Writing and Editing

I opened a new post for this blog yesterday, and...

Totally forgot to write it. LOL

The check engine light came on in our everyday vehicle while DH drove up to Detroit to pick me up at the airport eleven days ago. Yesterday was the first opening our mechanic had. So, I needed to be up early. I followed DH over to the mechanic. Thankfully, it was not a worse case scenario when they called later in the afternoon.

However, I skipped yoga class because I had a massive to-do list. I got some breakfast, started on my list, and...

Yep, I fell asleep on my recliner.

I woke up in a bit of a panic because I needed to run two errands before the facilities closed at five p.m. After I got those done, I went to Starbucks for some serious writing. I'm closing in on finishing Feline Navidad in another day or two.

When I got home, I made dinner, watched some Jeopardy, wrote some more on Feline Navidad and edited a Alter Ego story that needed a new cover before I republish it. Basically, I worked until the Princess Pup nagged me into going to bed.

Never did look at this blog again until this morning.

Well, part of the massive to-do list is running and verifying reports before I take the mass of data to the meeting with our new CPA on Friday.

 Thankfully, there's four more days to get stuff done! I'm not underwater yet!

Gaining Traction

Our little town has a huge number of restaurants per capita. That also means we have an equally huge number of coffee shops.

I had really looked forward to the end of the pandemic so I could go back to the George House near the University of Findlay campus. Unfortunately, it has gone out of business. The Timmies near our house had reduced their hours. The staff at the Timmies across town glare at you if you dare to sit and eat at one of their tables, nevermind being in your laptop. Cafe Amici has excellent coffee and no parking since it's downtown.

Why am I talking about coffee shops? Because sometimes, I need to get out of the house in order to write.

DH and GK used to laugh at my because I'd circulate from room-to-room on the first floor. When that didn't work, I go to the neighborhood Barnes & Noble or one of the nearby Starbucks.  I know it's such a cliche. Also, I don't know why a change of scenario works to unstick my writing, but it does.

Best of all though, we now have two standalone Starbucks in town.

I've been stuck since the beginning of the year. Normally, I'd have half a novel done by now, but I'm struggling with edits since November. The cataract surgeries didn't help. Neither did my normal trigger of cleaning the bathroom. We bought this house so I could have my own office for crying out loud! And all I do is stare at the boxes I haven't unpacked yet.

So this morning, I grabbed Baby Blue and my Kylo Ren flashdrive and drove to the closest standalone Starbucks.

It worked! Solutions started clicking. My grilled cheese sandwich even got cold as I fixed the issues on the current manuscript. I came home feeling pretty good. I may have to go to Starbucks every day next week to keep up the momentum, but it'll be worth it.

I Should Not Write the Two Months After a Parent's Funeral

I was doing one last proofing pass on Invasion! before formally launching it. And I got to the last four chapters and wondered, "What the fuck was I thinking?"

When I checked my calendar, I realized they had been written shortly after my mother's funeral back in October. *facepalm* Seriously, there were sentences in there that made absolutely no sense. And none of this registered in my brain when I did the first editing pass back in November.

So I've spent the last couple of days, well, not really fixing the book. More like re-writing the last quarter of it.

I know there are times I don't hit the mark with readers. But despite some people's reviews, I do try to put out a quality product. This is one of those times where I needed to take a step back, kick myself in the ass, and fix the damn book.

It's going to be another week or so before Invasion! is released.

More Drizzles, More Editing

Most of our spring flowers survived Monday's snow. The first bunch of daffodils to bloom were already on their way out. The heavy slush merely accelerated the process. And I found decongestant in stock at the grocery store this week!

*damn allergies*

It's feeling more like spring. Warm drizzlies were just starting as Bella and I stepped outside for her constitutional. However, she got her hair and nails done yesterday, so she had no desire to sniff around after her business was finished. She's a princess pup after all.

I'm trying to wrap up the last proofing of some things. Later tonight, I'll be loading the stretch rewards into BookFunnel to send to the backers. And then for the rest of the weekend, I settle into the last scenes of A Measure of Knowledge.

I've been debating on whether or not to end it on a cliff-hanger. I'll probably write both endings and have my alpha readers let me know which one they prefer.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone!

