Why getting an editor is a lot like dating, Part One. The Blind Date

You've finally done it - sitting there in your neat little hands is the proof that you truly have achieved the goal you set for yourself 2, 7, 19 years ago: YOU are now an AUTHOR!

Commence trumpets, confetti, streamers and parades.

Uh, not.

You see, my friend, the real work has just begun.

Sure, you spent hours toiling over the keyboard. You searched the dictionary and thesaurus for just the right word. You've checked punctuation, spelling and tense until you're tense. And now? Now you get an editor.

Being assigned an editor is a lot like going on a blind date. You have only the vaguest description of her (no, I'm not being sexist - I'm using "her" because my editor is a "her") and the assertion from your publisher that she is "amazing, easy to work with, likes puppies and kittens and doesn't bite on the first date."

Right.

You make arrangements to discuss your manuscript at a time convenient to both of you, at a place where you feel safe. You  have an emergency escape plan, in case the meeting doesn't go well. You tell your friend, your Mom, your sister and your friend's friend where and when you're meeting, in case you turn up missing or your manuscript grows legs and appears on someone else's blog as a serial novel - GAWD FORBID!

At the appointed time and date, you nervously hover over the phone/keyboard/skype screen and wait until the EXACT time you agreed to discuss your Precious. You pet Precious nervously, smooth your hair, check your teeth for leftover salad and try not to sweat.

It doesn't help. You sweat.

Your editor calls/emails/skypes/meets you. She seems nice enough. She soothes your nerves and flatters your words, telling you she loves your voice, appreciates your complex sentence structure, LOVES your story and everything about you. You are her dream and she never thought you would turn out to be as good "for real" as the publisher who hooked you two up made you sound.

You are thinking the same thoughts. How could this wonderful, sweet, sensitive, truly appreciative and obviously highly discerning intellectual be meant for YOU! You've waited your entire life to meet someone like this, someone who appreciates your wit, your sensitivity and your proclivity for late night word storms huddled over a keyboard with nothing but the bats and that 18 oz. bar of chocolate to keep you company. She's UH-MAZE-ING!

You are in love. She tells you she needs (insert number here) days to finish reviewing and commenting before she sends Precious back to you for developmental edits. You're too star-struck to tell her you don't know what developmental edits are, but respond in the affirmative and dance away with stars in your eyes. Cuz you're star-struck, remember?

And then?

You wait. You check email. You check your phone messages. You check Twitter/Facebook and anywhere else you can possibly check without actually STALKING your shiny new editor. You chew your nails, eat all the chocolate in the house, drink all the wine in the house and pout because… she still hasn't called you back.

And you feel the way you felt the day after Prom Night… waiting for THAT call.

You know - the one where the caller lists all the wonderful qualities that attracted them to you, only to end with "but I feel there's something missing."

Yeah. That call. That's called "developmental edits." And it does come… exactly when she said it would. She's punctual, if nothing else. And she still sounds nice, as she rips you to shreds.

She points out all the inconsistencies, unresolved conflict, extraneous scenes/characters/descriptions and  excessive use of adverbs. She reminds you to "show, don't tell" and to limit the use of vague pronouns. Or any pronouns where possible. She sends you a list of 47 words/phrases to completely eradicate from  the Precious, reminds you it's all due back by next Saturday and sends air-kisses your way as she cheerily hangs up/concludes her email.

And she can't wait to see you again.

Yes - there will be a second date after all. Once you tend to your wounded pride. Cuz getting an editor is a helluva lot like dating. You keep putting yourself out there, giving it your best, toughing it out while they play Whack-A-Mole with your ego.

Actually, dating might be easier.

Part Two - The Long Term Relationship, coming next week!

I've been a bad, bad blogger...

Ah, my precious peeps - I've been so bad lately. Neglecting you for other pursuits, leaving you to wile away the lonely hours and days with mindless drivel - other than my own mindless drivel which you, inexplicably, seem to find amusing.

I beg your forgiveness and offer no excuses. Well, maybe one or two.

It's been a bit of the usual chaotic churn around here - working on the edits for Book 1 of my Phasms trilogy, trying to get Book 2 written and of course, swatting that pesky MUSE who likes to carpet bomb my brain with new story ideas at the exact time I need to be focused on existing WIPs.

