Don't get me started!

... because I just want my peace and quiet. ;-)

Well, at least from ranting about Indies. I always said I'll stop when I've published Rage against the Indie, because I got it all out of my system. And it feels good. It's now out there, for self-published authors or still unpublished writers to learn while having a giggle and I can shape-shift back into calm Stella. And I really need it, for I'm going to continue with the novel I was rewriting, when the desire to write the rant side-tracked me. It's a very gentle novel, and it's essential to be in the right head space when rewriting it. I wrote it 2010/2011 and put it aside for a while, then fiddled with it several times, but it doesn't meet my expectations anymore. Somehow I was almost about to give up on it when I had an epiphany of how it could engage---no, challenge me---again. I'm mainly writing for the challenge, you see? To me, writing is not only 'getting rid' of a story idea, but turning it into a novel that will engage my brain as well as readers when it's finished. In this case I'll try to turn the book into metafiction. I love trying out new things, playing with a reader's consciousness by confusing him subtly so that he questions reality and fiction, but not to the point that he's annoyed; instead I try to keep him turning the pages, because he wants to know if he reaches clarity, which he may or not achieve.
This will be a massive project, almost like writing a new novel, but the bones are great, and I love the way the story develops. Just thinking about tearing it down, like a house you demolish to rebuild, but keeping most of the parts to recycle, I feel the history of the novel will be prominent throughout the story, but enhanced by the new plot devices.
This will be my biggest challenge yet, and damn, am I looking forward to it.

But fear not, I'll have another rant coming up. This time: stupid people who weren't as good at catching logic when it was thrown at them. You didn't really think I'm done with ranting in general, did you?

Have a good weekend, everyone. 

Self-set deadlines and troubles with massive walls

You probably wonder if someone has finally beaten me up for being so mouthy about the quality or better the lack thereof, in many self-published books. No, no, far from it. The only person who beats people up is me. In my fiction, I hasten to add. That's the reason for my not posting anything for a little while: I'm in the finishing state of my thriller, while I have three beta readers going through the book, taking notes of anything that may need addressing. My deadline was the 31st of July, and it looked as if I would be making it easily, but then I hit brick wall after brick wall, and, you see, I'm not really good at climbing walls, so I sat in front of it, pouted and sobbed, whined and complained everyone who asked what's wrong with me. It reminded me a little of a childhood memory: I got lost (okay, nothing new here), tried to remember where I had to go, but couldn't. Then sat on a kurb and cried bitterly. True story, no kidding. Don't know how old I I was, may have been six or seven, perhaps. A nice woman came, asked me what's wrong and I told her, sobbing and sniffling. Good thing I had my grandparents' address hammered into my head. The lady took me to them and the tears dried quickly after that.
I didn't cry at the latest walls, but screamed in frustration. You know when you have your eyes on something in front of you and just as you are about to run for it, someone switches out the light? No? Well, it never happened to me either, but I felt a bit like that. Tapping in the dark. Very annoying. As you know I had scenes written already a few months ago, to use for later. Well, that 'later' is now. And I'm trying to merge those into the book, making it seamless. Easier said then done. A few need rewriting, others, I'm not sure yet where I should put them and I also need to write an additional 7k. Nothing I wouldn't be able to manage, albeit with a lot of huffing and puffing, but it's definitely something I won't do again. It has set me back with my deadline, something I can react to like an autistic person. Even if it's only a few days. I don't like it. I've always been realistic with my deadlines as I know how I write and I calculate the brick walls, but this books takes the biscuit so far.Those weren't brick walls, they were concrete that needed a bazooka to get through them. I had severe difficulties with a few scenes I didn't like and rewrote several times. I can't just move on and go back to them later. I need to fix it right away. And I can't just ignore the book and do something else, I ponder all day long and even at night, stare at the screen, write, delete, write again, and so on. It seems not only my main characters are being tortured. I get a healthy dose of it, too.
Good news is that the beta readers enjoy the book, are hooked and say they can't wait to read more, which, per se, is a good sign and even bigger motivation. Who knows, maybe I manage the deadline after all?

By the way: take a look to the right; I've got a new cover for Candlelight Sinner, too. ;-)

And here's an interview with me. If you have time, stop by and leave a comment.

