Linda Collison's Blog, page 15

The important second draft

The first draft is where we capture the heart, the guts, the essence, and the power of our story.  But first drafts (at least MY first drafts) are awkward, self-absorbed, disjointed and repetitious (not to mention riddled with grammatical errors.)  Revision is needed — yet caution is also needed so that the best parts, the soul of what you intend to say, doesn’t get thrown out with the bath water.

I typically revise my manuscripts many, many times.  Maybe others can get it right in fewer tries, but for me it takes multiple revisions.  For me, the second draft is crucial — just as important as the uninhibited brain storm that is the first draft.  The second revision feels like I’m standing at a fork in the road.  I have a beating heart, a living idea, but it could take on many guises; I could go in many directions with this hot, pulsating mass of words.  After the second draft, I’m pretty well set on my path.  The more I revise, the harder it is to make drastic changes.  And sometimes that’s what is needed most — a complete make-over.  My advice is to keep your first draft because if you need to start over you’ll still have that wild, imperfect, passionate heart to drive your story.

If you have the luxury of TIME, it’s best to give a few days or weeks of rest between drafts.  This allows your subconscious mind the opportunity to look at the story from a wider perspective.  Resist the urge to cut anything on the second draft.  Instead, add to it.  Flesh out your idea. Play with multiple viewpoints, if you’re writing fiction, or multiple audiences, if you’re writing nonfiction.  Take your time.

I’m a great believer in printing out first and second drafts.  It might seem like a waste of paper, but believe me, those trees will not have died in vain.  With a hard copy in hand you can cross out and highlight, you can write notes in the margins, you can give dimension and expression to your rewrite that you can’t do on the keyboard.  I have a feeling most young writers are rushing through their work, eager to see it published.  Most of our manuscripts benefit from a slower pace and careful revisions.  In fact, the revision process never really ends; at some point a deadline approaches and you declare it finished.  I’m sure most of us could continually revise one story our entire lives and when we died it would be an entirely different story from the one we started with.

On the eve of my keynote speech to the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS) Marketing Excellence Awards Banquet in Denver, Colorado, I am looking at a talk quite different from the first draft I shared in an earlier post.  Yet the heart and the soul of it remains.  In telling my story I aim to inspire others to find the edge, to take risks, and to share their story.

 

The Princess Taiping — doomed Ming-era warship

photo by Cara Chow (Charlotte1125) – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

A few weeks ago I wrote about Intrepid Dragon, the Chinese junk that inspired my not-yet-published novel, Water Ghosts.

Another inspiring junk I had the good fortune to visit while she was still afloat was Princess Taiping.  Built in Taiwan this 54 foot, 35-ton vessel was a replica of a Ming-era, Fujian-style warship.  Launched in June, 2008 from Xiamen, in the People’s Republic of China, the junk made it to the West Coast of the United States under the command of Captain Liu, a 61-year-old Taiwanese sailor .  Built of traditional materials, the junk was crewed by Chinese, Taiwanese, and an American.  Outward-bound, they had planned to make landfall in Seattle but due to gales, landed in Oregon instead.  After visiting San Francisco and San Diego, they started back across the Pacific on the trade winds, with a final stop in Hawaii before completing their journey home.

She was in Hawaii’s Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor, tied up at the fuel docks across from the Hawaii Yacht Club, when Bob and I visited her.

The Princess Taiping mission, born of the Taiwan’s Chinese Maritime Development Society, had three major objectives were recovering and preserving ancient Chinese shipbuilding and navigation techniques, sharing Chinese maritime culture with the West, and promoting mutual East/West understanding and cultural appreciation.  For me she accomplished that — plus inspired me to read more about Ming-era warships and Zheng He.

 

“Princess Taiping 2″ by Paul A. Hernandez – 200810x_079. Licensed under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons -

The boat was a replica of the warships sailed by Zheng He, famed Chinese mariner of the early Ming Dynasty.  He beat Columbus and other Western explorers by decades with naval expeditions to nearly 40 countries, including Viet Nam and East Africa.  Some say he sailed to North America as well.

The intrepid Princess Taiping was rammed at night by a Norwegian chemical tanker operating under a Liberian flag, splitting the ship in half less than 30 miles from the end of her voyage.  Although the tanker did not stop to give aid, the skipper and all crew members were rescued by a Taiwanese helicopter and rescue ship after several hours in the water.

 

From TaiwanInfo archives: Junk sets course for journey into history; jJly 4, 2008.

 

Water Ghosts, a contemporary YA nautical thriller with Chinese paranormal and Ming-era historical elements, to be published later this year.

