It'll be alright on the edit

 It's cold and wet here in Scotland, which is nothing unusual but still seeps into the bones like dampness into old walls.

It's the kind of day that makes me yearn for blue skies and golden beaches. For sitting at a table in warm sunlight, sipping a coffee, or a cold beer, and watching the world pass. No need to rush. No hassle. No pressures. Busy doing nothing and working the whole day through.

I'd settle for logs snapping in an open grate and an old movie on the TV. A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou beside me singing in the wilderness...

Hang on there, Omar Khayyam, before you recite the entire Rubaiyat - you've got an edit to do.

Ah yes.

It is an uncomfortable fact of writing life that we seldom, if ever, get it right the first time. Sometimes even the second time. We might think we have, but we really haven't. As our editors are quick to point out.

Editing is a vital part of publishing. As I tell creative writing students, this authoring game is a collaborative process.

Sure, we sit down in our garret and pound out the deathless prose, because if we didn't then everyone who follows on wouldn't have anything to work with.

But then we can find out that said prose isn't quite as deathless as we think. Sometimes it needs a little elixir of life, courtesy of a good editor.

They can spot plot holes. They can fix grammar. They can even suggest a new chapter that will make sense of something that previously didn't make much sense, even though you thought it did make sense when you sent the manuscript off with a sigh of relief and a deep draught from that jug of wine (see above). 

I'm sure a decent editor would have something to say about that last sentence.

I am currently in editing mode, for the second in my Jonas Flynt historical series. (I am contractually obliged to mention that the first, 'An Honourable Thief', is out now in hardback in-store and on-line and ebook on-line. That ends the word from our sponsor and we now return you to our programme).

Let me make something quite clear - for me, writing is hell. It's not something I particularly enjoy, generally speaking. As Dorothy Parker once said, I don't like writing, I like having written. I have no idea what she thought about the editing process.

Personally, I don't mind it. I do frown a little when Kit, my editor, highlights a sentence or passage and comments that it doesn't sense. I read it myself and, sure enough, it generally doesn't make sense. I try to remember what I was thinking when I wrote it but I often find myself incapable of remembering what I was thinking just a few minutes ago and....

I have no idea where I was taking that sentence.

That is why good editors are vital. We can write something we believe hangs together and they will tell us that it doesn't and the really good ones can tell you why. Kit has done that with me, by the way. They will do it not because they have an axe to grind or because they want to show off or because they want a co-writing credit. They do it because it's their job and everyone - author, editor, publisher - want to produce the best book possible, even if it's a silk purse/sow's ear situation. (For the record, I don't mean that about my book, because it's marvellous. 

(Or will be. 

(At least until the readers see it. 

(It's like Schroedinger's Cat for authors).

So grateful that Kit's eagle eye has highlighted some sections that need work, I must now bend to the task with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart.

Or something.

I have fresh material to write.

Did I mention I hate writing...?

Preventing Brain Fade

By Johnny D. Boggs

             Brain Fade.

My favorite bit of sports jargon/slang comes from my newspaper days. If you include college, part-time work, freelancing and almost 15 years in what was then a highly competitive/drive-you-to-drink market in Dallas-Fort Worth, that covers 1980-2001. The phrase comes from NASCAR – stock-car racing – which I found myself covering and editing during much of my career. You see, when Dallas Times Herald and Fort Worth Star-Telegram editors learned I came from South Carolina, they figured I knew all about goin’ racin’. Well, I did attend school with NASCAR Hall-of-Famer Cale Yarborough’s daughters.

             Covering races or editing articles about races, I ran across Brain Fade a time or two.

There’s not much a driver can do at 190 mph when his car throws rod or a tire blows, but when a driver does something completely stupid – and maybe wrecks other cars – that, folks, is Brain Fade.

So whenever an editor or proofreader (yikes, or even a reader after a book/article is published) calls my attention to a stupid mistake, I chalk it up to Brain Fade.

Most Brain Fades I attribute to newspaper training: Write fast. File on time. Pray that the copy editors catch anything that will get you in serious trouble. Make it better for the next edition.

Sure, when I sit down at the desk, I think: This book isn’t due for months, take your time, don’t type so fast. I remind myself of the advice a high school writing teacher gave Robert A. Caro, who went on to have a successful newspaper career before becoming a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer:

“The trouble with you is that you think with your fingers.”

For a few minutes, I slow down. Then that newspaper DNA takes over and I’m back at 120 words a minute.

My goal always is: Cut down on Brain Fades.

In Working: Researching, Interviewing, Writing, Caro recalls that when he moved to book-length works he started writing his first drafts with pencil in longhand – just to slow that write-fast instinct. “It doesn’t hurt,” he says, “but you get calluses.” My handwriting, however, stinks.

