Category Archives: Writing

Writing

How Well Do Publishers Edit?

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Talk to people who are involved with traditional publishing about the role of editors, and you hear mixed messages. Some say publishers no long provide significant editing services. The author submits a “camera ready” manuscript, and it gets published. Any errors are the fault of the author, not the publisher.

Still others insist that the editing provided by the publisher doesn’t change. They content edit. They line edit. They proofread. The put out good books, just as they always have.

Probably a lot of both is going on. The alleged lack of editing by publishers is something I’ve been concerned with, and is one of the factors that pushed me toward self-publishing. I figured if I had to do all the editing, why seek a publisher?

I recently read a review on Amazon of a traditionally published book that included the following comment.

“…the editing/proofreading was terrible. Inexplicable changes in font size. Missing words. Wrong words. Mispelled words. Clearly a hurry-up, shoddy job of publishing.”

This book briefly hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and is by a multipublished bestselling author. It is the only review out of 163 (or at least out of the 50 of those that I read) that mentions this. I haven’t read the book, but will be soon.

So it seems that, to some extent, those who say publishers no longer edit are correct.

 

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

My Upcoming Writing Schedule

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Saturday afternoon I finished reading through In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, marking locations to improve the text. Most of the edits were for typos, improving odd sentence structure, and fixing name problems. By that I mean where I used people’s names too much in dialogue. Also, I found one embarrassing error in a name, where I changed it very early on in the writing but somehow missed one place. The MS Word search and replace feature tells me that was the only straggler.

I finished typing the edits yesterday afternoon. I’ll print it today and set it aside for a couple of weeks. Actually, I’m not sure how long that will be. The editor I e-mailed three chapters and a synopsis to said he was sending the chapters to “readers,” and they would “get back to me in a few weeks.” While I’m reconciled that I will probably self-publish this, I’m willing to delay a little to let that run its course.

Meanwhile, I have to be writing. So yesterday I switched back to my non-fiction work-in-progress, The Candy Store Generation”. I added 400 words to it last night, coming close to finishing Chapter 5, Boomer Corporations. I still have research to do on that, to plug a hole reserved for it about 1/4 of the way into the chapter. But the words are almost done.

I haven’t been thinking of TCSG for over a month, and I’ve actually forgotten where I was in it. I know I’m shooting for 40,000 words, and that I’m at 32,800 now, implying another 7,200 to go. But that word count is a target only. I’m thinking the book may fall short of that and be at a logical concluding point.

I’d really like to get this done and published in time to perhaps ride the coattails of the current election cycle. Not that I think it will be a huge seller or have an impact on the election, but while people’s attention is on politics, it probably has a better chance at success.

Depending on how the research goes, I should be able to have it done in a month or less. I can then take up to a month to edit it, and try to have it published by mid-July. That’s later than I hoped, but it’s doable. I would then try to have FTSP out a couple of weeks later, still well within baseball season.

My plans are then to work on two short stories. One will be in my Danny Tompkins series, on teenage grief. It will probably be the last one. The other will be the first of what could become a series, but which might be a singleton. It will be an espionage story set in Cranston, RI (my hometown), with the heroine having the name of a classmate of mine, with her permission. I’ve written the first two paragraphs of this, and have been plotting it in my mind.

I don’t know where this will lead. If I like the way it turns out, I could turn it into a series, having this female CIA operative go to various places I have been overseas. That would be a way to use these experiences in my writing, something I’ve been wondering how to do.

After that, assuming I’m not brain-dead, I have a choice between three or four projects. I had been thinking about working on another novel, an espionage one, tentatively titled China Tour. I also see a possibility of working on more volumes in the Documenting America brand. I started a little research on what could be a Civil War edition of that. Given that we are at the sesquicentennial of that conflict, the timing is good.

However, I may just go ahead and write a sequel to FTSP. My friend Gary, who was a beta reader, said, “The ending says a lot but leaves much unsaid as well.  That’s a perfect setup for a sequel.” As I wrote in the past, I hadn’t really thought about that, and didn’t consciously write the end to launch a sequel. But I’ve looked at it, and he’s right. When I wrote out, in manuscript, all the loose ends, I came up with more than enough to make a similar length novel. The penultimate scene near the end has come to mine—indeed, I’ve had trouble getting it out of my mind. Even a potential title has reared up.

So that’s where I may be going. No shortage of work. And to think, back in 2000, I just wanted to tell a single story. Now it’s a snowball running downhill.