The Brain Storm of Words

In the last two posts I shared an important part of my writing process, the initial “brainstorm” or uninhibited first draft. I actually posted the unedited beginnings of a speech I’m working on.  (It felt like one of those dreams where you find yourself naked in a crowd of people who are all fully dressed.)

Few of us say what we really want to say or need to say in the first draft, yet it’s important to get it down, all those thoughts, opinions, memories and emotions bubbling to the top. The process, for me, accomplishes two important things. It sweeps my mind clean of debris so that I can find the deeper, more relevant message and – paradoxically –it shows me where my heart lies, in the small, sometimes quirky details that seem to explode on the page.

How to brainstorm the first draft of an article, essay, or speech:

Set aside a period of time, say fifteen or twenty minutes. Now lock up that inner editor and let loose, be it on the keyboard or with a pen and pad of paper. Keep writing, no rules, no holds barred. Don’t worry about form, just be honest. Write what comes out. After your allotted time is up, stop. The deadline creates pressure and forces you to produce some of your best writing – along with some of your worst.  Remember, you don’t have to show this to anybody!

During your first re-read, print out, if possible. While it might look like garbage, it almost certainly contains the heart of what you want to say. Circle or highlight strong phrases or sentences that ring true. Look for a thread that connects; look for a theme. Jot notes in the margins, write all over it. This is your map. Never throw away the uninhibited first draft. I often disregard this and am always sorry later, on the final revision.

Consider your form. Are you writing an essay, a speech, a short story or might this be a book length work? Who is your audience and what is the venue?  All of these will influence what you want to say and how you say it.  Now write your second draft. Read it aloud.   Make corrections and additions, and then give it a rest. While you’re not working on it, your subconscious mind is. Repeat the process. Next, let a trusted reader have a look and tell you what works and what doesn’t. Peer review before publication is a critical step. Consider their suggestions, or variations of their suggestions. We don’t write in a vacuum, we write to communicate. We write to connect. The first burst of words is an important part of the writing process. Be careful you don’t edit the life out of your piece as you develop your theme and polish your phrases.

The last thing you want to do is edit for grammar, punctuation, usage and spelling. Don’t stifle your creativity by imposing these conventions too soon.

 

 

 

Tell Your Story; part 2

Tell your Story  (continued from yesterday’s post)

Nursing made me a better writer because it gave me a subject other than myself to write about. A different perspective. It gave me both expertise and empathy. As did motherhood, for that matter. It wasn’t just about ME.

But nursing and parenting – especially single parenting – is highly stressful. I needed a relaxing pastime to maintain my sanity. I took up skydiving.

One snowy Sunday in May, 1981 I made my first jump at Sky’s West, a drop zone at the Loveland -Ft. Collins Airport on Colorado’s Front Range.  The challenge changed my life. Now you might wonder how jumping out of a perfectly good airplane could possibly be considered stress relief? Crouched in the open door of a Cessna, 10,500 feet above the ground, all your problems below shrivel to insignificance. Nothing else matters. I survived the first jump, was filled with euphoria, and had to do it again.   And again. And over 1100 more times. Learning to fly, that’s another story of my life.

 

The sport of skydiving became my passion for well over a decade. I became a USPA certified jump master and instructor, I wrote articles for Skydiving and Parachutist magazines, and I met my future husband, Bob Russell, an experienced jumper. Together we managed a drop zone in Missouri one summer where we taught the Circus Flora to skydive, we competed on a 4-way team in Nationals one year, and we made jumps in Brazil and Namibia, Africa.  Oh, the Bob-and-Linda adventures!  One of these days I must write Travels with Bob….

Actually Bob and I did write a book together:  Rocky Mountain Wineries; a travel guide to the wayside vineyards, published in1994 by Pruett, a regional press in Boulder.   The research involved was exhausting.  Imagine driving hundreds of miles on scenic roads in Bob’s Corvette, finding wineries, talking with the vintners, hearing their stories, tasting their wine. Tasting more wine, right out of the barrel. Then having lunch and doing it all over again.  I didn’t know it then, but this was classic business development.

Pruett had a good publicist.  Cassandra had Rocky Mountain Wineries in every bookstore in the Rocky Mountains States. She set up events: book signings and wine tastings.  She sent the book out for advance reviews.   She even sent Bob and I the ALA convention that year with the publisher Jim Pruettt. Our wine travel guide was a success, though we only made a small amount of money, once we factored in all the travel involved in the research.  We followed it up with Colorado Kids; a statewide family outdoor adventure guide, which Pruett asked us to write (after turning down my proposal for a guidebook to the historic hotels of the Rockies.)  Bob and I were qualified.  We had both raised our children in Colorado – though we were married to different people at the time, and hadn’t yet met.  I might mention that in both cases we received a small advance against royalties from our publisher.  Pruett was a dream publisher to work with.  In 2012 Graphic Arts of Portland acquired Pruett, which had been publishing books in Boulder since 1954.