Writers, authors and editors -- one sack and a baseball bat

See that baseball bat? Yes? Good, because I want you to remember it. Why, you wonder? Well, let me explain...
You know when everyone tells you to leave your problems at the door when you come to the office? Yes? Right, be assured that it doesn't apply for your writing and editing, dear writers, authors and editors! For writing or editing you will need your brain. Surprised? Yes, so am I when I read things like: Running down the stairs, she pulled on her jeans.
Excuse me, but would you have the grace to explain to me how one would be able to fulfil such an impossible task, or tasks for that matter? Just asking. I've tried and tried to picture it, to no avail. How do you do that? I reckon it would result in at least some severe bruises, broken limbs or if it goes terribly wrong in a snapped neck, which, as we all know, would be a not so positive outcome. Expected, yes, wanted, no. Let alone that you normally pull on jeans as you are probably rushing to answer the door, unless you want to open in your knickers, but then there's no need to mention the jeans anyway.
Just recently I had to read a sentence like this: Walking into the kitchen, she opened the fridge.
Really? So the fridge was basically placed smack bang in the door, which, unless she's a skinny bitch and not a fat cow like me, might make it a tad difficult to access the kitchen, which then would mean she didn't even get to walk into the kitchen to open the fridge, right? And what would happen if the kitchen was several feet long and the fridge was placed at the end? Does she have extremely long arms or something long in her hand to open the fridge? Then she must be quick because walking into the kitchen takes one step only. Unless, she has a fridge connected with a mechanism that opens it the second she steps over the threshold. Can you see my problem here? No?
Okay here's another fun example: Tying her shoe laces, she ran a mile.
Gee that woman must have an extreme balance being able to tie her laces while running a mile. You could say, yes, but she hopped on one leg, but that wouldn't be running now, would it?
Or how about this little beauty? Opening the bin, she threw away the rubbish.
Wow, how smart of her. I think I never saw someone in their house throwing the rubbish onto the closed bin, unless they had more drinks than they could manage, but that's not the point.
Understand my problem now? I could merrily go on pulling examples out of my non existent hat.
Want proof? Here we go: Opening the door, she took a seat behind the wheel.
Now how would that work out? Try it out for yourself and send me a picture if you manage to do both at the same time.
And another one: Taking a sip of his coffee he mumbled, 'What a bloody idiot.'
Yeah, one could only hope he referred to himself, because taking a sip and mumbling would end up messy, with coffee generously sprayed around the kitchen. If he was in the kitchen, that is. Sipping would imply you're sucking in the fluid, how would you be able to mumble at the same time? Eh? Correct! Not possible.
Writers and authors seem to love this sort of writing and editors seem to have left their brains with their problems at the door; there's no other explanation for this sort of insult to a reader. This reader in particular.
Unless it's two things you can do together, like walking and singing, cleaning and listening to music, drinking and watching, please stop torturing me and possibly others. Every time you see such sentences in your writing, or you, editors, in authors' writing, I want you to feel hit over the head with that baseball bat, which hopefully will prompt you to rephrase as shown below.
She walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge.
She pulled on her jeans and ran down the stairs. 

Phew, that felt good. I'm glad we got that sorted!

Writers' groups

I don't know if I told you that I had made a call for writers in my area in order to start a writing group. There was an immediate interest and we met once -- in a bar, which, despite only one other group of customers -- seemed unsuitable for our needs. Everyone brought along a piece of flash fiction and we read it out loud and commented on it. Proved to be impossible to me; I hate reading aloud as I'm simply not capable of doing so and, being ADHD, I couldn't focus on the stories, meaning I couldn't give feedback.

However, it was to be a one-off in the bar. I never took part in writers' groups before, except online (authonomy, to me, is one huge writers' group) and had not idea what to expect. The plan was to write a story each before the next meeting, then sending it around so we could comment on each others stories. But then, what's the point of meeting then? I can send each member the story back with my edits and vice versa.

So I sat down and wondered what good a writers' group would be for me. Perhaps reading each other's manuscripts, if there are any. But what do you do when you don't like the writing? For many it's more the 'getting a kick in the arse' to actually write something, a problem I don't have since I write daily, either on my novel or in form of a short story.