Buildipedia, Suite 101, Writing

Small Payouts Ahead

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My income from writing remains small, but is coming in slowly but surely. Most of it is produced by my Buildipedia articles. I have a twice per month column on construction administration. Here’s a link to my profile, which includes links to articles. I earn $100 for each of these articles. Payment comes about three weeks after the article appears, by check. I have a contract for one more of these, but the contracts have been coming in like clockwork, and my articles going out. My accounts receivable right now is, I think, $200 for two of them.

My Amazon income is slow. For my four titles on Amazon Kindle, along with the print version of Documenting America, I’ve made just over $56. More than half of that has come from personally selling print books. Amazon pays out once you accumulate $10 in royalties, during the second month after you get there. I had done so in December, and in February I had my first Amazon payout, $10.97 by direct transfer to my bank account. If my current calculations are correct, I’ve since accrued $10.44 in Kindle royalties. That means I can expect another transfer in June. A small account receivable.

Over at Suite101.com, despite the hard times they have experienced due to changes in Google’s search algorithms, and despite the fact I haven’t added any articles there since February 2011, I continue to ear some money. Revenues were really low the second half of 2011 and January 2012. They began to pick up some in February, and have remained up. The payout threshold at Suite is only $5.00. Through April 28 I had earned $5.17 in royalties in April (having made payout in February and March. Payment from Suite comes via PayPal, always before the 15th of the month after you hit payout and usually the first Tuesday of the month. Since the first Tuesday of May is the 1st, I don’t expect payment till the 8th.

All of which I’m sure has some readers laughing, that I would bother to track and worry about these minor income streams. I need to for tax purposes, of course. Someday I hope they will be bigger, much bigger in the case of Amazon. Learning to track them now and properly account for them should help in the future, when [dream alert!] I’ll be raking in the dough from several sources.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Writing

Tedious Editing Almost Complete

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Since about April 18 I have been editing In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. My time goals for this were: 1) to have the manuscript complete so that I can pitch it to an editor at a writers conference in Oklahoma City on Friday, May 4; and 2) to be ready to self-publish it almost immediately thereafter assuming no one would be interested in the book.

The editing has been tedious. I was trying to improve the timeline. After covering a partial season that the hero spends with the Chicago Cubs, the book traces the events in a complete season. The last time I looked at the book, I felt that I had end-loaded the season—that is, too many event were crowded too late in the season. I also had him not connecting with a girlfriend until some time in late June. I decided that was too late, and many other events were too late, and so I’d better move them earlier in the season.

At the same time, I wanted to be sure that the pitching record of Robo Ronny Thompson made sense relative to where the book was in the season. So if I said, “On June 1, Ronny’s record was 13-1,” I wanted to make sure that was a doable record for a great pitcher.

To accomplish these edits, I first created a Cubs’ season schedule. I took their schedule for this year, 2012, and made a slight adjustment in starting date and in days of the week. I wanted the season to end at a certain date, but the 2012 schedule didn’t end then. So I changed the starting date, and deleted one or two off days to make the schedule work. Then, I created first a spreadsheet table that I later dumped into Word, listing dates and games, including home and away status, and identified when Ronny would pitch.

To this schedule I added all the events in the book, first where I had them, then moving them to the earlier dates to spread things out. I compared the Cubs’ games on the critical days, and discovered sometimes they were playing out of town when they needed to be in Chicago, or vice versa. This required me to either adjust the date or adjust the schedule to make them align. After all these changes, I added the dates from the schedule to the beginning of each scene in the manuscript. This is a temporary thing, and will come out before I either publish or submit the manuscript.

As I said, I found this tedious. Sometimes, when the schedule and events didn’t mesh, I felt that my head was ready to explode, so I shelled out and played mindless computer games when I knew I should be sticking to business. Eventually I came back to the work and figured the schedule out. Now I believe, subject to one more careful reading, that the schedule and the events dovetail perfectly. I cut back on the number of wins Ronny gets during the season, based on my friend Gary’s review (thought not as far back as he suggested). I added quite a bit to the motivation of other characters, hoping they are a little more fleshed-out.

Now I’m down to one slow and careful reading. I plan to do that beginning tonight. I suspect I’ll find a few typos that have escaped my previous readings. I’ll probably find some awkward phrasing that I’ll improve. Possibly I’ll find that the timeline doesn’t work quite as good as I’d like. Possibly I’ll need to change the days of games during the playoffs—oops, spoiler alert. If all goes well, by this time next week I’ll have the final edits on paper and begin typing them. I’ll know whether or not to bother any more with trying to shop it to an editor or agent. And I’ll be a week away from self-publishing it, cover permitting.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, The Candy Store Generation, Writing

Advantages of Mixed-up Genres

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As I reported in my last post, I had trouble writing this week. Receiving the subpoena to give a deposition in a lawsuit (our company is involved only as witnesses at this point, and all the attorneys believe it will stay that way) resulted in my spending a lot of energy in preparation. Reading through the correspondence on the project made me sad, as I saw things go downhill through the material in my files.

