Getting my first novel published just over a year ago is undoubtedly the thing I’m most grateful for. That it wasn’t hard to find a publisher for it and that I found a wonderful illustrator to do the cover art also were part of that mix. However, the work leading up to it was hard and long. I started writing the novel in 2010 at a UCLA four-day workshop called How to Write Your First Novel. I decided to take that class to get away from the frustrations of trying to get my memoir published. I was querying like mad but nothing was working, so a change in pace was necessary. I already had an idea – taken from the life story my aunt wrote not long before she died. She wrote about a young man – actually a teacher – who took her to school plays and concerts when she was a senior in high school. When her brother – actually my father – found out he wasn’t Jewish, he made his family move to Chicago from their small town in mid Illinois so that she could find a nice Jewish man to … [Read more...]
And you thought you were finished: the revision process
For some unknown reason the post below (originally posted on November 16, 2016) disappeared from this website. So I'm reproducing it again now. And it makes perfect sense since I'm knee-deep in revising my new memoir. *** My publisher advised me to revise the second half of my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, almost entirely when she decided to publish my book. To that end I used many of the steps I learned while working as a writer-editor-manager of proposals to the U.S. Government to revise my book. Here is my revision process. 1. Plan before doing. I created a revision plan based on notes from my publisher and advice from my first reader. Then I got my publisher’s buy-in. 2. Read before revising. Since I hadn’t looked at my draft for almost two years, I read it front to back with my revision plan in hand. I marked up a hard copy with a red pen and made no electronic changes until I was through. Wow! did I find lots of things to edit, including typos, awkward sentences, … [Read more...]
What’s next in my writing life
Since I’ve finished – at least in my estimation– revision ten of my novel, it’s on hold. I want to hire a professional editor it go through it, but I haven’t made that happen yet. I’ve asked a young woman who worked with me on my memoir, but her life is so busy with children, she hasn’t given me a yes or no yet. I’ll wait another week or two and then go on to Plan B. In the meantime, I’ve gone back to writing small stones – I’ll post a couple that I’ve written this month below And I’m working on my poetry. I completed the April poem a day challenge put out by Robert Lee Brewer over at Writer’s Digest. I also write to his weekly Wednesday prompts. And this not usual for me – I’m editing some of my existing poems, getting them ready for submittal. (I’ve heard somewhere that if we haven’t received at least 100 rejections in a year, we haven’t submitted enough. That I’m editing poems is the unusual part for me. I usually write them, and then only with quick word or two changes … [Read more...]
I’ve become a revision fiend
I’m sure you’ve heard this before. But I need to tell it to you again. Book revision and editing will be harder and will take longer than the actual writing of your book. So be prepared to stay with it for the long haul before you start. In other words: Make the Decision to Do the Hard Work Before You Start to Write a Book. Here’s a true story. After I wrote the first draft of my memoir I hired an editor who helped me prepare it for submittal to interested agents and presses. This took about a year. Then once I had a book contract, my publisher requested an enormous amount of revisions to that draft. So I spent another six months revising and editing my manuscript with the help of three writing friends who checked my work for repetition, inconsistencies, chapter organization, wording, and typos. Afterward, the publisher’s editor worked another month doing a final review and edit before producing the first hardback edition. After my memoir’s release in May 2011 many readers … [Read more...]
Now, there’s a poem
If you've been here a time or two, you know I’ve always believed there is a poem out there everywhere. So many of my ideas for poems come from people I see and places I go that I’m really never at a loss for something to write about. I’m constantly saying, “Now, there’s a poem.” Still I like to work with prompts. I keep a list of them that I get from the Writer’s Digest’s poetry editor, Robert Lee Brewer and his Poetic Asides blog. He posts a prompt every Wednesday. Sometimes he’ll combine it with a request that we write in a specific poetry form, e.g., Haiku, Nonet, Luc Bat, Tanka, Ekphrastic, Quatern, Tritina. So I get a prompt, but a poetry lesson as well. Robert writes about things he knows and loves. The words are simple, homey, about his wife and children. I relate to that. He also conducts two poem-a-day challenges a year in April and November. I’ve participated for the last several years. At the end of the month he asks us to submit a chapbook of our best few poems … [Read more...]
Should we let a family member read our drafts?
When I finished revision nine of my novel, I decided to let my husband read it. He'd been asking for a long time, and I always held back from letting him. I had heard early on that asking family members especially such close ones and good friends to read our work could be a problem. It they hate the work they would be reluctant to tell the truth, and if they love it, they may have a subjective rather than objective point of view. Well, I decided to risk it anyway, and considering how hard he worked on reviewing, I'm not sorry. He saved a copy and renamed it with his initials and started going through it marking edits and/or typos in red font and inserting questions and comments along the way highlighted in yellow. He also created a separate timeline in a Word table. That is really his forte he's a numbers guy. And, he found a lot of inconsistencies in my dates (my novel is divided in three parts each starting with a date in story's history) and inconsistencies in the birth … [Read more...]