A Drizzly Day for Editing

Mother Nature is running the gamut of weather this week. On Monday, it snowed. Yesterday was chilly, but bright and sunny. Today's a lot warmer, but the rain we weren't supposed to get until after sundown arrived a little early.

Which means it's an excellent day for text-to-voice editing and proofing with a peppermint mocha to sip. Even though it's 4/20, caffeine is still my drug of choice.

Despite the picture, I'll probably make my own here at home. I don't feel like putting on my shoes to go out.

Enjoy your day wherever you are!

Brain Power!

I overslept today. The alarm played P!nk's "Raise Your Glass". I turned it off and rolled on my back, contemplating everything I needed to do today and...

Next thing I know it's 11 a.m.

Oops!

However, sleep is a necessary component of keeping your brain strong, especially when you've been doing a lot of editing lately.

Another component is eating right, which DH and I have tried really hard to do since January. He's lost some pounds. I did, too!

Until the pandemic. All my old bad habits regarding stress eating came right back, and I put all the weight back on. ARGH!

But one of the things I'm learning over the pandemic is how to properly cook seafood. It's brain food, right?

I can roast catfish, bluegills, and bass over an open fire, but I had a tendency to overcook seafood on an indoor stove. I've tried salmon, scallops, and tilapia so far, and everything's turned out pretty good.

Living on a farm as a kid, I was so used to cooking the shit out of everything, especially pork. If you were in 4-H, you learned about all the potential parasites in your animal. And even though Dad helped with the medicines and our pigs were pretty darn healthy, the worm thing kind of sticks in your head.

And the real trick in cooking scallops is three minutes per side, else you end up eating hockey pucks.

Unfortunately, the scallops I was looking forward to for tonight's dinner will not arrive today. So I'm cooking with what I have in the refrigerator: bruchetta chicken, roasted asparagus, and bacon mashed potatoes. Those should get me through the editing I need to finish today!

Editing in Brain Fog

Normally, I do my own editing. That drives readers and a lot of other writers damn near psychotic. I'm not sure why. I had to edit any tech manuals or legal documents I wrote during my other two professional incarnations.

In indie publishing, I'm also the first person to advocate do what you're good at and hire out the rest. I can edit. I still can't quite get the hang of covers. I'm practicing, but I simply don't have the eye my cover artists do.

However, I didn't realize how deep my brain fog from the COVID-19 pandemic was until I started to come out of it a couple of weeks ago. I'm in the process of re-editing Hero De Jure. Holy Cthulu! What a mess. I am usually much, MUCH cleaner than this.

That damn brain fog is also the reason I pulled the Millersburg Mystery series from Amazon.

Now, I could sit here and berate myself, but is that really doing any good? That's the reason I advocate being kind to yourself right now. We're all going through some variation of brain fog with our jobs.

Even the rare times we've done carry-out for dinner over the last couple of months, our orders have been screwed up more times than not. The poor kids working at the local restaurants are having as much trouble with brain fog as the rest of us.

However, life goes on, and I'm working on fixing my work. Luckily, the story I'm releasing for July is already written. Hopefully, that will give me a little time to clean up shit and get back on track with my writing.

Editing! Oh, Yes, I'm Editing!

Sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty" from West Side Story.

Another short post just to say, I'm neck-deep in editing Resurrected. So back to work!

(Now, where did I put those bite-sized Snickers...)

Back to Work

Yesterday wasn't as bad pain-wise as I had feared. I got a bit done.

The trade paperback of Hero De Facto was uploaded to Ingramspark. It should start showing up on retailers' websites soon.

I got some work done on Hero De Novo, but tomorrow I need to buckle down and finish reviewing the print galleys of Hero Ad Hoc.

Then there's Dory's advice:

Party Time!

I got the final print version of Hero De Facto back from my formatter yesterday. For once, the print version of a title will be available, if not at the exact same time as the e-book, within a couple of days, instead of several months.

Yay!

It's the little things like this that make me happy. My business is solidifying into a regular tempo. I feel like for once I'm keeping up with what I should be doing. I WANT to get the edits on Hero De Novo done so I can get back to writing A Matter of Death.

Maybe it's the warmer weather and longer days improving my mood, but I'm going to enjoy this feeling of accomplishment while I can.

Typos Are Lifeforms...