Then there was the problem of the Ford dealership not getting my pick-up repaired. I brought it in for a tune-up last Tuesday, April 10. I didn’t get it back till yesterday, April 19. I covered that long story in a metaphors of life post at my other blog, An Arrow Through the Air.

So I arrived home each night mentally spent and, to a lesser extent, physically exhausted. After simple meals (Lynda is away), went to The Dungeon, in the quiet house, determined to write a thousand or more words. I managed to do that pre-subpoena, but not after.

The Candy Store Generation stared at me from the computer, a mere 4,000 to 10,000 words away from being finished. But I was lucky if I could add 100 words. The mental energy needed to add any significant amount to it just wasn’t there. I was at the point where I need a little more research to flesh out two chapters, and a part of another. With that research in hand I think I can knock out the chapters, but there’s writing to be done on them even without the research; I couldn’t do it.

It wasn’t writer’s block, it was just mental distraction. And tiredness. I spent some time playing mindless computer games, trying to concentrate on reading writing/publishing blogs, but making little progress. Then I remembered: I have another book to work on: In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. I had a review from a beta reader, who made some good suggestions, especially about when I called the protagonist by what name: first only, first diminutive, first nickname, first and last, last only.

That solved my dilemma. Wednesday night I began working through that, and got a little more than half through the book. Thursday night I picked it up again, and finished it, making a few other small edits along the way. I now think I’m consistent with using his name, and have all characters call him by what they would in a real life situations. I had some professional situations where he was called by his first name, when the speaker really would have said his last name.

The book now stands ready for a final read-through—or almost so. I still need to coordinate the hero’s won-loss record as a pitcher, and make sure I have the right number of wins for the time of year. I also have to dial back his number of wins a little, to something that’s extraordinary but still believable. What I had was over the top for the modern baseball era.

Tonight I’ll start the read-through, but will mainly work on the baseball season consistency issues. I expect that to take most of the weekend, including marking whatever edits are needed. That I think my brain can handle, and save the other book until after the deposition.

The experts in the industry say you should stick to one genre, not spread yourself around several. That’s because your “fans”—one you have fans—will be expecting you to produce another book just like the one they already liked. I know I should do that, but in this case I’m glad I had something different to work on, and keep some production going during a difficult time.

Writing

A.C. Doyle – Starting Out

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Arthur Conan Doyle didn’t figure on being a writer from the start. He studied to be a doctor. It was a different system in England in the 1870s and 1880s than it is in present day America. A doctor studied, a combination of class work and internship with a doctor in private practice. Eventually the young doc had to strike out on his own. Finding employment was not all that easy, not like it is today.

Doyle graduated his studies and had trouble finding work. He was writing stories for a couple of magazines, getting fairly good money for them, and sending most of it home to his mother. To try to make a little extra, he left a temporary job and took another—on a ship bound for Africa. Apparently ships at that time took a doctor along, to treat the passengers, and perhaps to treat those in African ports-of-call. He had been on a ship previously, and he would again.

However, this time the journey didn’t turn out as planned. He didn’t like Africa. He didn’t make the money he’d hoped for. A fire broke out on the return voyage and they almost had to abandon ship. He arrived in Liverpool in January 1882, and wrote this to his mother.

I don’t intend to go to africa again. The pay is less than I could make by my pen in the same time, and the climate is attrocious. The only inducement to go to sea is that you may make some fees out of passengers, but these boats have hardly any passengers—we had only one coming back. You can’t write at sea, either, and particularly you can’t write in the topics. If I can’t get a S. American boat, I will apply for a house surgeoncy I think. I want to improve myself in my profession and get more practical experience before I launch out for myself. I have written a couple of articles which will do, I think, and I have the germs of several in my head, which only need a literary atmosphere to make them hatch. [Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life In Letters, p. 147]

I see here a man who is torn between two worlds, two careers: medicine and writing. It turns out they are somewhat incompatible in that time and place. He has ideas for writing, and is producing some works, but can’t seem to make his money as a doctor and at the same time pursue writing as a sideline.

That seems to be the situation with many writers. A career in something else puts bread on the table, and writing happens in odd hours, stealing time away from something else that needs to be done. At some point we find a little success in writing, and the career seems old hat. Yet, the writing doesn’t support us, while the whatever career does.

