SELF INFLICTED WOUNDS by Jenny Jensen
January 19, 2019 by Jenny Jensen in category On writing . . . by Jenny Jensen tagged as credibility, editing, Editors, self-publishing, typos
The Indie Revolution is the most exciting innovation since Google; it’s more refreshing than the demise of the mullet. It’s such a grand opportunity! It’s so… democratic. Anyone with the passion and discipline to write down the stories that live in their head can offer their work to the world. There are no subjective, judgmental, economic barriers blocking the way. Every avid reader can troll the newest book offerings looking for that next great discovery. When I find a fresh new voice with an exciting sense of drama, fascinating characters and a unique tale to spin it’s like winning the lottery (at least I imagine it is, having never won myself).
And we all know what they say about opportunity—it’s something to make the best of. That’s why I am so amazed how many Indie books contain errors of the sort that any good set of editorial eyes would have found and corrected. It’s a message to me, the reader, that I’m not important enough to make the book right. Or worse, the author thinks so little of me that I’ll accept any error, that I won’t notice or care.
How can I not care when DCI Stewart, ruggedly attractive in a wry funny way (this narrative already has me considering Book Two) has just gone through XXI chapters of intriguing madness to finally find the decisive evidence and as he lifts the shredded ribbon from the debris of the broken vase he cries, “Waa La!”. What!? Waa La? I’m out of the moment now, jerked rudely from the mounting tension. DCI Stewart is no longer clever or ingenious; he’s an idiot. Give the poor man a “Viola!”. I can’t bear to look at any more.
It’s a different kind of awful when the whip smart heroine finally descends the grand staircase to face her treacherous half siblings and the room falls silent, “the rustling tool of her elegant gown the only sound”. This instantly conjures hysterically unintentional images. Yikes, it’s toile. I want to scream. The story has lost all credibility. I can’t get my reading mojo back. Why didn’t this author care?
It’s one thing to accept a typo or two, even a few missing prepositions are forgivable (just remember all those reviews that say it would have been a 4 star except for the typos) but it’s a lot to ask your audience to overlook faulty word choice, a change of voice in mid-chapter, a glaring hole in the timeline, a nonsensical plot point or character traits that shifts mid stream.
Such errors are forgivable in any draft—that’s where the author gets the story down and who cares if a character proclaims it’s a “mute point”. Under the fresh, critical eye of an editor it will become a moot point. This is the stage where an objective eye sees what the writer has missed by staring so long at the trees. Maybe the story arc lags, maybe the narrative or characters are inconsistent, a good editor and the writer can fix it. Doesn’t the writer want it perfect?
Indie publishing is such a golden opportunity and writing a good book requires so much personal investment to get to a good draft it’s sad how many writers just blithely publish, warts and all. Take the extra step and work with an editor. Your book and your readers are worth it. We editors can to save you from shooting yourself in the foot.
GUTS
January 15, 2019 by Rebecca Forster in category The Write Life by Rebecca Forster tagged as choices, writing
A few days ago my mom had a lunch, an affair to show off her Christmas decorations before she started taking them down. There were seven of us munching on layered Jell-O salad, finger sandwiches, and clam chowder. Over coffee, one of the ladies said:
“Tell us again how you started writing.”
I won’t bore you with the story, but my start involved a dare, a lot of hours of butt in the chair, no expectation of ever getting published and absolute terror and self-doubt once my first book went to contract.
When I was finished with my tale, she said: “Wow, that took guts.”
I wanted to tell her that, no, writing my first book didn’t take guts, staying in the industry did. If you’re reading this, and you are writing, you qualify as gutsy.
Every day you make decisions that will change the course of your career: you dig into your own pocket for advertising and public relations, are faced with tough demands from publishers and hard creative choices. Currently, there is a decision many of you will face and that is whether or not to sign a traditional publishing contract that contains a morality clause. Such clauses are included by houses like Simon & Schuster and Penguin Putnam and, if enforced, will void a contract (often asking for advances back and always removing books by the offending authors) because of past, present or future behavior that they consider immoral. ‘They’ – the judge and jury – are the publishers or public outcry on social media or anything that, in the publisher’s opinion, makes your work less saleable.
Morality clauses were nothing new, but in years gone by there were strict codes of morality based on widely accepted public mores and religious guidelines. In this day and age a moral transgression can be determined by a fashionable whim, a person who frivolously points a finger, or a trending Tweet. Today Oscar Wilde would not be considered immoral, yet in his time he was arrested and jailed for homosexuality. Still, his work was published and it was the public that decided whether or not to read it.