...and I swear to Cthulu, the little bastards are having crazy bunny sex in my files.

Oh, and I'm trying to battle them while the cold virus from two weeks ago is having a major hot tub party in my sinuses.

So while I edit, I'll leave you with this funny for the day...

F***ing Riptide!

I was on a roll Wednesday morning. The second book in the 888-555-HERO series was delivered to my formatter. I sent the blurb and info to my cover artist so she could do the print cover on Thursday. I jumped into the edits for Book 3.

Except I started winding down during the afternoon. Which is totally unlike me. This is the point of the day where I'm usually the most productive. Then came the sinus headache.

Crap. It's too early in the season for spring allergies. Heck, we still have pockets of snow here and there.

DH and I tried to get our evening walk in. I hadn't even made it a full mile before the tickle started in the back of my throat, so we cut it short. By the time we picked up dinner (which we'd planned on because of some additional errands that evening), my nose gushed like Niagara Falls.

So he's slept on the couch to hopefully *fingers crossed* not pick up my germs.

In the meantime, I'm working, but it's at a crawl instead of the steady jog I was on. I should be glad that this is the first cold I've had in two years. And I will be.

Once my eyeballs decide whether or not they will explode.

I Can See the Shore!

Still working on edits for the 888-555-HERO series. Here's another cute animal picture to make your day bright!

Drowning in Edits

Seriously, I'm trying to get edits finished for the second and third books of 888-555-HERO so I can get them to my formatter. And she just sent me the print galleys to look at.

So in the meantime, here's a cute puppy picture to "Awwwww" over while I slave away!

Self-Editing

This morning, DH schlepped his dad up to Toledo to get Muffy shaved off. We're keeping our fingers crossed that there are no complications. NW Ohio is getting the full 80% chance of rain the weather forecasters promised. So it's a rather stressful, dreary day to start with.

And I'm sitting here, staring at my screen, and mulling over an innocent comment from last night's dinner.

I went with DH to a business function. The folks are sweet and laid back, and dinner was held at a hole-in-the-wall place that serves real Mexican food, not the over-spiced stuff most Americans think of as Mexican.

Invariably, someone at dinner asks me if I'm still writing. I take that one in stride. There's a great number of people in this town that dabble in the arts but still have their day jobs.

When I said, yes, but right now I'm concentrating on editing a couple of proof paperbacks, that took my listeners by surprise. One lady, eyes wide, asked, "You do your own editing?"

Uh, yeah.

I didn't realize how deep one of Dean Wesley Smith's writing myths reached until that moment.

The following are my thoughts, and my thoughts alone, on the subject of editing. YMMV.

1) Developmental editing

Writers don't need this. If you can't grasp story structure from reading books and watching TV and movies, writing probably isn't the profession for you. (Hint: Wanna learn classic three-act structure? Go watch Star Wars.) To me, using a developmental editor is wanting someone to validate your talent by paying them an obscene sum of money.

2) Copy editing

This has to do with the consistency of the story and the possible research involved. Writers should be able to do this themselves. For example, is your heroine's eyes blue throughout your story? Which interstate runs through Las Vegas if your using that city as a setting? Seriously, you shouldn't need someone to babysit you through the basics.

3) Line Editing

Here's where grammar, spelling and punctuation come in, and dammit, if you're a writer, you should know the basics of your craft. In comparison, it's like a carpenter knowing whether to use a hammer or a screwdriver on a nail. I don't cut myself any slack in this area. I read a lot of U.K. English books, so I have a tendency to use the U.K. spelling for words. I always have to double-check!

4) Proofreading

This is the one area where hiring someone makes sense. And that's assuming you can find someone who does quality work. Notice I said QUALITY. Quality and price do not correlate. In fact, I've had better proofers who've asked for $25 Starbucks or Amazon gift cards as payment. And honestly, if the proofer misses something that you find later, do you really want to pay them thousands of dollars?

Are there exceptions to needing extra help? Of course, there are. But a writer with dyslexia still does not need a development editor! And yes, I know a couple of very talented writers who are dyslexic.

Now, I going to Starbucks for my peppermint mocha before I tackle some editing.

Angry Sheep signing off!

