Editing and when you hate your manuscript!

The writing room

 This month I am editing and making plans. Perhaps it's that autumn feeling of a new academic year and beginning new projects. I decided to look at the work I have and where I am at with it. I've been back over a short novella I wrote some years ago. I suppose you could say it's the first novella I ever wrote. It had been through a beta read/proofread a couple of years or so ago before I had ProWritingAid installed my on laptop. I gave it another run through using it and it picked up some sentence construction it didn't like. So, I looked at each. Some I left because they were dialogue which includes part sentences and slang. It's knowing when to obey the rules! However, it was useful and I did make charges. Even sentences it didn't flag up I reworked because I wasn't happy with them. The manuscript has now been through three edits in a week. Now comes the hard work. This is a novella I'm thinking of self-publishing. It's been a year since I tackled KDP for my novella-in-flash and I remember how stressful that was. The good thing is I don't have any deadlines, no one breathing down my neck to get it published by a certain date.

I am reading a stand alone Ian Rankin book at present (Westwind). I love it that the author writes about his writing process in his books. This is a reissue, so he has updated it and done a few edits. But he was describing how he felt about the other books at the time, ones he was either writing (a Rebus) and editing another. How his agent had problems selling Westwind, and how when he did, the editor wanted re-writes. Ian said how it became a book he couldn't look at anymore and it didn't feel like his work either. It got me thinking about how writers often don't have a say with agents/publishers. Yes, they do all that hard stuff, the selling, promotion etc, but it gets taken out of the author's hands. The author may not like the cover, may think (as Ian Rankin did) that it no longer feels their own. Ian Rankin has come back to his book and likes it now, but often the editing process distances the writer from the work. You get to hate it and can't make a judgement anymore of whether it is good or not. Basically, you just lose interest.

This happened to me with the first full novel I wrote. I went over the start so many times I couldn't read it anymore. I was getting it ready to submit it to a novel competition (it didn't get picked). It's still on my laptop. One day maybe I'll be able to go back to it.

I must admit I'd love to have someone to take care of marketing. I'm not good at that. My main writing is not novel writing either, though I have written them. I prefer flash, short stories and poetry. That feels different to novel writing in the whole marketing area. Everything seems geared to the bestsellers.

Meanwhile, back at the laptop, I've also re-written the ending of another novella and am gathering feedback on that. This one I might send out to see if it get picked up before I consider self-publishing.

I am still waiting to hear from two online journals when my pieces will go live. The waiting is dreadful and I keep checking because sometimes journals don't tell you when they publish.

Finally, I was thrilled to hear from The People's Friend late last month that they wanted to feature me as their writer of the week on their website. Would I be interested? Hell, I would! They forwarded a set of interview questions and I asked my son to take a photo for the piece. It went live on Monday 5th September. You can read it here. I was out on Monday, but when I had the chance, I stopped to take a look and did a little 'woop!'