So in A.C. Doyle’s circumstances at this point in his career, I find some inspiration and encouragement. Sure, he was a young man whereas I’m on the old side of middle age now. He had a long time ahead of him to write; I’ve got much less. But if I have to keep on doing civil engineering and corporate training therein for the next 5 years, 9 months, and 6 days, all the while carving out time to write, I guess that won’t be so bad.

Writing

Time to Back Off

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Yesterday I had great plans for my evening. I was hoping to add between 1,000 and 1,500 words to In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, as well as write several blog posts and do a little research reading.

However, yesterday was not the best day for work. I had a couple of hits against my ego and professional practices. They festered all day long, and even almost continuous rain couldn’t pull me out of my developing funk. After work I ate supper with my mother-in-law, got home by 7:00 PM and was in The Dungeon ready to work before 7:30 PM.

But I just didn’t feel like writing. Not anything. Not in the book, not blog posts. Nor did I feel like reading for research. I played a string of mindless computer games, read a few writing related blogs (and made a post on one), but got little done.

At some point I began working on TCSG, re-reading some recent additions, completing previously uncompleted thoughts, adding a little here, deleting some there, improving the wording in a few other spots. Eventually I began adding some new material to one chapter that was barely started. Throughout all this, I’d write for two minutes, read a blog for five, and play games for fifteen, then cycle back.

By the end of the evening I had just short of 600 words added. I was surprised at the amount. The total stands somewhere around 22,800 (I think; hard to remember after a sound sleep). The chapter I’m working on needs another thousand to be complete, but I’m not sure exactly what the direction I’m taking it in.

By the time this morning came around I came to a decision: I’ll back off writing for a little while and concentrate on other things, such as income taxes, filing, clean-up piles of stuff, etc. Perhaps by then I’ll have worked through some things, and will be better able to focus on the writing stuff. I’ll keep making blog posts, here and at An Arrow Through the Air. I might even work a little on editing In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. But TCSG is shelved for the moment.

Health, Writing

Miscellaneous Monday Musings

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I was sick last week. It started Monday evening, when I felt a tickle in my throat. I thought nothing of it, though it did seem unusual. On Tuesday the tickle persisted, and I had to cough to relieve it. I told several people at work that it was just a tickle, and to not worry about my coughing.

Then, Wednesday morning I could feel the head cold starting. This is opposite of how my colds usually come. Usually I feel tiredness in the eyes a couple of days before the sinuses start working overtime. Sometimes those colds go to my chest after another couple of days, sometimes not. The last cold I had, back in October, I think, was mild and I didn’t miss any work.

This one came on strong Wednesday, mainly coughing but with some sinus drainage. Since some muscle pains later developed, I’ve concluded that I had a mild case of the flu. I left work early and mainly rested. Thursday and Friday I slept lots and lots. When I  wasn’t sleeping I was resting in my chair, reading in War Letters. I finished that, by the way, on Sunday, and wrote a review at my other blog. By Saturday I felt a little better, and was able to leave the house for a short while to pick up a computer from the techno doc. But I still took it easy for the most part. Stayed home Sunday, and left my Life Group without a teacher (since my co-teacher was out of town). I did arrange for someone from the class to lead the discussion in my absence. Now, on Monday, I’m at work, and running on 7 cylinders.

But throughout this period of sickness, I did get some writing work done.

  • Completed my writing business tax calculations for 2011 tax year, and filled out the forms. I made a little over $1,500.oo dollars, but after subtracting my expenses, which were inflated by the trip to Chicago in June (half of which was writing related), and after subtracting my home office deduction (allowable since The Dungeon is a dedicated writing space), I made a profit of $1.36. Or, stated otherwise, my writing income paid fully for my writing habit and contributed about $530 to household expenses. Not bad.
  • Added about 1,600 words to The Candy Store Generation, completing Chapter 3 and working on Chapter 4. The book now stands at around 16,000 words, or a few hundred less, on its way to 40,000 or so. I’m not sure that the words I wrote in the flu-induced stupor are any good. The editing process will determine that.
  • Wrote a construction administration column due for Buildipedia.com. I wrote that yesterday evening, and typed and submitted it this morning. It was due last Friday, but I figure at the start of work Monday morning is about the same as midnight at the end of Friday, so I’m declaring it “on-time”. Not sure how the editor will see it.
  • Uploaded my second short story, “Too Old To Play,” to Smashwords. It’s available for purchase there. Now waiting for the Smashword Meatgrinder to tell me if it qualifies for the Premium Catalogue, or if changes will be needed.
  • Cleaned up a couple of piles of writing papers. These were mostly extra copies from critique group. I discovered two that had critical comments on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and made those edits. This wasn’t hard work, and the living room is two piles cleaner.