April small stones
We called our April small stones April Smiles, Showers and Pearls, and indeed they were. Without further ado, here are the small stones I wrote last month. A beautiful day. A beautiful walk to the beach. And I'm not fooling. We had brunch and a trip to the park with our three-year old godson and his family today. Always a challenge, but always lovely as well. So much going on house renovations, writing projects, and a wonderful visit with our deceased son's best friend. I love that he is still in our lives. I've been working hours revising, thinking, editing, thinking. It's exhausting. Looking at these awesome giant birds of paradise from my upstairs window. Nature is such a great inspiration. We had dinner 71 stories up last night. What a view of downtown Los Angeles: A beautiful bright sunny day for entertaining relatives from rainy Oregon. And it was so wet this morning I thought they had brought their rain with them. Today was a work day, not a writing … [Read more...]
It’s time to start rewriting again
I apologize for taking so much time off from Choices. My temporary day job has been exhausting and as such has given me little time or energy to write here. However, I'll be free of it early next week and look forward to getting back to my writing work. That said I attended a rewrite seminar last weekend to hopefully help me get revved up to work on my novel after a long hiatus working a proposal management consulting job. Some of the contents of the seminar were familiar I learned a lot about rewrite and revision while working proposals in the aerospace business and some things discussed gave me some new nuggets to incorporate in my work. Here I'll try to give you ways to tackle your own drafts. The two-step process for writing a book are: Step 1 write the draft Just get it out Don't hang up with editing Don't go to the Thesaurus to find a word. Lay all your cards on the table as fast as you can. And avoid tendency to write in chronological … [Read more...]
My stress meter
I have a built-in stress meter. I can tell how stressed I am by how loud my tinnitus sounds. When I feel relatively balanced, I hear very low wave-like sounds that seem to come from one ear. When I'm stressed the tinnitus sounds like crashing swells blowing through my head from both sides. So I was interested to read a recent New York Times article titled How Exercise May Protect Against Depression, given that even mild, repeated stress can contribute to the development of depression and other mood disorders in animals and people. Mood disorders, mania, and depression run in my family, so I need to actively make sure I lower my stress level. I've been exercising almost all my life, and I do it every day first thing in the morning. Exercise was especially useful after my son Paul's death fifteen years ago. That outlet kept me sane then, and it still does. That is, at least for a while. For example, I exercised this morning sixty minutes of cardio followed by a little iron … [Read more...]
Introducing A Flapper’s Dictionary
In celebration of completing one more pass through my entire novel as part of my revision process, I'm sharing A Flappers Dictionary. I used it to provide a smattering of flap talk throughout the second half of the book. The talk and the dress - especially shoes - of the 1920s are integral to my story (the working title of my novel is Papa's Shoes). Unfortunately I cannot say I'm done-done with Draft 4. I have many Post-it flags on pages to go back to. Plus I need to cut. I'm about 9,000 words over the 90,000 word-limit for novels. Another daunting job to start on Monday. A Flappers' Dictionary (courtesy of Book Flaps and the guy behind the counter at The York Emporium used book and curiosity shop in downtown York, PA. Visit him online) During the Roaring 20s of the last century, young ladies took on a new, and for the time radical, lifestyle. These were the years following World War I and prior to The Great Depression. It was the jazz age and the ladies were taking full … [Read more...]
Writing work check-up
On January 5, 2015, I wrote a short writing to-do list for the coming few months. Today, since it's almost the end of January, is a good time to take stock. I'm pleased to report that I'm moving right along on my novel revisions. I've incorporated my red lines and yellow highlights into my online Revision 4 chapter files up to page 124. That means I have only 54 single-spaced hard-copy pages to go. Of course that doesn't mean that I'm finished finished. As I've revised I've tagged many many pages that I need to go back to. Like yesterday for instance. I was working on Chapter Seventeen which required that I add a new subsection at the chapter's end. I wrote it. I stepped back from it, I thought about how John Updike writes incredibly detailed descriptions, and I realized I wrote only the bare bones so far. I need to go back to that little subsection and add and add and add more. Remember the old adage - show don't tell? Well my bare bones only tell. I haven't written the … [Read more...]
Character description
As I go through my novel chapters during this revision I'm continually checking back to the character descriptions I wrote up prior and during my writing process. One of the main considerations is keeping the characters' descriptions and actions and attitudes consistent throughout or revealing how they have changed as time goes by. One of my four main characters is described below (though a bit haphazardly). I've been told she is the most interesting. Please let me know what you think. Ruth Schuman, wife of Ira, mother of Charles and Ava Physical appearance: heavy-set, huge breasts, smooth white pale skin, short about 5 feet, Always wears an old tight-fitting black dress usually with a dirty apron over it until she transforms. Wears a wig at first, then her hair pinned in a bun until she gets it cut in a modern 1920s style Dark brown eyes At first all for going to America until the death of her three sons changes her so that she doesn't want to leave Sokolow and the … [Read more...]
