Boy was I in for a shock!

If you're following my blog, you are aware of my opinion about making your book as good as possible and don't publish before you have been through editing and proofing several times. I've been banging on about my book being spotless -- I'm a perfectionist and not to practice what I preach would make me a big fat hypocrite, wouldn't it? Yes. Now I've had three people telling me that my novel No Wings Attached is riddled with awkward sentences that don't make sense on top of the usual errors (spelling, typos, etc.). I was gutted! Of course I was, because I know my grammar needs attention, hence I asked around who can help me smoothing out my Germish, as I call it lovingly. I'm writing in second language and though I'm pretty good, it's far from perfect. I know I need someone native who fixes the syntax. And of course, after correcting the corrections, I know I need someone to pick up the errors that sneak in when you take a sentence apart, add words, delete others, etc., plus the usual errors like quotes, commas, spelling and punctuation. So I've had help for both, but when I received that review, I was in for a shock and quite frankly I was more than annoyed.
Please don't understand this as a post to blame, it's not. It's about my experience and to share what I've learned and what I would advise others, especially if you write in second language. I'm extremely lucky to have friends who kindly offered to help me, both natives and absolutely wonderful people. The first went through my book eliminating my Germish, she told me I would need someone to go through the book afterwards, to which I replied, yes, I've got someone who will do that. The mistake I made was to assume she's done ALL the syntax/odd phrasing, which she didn't. That had a snowball-effect: I went to the next person and said, please only look at spelling or typos, missed commas, etc. A clear instruction which she followed. After that was done, I went through the ms in a 7-hour-session and found some more things (missed quotes, capital/lower cases, spaces, etc.) Then, I was sure the book's perfect. But one reader, a German friend, found about twenty more things, which I gratefully accepted and corrected. Finally, I thought, my novel is error free!

As the recent review shows, it's not, the reviewer said, "as there were a lot of spelling and grammatical errors. If I weren't reading it on a Kindle, I would have taken a red pen to it myself. The phrasing and conversation structure was awkward". I first assumed it's the BE spelling, which concerns a lot of Americans, but after checking with her, that was not the case. I wasn't very happy as you can imagine, neither was I about the 'editor' comment, since I'm only editing plot, pace, voice, characters and steer well clear from grammar, except dialogue attributes or the odd comma, for the obvious reasons. I will explain the process of publishing, editors, proof-reading, etc in a different post as there are still some misconceptions of who is doing what.

After I've re-gained my calm, I'm working with another friend on the issue. This time, I made very clear what I wanted/needed. Since I'm writing in second language I can't control things as I could with editing. I have to trust blindly. If I cook a bolognese and ask someone else to season it, I would be able to say if it's overly salted or needs a bit more. That, I can't do with English. If I knew how it's done correctly, I would've done it myself. What I'm trying to say is to be clear with people, tell them what you want, ask them what they have done and where they think it needs more work. I don't support the need for a professional editor/proof-reader for those things, every educated native English person is able to pick up on awkward sentence structures. I know this because I've done that the other way round. But please make sure you get your book double checked, either by another beta-reader or another friend. And if you have someone who's really good with grammar and knows something about dialogue attributes, that's enough, too.

One person said, just put a note on the book that it's written in second language, which I argued against. I'm trying to sell my book for hard money, and that's not the solution. Same goes for the comment another person made, "What are they complaining about? They paid a low price," to which I argued, that's no excuse! As soon as I sell a book it has to be free of errors. I want my readers to enjoy the story and not to feel tempted to pull out a red pen -- let alone the effect it has on my reputation. For the time being, I've stopped promoting No Wings Attached as I'm rather embarrassed about the whole situation. I can't unpublish it without losing all the reviews; readers love the story, the characters, the romance and the twists and turns. I think I can call myself lucky that someone had the heart to point out the mistakes so I can fix them and give readers the reading experience they deserve: being lost in a world I created witout being pulled out of it by errors.

I'm back and that with a bang!

