The Insecure Writer and Dealing With Revisions

 

Today is June's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

The tedious process of revising my debut manuscript.

It’s not as if I haven’t already edited the heck out of my novel over the past five years. It’s been through two critique groups, and I’ve gone through it myself so many times I practically have it memorized. In fact, I felt it was in good enough shape to schedule a copy edit with a professional editor. All seemed to be good.

Then I sent a copy to a beta reader who has some experience with urban fantasies (Thanks, Loni).

Unfortunately, she found a few problems in areas I hadn’t considered. I won’t go into a lot of detail, but she basically had a problem with both the protagonist and the antagonist. Arg! Nothing that can't be fixed, mind you, but some of those fixes will require major modifications to the story and that’s what’s setting off my insecurities.

I’ve always had difficulty making changes to scenes I felt were essentially finished. Once I have the scene the way I like it, I have a hard time imagining the scene happening in any other way. It's a mental thing. I’m making my way through my manuscript, tackling scenes one at a time, but it's slow process. Changes in one scene often necessitate making changes elsewhere in the story. My biggest fear is that after I finish all these revisions, the professional editor will come back with all sorts of new problems, requiring yet another painful rewrite.

And I thought writing the first draft was hard.

June's question: For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? 

Maybe this isn’t the best way to write, but I’m constantly going back and editing chapters even as I’m working on the first draft. Since I’m such a slow writer, however, it may be six to twelve months before I return to a chapter I’ve already worked on, which gives me plenty of time to look at the words with fresh eyes.  

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Frittering Away My Writing Time

 

Today is May's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

The worry that I might not have the drive to be a commercially successful writer.

Don’t get me wrong. I like writing. But life keeps you busy, and a writer has to be strong enough to stay productive even when life is happening all around them. Between my tutoring schedule, my wife’s car accident, doing the taxes, and all the other stuff life threw at me lately, I simply haven’t done much in the way of writing. 

It’s not like I haven’t had some time to write. I just haven’t made use of the time I did have available. I read so many stories of writers working full time jobs, taking care of their families, and still pumping out story after story. And here I am, frittering away the spare moments I do have. Heck, it's 11:50 pm and I'm scrambling to finish the day's IWSG post. 

What's going to happen when I have to worry about marketing the book?

Thanks for listening. 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Not Knowing What Life Has Planned For You

 

Today is April's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

Not knowing what life is about to deal you.

I’m a bit late with my post today. Not particularly unusual for me, but this time I have an excuse. Instead of spending Tuesday writing a post about the insecurities of editing your manuscript based on your beta reader’s input, I spent most of it in the emergency room after my wife and son were in an automobile accident.

 

Long story short, a car ran a red light and T-boned the passenger side of our car. My son was driving, so my wife took the brunt of the impact. The ambulance came and took her to the hospital. I took my son there a few hours later when he started developing some pain too.

Notice the several deployed airbags

As a writer, I suppose I should wait until the end of the post to let you know how it all came out, but since we’re all friends here, I’ll let you know that, besides some aches and bruises, everyone is okay. 

But that doesn’t mean the ten hours we spent in the emergency room were not without some scares. They found a fracture in my wife’s C1 vertebrae, the one at the very top of her spine, so they put a neck brace on her. The neurosurgeon told us that, assuming my wife didn’t need surgery, she’d have to wear the brace for at least 6 weeks. They did some more tests, then an orderly came by to do a COVID test, suggesting that they were planning on admitting her to the hospital. Then they performed another test or two, and then finally two hours later, the doctor came by to announce that my wife could take the brace off. The fracture was small enough it would take care of itself.

Talk about a relief. I thought my wife’s eyes were about to bug out when the doctor told us. So now we're back home, resting and recuperating.

The moral of the story is simply this. While you’re sitting in front of your keyboard and slaving away on your story, always remember that you never know what life has planned for you. Maybe your next story will be a success, maybe it won’t. It doesn’t matter. You’ve always got another story waiting inside you. Your job is keep pecking away at the keyboard and let life figure out what’s going to happen with it.

Oh, and always wear seat belts.

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Those Darned Roadblocks

 

Today is March's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

The inevitable stoppages in my writing progress. 

Some of you may remember that even though I'm working through edits on my debut urban fantasy, I’ve already begun working on the sequel. When you’re a slow writer like me, it’s best to keep the pipeline moving at all times. Progress has been good, but this month I finally hit one of those irritating roadblocks where the writing comes screeching to a halt.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

I didn’t expect this scene to be particularly tough. The protagonist has to sneak into the bad guy’s lair and steal something. But this was a scene I hadn’t initially planned on writing and the decisions I was forced to make brought the writing to a standstill. What would be the setting? Where would the bad guys be located and how many would there be? What special obstacles would be present that made this scene unique? And how would I weave it all together in a way that maximizes the reader’s entertainment. Needless to say, after a week or two of ineffectual floundering , I moved onto to the next scene, if only to retain my sanity.

This is how my writing always seems to work. I make good progress for a couple of weeks, and just when I think I've finally figured this whole writing thing out, something like this comes along and nothing gets written for a couple of weeks, bringing my productivity back down to its usual annoyingly slow pace. Who says writing is easy?