I also balanced the checkbook, though that’s not writing related. Also washed some dishes.

So, despite the cold (or the flu), I made a little progress. Let’s see what a week of reasonably good health will bring.

Writing

Amazon Reviews: To solicit or not?

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In a newsletter I receive on-line from a writing industry professional, I found this.

If you have read [book name] could you go over to the Amazon page [page link] and write several sentences along with a Five Star review? The Five Stars are important because they are averaged so please make sure to do Five Stars. Or maybe you have read my [book name]. If so, I’m asking you to please go over to the Amazon page [page link] and write a couple of sentences along with a Five Star review. Even if you read the book several years ago, I would appreciate your support with the review.

I don’t know how others feel, but I’m totally against this kind of request. Sure, a writer would like nothing better than to have a bunch of five star reviews and nothing below that. But to ask someone to give you a five star review? I don’t know, to me is seems rather crass. How about a request something like, “I’d sure like a few reviews for my book, Book Title, over at Amazon. Here’s the link to it. If you’ve read it, please consider going to that page and leaving a review. Be honest. I’d love a five star review, but if you don’t think the book deserved a five star review, rate it what you think it deserves.” That might be an acceptable way to solicit reviews.

Because of what that writer/agent/publisher wrote, I will not be giving him any reviews. I’ve read one of the two books he mentioned, and like it a lot and find it useful in my writing. But he killed it for me with that comment. He prefers praise to honesty. Well, he’ll get neither from me.

I think it would be alright to ask someone to review your book at Amazon. After all, that’s what traditional publishers and authors do all the time when they send out advance reader’s copies to reviewers. They hope for favorable treatment, but I seriously doubt they tell the reviewers how to do their job.

This newsletter guy irks me. “so please make sure to do Five Stars.” I hope I never sink to that level. Would one of you chew me out if I do?

Writing

No Hope for the Lost Loved One: How do you deal with it?

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As I mentioned in my last post, in my formative years we attended a church that did not offer hope for the dead. It was a liturgical church. We were into ritual, not hope. Duty to the sacraments was paramount, along with regular church attendance.

But we somehow missed 2 Corinthians 5:1 “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not made by human hands.” But then, we didn’t read or know scripture back then.

If I write another short story in the Danny Tompkins series, it might be on this idea of hope for the dead. It’s something I didn’t even think about until I was maybe 22 years old. I was recently born again, was just about to move to Kansas City to take my first job after college. I had a talk with the new priest at our parish, a man I barely knew but with whom I felt some friendship. I don’t really remember what we spoke of, but I came away from that conversation suddenly thinking, “Oh, no, I never prayed for Mom during her long illness!”

We listened weekly as the priest intoned the prays for the sick, but the congregation didn’t join in. Dad never gathered us together as a family to pray for her healing, or for relief from her pain. He didn’t know any of that, because our parish priest didn’t know any of that and so couldn’t teach it to us. There was no hope for the dead, and so no real hope for healing. What good were prayers, then?

What would be the childhood memory, and the link to the adult memory? Maybe I’ll give too much away here, but I’m not sure I’ll write the short story, so I might as well go ahead. In 1961 we drove one Saturday from Cranston RI to Northfield Massachusetts to attend Mom’s 25th reunion at Northfield School for Girls. This was a boarding school that Mom attended, in proper British tradition. The trip was memorable for several things. It rained that day, putting a damper on everything. Mom was the only one from her class who showed up. And on the trip home, after dark, when we were passing through Worcester MA, the brakes failed on our old clunker (maybe a Studebaker?). Dad had to get us home using the emergency brake.

The adult memory tieing back to that is the biography I read of Dwight L. Moody. In that biography it said that Moody founded Northfield School for Girls, along with the nearby Mount Hermon School for Boys. They were Christian schools! The gospel was preached and taught. Sure, they were schools for the uppity, the ones who thought a boarding school education was superior to a public education.

The result of learning that was a smidgen of hope. What if Mom, fading away on that Thursday night, remembered the chapels she sat through, and the words preached? What if she read that biography of D.L. Moody—it had been her book. Might she have had enough wits about her sometime during that last week to remember why God lets people into heaven, and to have said the prayer, to have meant it, to repent of her sins?

It’s thin hope, I know, but it’s hope none the less. I’m going to think about this one a while. I see some potential, but am not sure I have enough for the story here. One thing, though: I already have the poem written to insert into this one.