There are many questions about clauses like this, not the least of which is this: does such a clause infringe on free speech? Even more concerning is tying morality to salability, a bottom line, money. This space is too small for such a big debate, but here’s my bottom line: a publishing contract is a rare thing and, when offered, it will take guts to reject it because of a morality clause. It will also take guts to accept it and live with the knowledge that you, personally, and not just your work, could be deemed immoral at any time for any reason.
There’s a lot to think about in 2019 and one of those things is to ask yourself if you have the guts to be a writer.
Resolutions for Writers
January 13, 2019 by Bethlehem Writers Group in category From a Cabin in the Woods by Members of Bethlehem Writers Group
From a Cabin in the Woods is please to have Jodi Bogert as guest author this month.
Jodi Bogert is a member of the Bethlehem Writers Group, LLC. In 2016, she graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a degree in Professional Writing and blogs original content and freelances. Her future goals for her career include with publishing more short stories and a debut novel.
Resolutions for Writers
Jodi Bogert
The beginning of the New Year means setting goals. These goals can be taking either a new direction in life or working on something that people always aspired to finish. For writers, resolutions typically revolve around starting the first draft of that big novel they dreamed of publishing.
More often than not, this resolution is a recycled goal from the previous January and the one before that. The reasons writers never get around to the first draft can vary. There is too much to do and few hours in the day or the writer’s heart was not in it. However, if the story idea is enough to create a book, and the writer has the drive, anything is possible. Following a few steps, the writer will find it easier to carry out the project.
Step 1: Plan out everything
A writer will spend a lot of time thinking about a good idea. So many thoughts go through one’s mind it’s easy to lose track and become overwhelmed. The best way to begin a new novel is to create a basic outline. Writing every plot point, character trait, and other details can help organize thoughts and provide a visual aid. A writer can also use this outline as a tool throughout the process. They can look at it again and decide which parts of the story needs to be added or eliminated.
Step 2: Break it into chunks
When writing the first draft, too many writers work for hours on end, never giving themselves and the project a chance to rest. Frustration and stress quickly build up, and the writer will find it easier to quit. Gradually writing the first draft is the smarter way to go forward. Setting up a daily quota of pages or words to will develop the project at a steady pace. The writer will learn to take things slowly, going back to make sure everything in the story reflects absolute perfection, or as perfect as a first draft can be.
Step 3: Asking for help
One big mistake that writers make is not getting other people involved. A writer cannot do it all alone. At this point, they are the only one who has spent time on the project, from conceptualizing the idea to writing out the first few chapters. Using other people’s eyes is essential because they are unfamiliar with the story and more likely to find mistakes and pick out plot lines or characters that are not working out. The writer should always listen to their inner voice, but the opinion of the audience can help take the project where it needs to go.
Step 4: Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite!
When the first draft is finally taken out of the writer’s mind and put down on paper, the process is still far from over. Completing a novel takes an immense amount of time and effort. Putting away the first draft for a time is what the writer needs to do, giving the writer time to think about what they want to change in the next draft. Looking at a first draft with fresh eyes also brings numeral mistakes forward that the writer might have overlooked.
Jodi Bogert’s “Old Man Omar” is among the twenty-seven stories in Untethered: Sweet, Funny, and Strange Tales of the Paranormal.
Her story shows us that sometimes those we consider crazy might just know some things we don’t.
My First Audiobook Experience
January 12, 2019 by Denise M. Colby in category The Writing Journey by Denise Colby, Writing tagged as audiobook, books, review
I know I know. I ‘m late to the party. Audiobooks have been around for a while now and I know several people who prefer listening to reading, due to several reasons. And for just those reasons I’ve been wanting to try out an audiobook. I just hadn’t had a moment to sit down and figure out which book, which app and what I would do while I listened.
Some have asked me why I don’t just play a CD in my car, but our CD player has been broken for years, and most of the time the radio is off as I’m picking up and dropping off kids and having conversations with the family. Rarely am I in my vehicle long enough to get into a chapter or even a scene while driving.
So, I finally asked a friend who listens to books all the time to help me out. That accountability helped me to commit to trying out this new way of “reading”.
I decided to try the new Libby app from my library.
I was giddy with glee when I selected a book. I mean my house was a mess and I planned to listen while folding laundry and cleaning up things with the goal of wowing my husband while getting in a good story. All good plans, right?
With loads of excitement and anticipation, I opened the file and pushed play….and immediately picked up something to look at.
My eyes could not, not look at something. They felt lost. They were so used to being the medium with which I take in and process information, they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
I found it actually quite weird.
And funny.
So it took me a bit to get going.
And as I kept going, I kept picking things up to look at and it would take me out of the story. So I had to learn to not take in things with my eyes. At one point I thought this might be a good sense stretcher for me in not being so dependent on my eyes. I tend to need to see something in order to remember it.