Editing and the Insane Writer

This morning, DH and I had to "bug out of our apartment because of bugs" as he told a co-worker. We just needed to be out for a couple of hours so we weren't accidentally poisoned along with the intentionally poisoned six-legged and eight-legged critters. So we packed up our respective materials and headed to Panera's for breakfast.

Except as we headed for the car, DH looked at me askance and said, "Where's your laptop?"

"In the apartment."

"Won't you need it to work?"

"No, I'm editing a manuscript." I blew his mind because I took--wait for it--PAPER!

You see, I printed out the files for the first five Bloodlines books back in 2013. The intent was to go through them in preparation for the paper version and fix the typos that were missed in the original pre-publication editing passes because yes, even editors miss shit. I take missing shit as a compliment because more than one of them has mentioned that they get caught up in the story and forget they are supposed to be looking for mistakes. And...

Well, as you all know, a lot of shit happened between the summer of 2013 and now. I'm slowly but surely picking up the pieces I dropped with the house drama and family drama.

Not to mention, I find myself looking back through the first five books while writing Zombie Goddess (which, by the way, crossed the 42K mark on Thursday) because I can't remember shit. Yes, I'm putting together a series bible as I go so I won't have to deal with this on the last three books.

Anyway, I brought the first eleven chapters of Blood Sacrifice with me. I'm sitting in the booth, laughing at some parts, irritated with myself at others, but even I, who is supposed to be looking for typos, am getting caught up in the story again.

Like someone else wrote it. Not me.

And I'm wondering if I'm crazy and if I actually have a split personality.

Maybe I do.

Or maybe I offer a bounty to readers who find typos.

More Thoughts on How to Know If You're Ready to Publish

Well, I got about 700 words in on Wednesday before I ended up at my doctor's with a massive UTI. I started to get angry about getting nothing done over the last two days until DH pointed out with my chronic situation, it takes me longer and longer to recover from any problem, bacterial or viral. It doesn't help that I'm developing nasty side effects to drugs I've taken before with no problem.

So I've been crashed out on the couch alternating between Bones, Grimm, Supernatural and Leverage for the last forty-eight hours, except when I'm sleeping twelve hours straight.

What does this have to do with knowing when you're ready to publish?

I finally got the energy a bit ago to crack open my laptop and take a gander at the notes my beta reader e-mailed me concerning A Question of Balance. All three lines. Yep, only three lines concerning the first couple of chapters.

So I asked, "Where's the rest of the notes?"

"Um, there aren't any."

I'm a little flabbergasted. "You can't tell me the book was perfect."

"Well, I got so into it I forgot to take notes."

This isn't the first time that's happened to me. I've have various readers, editors and friends say something similar. That's what I want. To tell such a spellbinding story the reader doesn't see the boo-boo's.

I'm not saying you shouldn't line edit or proofread your work. By all means, please fix the typos! But if your story is so compelling your beta reader doesn't notice the typos, then you're ready to send your baby out in the world.

Just make sure it has a clean diaper first.

Editing Nightmares When You're Trad Published

Last night I was reading the latest book in a series of a new writer I've fallen in love with. Well, she's new to me. I stumbled across a couple of typos. I'm not normally a grammar bitch, but one glitch in particular really threw me off. I had to reread the sentence a couple of times to deduce what word "rt" was supposed to be.

This is the same author whose last book in this series had a glaring copyedit problem. The heroine started a scene drinking her favorite hot beverage, but ended the scene drinking a totally different beverage. Not just a totally different beverage, but one that has been mentioned several times in the series as one the heroine hates.

This writer's particular series is published by DAW which is part of Penguin-Random House. Allegedly, one of the greatest selling points of traditional publishers is the extensive copy editing, line editing, and proofreading that a publishing house book goes through until it is released into the wild.

Except it's not happening.

I've been hearing from traditionally published friends (those still talking to me anyway) that they're not getting any editing. Or that they need to pay for an outside editor. Or they get the galleys back with more errors introduced than the original manuscript contained.

What's worse is if no one catches the mistake, it's never fixed. Quite frankly, the publishing houses don't have the money or manpower to do so. They're cutting costs like crazy, and guess who goes first when a corporation needs to trim the overhead? Yep, the people who actually do the work.

So, my new favorite heroine from my new favorite author is going continue drinking coffee, which she absolutely despises even if that particular book goes into its hundredth printing.