Yeah - my muse teamed up with Kat Daemon's muse (you can follow Kat on twitter HERE - and you really should, she's hilarious) and the raunchy Valkyrie's brought home all sorts of distractions like:

And this:

And lot's of this:

So - can you really blame me from being distracted? Trying to keep her out of trouble is a full time job. And I already have TWO of those! Yeah! The writing thing and the other one. The one that actually requires my concentration and pays the bills. The one that makes me feel like:

But Prue (that Valkyrie muse of mine) doesn't care. She's just a hedonistic little tramp, looking to cause trouble. She even tried cornering the Norse God of Winter, Ull Myhr, and his friend Gunnar. Check it out on twitter HERE. Thanks to her antics, I've been officially labelled one of his Twitter Tormentors. At this rate, he may not make it to the wedding!

But - overall - it's been a pretty good couple of weeks. Nothing to rant about (like AT&T) and nothing to go all Glee! songbird about  (like Whiskey). Just a good, solid, end of summer.

So - what have you been up to? Did you do anything special to mark the end of the season? Does it feel like fall where you are? Are your WIPS and other projects moving along?

To wrap things up, here's a little Sunday toonage to help your day. This song just makes my fingers twitch, ready to pound out some major WERDS!

And this is how it happened...

Hello my lovelies! I am soooo sorry for neglecting you, but it's been a bit of a whirl the last week. In way of an apology, I thought I'd tell you how my AMAZING THREE BOOK DEAL with Entangled Publishing came about. It's actually quite surreal!

It all started with a little tweet, like so:

#pitmad At 22 Kelsi lost her husband & maybe her mind. Is the dark haired man frm her dreams real? Y dz he look like her new neighbor?
— Barbara Garren (@bak229) May 28, 2013

From this little tweet, I received a request for partial (the first three chapters). From the first three chapters, about two weeks later; I received a request for the full manuscript. Uhhhh...

Yes, I had a completed manuscript. I would never pitch an incomplete story. The problem was, my CP hadn't finished critiquing it and I hadn't completed any of the edits. And oh, by the way, my CP was on vacation in Key West for the week. Perfect timing! Also, I was away from my computer for the week. What WAS I thinking? THANK GOD I always email myself the latest version of whatever I'm working on as a means of back up.

I fired off the most recent copy to CP, she did a wicked good chop on it and I was able to get it to Entranced by Friday. Working off an Iphone is a blast, folks. Just saying.

So, then the waiting begins, and it's like:

Sometimes you wait days. Sometimes you wait weeks. Sometimes, even, you have to wait months. Publishers, agents and others receive TONS of submissions. They try to give an honest evaluation to each of them. If you're lucky, you get something more than a form rejection. And you spend the time waiting for a reply like this:

And if you're really lucky, I mean Really, REALLY lucky, you get something like this:

Hello Barbara,

> 

>We thoroughly enjoyed PHASMS, and I am pleased to be able to offer you a contract for publication. Please take a look over the attached contract; be sure to read the addendum on the very last page. If you find the terms acceptable, sign the document and return it to me. I look forward to hearing from you.

> 

> Best,

> Managing Editor 

> Entranced Publishing 

And it comes to you three weeks after you submitted, while your at work, and you stare at the email. You read it again. You walk around your desk, reading it again. You clean your glasses, because you couldn't have read it correctly. You read it again. And then? Well, then you go all fangirl, bouncing around, biting your knuckles, trying not to scream. And you call your author friend, because you know she's the only person you can talk to who knows how you feel.

And she peels you off the ceiling, calms your ass down, tells you to breathe, lends you a mental shoulder to lean on and suggests you call the Man Behind The Curtain, because he really should be the next person to know.

And you call him. You call your Mom. You call your children. You call your CP and your best friend and your dentist and your hairdresser. You call every phone number you know or have with you, and when you get the pizza place down the street from you by accident, you tell them too, because hey! This is worth celebrating! Sort of like:

You celebrate the shit out of it! You drink Tequila (which you swore off of years ago when your father and God got you out of jail after too much of the stuff) and you drink beer and you dance on the patio and the Man Behind The Curtain puts you to bed where, thankfully, you sleep it all off and wake up hangover free.

