Editing Continued – the next revelation

I left you last with the question of how I made my writing come alive. Well, to be fair, I should let future readers judge if it is actually alive or just pretending. But, to me it’s more lively. Anyway, around that time, I attended my first writer’s workshop. It was a real grown up affair with tea and coffee and bowls of pistachios for nibbling and best of all – did not include a toddler. Call me horrible if you want, but for four days, I talked to adults all day long! So without regard to the quality of the workshop, I was in heaven before I even walked in the door. The door incidentally, led to the Vander Zee Gallery. Double heaven. In moments when my brain was tired, it could just wander away through the mysterious gateways of the art. My favorite place? The Birch trees with blue leaves by a river. I think that the river was off the edge of the canvas, but I knew it was there since I dabbled my feet in the water.

Anyway, back to the workshop. It was taught by David Hazard, who I had met a couple weeks before when he gave a free workshop to artists on writing Artist Statements. There were seven participants and I will tell you that I was intimidated right off. Most of the people were writing books about their life experiences or historical accounts of their amazing ancestors or real world military policy. What was I writing? A fantasy about kids going on a scavenger hunt. (Yeah, I know, when I put it like that, you don’t much want to read my book either.) But that is how I felt, like I wasn’t worthy to be there. So whenever we went around the room to talk about our projects, I would dumb it down and make it seem as insignificant as possible. I guess I was thinking that if they weren’t interested in my project, they wouldn’t look closer and then start to ask themselves why I was there. Of course, I soon realized I was being stupid. I paid a lot of money to be there to improve my writing. I was there for me, not what someone else might think. Now, before you get all up in arms about literary snobs, I would like to point out that this all went on inside my insecure little head and everyone in the workshop was kind, supportive and interested. So I forced myself to speak up and share and even confess my insecurities so that I could get the most out of the workshop. I won’t go into all the details nor do I wish to give away all of David’s tips and strategies for writing (you will just have to take his workshop yourself), but I learned two very important things.

First, to bring my writing alive, I had to bring it down into the body. That is advice directly from David. Instead of saying ‘she was scared’ you might say ‘her hair follicles tingled and her legs tensed, ready to run.’ I know that seems like ‘show, don’t tell,’ and I think it falls in that category, but it is much more focused and allows you to climb inside the POV character. After learning this, suddenly I could see where my writing lacked that luster to really make it shine and come alive. I don’t know if I am there yet, but it really made me see what I had written in a different way. So if you are reading my current draft, I believe you would be able to pick out the point where I had that revelation.

The second thing I learned is still a growing and changing thing, but in the end will help me create my elevator pitch and speaks to the theme of the story. We were doing an exercise where we were visualizing our target audience and trying to come up with descriptions of our book that would catch their interest. I was having a hard time with this because fantasy readers are a very diverse crowd of people and not all types of fantasy appeal to all fantasy readers. Again I felt like a little kid in the class, mumbling that I didn’t know the answer when the teacher called on me. The others had pretty specific target audiences: divorcees, children’s history teachers, but not me. So I laid it all out there and the group helped me come up with ideas. Not all of them were applicable, but there were a few that were spot on and one that really stuck out. “You can’t save someone who is addicted to power.” Suddenly that put a whole new view on personality on one of my characters. So as I write his actions and the reactions to those actions (which in the first draft just happened) there is purpose behind them.

So I discovered two very important things in the work shop that changed my editing process: how to bring my writing to life and the theme for my book. I also learned many other things that were applicable, but I thought I would wait until the next round of edits to incorporate them so I didn’t get over whelmed. I edited along smoothly until I hit a road block -  a crossroads chapter. It seemed so fake and vanilla and not realistic. I didn’t know what to do, but we’ll save that for the next post.

Editing continued – The beginning.

Continuing on the previous post, I have tried to edit Book I before, but I always get distracted by some other life event and never finish, so when I decided to make commitment to editing this whole book, the first thing I did was to make a check list of the chapters. This has helped in so many ways. First, I can’t really lose my place. Second, I get the satisfaction of checking another box at the completion of each chapter. Third, it breaks the vast project into manageable chunks. As someone said, “How do you each an elephant? One piece at a time.” And finally, it gives me a kind of progress bar where I could pat myself on the back when I need a little encouragement.

Now, I have been meaning to edit for a long time and some years ago, I even made a check list for each chapter. This checklist included both my own known failings in writing (such as the overuse of that) and advice from various sources, such as SFWA advice pages. Interestingly enough, I wrote the check list so long ago that I didn’t remember the meaning of some of the things on the list. So I set out to edit.

