those notes, go back to the beginning and work all of those things into the bones. That’s what I consider my first edit pass. Then I usually put it away and work on something else…the next book or something new.

I give it at least a few weeks before I go back to edit again, focusing on smoothing out dialog, fleshing out descriptions, filling in scenes, etc. My third edit pass, I actually read the whole thing out loud to myself. This serves to point out missing words, clunky dialog and repetitive words.

But, for now, it’s time for the day job where I get to write other fun things! Have a great day, Readers!

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the writing part of writing

Being an author is an odd sort of thing, I suppose, especially to those who are not *people who write* and especially not for those who also do not read. I was a voracious reader as a child. I absorbed words like a sponge. Stories were vehicles that transported me out of my bedroom and into worlds larger than any one mind can conceive.

Maybe it was inevitable that I would pick up a pen and start writing. I wanted in on that magic! I loved creating new worlds, new characters. I wrote science fiction, fantasy, and poetry. I tried my hand at mystery and romance. I studied and tried to emulate my favorite authors. I wanted my prose to be lush and invigorating. I wanted the worlds in my stories to come to life.

For that to happen, I learned, the author needs to spend a good amount of time prior to words hitting the paper. There is world building to do. There are characters to build out so that they are realistic and not just cardboard cut outs. There is plot to invent, stretch, turn, twist and resolve. Inevitably, that plot has holes that need to be filled.

And all of that comes either before or during the actual writing part of the writing process. Okay, sometimes after the first draft is done.

I can spend months (or longer) doing all the stuff that happens in my head before I start writing. My muse loves world building more than anything, so the worlds I see in my head are amazing landscapes of complex societies that I can only hope I capture as I begin to write.

This last weekend saw over ten thousand new words in the second Blood Witch book, signaling an end of the mental block 2020 clamped on my muse and ushering in the period where the words begin to spill from my fingers. It’s the part of the writing process that wants to just devour my life. The story spins out in my head faster than my fingers can translate it to the page, and I am best able in this phase to tune out my inner editor and just get it down.

I maybe feel the most like myself when I’m doing the writing part of writing. Unfortunately for me, today is Monday…and that means a return to the day job, so more word craft will need to wait, though I am hoping to get through this scene before I open the work computer.

I hope you are safe and sane, Readers, and that your week is filled with magic and kindness.

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the return of the day job x 2

It’s Friday. It’s the first Friday in a long time that I’ve spent an entire week working on paying work. I mean, yeah sure, eventually, hopefully, all the work I’ve put into my writing lately will pay off, but this is the immediate…or close to immediate, paycheck kind of work.

Did I mention that I started TWO full time jobs on Monday, or close to full time for the one. Job #1 is with a BI software company where I get to dig into my data analysis background and learn new things. Job #2 is straight up editing work. Granted, it’s editing work for a big company on a big project where the end client is a state government, so think dry and unexciting reading.

I ended up keeping both, even though Job #2 is a contract job through a contracting agency because neither one of them pays me what I’m used to…by a pretty significant amount. I fully anticipate that Job #1 will be my permanent job, and that the pay will increase as we move out of the current economic situation.

I’m really enjoying learning how to use new tools and combine my experience with new things, and at the end of that long day I can unplug my learning brain and edit for hours.

Means not much else is getting done, though my muse Brain is nibbling on something new, based on a dream a friend of mine had. She has the three main characters and the set up, some back story, but there’s a lot of world building to do, and a chunk of research, but she DOES love a good world build!

Just finishing up my first cup of coffee and getting ready to get onto Job #1. So, if I’m a bit scarce for the next little while, forgive me! I promise I’ll be around. Happy Weekend, Readers!

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