Actually it's not me who's back, but my muse. Don't really know where it buggered off to for the past few weeks, but it's back and sitting firmly at my side, giving me inspiration so I can continue with the sequel to No Wings Attached. Last post, I gave the reason why I thought about not writing it, but readers keep asking where the sequel is and guess what? I'm glad. For the past few days, I've been writing over 1000 words each night, yesterday even almost 2000 and it was fun to see the words flowing onto the screen. As I do touch type, I can let my mind create something like a movie, which flickers across my inner eye and my fingers just type out what I see. That's how I work anyway. I'm a very visual person and will translate either reading or writing into a motion picture. Yesterday, I had a scene where Celia is upset with Tom and jealous of his new client, and some circumstances -- coupled with some wine -- made her go out on her own where she bumped into a rather annoying, yet very sexy guy. He's my favourite man in the book. Dark, rough sex-appeal and obnoxious, but he has a way with Celia. He seems to be a case of love/hate him and is very challenging to create, because I want exactly that: being slap bang in the middle, he does things you want him to hate for, but you can't help but love him. He's got this special something your mum always warned you about. I just love it!
Celia is her usual self, funny, madly in love with Tom, but intrigued by that new guy, who plays a major role in the sequel. For the next chapters I've planned some rather big surprises, twists and turns, action and fun. And of course, the romance will not come short either. The toughest challenge is to top the first book, it has to be the same voice and style, but I'm a fan of big surprises, things that make you go: Oh gosh, I didn't see that coming! That's what I want to achieve and I promise you it will be the case. I'm already excited just thinking about the rough plot ideas, but those are only the cornerstones, the writing to incorporate those cornerstones is the difficult part. I'm plotting as I go along and things usually change here and there. This time, I don't even know the ending, which is new for me. It's blank, totally blank, which means it can take any direction. But one thing I'm sure of: it's going to be great! And who knows, if it's working well and my muse throws some inspiration for a third book into the ring, I'll be inclined to follow that one through, too.

Another 5-star review for No Wings Attached

Since I don't know if I'm allowed to copy and paste it, here's the link to the site that reviewed the book:

 Paranormal Romance Guild

If you are a book reviewer and would like to review one of my books, or do an interview with me, please get in touch. You will find my e-mail address to the right under 'About me'.

No Wings Attached e-book give away!

Yes, you read right, if you have been eyeing with my romantic comedy with a twist, you now have the chance to get your greedy little fingers on a copy of the e-book. I'm totally chuffed and honoured to be a guest blogger on 
Chick Lit Central, who run the contest.

How it works?
It's really easy, just leave a comment with your e-mail address on their site, share the contest on twitter or facebook or follow their site and let them know. So many options.
Of course you can always send me some Chardonnay and chocolate, that will not get you an advantage, but make me immensely happy. :-)

Here's the blurb to see what you can expect from this novel:
What if you find out that the man you love has got secrets and you are not who you think you are?
Life couldn't get any worse for 32-year-old Celia: single again and working in two jobs she hates; the last thing she needs is falling for gorgeous, out-of-her-league, arrogant Tom.
Being a wish-consultant, Tom has to make up for a failed case and is sent to make her wishes come true without his usual skills. Not easy when she's reluctant to talk to him. In order to help her become happy, he needs to win her trust and unexpectedly develops feelings he shouldn't have. When finally everything seems to fall into place for Celia, she receives a phone call that turns her world upside down once again.

This is a light-hearted romantic comedy a la Bridget Jones meets Charmed; no vampires, no werewolves, only the odd human with some supernatural powers. Suitable for readers who usually don't like paranormal.
 
And the latest review from a UK reader:

Couldn't put the book down. I started this book and honestly couldn't stop. I loved the plot, fell in love with the characters and can't wait for the next one. This is going in my favourites folder so I can read over and over again. If you want a book that catches you right from start to finish - this is the book for you. 


Is your interest piqued? Then hop over to Chick Lit Central and enter the contest. It's free and their site has always something interesting to read, too.

Good luck, everyone.

On writing the first draft

I recently read a blog post from an author who sort of 'insisted' to write a draft in one go before editing it. First, I don't like being told what to do and second, that technique might work for her, but not for me. I've never really been like that, write like there's no tomorrow and edit when you've completed the book.
Even with No Wings Attached, which was my first novel, I wrote at night and edited the next day, then sent it to my friend who returned it with comments, so I could revise. I don't know any different and it works well for me. I still managed to have the 'first draft' ready after 2.5 months. Needless to say that my friend did a light edit and I had to learn a lot about writing, which I didn't know back then. It almost cost me the novel as I wanted to throw it into the Thames after the 10th round of editing. I cut out 40k, changed bits here and there, rewrote complete scenes, etc. I grew very tired of it.
Now, two years later, I still work the same way: I write, then edit the next day. The only difference is that I don't have my friend going through it chapter by chapter and that my writing is much tighter, so I end up with a pretty polished first draft. I also write slower, which means, I think about what I'm writing, I try to avoid repetition, he said, she said where it's clear who speaks, control my use of adverbs and make sure everything flows. That's my way of working on the first draft.
I'm 20k into the sequel and it already took me as long as the complete first book, but then, when I'm done in about two months, I need to go through it maybe two more times and it's ready for proofing. But 4 months writing and 1 months editing is much quicker than writing 2.5 months writing and 2 years of editing.

My advice for anyone out there is: do whatever suits you best. :-)