As I said is a previous post, I'm paranoid I missed something when my editor okays the final copy. My story in the anthology may be marred until the end of time.

Or until I get my rights back, and I release my own version. And honestly, that's one of the biggest pluses of indie publishing over trad publishing. I have the power to fix my boo-boo's.

Editing Nightmares when You're an Indie

First of all, let me say I wouldn't trade being an indie for anything. Nor do I hate editing per se. But like everything in life, there are times when certain bugs crawl up your butt, and they are itchy and scratchy and drive you insane.

The zombie meme that indies don't edit drives me insane. We do edit.

I've never needed an developmental editor. These are the folks who tell you how to write the story. Personally, I've never understood why I'd need someone tell me how to write a story, but I'm not going to criticize people who need them.

Also, I can do my own copyediting. That's making sure I haven't accidentally changed a character's eye color or name. Or something even more stupid.

But when it comes to line-editing (aka proofreading)...ARGH!

By no means am I perfect. I admit I have a tendency to leave out articles and prepositions while writing. This usually means I add 10-15K words to my manuscripts during my first line-editing pass.

After I'd made my passes, I had five separate people line-edit Blood Magick, plus two beta readers and my hubby go through the damn manuscript. You'd think that nine people, with three of those nine being industry professional editors and another three being trad-pubbed writers, would find all the typos.

Nope.

Typos still made it into the e-book version. Some sweet, clear-eyed readers pointed out a handful of them. I fixed the manuscript. Uploaded it.

And still didn't catch a few. Earlier this year, I went going through the manuscript again in preparation for sending to a formatter. Checked the e-version. Found a couple more. My lovely formatter fixed the e-version. Then she sent me the print version for proofing. And guess what?

Yep, still found another one.

So, anyway, I'll start copy-editing A Question of Balance in a week or so. In the meantime, I'll be going through Amish, Vamps & Thieves before its formatting is updated. Hopefully, it won't take an additional nine people and twenty passes to get the manuscript clean.

What Editing?

Like it or not, the publishing world has changed. Traditional publishers say they still offer value, such as editing, but do they really?

The last three books I've read that were traditionally published have not been edited. If it wasn't for the skill of these three writers, the tomes I bought would have been thrown across the room. I'm not going to name names because I actually respect the three writers in question, and it was very obvious that somebody at the publisher dropped the ball.

1) Last winter, I bought the e-book edition of a hardcover I purchased nearly fifteen years ago. It was one of those literary books I like to re-read occasional because I always discover something new in this writer's work that I missed the first time.

Except this time the discovery was so many typos! Which means the publisher scanned the original hardcopy with some sucky OCR software and didn't bother to double-check it before offering it for sale.

Dear Publisher: Lazy. Lazy. Lazy.

2) I bought the latest hardcover of one of my favorite authors last year, and finally carved some time to read it. This author has a known reading disorder so you'd think his publisher would make an extra effort on his books. Nope, not a chance, or at least, not this time. Read on his blog recently that he's paying for an editor out of his own pocket because he got skewered in reviews for the typos.

Dear Publisher: Charging $30 for a hardcover with that many typos makes you look bad to other writers, not just to readers. Very, very bad.

3) A week ago Sunday, I broke down and bought the latest mmpb of a series I absolutely adore. Started reading it last night in a minor celebration of getting some house painting accomplished this week. Page 69, heroine at restaurant drinking hot chocolate. Page 70, heroine still drinking hot chocolate. Page 71, heroine abandons her coffee to confront bad guy.

WTF? This gal rarely does coffee, and only when she's desperate and no other caffeine is available. Went back to the beginning of the scene. Yep, heroine definitely ordered hot chocolate and waitress delivered said hot chocolate.

It'll be interesting to see if there are any more copyediting mistakes along the same lines.

Dear Publisher: Let me guess. That thing in the Bible about Jesus turning water into wine was a typo your copyeditor missed, wasn't it?

Lesson of the Day: If you want a contract with a traditional publisher because you think your precious baby will be edited, think again. Two of the writers I mentioned above have been NYT best-selling authors for more than two decades. If they can't get their publishers' time and concern over their books, what makes you think those publishers will give a rat's ass over a newbie like you?