One night on the sports desk at the Dallas Times Herald, a fellow copy editor theorized on why we caught more gaffes on paper proofs than while editing on computers. His reasoning: The eye-to-brain connection rebels from a computer screen. So print your proof out on paper. And recycle so we don’t kill as many trees.

Another tip I’ve heard: Read your work aloud. (But I hate my voice.)

Or change your point size and your font before proofreading.

Hey, we’ll try anything.

Benjamin Dreyer, copy chief of Random House, had an interesting essay in the September 25 New York Times Book Review. One line, as writer and editor, especially struck a chord:

“I still aim for unadulterated perfection, at least as far as books are concerned. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t.”

I’ll keep on trying.

 

Edits and markets and bloggers, oh my!

Barbara here. This week I am well on my way to the publication of my next novel, the first in the Amanda Doucette series, entitled FIRE IN THE STARS.  Monday I sent the proofs back to my editor after spending a week combing through them trying to third-guess my second-guessing brain. Research has shown that when you read, you see what you expect to see–what makes grammatical sense or what you think is there. Once you've written and rewritten/ reread your precious work-in-progress a dozen times, you can practically recite it from memory, and in a sense, your brain does. It jumps ahead from word to word, barely noticing the transposed letters, the missing word, and the wrong character's name. Quite simply, the brain puts it to rights for you.

Authors try to outwit the second-guessing brain by reading aloud or reading backwards, but I find the former too tedious and the latter too arduous when the manuscript is over ninety-thousand words long. Other authors rely on their rushed, distracted copyeditor to catch it all. An ill-advised approach, trust me. Still others get their spouse or friends to read it. Every fresh eye helps. I tend to read as slowly as I can without falling asleep, and hope for the best.

This time around, I made a few content changes in the proofs, which my editor will no doubt wince at, because at this stage, the book is already laid out and any changes mess up the layout. I found very few actual copy errors in the proofs, but whether my second-guessing brain outwitted me or not, only time will tell, when readers begin to send in their comments. "Loved your book, but just so you know, for second printing, on page..."

So now the manuscript is in the production line, the cover is finalized, and the cover copy all set up. In a month or two, the advanced reader copies will begin rolling off the printing press. And that brings me to the job on my plate for yesterday. Back to writing, you might think. You'd be wrong. The first few chapters in the second Amanda Doucette novel, entitled THE TRICKSTER'S LULLABY, are sitting in a scribbled heap on the coffee table beside my feet, but I haven't been able to get to them for over a week. First, those proofs, and yesterday, the publisher's marketing document. My publisher calls this the Author's Grid, and it's an Excel document (I have a headache already) containing all the marketing information that might be relevant to the novel. Media contacts I've made, bookstore and reviewer contacts, conferences and events I plan to attend, suggested search keywords for the novel, even the names of my federal and provincial members of parliament! Do you think they can help?

This grid serves as a partial stepping stone for the publisher's marketing plan. They have their own grid, I assume, and there is likely overlap, but in this brave new book biz world, increasingly it is the author's individual connections and networking that help to spread the word. The publisher will send out numerous ARCs to the major review sites both in Canada and the US, but  the number of reviews in major print newspapers is shrinking daily. Papers devote entire sections to the latest trends in automobiles and real estate, but reviews of the arts manage at best a page or two, much of it syndicated rather than local. But that's a rant for another time.

Nowadays, publishers, authors, and readers rely increasingly on online reviews, whether on Goodreads and Amazon or on dedicated book review blogs.  Although in theory, anyone can design a wordpress page, claim to be a book reviewer, and request review copies, there are some well respected book reviewers who provide informed and objective reviews and whose opinions carry great weight in the book world. This is where the author's connections become invaluable. Word of mouth, networking with other authors, and attendance at conferences all help us learn who might be interested in our work.

Media and bookstore contacts are another area where the author's personal experience is important. Every time I do an event in a store, I make a personal connection with that bookseller which helps when my next book appears in their catalogue, or even better, when my publisher sends them an ARC.

Some authors are wonderfully organized about keeping track. Names and addresses of contacts, websites, blogs, and so on–all in a neat little file. I am not. I tend to rely on my increasingly fuzzy memory, and hence there I was yesterday, staring at the blank Excel spreadsheet of my Author Grid, trying to remember what bloggers I've met, who might be interested in hearing about my new book, who have I talked to in radio or TV. It's a job that took much of the day, while my dogs waited with increasing impatience for their walk. But it's done now, and sent off. Back to the grand, creative life of a writer!

Except that now I have remembered two radio interviewers whom I forgot to put on the list. And there are surely other book people inadvertently missed or as yet unknown. So if you are a mystery blogger or a bookseller interested in an ARC, please drop me a note and I'll add you to the grid.