March's question: Everyone has a favorite genre or genres to write. But what about your reading preferences? Do you read widely or only within the genre(s) you create stories for? What motivates your reading choice? 

Several years ago, I read both science fiction and fantasy, both paranormal and urban, but now that I’m writing urban fantasy, that’s pretty much the only genre I read these days. If I had more time to read, I’d probably read more genres, but slow writers don’t have that luxury.

 

I’m proud to announce that I’m one of this month’s co-hosts. Please be sure to stop by the other co-host blogs and say hi. 

Natalie Aguirre    

Victoria Marie Lees  

Jacqui Murray 

Sarah - The Faux Fountain Pen  

J Q Rose  

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

The Insecure Writer and Tackling the Sequel

 

Today is February's contribution to Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writers Support Group.

What makes me an insecure writer this month?

Working on the sequel to my debut urban fantasy.

It may seem strange to be working on the sequel when the first story hasn’t even seen an editor yet. I should be occupying my time with finding a cover designer, or polishing up my website, or reaching out to other authors, but here I am, typing away on my next story. 

Don’t get me wrong; I am working on those other tasks, but my editor isn’t free until July, so I’ve got plenty of time for writing. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about book marketing, it’s that it’s best for a debut author to have at least two books ready to go before publishing the first. And since it took five years to write the first one, it behooves me to begin the second one as soon as possible.

I have a better handle on my writing process now. I know when to obsess over something during the first draft and when to move on. I’m better at showing versus telling. Many of my characters are already developed. But as I look over what I’ve written so far, my stomach cringes at how much work it will be to polish those words to the same sheen as my first story.

I did it before, so I know I can do it again. I just wonder if we’ll be facing another presidential election by the time that day comes.

February's question: Blogging is often more than just sharing stories. It’s often the start of special friendships and relationships. Have you made any friends through the blogosphere? 

OMG, yes.  When I first began writing, I did it in a vacuum. I had no idea what I was doing or how many other authors were out there. Now, between critique groups, IWSG, and social media, I've made so many author friends I can't begin to count them. Some of them have come and gone over the years, but I still count them as blessings. Thanks for all the support guys!

Take care everyone, and stay safe! 

ChemistKen

First Response From My Editor

Ha! Two non-IWSG posts in a row. Armageddon approaches. 

The sample edits for the first ten pages of my WIP came back this week, and I was happy enough with the editor’s comments that I’ve decided to go with her. My biggest concerns with my writing revolve around my word choices, pacing problems, and poorly constructed sentences, and her edits definitely focused on those areas. 

One aspect of my story that bothered her, however, was the way I portrayed a secondary character. He didn’t seem real to her. She felt "Mr. Fielding" was too much of cartoon caricature. My critique partners had mentioned something along the same lines, so this wasn’t a complete surprise. This chapter was written a long time ago, back when I was simultaneously working on my Hogwarts fan fiction. For those of you who remember reading the Harry Potter books or saw the movies, I was envisioning Vernon Dursley when I wrote this character. Short, a bit overweight, and a bit of a buffoon who was more worried about himself than others. 

Now I want this story to be fun, so I have plenty of crazy characters sprinkled throughout the story, but my presentation of Fielding was apparently a bit over the top. More middle grade than adult. I’ve reworked the chapter many times over the years to solve this problem, but apparently, I still haven’t gone far enough. So its back to the drawing board again. Fortunately, there’s no hurry. It’ll be many months before the editor can fit me in. 

So tell me, what was your initial response the first time you got something back from your editor?

ChemistKen

The Debut Writer's Journey - In Search of An Editor

In 2020, I set myself three goals: 1) to finish my debut urban fantasy, 2) to prepare for the eventual publication of that manuscript, and 3) to blog about the journey. Needless to say, very little of that happened. I didn’t reach out to other authors in my genre, I didn’t choose a cover designer, I didn't find an editor, or build a separate author website, or work on my email list. And aside from my monthly IWSG posts, I didn’t post much at all. There were many reasons for this lack of productivity, but it all boils down to the first goal. I was so focused on actually finishing my story that I couldn’t focus on anything else. Every time I tried working on goals 2 and 3, I’d feel guilty. To be honest, my biggest non-writing accomplishment in 2020 was buying the domain name for my website.

2020 is over! Yay!

Well, it’s now 2021 and I’m happy to report that I’m only one short chapter away from finishing my manuscript. It’s been a long time coming (over five years by my count) and it’s a relief to finally be at this point. This means I can now focus on all the other author-related tasks I’ve been neglecting. And my first step is to find an editor. Fortunately, I already had a list of possible editors in my back pocket, so last week I sent the first ten pages of my manuscript to one of those editors for a sample edit. 

This can be a daunting time for a new writer. You hand over your baby to a stranger and ask them to judge it. It’s not that I have a thin skin about my writing—I know there are lots of writers out there who are far better than me, and I’m fine with that—but I don’t want to hear that my words are completely hopeless either. My biggest fear is that the editor will come back and tell me that something needs to be fixed, but I’ll have no idea how to fix it.

So what was it like for you when you sent out your very first manuscript?

ChemistKen