Tag Archives: Proofreading

Still at it

Posted on by
Reply

I’m nearing the end of Jasmine, and it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be. I have had to delete a whole chapter, and a few scenes were eliminated or rewritten entirely, but on the whole, it’s been a fairly quick rewrite.

I have asked a friend of mine to read it for me and give me her input. I have to know if the story works, and if there’s anything that needs to be tweaked, rewritten, or deleted. I want to know if the characters are believable. I need to know if it’s a good book or not. I don’t want to waste time on a dud.

If I hear good news, I’ll move on to looking for someone to proofread the book. My real issue will be cost. I’m just a poor boy, after all, but I don’t want someone cheap who doesn’t do a good job. I need someone with reasonable rates, preferably with some experience and recommendations.

Then I’ll need someone to do the covers for me. I have absolutely no experience in making covers. What’s more, I have no artistic abilities. I’ll have to find someone at some point. I guess I can ask around. I’m sure someone can point me in the right direction.

Until then, however, I’ll tinker with Jasmine, maybe eventually settle on a permanent name for it. It was Unseen Obsession at one point, but I hated that name. Maybe someone can help me with that, too.

The fix

Posted on by
Reply

I’ve been thinking about the problem that has had my stymied for the past several weeks. I just couldn’t find a way around this little stumbling block and I was at a stand-still. I’ll admit that even though my goal is to publish this year, I wanted to give up and move on to another project, one that I hope would be far easier to complete.

But I’m not one to give up so easily. While I waited patiently at work for customers to show up, and yes I worked on Mother’s Day, I pulled out a sheet of paper and started to jot down notes.

Who’s after Jasmine?

I began by writing down the names of my characters, the ones who are the most likely suspect to be terrorizing my main character, detailing their history and the reason why they may be stalking her. As I scribbled my notes, I had one of those moments of brilliance. I may have figured out how to save my story! I finally had my Eureka! moment.

And now the dread washes over me, hours after that brief elation. I realized that by figuring out how to fix what’s wrong with the story I would have to sit down and introduce a new character. Well, that not quite true. My savior is already in the book, but they haven’t been fleshed out thoroughly. My task is to beef up their part, including their motivation for seeking out Jasmine. Luckily, that all came to me while I jotted down my notes throughout the day.

I’m excited about this. The way the story ends has bothered me for some time. One of my beta-readers actually called me out on how I resolved the story. I made a liar out of my character. They are not duplicitous in any way. Awkward? Yes, but not malicious nor psychotic. Now, that character can be true to themselves while this new character gets to enjoy a promotion of a sort and fully embrace a role that I could never really develop.

It should only take a few minor rewrites to incorporate them into the narrative. I’ll have to tweak some dialogue and create a few key scenes along the way, but as I have already deleted some other scenes, I should do so seamlessly, or at least that’s my hope.

To think that I’ve been wracking my brains in search of an answer and all it took for me to find it was to write it down. It allowed me to focus on the problem while not confronting the issue. It worked itself out organically. I just hope I do it justice. Also, I hope I remember how to fix it.

Hi! Remember me?

Posted on by
Reply

Happy Friday to all you gorgeous people out there. I hope you’re staying nice and dry today. It’s been a heck of a week in the Texas Panhandle and South Plains. We’re being inundated with rain, with places about an hour or two south literally under water. I know Lubbock has experienced some flooding and Tulia some impressive hail. I woke up to see a few tornado warnings and we’re under a tornado watch. Ah, springtime in Texas!

I have to say it’s better than the alternative, drought. I know the farmers in the area are thankful for the rain. It saves on irrigation, though they aren’t able to go out and work on the crops. Knowing our climate, the typical high-pressure systems that dominate during the summer months will set up, drying us up quickly and we’ll be praying for rain very soon.

But enough banal talk. I’ve been quiet the past two weeks. I haven’t had anything to say, not that I have any new worth sharing at the moment. I got to the point where I was repeating the same tired message, I’m working on it, I hope to be finished soon, yada yada yada. So where am I now?

I’m working on it. I hope to be finished soon. Yada yada yada.

I have found someone to edit my book. That’s exciting. We settled on a price, which is more than I want to spend but is in reality an extremely reasonable price. The editing process will consist almost entirely of proofreading my work, checking for grammar and punctuation. I wish I could afford a content editor to check for continuity, story line development and whatever it is they do. I’m still very much a novice at this. I think I need a mentor.

I’ll get it. I’m in no hurry. I’m enjoying the leisure of the journey, though I do eventually want to get to my destination. I’ll spend my day off today working on my copy. I’m halfway through but have a ton left to correct. Honestly, I wish I would have planned this novel to begin with. I’m beginning to so the advantage of being a planner vs. being a pantser. Also, I want to be done so I can work on other projects.

 

 

Out of story, well sort of

Posted on by
1

I ran out of story to edit! Okay, that’s not entirely true. I still have half the book to do, but I hadn’t gotten around to printing it yet. In the mean time, I’ll enter what I do have onto my computer and save it. Once I’m done, I’ll print off the other half and get started with that. It’s so simple!

But it’ll have to wait until tomorrow. It’s late and I have to work in the morning. Still, going though four chapters is impressive. There were only a few minor changes. I fear the bulk of what I need to rewrite is still ahead of me.

Yikes!

Fixing Gwyn

Posted on by
3

I’m currently at the Georgia St. Roasters, a coffee shop in Amarillo. I’m still working on my rewrites, struggling to fix one of my characters. I haven’t been as diligent on my writing as I should have been, but I’m back on track, again, and I hope to keep up my momentum.

I just finished Chapter Three and oddly enough I’m about to tackle Chapter Four. I’ve lost a few scenes, ones that just didn’t fit with the story. While I liked what I had written, it served no other purpose than to add to my word count. With no function in furthering the story, I had to make the decision to cut it out. Deciding to do it was harder than actually cutting it out.

This whole process feels like a surgical procedure. Snipping away the excess while keeping the integrity of the whole intact. What makes it all the harder is that I don’t want the whole thing to unravel. I just need to stitch it back together seamlessly so that the reader won’t miss what I cut away. So far, so good.

But the trouble lies ahead with my character Gwyn. Who is she? What’s her motivation? Is she crazy? (Yes!) Does she suffer from Dissociative Personality Disorder? (I don’t think so.) So if not, what then? I know she suffers from social anxiety, but what else? I don’t know.

It’s this question that has me stalled. It’s driving me crazy, all the more because I have another story that’s brewing in my mind that I would love to turn my attention towards. I have to get this one done.

I don’t know when I’ll be able to finish this and walk away. Maybe it’s not worth trying to fix, but if I give up on every story that has problems I’ll never finish anything. This is my line in the sand! I will get this one finished or die trying!

For now I’m going to get off and let my brain rest. I have a meeting to attend at work, which should only last an hour. Then I’ll go home, get out my red pen and start editing the next chapter. It’s not an easy task, but anything worth doing is worth suffering for. At least that’s what I’ve been led to believe.