Time to build a new version (Revision 6) of my novel
After going over a hard copy of my novel three times: once to find too much telling and not enough showing, once to address my beta readers comments, and once to improve my verbs change as many to be verbs to action verbs and improve the actions verbs that already existed I took the marked up copy of my novel off the wall. Amazing! After having the book on my storyboards for almost three months, it took me just thirty-five minutes to take it down, remove the push pins, and carry the foam boards into my garage. My next step is to start incorporating all of my mark ups into a new version. That means inputting any editorial changes I made with my trusty red pen, deleting material that I highlighted with my yellow marker, and adding chapters and sections where indicated again with my red pen. However, I'm going to give myself a couple of days off to let the enormity of the upcoming task sink in. I'll be back at it on Monday, hopefully creating a new version that will be good … [Read more...]
Now it’s all about the verbs
I've finished another round of revisions by marking up my novel chapters with a yellow marker to indicate telling instead of showing passages and noting with a red pen places where I need to add and subtract material and provide major rewrites - even whole chapters. Now I'm going through the book again paying attention to verbs. One of my beta readers said: I also sense that there are opportunities here for verbs that better-convey how people are using the space. For example, you can surely upgrade words like "watches," "going in," "been in," and "give up." Although maybe there's a deliberate simplicity in choosing such clear verbs, I also sense that there's more to observe that we're missing because of [this] plain style. This reader was so thorough that he went through the text line by line indicating where I could improve my verbs. For example: "He gets out..." My reader said, ˜Another opportunity to convey mood with stronger verbs:' "He skips out..." or "He pops … [Read more...]
Does NaNoWriMo make sense for me or not?
I'd love to get involved with the NaNoWriMo challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days, but I'm not sure it's right for me. I'm almost finished with the first run through of my revisions based on my beta readers' comments on my existing novel and plan to be complete in time to start the challenge on November 1. However, I don't know if making major revisions and rewrites rather than writing a new novel qualifies. I know the warning not to edit as we write makes a huge amount of sense and definitely slows down our writing. Take my advice for those of you in the challenge. Just keep you fingers moving. Don't stop to think. Just write. However, my situation is totally different. I've already written my first draft and even spent hours and hours revising and editing it. Now it's ready for another major revision. As I've marked up my hard copy with my yellow marker and red pen, I've identified places to cut, to add, to rearrange, to carry through a whole slew of … [Read more...]
I’m making slow progress with my novel revisions
I've posted all the comments from my novel's beta readers on the wall, I've posted the entire novel on the wall, and I'm working through the comments by scribbling page after page with yellow marker and red pen. I use the yellow marker to highlight where I explain and/or use expository language to tell rather than show (a lesson learned from the Writers Digest tutorial, Revise for Publication: Revision Strategies That Will Improve Any Draft). And, I'm actually rewriting with the red pen, with special emphasis on clearing up inconsistencies like one of my characters has a black bushy beard in one scene and a light brown beard in another improving on the quality of my verbs, and further developing my characters - while making sure I describe them consistently throughout. I storyboarded my memoir when I worked on its revisions as well. However, this time I actually saved time, wall space, and printing costs by reducing the size of the book to single space rather than space and … [Read more...]
Am I going to take a creative U-turn?
Today is the day I asked my novel beta readers to send me their comments. So far I've received two sets. And of course I'll very patiently await the rest. I feel my readers are doing me such a huge favor that whenever I get their comments will be okay. My dilemma now is with the two conflicting sets of comments I already have. One set says my novel is amazing, well written, and gives my writing lots of other kudos. The other set suggests major rewrite, reorganization, and more work shopping before I send it out again. This second set of comments reminds me of Julia Cameron's section on Creative U-turns in her book, The Artist's Way. It makes me want to stop working on this novel altogether because the task is too deep and too tall. I fear that I don't know how to pull it off. Cameron says: We usually commit creative hara-kiri either on the eve of or in the wake of a first creative victory¦.Creative U-turns are always both from fear fear of success or fear of failure. It … [Read more...]
The storyboards are going up again
Once I get comments and critiques back from my first round of beta readers hopefully by mid July I'll start revising again. Here's my process. 1. Take my reviewer's suggestions as just that -- suggestions. I feel it is important for an author to stay in control of his/her book. So I will review each comment and make decisions on whether to incorporate my readers' notes or not into my next revision. If I decide not to use a comment, I'll file it away for future reference should the need arise I never throw anything away. The bottom line - I am the person with the last red pen. 2. Create a revision plan. One of the first lessons I learned from my 28-year job editing and rewriting proposals to the U.S. Government was to plan before doing. And that's what I intend to do at this point. I will create a revision plan based on my readers' notes especially if major changes are suggested and if those changes affect many parts of the book. 3. Post a hard copy of my book on … [Read more...]