Step 1 – Speed read the chapter. Do not stop. Do not edit. Do not criticize. The idea was to get the whole chapter in my head as a complete unit before I started any editing. That was a hard thing to learn.

Step 2 – Rewriting each chapter, trying to fill in the sparse description, changing the action from telling to showing and recontracting words. (In my desperation to meet my first Nanowrimo word count, I changed can’t to can not along with all the other contractions. Needless to say, it makes the resulting language awkward, but it did the job.)

Step 3 – Go through the checklist and rework the text according to the rules. This step takes as long as Step 2 even though it seems like it should go quickly. The really tedious part is searching for each of the words and evaluating them in the text. It was so tempting to quit sometimes and just check that word off. Especially the ones I didn’t know why they were there. Words ending in –ing for example. It took me a couple chapters to figure it out. Usually I would have a phrase such as ‘He was jumping’, but it should be written as ‘He jumped.’ Anyway, even though it was ridiculously tedious to search for every word, each time I found a place where I could improve my writing, it felt like a victory. I also tell myself that I would eventually be better at writing the first draft because of this tedious editing process. To date, I have found it to be true, at least in the case of my over use of ‘that.’ But, it doesn’t mean you have to eliminate every instance of a ‘bad’ word. Use your judgment. You are asking yourself if there is any better way to write this. If not, then fine, but you have to examine it to make sure you have done your best.

Step 4. Check the chapter off this progress list and do a little pookie pookie dance.

So, as I moved through the first quarter of my book, I found that despite my editing process my writing felt a little dead at times. That was pretty discouraging. Want to know how I cured it? Tune in next blog to find out. Happy editing for all the writers out there and if there are any non writers reading, never think that pure gold pours from brilliant minds onto the screen. I wish. No, it starts out like building a house. First you muck about in the dirt for a while before you pour a bunch of slop into a form that you hope hardens into some sort of foundation. Then the real work begins.

Facing my fear…editing.

So, I’ve written two and a half books. Considering I started about a dozen before I got around to finishing the first one, I’m pretty pleased with that number. The first book was what I call ‘a throw away book.’ By this I mean, it wasn’t any great story that I had been thinking about for years or my soul’s blood pouring out on the computer screen. No. In 2008, I decided to participate in Nanowrimo and wasn’t sure of my ability to complete it and therefore didn’t want to risk any of my precious novel beginnings on something that might go down in grammatical wreckage. Instead I pulled an idea from my document where I dump such things to keep the brain’s desktop clear for the current project. I had already lost a day of writing time before I decided to jump on the nanowrimo novel train, so didn’t have time to be picky. It was an immature story idea produced by an immature mind that spent too much time in night clubs and watching action flicks where everyone looked too cool to be real. Fortunately, I had grown up enough to recognize the flaw and made the story mature by immaturing the characters from hardened adventurers to kids scrabbling for survival at the edge of their society.

And I was off. I fought tooth and nail to get those 50K words in one month. When it was over, I felt such a sense of accomplishment. I could write book! I had written a book. Even better, I kept going and finished the last 10K to get to the end of the story after the race of nanowrimo was over. But it was a ‘throw away book,’ so I made two people read it and then put it away. Until the next year, when I wrote the first 75K of the sequel. I stalled out there, leaving the second book unfinished, but all the while plotting book three and the happily ever after of my characters. Nanowrimo, that merciless bitch, came again. And I thought, no, I am not going to write in this series anymore. I am going to write something new.

And I did. The first 10K of the book had nothing to do with the previous series, but then somehow, I couldn’t leave that world. This new book, 90K in the end, was a complete story with all the right stuff. Even my writing style had improved to the point where I could hope to sell a book to a real live person instead of guilting friends into reading my books. But how could I hope to sell a book that was the fourth in a series without the first three? I pulled out book one and it was awful. Ok, that is a little harsh. It was like walking into a house you are contemplating buying and being slapped in the face by bright pink carpet and royal sugar plum purple walls. When house shopping, you have to learn to look past the cosmetic and look at the bones of the house. So with my Book 1. If Book 4 were to ever have a chance, I would have to take a close look at my fixer upper. That is how I came to embark on this editing journey that has been my goal since Dec 2011 and actual work since Feb 2012. Book 1 of the series has good bones, but now was the time to bring in the sledge hammer and the paint buckets and give it a remodel.