You party the next day, because there are people to celebrate with that weren't available the day before, but you're a little smarter this time and you don't get drunk and you still can't sleep at night because you still can't believe it's real.

And then the publisher starts sending you documents to read and Cover Design Questionnaires and asks you for your bio and you get an email from your editor and see the timeline for getting the book ready for publication, all while your working on the second book, because you signed a THREE BOOK DEAL, and sometime while you're working on editing book two you'll have to write book three and it hits you. It really hits you.

You're no longer a writer. You are now an AUTHOR. And this is what happens next:

The names were changed in the writing of this blog to protect the innocent. No animals were harmed during production. Livers, however, were excluded from protection.

Insecure Writer's Support Group - Hug me, it's Wednesday!

The first Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writer's Support Group Hug Day - it couldn't have come at a better time!

I need a hug - really. I'm so torn up about the revisions to my first book, I'm ready to flush the whole damn thing. I think it's a good story - I've been told it's a good story, but I just can't seem to do anything with it. I know the changes I need to make, but it's gotten where the whole damn thing just irritates the crap out of me.

It's not the rejections - I can deal with those. It's the fact that I've lost the voice, the feel for the main character and I can't seem to get it back. I feel all:

whenever I start working on it again. 

I realize this is a common affliction amongst the IWG. In fact, it's pretty common among all us writerly type people. I read a blog post the other day by FizzyGirl (aka Summer) that pretty well summed up the whole experience. You should read it - it really defines how I'm feeling. Yes, click on the bright red "FizzyGirl" above. 

So, what I've decided to do is just put that first book aside for a while. The second book is out at a few agents and publishers, and I'm going to send it to a bunch more this weekend, which will at least make me feel semi-productive. And I'm going to work on the my other two WIPs - they are totally different from each other, as well as my earlier books, and they're a lot more fun to write as well. 

They have unique voices that I really relate to (lot's of drinking and cussing in one, lot's of crazy, unbounded imaginative shit in the other) and they make me smile when I read them or work on them. 

But first, I'm heading over to FizzyGirl's for a snergle. 

How it works....sometimes

GOOOOD MORNING Faithful Followers.

I really wish I had sufficient PC skills to attach Robin Williams voice to that sentence, ala Good Morning Vietnam...

Yes, I know. It's shocking, it's 6 o'clock in the morning and I'm vertical, semi-dressed and almost in a good mood. Please, enjoy it while it lasts - it's like a cloud on a hot, dry day: it can disappear at any moment.

But while it's here, let me tell you that this week has been exceptional. Ex-Cep-Shun-All! A bit like...

Hmmm - senese a theme going on here? Might have been the gaggle of Marines that were hanging out in front of my office yesterday. Yes, God gifted me with Marines. Ooodles of them. They were scrumptious, yummy even! Tasty, like savory cupcakes without too much sweet frosting. MMMM, mmm, mmm. 

Aw, there I go digressing again. 

So, you ask, why was last week all "Good Morning, Vietnam," besides the fact it's one of my favorite movies of all time? Well, because it was a bit of good and bad, bitter and sweet. 

First, work was tough. Really tough. I can't go into specifics cuz I need to keep my job until I sell millions of books and become rich, but it just was. Stupid problems that should never have occurred, abject failure to follow policy and a lot of whining and complaining. And that was just on the government side - let's not even get into the contractors!

But, writing was good. My muse, the Valkyrie, must have swallowed mushrooms or got laid or something. She was soaring all week, higher and higher, bringing back the good stardust and sprinkling on my head and hands. She was generous and effusive and before I knew it I had 26 pages of a new novel safely tucked away, another 13 pages on the almost new story, 40 pages of the first novel revised and a 4,000 word short story completed.  

"Wait," you ask, "What do you mean a 'New Novel'? Weren't you already working on a new novel? And what's this 'almost new story'?"

Well, that's why I'm going all Adrian Cronauer on you... Let me try to explain.

