WBelle Author

An Editors Work Is Never Done

Still editing. Well, maybe not editing in the classic sense anymore. It’s more sewing together a garment that has been ripped at the seams, copied in a different fabric and then sewn back together in that new fabric. Bound to be some gaps and missing stiches.

After editing in autocrit, saving it to Word [which I don’t have but Google Docs lets you save to] and then back to google docs to put all the different pieces back together, I spent the day filling gaps and closing rips. My first chapter is polished to shine and formatted the way Pitch Wars recommends. Not quite the same with the remaining 40 or so chapters in the 37k word book.

For some strange reason, neither autocrit or google will let me eliminate the gap between paragraphs that google docs automatically uses. IF I get a mentor interested enough to ask for any more of the book, they will get a manuscript that is in excellent condition and meets all the criteria, except for the aforesaid gap. I can only hope my formatting skills are not on trial! lol.

After the pieces were joined together, I returned to the top page to soothe the rough spots. And discovered that one entire section of about 10k words had been pasted twice! That meant a frantic search to see if I had merely posted it twice or if I had overwritten the original segment. Fortunately I had double pasted. Whew. Easy fix.

The hardest part is this; Leave the darn thing alone! An artist friend of mine told me once that one of the most important things an artist needs to know, is when to stop. So I’m stopping. I’m stopping fiddling with it, stopping poking at it. Grammar, spelling, word choice, pacing, all those things important to a book have been addressed as best I can right now. I’m sure a mentor will find stuff to improve. Heck, that’s WHY I want  a mentor! I’ve worked years on this book, it’s gone through numerous iterations. I’m willing to work more to make it a book worth publishing.

How Many Times Can You Look Over A Document

Not sure. But for me half a dozen times checking my manuscript cover page apparently isn’t enough. I was checking it yet again this morning and found a mistake. I’d written my phone number wrong! Now, I’m sure if a mentor decided she wanted to mentor me [fingers crossed], then the lack of a correct phone number wouldn’t stop her, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance. Problem fixed. Musta been a slip of the pinky.

Pitching In Pitchwars

I’ve been busy the past few weeks taking my middle grade book Arista Doyle and the Secret of the Bees through the editing wringer called AutoCrit. So many mistakes I made! Hopefully I fixed them all. Grammar, spelling basics done. Strong writing, show vs tell, over use of certain words; all that has been addressed. For the better.

I’ve even formatted my manuscript using the method suggested by pitchwars. Not so easy when you’re using Google Docs, let me tell you! Next laptop I get will have Word on it, for sure!

Can’t wait now. Applicants are allowed to apply to up to four mentors. There are so many good ones in the genre Arista is in I had trouble narrowing them down. Still have six on my list. Gotta narrow it down just a little more. At least the ones I don’t choose will never know how close I came to choosing them. lol.

How To Raise Your Heartrate

I just had one of the scariest 10 minutes I have ever had since I started writing and submitting my work 20 years ago. For those who don’t know, PitchWars is an online event where writers are able to send a sample of their book to mentors. These mentors then choose the writers they want to help develop. It’s highly competitive and you don’t want to leave a i undotted or a t uncrossed.

My middle grade fantasy/mystery is ready for submission and I’ve been working on the query letter and synopsis, try to get the best impression possible. Today I went over submission guidelines and realized my formatting was different from the required. So, I copied the story and went to paste it into a blank google doc.

I don’t know what happened but my query letter show up. My novel was GONE. Completly gone. “No such beast exists ma’am,” gone. I panicked of course. The back button did nothing. The file wasn’t just moved, it was not there. Luckily, my editor Chell Morrow, is usually available through messenger and she came through. She sent me an early edit. No, didn’t want to go through the entire weeks long procedure. Apparently she was frantically looking through her files too.

Together we both panicked and then she said to open the file I was working on and click on “Version”. It was there. I saved the darn thing as a Word doc and it is safely in my files now.

Is 10:30 too too early for a glass of wine?

Writing In The Time Of Covid

In this era of shelter at home and mask wearing Covid, we feel lost, not sure what to do or how to do it. We can’t simply drive to be with our friends and family. Former activities like getting together with a writing group at the local book store or library fall by the wayside. Forget about going to book conferences or conventions! Sometimes it feels as if my life has been put on hold.

Here on Hawaii, living the Aloha spirit means wearing masks and helping others. Hawaii managed to dodge the bullet in the spring and most of the summer. We wore our masks and smiled with our eyes and voice as much as possible. And it looked as if Covid would not impact us.

This past week I learned that a little village just a few miles away, at a beach where I swim and my grandchildren have friends, has an outbreak of Covid. The same at another small town where we do a lot of our grocery shopping. It’s hitting home and getting closer. I feel unmoored.

Focusing On Arista

I joined an online editing class and decided to use Arista Doyle And The Secret Of The Bees for practice. Learned a lot and applied the lessons to the manuscript. Improvements were made.

Now I am kicking around the idea of getting a developmental editor. Arista started out 20 years ago as an adult level murder mystery. Along the way I added an autistic child as a way of honoring one of my friends who has an autistic son. Well, Arista grew to be an important character. One night I was woken with the idea of changing gears and making Arista the main character. It meant a lot of re-writing. And it changed point of view.

Now the main character was a mentally challenged 10 year old girl who had trouble communicating. Much of what I had written went out the window but the main concept; bees being blamed, didn’t change. Now the book is a middle grade fantasy/murder mystery. And it needs some help.

Marketing

I’m currently working on marketing my book in preparation for the release of my sequel to Eternal Diet, currently titled “You Are What You Eat.” Not sure if that’s gonna be the published title but it does sum up the book. Vampires take their nutrition directly from living bodies so what those bodies have ingested ends up in the Vampire. Sometimes that can go bad.

When I began my writing career, I never knew how much I didn’t know about marketing. My head is spinning from all I’ve learned this past month or so. Running Amazon ads, newsletters, blogs, and more than I can remember. Whew! It doesn’t help that I depend on my hotspot to go online either. I blew through 15 g of hotspot in 3 weeks with the webinars and meetings and classes online.

Beginnings Has Begun

I’ve begun the character study and outline for my third Eternal Diet book. Tentatively titled “Beginnings.” It’s gonna be a Colin story. Wish me luck in my research. I usually write ‘by the seat of my pants’ or as I and my fellow authors like to say “discovery’ writer. I didn’t use an outline for my three previous books but it got hard to follow the story line by the end of You Are What You Eat. I’m gonna lay down a path and see where it leads me.

So, some of my friends from the library will probably be happy to hear that the next book will have a Scot in a kilt!

Progress

I’ve finished editing You Are What You Eat and sent them back to editor for review. Fingers crossed. My short story Night Marchers was accepted into an anthology of Paranormal stories due out in Oct. It’s the first publication and there is not title yet. I’ll left everyone know.

Just sent another paranormal/ghost story “Memories Keep Us Alive” to DrabbleCast; a podcast production. 1000 words should fit nicely

Closing In On The End Of Editing

Only a few pages left to edit. My editor sent me suggestions and I’m going through accepting, changing and adding stuff. These last few pages will probably take the longest as they are an emotional couple of scenes. Gwen has had to kill an old friend and it tears her apart. Gotta get them absolutely perfect.