Also, I have known for a long time that I would someday have to edit the novels I was writing. Oh, how I dreaded the editing process. So, in the end I decided what better way to learn this new skill than on my ‘throw away novel.’ No pressure. I mean, it was still a ‘throw away novel,’ wasn’t it?

Blue Butterflies

Working on some butterfly paintings for Sabrina's room. These are my first ones. They are pretty small - practice ones really for the larger canvases, but I am having fun with them too.

Ice Dragon Project

In between writing, I have been painting away on my ice dragon. I know it is not perfect and has flaws, but I love it and am really enjoying the process. Here are a few pictures...

The Dragon


Practice piece for the frame


Start on the frame details

Autumn Wreath

I got inspired by all the autumn goodies lying about the sidewalk and made this fall wreath for my friend Diane. I hope she isn't reading my blog these days because it will ruin the surprise. (Act surprised if you read this Diane. :D)

You'll need a wreath, oak leaves, acorns (both parts), marbles, decorative wire, and a hot glue gun.

Acorns can be wrapped in wire or glued back into the cupule.

Alternatively, you can glue marbles in to the cupules.

Then go wild with the glue gun! Happy gluing and wiring!

Updates

It has been over a year since I posted here and what a year it has been. My excuse is that I had a baby and raised her all by myself for 6 months while my husband was deployed. I think that is a pretty good reason to take a hiatus. However, during that time I was only taking a break from my blog, not from writing and art. I taught several drawing classes and really enjoyed that. I will be looking for future opportunities to share my knowledge with more people. I have worked on a few different art projects, but have been concentrating on the ice dragon. Here is a sample of the technique I am using to paint his wings. So far he is delicious (yes, I have been watch too much Sesame street with Sabrina) and I can't wait until he is done to show you all.

I have been writing too, but I feel pretty eclectic with this. I attempted Nanowrimo last year, but did not make it. My daughter was born Nov 12th and I was just not able to write a 50K novel in 11 days. I continued to work the novel over the last couple months, but I feel there is something missing and until I figure out what that is, I think this novel will be on the shelf for a while. I also have been inundated with nonfiction writing ideas lately, but I have just been writing some notes rather than full articles.

This last weekend I had a table at Fantasci in Chesapeake, VA. I found out 2 days before that I would be able to do it and so had little time for preparation. However, this was the best show I have done to date. I talked to so many people and sold some prints. Even better, I recognized a few people that I have seen at other conventions. That was a first and it made me feel like I belonged. :)

I am moving to the Washington DC area in August and I am excited about this for many reasons. I think that DC will be great to explore and can't wait to spend some time in Museums being inspired. Also, there are so many writing and art groups that I can join and I have already started looking.

Art Madness

Despite the lack of posts in the last 6 months, I have been busy. Here are a few of the paintings that I have finished recently.

Three Piece Installation
Straight Mist, In the Mist, and Mystic Spirals Now looking for a good home at the Harbor Gallery!! :D

Autumn Haze Now waiting for acceptance into the Mid-Atlantic Art Show. (crosses fingers)

Another art project was to submit a portfolio to a card company. Here is a new one and my favorite from the portfolio.

Orange Poppy Curves

And last but not least, my current project... I am trying to be better about planning my work before execution, so this is a sketch of the drawing. I am going to change a few things and do this in color next. I am supposed to do a color study first, but I am just too eager to wait.

Hope you enjoy!

July Art

Here are a few pieces I was able to finish in July.

Glass Poppy
Water Color / Acrylic
14" x 22"
Looking for a good home (i.e. For Sale)

In the Mist
Acrylic on Flat Panel canvas
16" x 20"
For Sale

Grasp 2
Acrylic on Flat Panel canvas
16" x 20"
Comission by Anna and Rob (Thanks!)

First Double-Burn Pepper

Since I couldn't sleep last night, I got up at 4 am and made the final push to finish this drawing so I can take prints to a show to try and sell this weekend. It's called "First Double-Burn Pepper."

I took it to the printer today and they got some pastel from a previous piece of art on it. There were stripes on my brand new picture. I am just angry and kind of sick about it. Since the junk was on the scanner, they didn't even get a good clean scan before the screwed it up. I tried to erase the smudges, but it lifts up the varnish coating and then the color pencil. I will have to spend some time cleaning it up and recoloring parts of it. I am so pissy about it. Then I remind myself that it could be worse, like another artist I talked to recently who lost lots of art in a fire.