1)  Book One: I finished it around the first of the year, shopped it around, got some nibbles, got a request for full, got turned down, sent it to my friend and author Justine and got four pages of tiny, tiny font feedback so I could go fix it. Which is what I'm doing now and I'm about a third of the way.

2) Then came Book Two: I finished it a couple months ago, didn't shop it around, was working on revisions to it with my critique partner CP, stupidly entered PitMad on Twitter, got a request for partial, got a request for full, made CP madly finish her critique, dashed off all the corrections and sent it in. And am waiting for results. And went ahead and submitted to a few other folks cuz why the hell not, I'm a writer, that's what we do.

3)  Short Story One: dashed off after dashing around the block with the dog one day. Submitted to about a dozen magazines, turned down by all but three, those three still pending. If they decline, I promise to publish here. 

4)  New story one, or "almost new story" was an idea I wanted to explore in a voice I hadn't used before. Girl after my own heart with much tequila, surfing, sex and general fun.  The Pro-tag cusses like a sailor (gee, go figure) and eats like a teenage boy. She's smart, stubborn, OCD and will make you snort coffee out your nose. Yup. She's me - back in the day. Story was coming nicely and I new where it was going to go as well. Probably about 10% written.

5)  Short Story Two: I'd been turning this around in my head since March, unsure how to actually get it started, but it finally found it's way out and I've sub'd to a small handful of magazine's to see if they are interested. It's pretty weird, which means it's pretty authentically me. It's not all snergly and there's almost no cussing, but it's still pretty "me."

Then along came New Story. THE story. It started with a single, completely out of context line as I was laying in bed the other night. I mean, the sentence could have gone anywhere, or nowhere. But between thinking it as I dozed off and waking up the next morning, the story had formed and was just dying to escape. I wrote the first chapter during lunch at work that day. And it kept coming. It's still clamoring at the tips of my fingers, begging to get out. It's AMAZING too! ROAR!

I can't wait to sub it out, 'cuz I have confidence this one is going places. And it's so damn fun to write - I even get to make up words and lot's of other cool things. I can't tell you much, but it's a mash-up of genres and the feedback so far is GOOD!  This is the one that had me crawling out of bed three times last night to add a line here, a paragraph there. I finally decided to just leave the damn computer on so I wouldn't have to wait for it, thereby risking the precious WERDS that were trying to make it out of my head. 

So, there you go. That's the sort of week it takes to make me feel this way. Not so hard to understand, right? I think, with that, I'm gonna take The Terrorist for a walk, so I can get back to writing.

Peace out, Ya'll! Here's your Saturday Tunes - make it a good one!

Crap. I mean...crap.

Well, I know - I'm supposed to be writing about something this morning. I thought I had a topic lined up last night, but the Valkyrie (aka: my muse) got pissed and chased it away. 

So: Crap. What to write about. 

Here I sit, broken hearted.
Tried to write, couldn't get started.

Hah! Not what you expected, was it? Yeah - I try stupid stuff sometimes to get things flowing. Actually, my entire second manuscript started by thinking (and echoing in words) that annoying habit of hitting the same key on a piano over and over, with a half-second pause in between. 

Yeah - I started it like this:

One... Two... One... Two... 

And before I knew it, I was off to the races. It always intrigues me, the things that get our writing glands juiced up and ready for keyboard kombat... I frequently ask other writers how they came up with an idea, what made them start, how did they get the first few sentences on paper. We all have different methods and means, but in the end, it comes down to just sitting your ass in a chair and WRITING. 


If I were going to be completely honest (which I am, to a fault and without much tact), the actual verbal vomit part comes easy. Once I get going, once I pick up the trail my muse has left me, I can ramble on for hundreds, thousands of words. Part of it may be for total shit, part of it may only make sense to a crack smoking toad, but part of it will always be worth keeping. It's the space between the words that matters - the thoughts and images and questions drawn out by whatever I spewed like...  Well, the only 'spew' analogies I can think of are too gross and disgusting for this early on a Saturday morning. 

Sometimes it works - sometimes it doesn't. The point is, it gets me writing SOMETHING. Which beats staring at a blank screen.

Why yes, this is a little gratuitous Depp action.
What the fuck is wrong with that?