Listening is harder for me. And this exercise confirmed it.
And then my mind couldn’t get used to the voice. It sounded completely different than how I read in my head. I’ll admit, since it’s my first one, I didn’t know if they all sounded like this or not, but I do know when I read, I say phrases differently.
So that took some getting used to as well.
The whole experience was not what I was expecting.
Quite frequently, I would get focused on my task and not quite hear the phrase read, but then I had no idea how to rewind. By the time I figured it out, the story had moved forward quite a bit, and I didn’t know how far back to go. I found myself not remembering the story as well, either.
When I come across brilliant writing, I love to read over the passage a few times. Savor it. Let it sink in. Slow. Fast. It varies based on how my brain absorbs it.
Again, with listening, I was past the section before I knew what to do about it. I finally figured out I could tap my app and back up 10 seconds, and I tried the rewind a few times, but it just didn’t have the same affect for me. Also, I still felt challenged as my hands were busy while I was listening, and I found I couldn’t get to my phone fast enough. By the time I did, the story had moved on. Again.
But I felt I missed something. Deeply.
The first day, I got a good way into the story (and caught up with my laundry) and looked forward to the next session. But I found out that when you don’t have a habit you have to be very purposeful to keep doing it. I needed my headset handy, my phone charged, no one in need of anything and all of it to come together for me to connect again. It seemed the times I had available to listen, I couldn’t get those things all to line up together. It made it a bit challenging, but I persevered.
There were several things I noticed:
1. Showing me how much time I had left to listen to the book made it feel more daunting.
Like a chore.
When I read and tell myself, “Just one more chapter”, I may take a long time but I’m not really keeping track. But the app? It told me right there — you have four more hours!
And I already spent four hours already. That’s like me pointing out to my boys when they watch videos. “You spent 25 minutes on that one video? That’s 15 minutes you could be working on your homework or cleaning your room.”
Yep, that voice! It was now yelling at me!
2. I’m a fast reader, but when I sped up the voice, it felt rushed to me.
Which made me laugh out loud.
The voice didn’t get higher pitched. It was still quite clear. Which made it sound like speed listening. And alas, I couldn’t process as well, which leads into…
3. I found it harder to process through my ears.
I can read a book with my eyes and tune something out but still be able to hear things. I couldn’t hear anything else when I was concentrating on the story in my ears. I guess I’m not a verbal learner. Also I like the voice I hear in my head. I envision a certain sound and what it sounds like. But with audio, you end up with the voice of the book in your head and I felt it took away for me. Not the fault of the voice actor, just it was so new and different for me to get used to.
4. I felt like I was purposely tuning everyone out, not to enjoy my book, but so I wouldn’t hear them.
It’s hard to have a moments peace in my house.
The dog wants out, the kids are asking a question. Unless I was home alone, I really couldn’t put my headphones in and just listen and absorb the book.
Also, I mostly read at night before I go to bed. It felt funny to me to put my headphones in with my husband in the room. It was like I was purposely tuning him out. Shouldn’t be a big deal but it felt like it was.
I really didn’t want to read another book while listening to this one, but there were times it was just easier to pick up a book.
So I did. Then one day I went to listen and the book had gone back to the library. It had been three weeks already! And I wasn’t even half way through. I borrowed the book again and was able to keep plodding along to the end.
All in all, it took me much longer to get through this book than when I read. And the amount of time spent was there right in front of me.
I realize now, I prefer not knowing how much time I spend reading. To me, that’s part of the magic of reading. You get lost. Time gets lost. There’s no one keeping track.
All in all I found the experience enlightening. I will do it again at some point, but my first choice is still picking up a book and reading it with my eyes.
Step in a Puddle and Splash Your Friends Day by Jina Bacarr
January 11, 2019 by Jina Bacarr in category Jina’s Book Chat, Writing tagged as amwriting, Instagram, rainy days, writing
Yes, we’re going to have rain for a few days here in So Cal! This is good news for our ice packs in the mountains and conjures up dreamy days of writing with warm, chicken noodle soup in one hand and the sound of raindrops accompanying our happy keystrokes.
Ah, if only writing was that easy.
It isn’t. It’s grueling work, rewriting, recasting characters at times, rejection, then revise. A lot of “Rs” in that sentence, but would you have it any other way?
In a perfect world, maybe. But in a perfect world there’s no room to grow, no new corner to peek into and find another angle to a story, no misstep that takes you down a new path, no angst that brings life to a story, no heart.
So as we embark on our days’ long rainy weather, grab that chicken soup anyway, enjoy the raindrops tapping against your window, and write.
Rain can be the chicken soup for your story, but hard work makes it happen!
Jina
PS — last month I talked about Instagram: here are some video poems I’ve made recently:
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