I came to the conclusion that it's not for me; I'd rather do my own thing, to be honest.

Do you have experience with writers' groups? How do you feel about it?

Sometimes, it's just tough

There are days when even all the positivity and love for writing gets a real kick in the teeth. Today is one of those days for me. I sent Winn, a friend of mine, a short story I had written for my writers' group. The point was to test her proof-reading skills as she's thinking about doing it in her spare time to help others. Because it's such a difficult job to look out for all the errors that may occur and also correct grammar and dialogue attributes, I wanted to help her find out if she's cut out for it. Funnily enough, apart from grammar, I'm pretty good at picking up on typos, spaces, etc. myself. Just not my own, at least not without a certain amount of time between reading.

Well, I inserted eleven errors, all of which she found. What I didn't expect, though, was the amount of corrections she made on things I didn't put in on purpose. Which means I had a  pretty colourful document to look at. Now I thought that after over five years of living and breathing English and writing for the past three years, I should be able to produce an almost error-free piece, seems far from it.
Certainly, my English is better than most English people's German, but that's not the point. My goal was and is to be as good as, if not better than many natives, which means impeccable grammar, including punctuation and the local tongue.I I have to admit, my mood sunk quite a bit as I hate asking for help, but by the looks of it, I'll still rely on it a tad longer. To be clear: it's not Winn's fault and I'm absolutely grateful for her corrections; it's my own expectations I didn't meet. Yes, I'm proud of the level of my English and the ability to speak almost accent-free (unless I'm really tired or angry), and sure it's an achievement to write in a language other than my mother tongue, but for me it's simply not enough.

Which means, I really have to knuckle down and most important: read even more.

One day....

If you need help with proof-reading, check out Winn's site for UK writers.

Or Pauline Nolet's site for the US.

Hi, I'm Stella and I'm an editing addict

I

Editing

So, you might now declare me officially mad, but it's true: I love editing. And I will even tell you why. 

Well, to begin with, I always loved helping people. Editing is basically helping writers or author see their manuscript from a different angle. Things they don't see, for they are too close to their books, will most certainly jump at me, in addition to others. 

Take my friend, for instance. He's an experienced and skilled writer, even had been published with a small press many moons ago, He's trying to land an agent and received many rejections. For he's too blind to see what's wrong, he turned to me. And because I'm a good friend, I helped him with one of the books. I'm harsh, I'm strict and I can be rather pushy, but he took it on the chin and reworked. We never 'worked' together and he was rather surprised how much I picked up; on voice, on pace, on character and plot inconsistencies. His words were, "I'm impressed, you really have a talent for editing."

Made me go all fuzzy, because it has just been a couple of years since I actually found my calling as an editor. Luckily, most of clients think the same, which is a good sign. Of course I made some mistakes by taking on clients who weren't 'ready' yet, but we all make mistakes and learn from them.

My friend was so taken, that he now has come back with the next book. Working with more seasoned writers has the advantage that you can dive straight in, they know the basics, they know the techniques, in short, they just need someone with a keen eye to do the dirty work for them. I rather enjoy that, and in addition, I get to read an exciting book. 

Working with new authors has its perks, too. I love to teach them the basics, to see them adopt the suggestions and slowly getting better; some take longer, some are quick to learn. It's wonderful to see them grow, their writing season and their confidence increase. Although it's often more difficult to edit a new writer's work; many are not used to be criticised and are hurt easily. In many cases, I will try to comment on the first few chapters to give them some sort of guidance so they can take the suggestions and rework their manuscript, learning as they go. A service, by the way, I'll offer soon: first 10k for a certain price and if the person doesn't feel confident enough after that, we can agree to do the whole book to a fixed price. Ideal for new writers who need a quick assessment of their skills. Some return with their revised version and it always makes me proud to see how much it has improved and that I was part of it.

As editor you are a teacher, a motivator, a bringer of bad news, a tough hand and often go out of your way to help the person whose book you are trusted with.