So, something I write may start like this:

"When Donny left, it was pretty much expected that Andie would fall apart. Really, really fall apart. They’d been together since college. Almost four years. They were talking about getting married. At least, she was talking about it. He would just listen, nodding his head while studiously not commenting. So when he left, when he packed his things while she was at work and moved out without even leaving a note; she went a little nuts."

And before long (but with several edits) becomes this:

"It’s the little things in life that make the biggest difference. Being five-minutes late for the job interview. Missing the other guy’s car by two inches. A quarter teaspoon too much salt in the soup. Big things are easier to detect, easier to plan for. Easier to accept. 

It’s the overwhelming force of the larger events that makes them more recognizable. You know something big is going to or has happened, so you allow yourself the time and the space to cope with them. But the little things? No freakin’ way. They just pile up, like grains of rice or flakes of snow, until the whole thing breaks lose and tears up your life as it plummets down the slope. 

So, when Donny left, it was pretty much expected that Andie would fall apart. Really, really fall apart. They’d been together since college. Almost four years. They were talking about getting married. At least, she was talking about it. He would just listen, nodding his head while studiously not commenting. So when he left, when he packed his things while she was at work and moved out without even leaving a note; she went a little nuts.  

She pulled the few things he left into a pile in the back yard, added all the pictures and mementos of their time together, dumped the oil from one of the Tiki torches on top and threw the match. She danced the shandy around the blaze, tipping back the bottle of Fireball until she was good and drunk, then passed out on the grass as the embers blew softly all around her. 

Yeah. She was pissed."

See how that works? You start with the tiniest, most obscure thread. You embellish, adding, subtracting, playing around with placement, tense, voice and other 'craft' tools and before you know it, you have a whole new story in the works! And as eager as I am to watch Johnny Depp, or Christian Bale or drink Scotch and dream about Johnny Depp or Christian Bale; I'm a writer. I gots to write. I get real bitchy when I don't. And my muse get's all pouty. Trust me - that's not a pretty sight!

Oh, and by the way, on my search for the perfect gifs for this post, I was horribly maimed and assaulted by A FULL PAGE OF TAYLOR FUCKING SWIFT gifs! GUH - my eyes! My eyes! They're burning!!!!

(See OMG, I Fucking Love This! for interpretation if needed, with kudos to Kelly and Valerie)

Now, for some fave tunes before I rush back into reality. Happy Saturday!

When I'm bad, I'm better...

I've been bad lately. Really bad. I haven't been writing. I've been playing at editing and revising. I haven't hardly even been reading. Well, except for what I owed my Critique Partners. Yup - I've been pretty lazy about my books lately - and I don't even feel guilty.

Even now, preparing this blog post, I had to make two trips downstairs. I had to get a glass of wine first. I wasn't in the mood for scotch and Lord knows I can't write without SOME sort of beverage.

No, water does not count. I was thirsty, not dirty.

Then I had to get some popcorn. Yes, popcorn. The wine made me hungry. Don't roll your eyes - you've been reading my blog long enough to know that popcorn is one of my four primary food groups.

Now - where was I?

Writing - right. So, I'm a pretty OCD person. I do nothing half way. If I can't go all in, I won't even start. Thus the weirdness of this brief hiatus from writing. Well, I guess this is sort of writing, so I should say from "novel writing" or something more specific like that.

My problem is - well, it's spring. And it's gorgeous out. And I was on travel, and then I had a cold and then I had to catch up at work, which means I also had to catch up at home on things like grocery shopping and laundry and the husband and, and. And?

Yeah - the excuses aren't working are they? It's just that some one screwed up a couple thousand years ago and decided there would only be 24 hours in a day and 7 days in week and 5 of those days are work days. See where the problem lies?

So, it's not my fault there's not time enough to have friends over on Sunday for dinner. It's not my fault there's not time enough to get gas in the car, drop the dog off at the groomer's, get a pedicure and make dinner. It's not my fault there isn't time enough to fit in both a four mile run and four chapters of revisions. Nope. It's not my fault.

I'm not giving up. I'm not quitting or stopping. I'm just "Chillin' Out" while the chillin' is good. Because before I know it, I'll be locking myself up here again for hours on end - finishing revisions, sending a massive amount of queries to agents all over the globe and pounding away at the keyboard when the next great idea hits. But for now? Well, now it's time to just rock a little San Diego Spring! Hmmm - wonder if there's time for that new tattoo I wanted to get???

Critique Partners and Bonus Saturday Happiness!

I'm so lucky. Really - I am.

I have the fun/joy/honor/privilege of critiquing for not one but TWO amazing writers. And they both are amazing, knock your socks off writers! Man - I wish I could tell you their names. I wish I could tell you the names of the books I'm critiquing for them. But I can't. At least, not right now.

So here's the funny thing about the critiquing I do for them: I don't pay any attention to the spelling or punctuation errors. I don't get into the nits and grits of syntax and style. I might point out a word here or there that I think seriously detracts from what they are saying, but mainly I ply them with questions. Things like "why did the cactus hurt?" or "that doesn't sound like something that character would say."

See, they know they need to edit their own work. They know they have to comb through for all the conflicting tense and verb usage. They don't need me for that. They need me (I like to think) to challenge the story itself. To question and poke and prod and point out the bits that don't flow, don't sound true to the rest of the story and don't support the overall plot or character arch. They need me to say "add more here so I know what the character is feeling" or "wow, you over did the emotions/descriptions here and lost the momentum."

They need me to move from draft to final - same as I need them.

As writers, we mostly know when we have a good story. We know how to develop a character and set a scene, how to move the story along or slow it down. But we also can get a little near-sighted and assume our readers have the same point of reference as we do. And they don't. They can't. They aren't us. They haven't lived our lives, experienced what we've experienced or even known the people and places and events that we have experienced.

Many of our readers may come close to mirroring our scope of reference, but none of them will have an identical range of reference in their lives. And this live-long knowledge, this personal collection of experience colors how we read. It allows each of us to feel and visualize and savor a book, a poem, a short story or a photograph in a unique way.

As writers, we need to keep that in mind. We need to ensure our writing provides enough points of reference and sufficient detail to allow all of our readers to grasp the images we are striving to portray. It's a delicate balance - often a difficult one as well. We don't want to put too much detail in, as it can make the reading stilted and cumbersome. Sometimes it even insults the reader - I know I've read plenty of books where I've thought to myself "well duh, I knew that. Why does the author feel they need to explain this to me?"

I don't want to insult my readers - I don't want to leave them with a half-sketched image and I don't want to describe everything in such detail that I end up with a Mitchner-esque tomb. I rely on my CP's to help me keep the balance and keep the story enticing. I rely on them to keep me honest to the craft.

So, here's to my Critique Partners - I hope I'm asking the right questions (should that be "write" questions?) and making the right comments. Now, let's go find an editor!

Bonus Saturday Happiness:

Revising and Editing...

Okay. I HATE editing. Really. It makes me feel like this:

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong; I do edit. I just don't LIKE doing it. When I write, it's verbal vomit. It all comes out in a rush (or several periods of rushing) and I just go with it. I don't worry about grammar or punctuation or spelling. I let the story and the character and everything else flow out; all the emotion and the world building and the vision exiting my finger tips and magically appearing in black and white on the screen in front of me.

I run spell check. I even run the grammar check tool. But at some point, I have to break out the red pen and read the damn thing. And I still don't mind that part. I do like reading what I wrote. Sometimes I laugh. Sometimes I cringe. Sometimes I even wipe tears from my eyes. It's the pen, and the marks on the paper and the notes asking myself why I wrote something or marking where I need to add more. It's the time that I have to put into the process that I resent. Time taking me away from the creative element, from crafting new stories and tales. That's the part I really hate about editing and revising.

I want it perfect the first time, every time. Like this:

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

But more often it's like this:

 

 

So what's a writer to do? Well, there aren't that many options. Oh, sure, if I had the bucks, I could hire an editor. But I don't. I could subject my Critique Partners to my first drafts. But that's a good way to lose CP's quickly. I could write slower or more carefully or with less Scotch. Naw. We all know THAT'S not going to happen!

So, I'm stuck. And I'm revising. And editing. And learning to appreciate it as part of the overall process. To see it as "IMPROVING" instead of tedious, time-consuming, brain-draining necessity.