Tip of the week: How to do major rewrites

Major rewrites was something alien to me. I must admit having had the huge task before me for the first time, I had my struggles in the beginnings. I get easily confused if you give me three sheets of paper, let alone doing it on screen. Everyone has a different system and I received some advice which, frankly, didn't help me. I never edit on paper, for it doesn't have a better effect than on screen, at least not for me. I'm talking major edits: deleting huge chunks, moving/rewriting/adding scenes or characters. That's nothing you could do on paper, at least I can't.

Since I'm an editor myself, I often make my clients do the same, but they have an advantage: I tell them where or what to cut or add or even how. So they have guidance. Something I didn't have. Okay, that's not entirely true; I had a few wonderful people reading the book and giving feedback. They confirmed where I thought the book might need work. And I can officially say that, at some point, the book bored me stiff. And I couldn't even blame someone else for it, no, it was all my fault. Luckily, I followed my own advice and didn't touch the book for several months, which results in me reading with (almost) fresh eyes and that again resulted in my deleting an impressive 9k. 

Here's how I tackled the massive undertaking:
First, I copied the complete book into a new document and saved it
Then I read through it and made comments on what to add along the way (highlighted them in yellow) and deleted all the boring bit and bobs.
A few things I wanted to keep to use later, I copied into another document named miscellaneous
When I had finished reading the whole book, I started to rearrange scenes; I had one in the end that I wanted to place smack bang in the middle of the book and did exactly that.
That drastic move meant I needed to iron out the seams so it wouldn't confuse the reader later.
After that I went to find the yellow highlighted comments and added a scene, character or prose, depending on what the comment said. I wrote those in a new document to make corrections easier.

This concept seems to work for me and I will use it in future, if I ever need to do a heavy rewrite again. I'm not finished yet, but I refilled 2k of the 9k I lost. I might not make the 76k I had before, but it doesn't matter. 72k is a good size, too. As long as it's a tight and enjoyable read.

How do you go about it? The same? Completely different? What's your secret weapon?

Flattery will get you... nowhere

Yes, that's right. It won't get you anywhere if you're searching for constructive feedback. No matter which field, if you have smoke blown up your arse, you might feel all fuzzy inside, but you won't improve what you need improve.
Recently, one of my clients tweeted me that she wasn't happy that I didn't like her book, but as a result she's been through her ms several times and says it's now improved.
I tweeted back that I wasn't paid to make her happy, but to help her make the ms better. I admit, I was harsh with her, but she knew what she had signed up for. Of course I could have told her how great a writer she is and that her book will make it into the bestseller lists. But I prefer honesty over flattery. Always.

A few weeks ago, I had part of my literary fiction piece up on a writers' website and since it's about two writers meeting and getting to know each other through said website, it was easy to relate for its members. My book received raving reviews, from 'I read on, mesmerised' to 'one of the best books I've ever read on here' and a few asked if I'll post more. Two wondered if I could pull off the rather unique style for the complete length of a 80k novel, and one questioned if a reader, who has no writing experience -- let alone participated on a writers' website, would understand the concept. I can safely answer yes to the first question, the second remains to be seen.
Sure the compliments were rather flattering and since I'm extremely shy about this book and hesitant to show it to the world, it was wonderful to know it wasn't dismissed by my fellow scribblers. In fact, only my best friend fell asleep over it, but she said it was difficult to read since she's so close to me. That's about the only negative comment I received and I'm beginning to believe I'm onto something with this manuscript.

Then again, I''m my worst critic and not happy with it. Don't get me wrong, I love the book, I love the prose, I love the honestly that oozes from it, but I find it's not there yet. It needs tweaking here and there, some additions and a few passages will be deleted. And, knowing me, I will work on it until I'm satisfied.
For the time being, the book is in the capable hands of Sean, a wonderful man I met through twitter; he is sort of my target audience, not a writer, but a reader and a smart one, too and he'll be able to answer question number two.

Certainly, we authors are delicate souls, but how will we be able to improve without constructive criticism? The three people who were wondering about the style and the content were the ones mirroring my existing doubts, those niggles in the back of my mind that tell me the ms needs more work. It doesn't mean I'll hit the delete button and the book will never see daylight. No, quite the contrary; it means I'll put all effort into it, to make it as beautiful as it deserves.