And hopefully, in the end, I'll end up here:

 

 

 

But until then, I hate it. Really. And I put it off as long as I can. And even when I do it, I miss stuff. Even when I revise, I feel like it could be better. Or I shouldn't have cut/changed/added what I cut/changed/added. Or like I'm never going to get it done. Get it good enough. Get it out "there." After all - I'm one of them, one of you, one of us. I am, truly, an insecure writer.

 

Guess I'm in the write place.

 

Victory can be found in rejection...

So, Victory. It's not always what you expect.

I sent my first novel out on query in January. I received several partials and one request for a full submission. I was stunned. Floored. Ecstatic. Doing the happy dance all over the house.

And I submitted. And I re-read what I submitted. And lo, the work was subpar and not ready for submission. And I retracted. And the agent said "Let me see thy work when you have revised."

And I went forth and revised. But I failed to send for critique by worthy readers. I failed to let the work sit and ferment in it's own digestive stew. I failed to follow all the things the great writerly apostles tell us to do:

1. Read it out loud.
2. Let it sit for a week or two
3. Read it again
4. Let others read it
5. Revise, revise, revise,
6. Repeat steps (1) through (5)

And I resubmitted against these commandments. And thus, I was smote down by the hand of the agent (not really, she was super nice and gave me some really good feedback) and I was laid low in the land of "Nod Ready for Publishing."

And now I turn my eyes to heaven and search for the divine writer/author to pronounce my penance and lead me back to the land of editorial might, that I may sit at the foot of wit and wisdom and find those words and ways that will ensure my favor in the literary eye.

And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with being rejected. I'm okay with being told what's wrong with my book. If no one told me what was wrong, I would keep doing the same things over and over again and never improve. 

Sure, it stings (a little), but the fact that I had doubts and misgivings of my own mean it really wasn't ready to submit. It really wasn't even ready to query. As excited as I was to finish it, to get it 'out there' in the hands of agents and publishers, part of me knew it needed more work. So I violated my own principals by sending it out anyway. Silly me.

So in the end, my rejection is a victory. For one thing, someone in the profession actually took the time to not only respond to my query (so the query itself must have been good), they loved the premise (so I must be writing about the right stuff) and they read the whole thing (so it must not be that awful). 

It's a win, a victory, in my book, because I've been validated as an author. Like yesterday's post said, I don't need to be published to be read. But being read definitely provides validation. And being read by some of the toughest folks in the business and being encouraged to continue writing, that's a victory I'll celebrate any time. 

 

Quality in Writing

Quality n. 1. (degree of) excellence. 2. characteristic, something that is special in a person or thing.

I've worked in the field of Quality for over thirty years. I've been responsible for the quality of valves used in the oil industry, the quality of cans and tubes used for dispensing medicine and the quality of advertising media. The most important job I've had, and my area of specialty, is in the quality of work performed on ships of the U.S. Navy. It's the subject I know best, the job I've held longest and the one that really matters to me.

When I watch a ship we've worked on sail away, all the equipment operating, all the sailors safe and confident in their ability to perform, I derive a deep sense of satisfaction. It's important to me to have a job that matters. So, when it comes to the Quality of the written word, I take inordinate pride in both my own writing and the writing of others. Most of my writing is policy, most of my reading is fiction. Somewhere in between I decided to marry the two and now I spend all my free time trying to become a Quality Writer.

We writers are a funny bunch. We can tear apart a sentence, paragraph, or novel until nothing remains but the shred of meaning that fomented it's creation. We can toss up grammar, punctuation, syntax and plot errors that no one else would think about. And we are our own worst critics - in both the best and worst ways. We recognize Quality, whether we can define it or not. We demand it in others, fight for it in ourselves and cringe at it's absence in both.

Quality in writing is, minimally, the accuracy of the use of those rules we learned in school. Every sentence needs a subject. Semi-colons must have a complete, relatable sentence on either side. Dangling participles will condemn you to hell. And we break many of those rules willingly.

Sometimes we break these rules for "effect;" to convey a mood, pacing or other nuance to the reader. Sometimes we break them without intent, because in the heat of the moment we don't pause to think about the structure of our writing (raises hand guiltily on both counts). Regardless of the violation, do these violations constitute Poor Quality?

I don't believe they do, and here's why: true Quality lies not in the accuracy of the written word. True, if you have enough errors in all of the rules, you will frustrate and lose your reader. If you have significant violations, either in quantity or severity, your writing will lose impact. But if you have reasonably accurate adherance and follow basic principles of plot, pacing, character development and subject, you can have high quality writing concurrent with grammatical error.

And that's the key: Quality writing is about the amalgamation of the words, sentences, punctuation and placement. It's the difficult to describe element that grabs the reader by the gut, makes them care about the subject of the story and keeps them turning the pages. It's the ability to relate to the people or the circumstance that you are writing about. Good writers of all genres may be grammatically accurate, providing "Quality" manuscripts. Great writers, truly Quality writers have developed sufficient style and dialogue skills, world-creating description and compelling plot-lines that allow them to break some of these rules and bend others to keep us moving to the end, leaving us wanting more.

Quality, then, is less a definitive degree of accuracy and more a managing of the intangible elements of our art. It's in the margins, in the nuance and subtext, and in the heart of the writer and the reader.

Go forth, ye writers, and create great Quality of written word!

“Raise your quality standards as high as you can live with, avoid wasting your time on routine problems, and always try to work as closely as possible at the boundary of your abilities. Do this, because it is the only way of discovering how that boundary should be moved forward.”
― Edsger W. Dijkstra

"I Sing the Body Electric..."

Walt Whitman wrote these words in 1867. He added them to his Magnum Opus; Leaves of Grass, which was first published in 1855.

Funny thing about old Walt - he kept tinkering with those poems until his death in 1892.

Walt knew a thing or two about writing. And about using your Imagination. Think about it: when he wrote those words, electricity was a rarity - a wondrous new phenomenon barely tamed or employed.

Yet Whitman caught on to the wonder of it, the beauty of lightening across a summer sky and the great possibility of taming something so wild. And others caught on to Whitman.

I often wonder where he first found his Inspiration for this and so many other magnificent phrases he strung together. He used words like we use table salt - to add flavor and depth few of us can hope to achieve.

Yet, for all that, he was fired from his job, his writing deemed "obscene" and banned by many of the major retailers of his day.

But he kept writing. He kept revising. He kept editing. And he kept true to his vision.

"I sing the body electric..."

Thrilling, strumming, alive and fiery, the poem gives homage to the liveliness and grace of the human body. Men, women, old, young, at war and at peace, in repose and working. Can you read it and not get caught up in the rhythm? Can you read it and not SEE the words come to life? Can you read it and not want to write like that? I can't. Not a bit.

Especially this part: "Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count." Ah! It makes me want to dance and sway and move to the rhythm of the wind! How can you not FEEL these words? How can you not be inspired to at least TRY and write something comparable? 

I give you, then, the beginning and a link to the full version of "I Sing the Body Electric"

1

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

2

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,

That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,

But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,

It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,

It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,

The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,

To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,

You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,

The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,

The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,

Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,

The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,

The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,

The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,

The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,

The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,

The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;

The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,

The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,

The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;

Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,

Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

D is for Dictionary...

This one is too easy, but it's so important I had to post it:

1. If you don't have a dictionary, buy one.
2. If you don't use a dictionary, start.
3. If you haven't explored your dictionary, do so.

Part and parcel of the same topic:
A. Read your own work. How many times do you use the same verb, adverb, modifier to describe and detail something in your story? Learn what your "catch" words are and find alternatives. Yes, this is more in line with Thesaurus use, but learning NEW words and how to use them will make you a better writer.

B. What are your "problem" words? I know that when the story hits me strong and I'm moved by the muse, the words fly from my fingers too quickly to catch the correct use. My problem words are "there/they're/their;" "to/too," "staid/stayed." I have others, but this is the short list. I keep them posted above my desk, adding to the list as I discover additional words I frequently misuse or misspell. Awareness of those words helps me make fewer errors when I am writing and makes me a better editor as well.

Our language is so complex, dynamic and beautiful in it's variety, it's a shame to limit ourselves to the same stale expressions over and over. Try something new. You just might like it!