With two published guidebooks behind me – and dozens of short stories, articles and essays, I decided to try my luck with a novel. Now this wasn’t my first novel. I had written practice novels. In my twenties, back at the kitchen table in Wyoming with a baby on the way and supper on the stove, I wrote a Western and entered it in a contest. It didn’t win; it didn’t even place.  But I learned something about writing a novel, which is, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Fast forward to the 1990’s.  Kids, grown. Writing a novel provisionally titled, With a Little Luck, about two teenaged boys in a garage band in West Virginia.  This was a story of friendship and loss, of coming-of-age, of poverty and dysfunction, of talent and persistence.  In 1997 I entered With a Little Luck in the Maui Writers Conference Writing Contest.  In the nineties the Maui Writers Conference was a BIG DEAL.  I’m talking New York editors and agents, Hollywood script writers and producers strolling around in Tommy Bahama Aloha shirts and designer sunglasses. Ron Howard was the keynote speaker. Anyway, to make a long story short, my story won the grand prize that year. Yes!  Agents would be pounding at my door, my email inbox would be jammed full by morning.   I just knew Ron Howard was going to call me up for a lunch date to discuss movie rights. But the phone was strangely silent.  And although Wendy Lipkind did buy me a drink, she was more interested in representing my nursing stories, not my prize winning manuscript.

Twelve months – and dozens of rejections later – I had to face the hard truth: With a Little Luck had no luck at all. Why? Editors loved my writing, they loved the quirky characters but they didn’t know how to sell the story — a criticism I heard over and over again. The story didn’t fit into a marketable niche.  (And who was Linda Collison, anyway?  No one knew her.)

Sadder and wiser, I shelved the orphaned story, vowing to write another novel — one that would be marketable. But how? I was discouraged. And I knew few people in the industry, except for the folks at Pruett Publishing and they didn’t publish novels — only regional nonfiction. While I waited for inspiration I continued to work on my craft, writing short stories and submitting them to magazines and literary publications.  With some success.  By now I knew how to write a crack query letter that would often result in a published essay or article.  But writing a novel, that was my dream.

(To be continued…)

Tell Your Story: SMPS Colorado Marketing Excellence Awards

I’m going to be giving the opening speech at this year’s SMPS Colorado (Society for Marketing Professional Services) Marketing Excellence Awards Ceremony, March 5, 2015!  Ain’t that a daisy?  I’m speechless.  Oh, wait, that won’t do.  Let me brainstorm my talk here on my blog.  Fellow writers and readers, lend me your ear…

This year’s theme is Tell Your Story, a theme I feel comfortable discussing.  Because who doesn’t have a story?  I’ve got lots of ‘em.  But marketing?  And business development??   What does a freelance writer, an author, an amateur historian, a writing coach know about these black arts?

Whatever I know I’ve learned in the school of hard knocks.  I used to think all I had to do was write and other people would see that it got out to the wide world of readers, the people who were dying to read MY work.  And then I wrote a novel which was published by the esteemed Knopf.  Alfred A. Knopf. And I learned the awful truth about being a writer.  Which is, you have to sell your own story.  You have to market your book AND your self.  You have to dredge up your own readers.

OK, let’s brainstorm the speech:

Tell Your Story.  (That’s the title and the theme.  But what to wear? A little black dress?  Or a long black dress?  And shoes, I need shoes!  Note to self: schedule hair appt.)

We all have stories to tell. Our lives are stories, sometimes badly plotted with disagreeable antagonists and unhappy endings… But stories teach us. They entertain us. They inspire and motivate us. Stories connect us. Connecting, that’s the important part. Because if you don’t share your story, if you don’t reach your audience, then it’s…just…YOUR story.

I’ve been telling stories my whole life. I’m a writer; I have been since second grade.

I was lucky to have a nearly perfect childhood. Two parents, two sisters, cats and dogs. And a pony. Yes, I had a pony. Life doesn’t get much better than that. As a kid I wrote about my nearly perfect life, my adventures, my emotions. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in the young life of Linda Collison.

Then life got not so perfect.   My mother died in 1969 when I was sixteen, my father six years later. (Do I mention this in the speech?  Or do I keep it light?)  I kept on writing. In high school I was the editor of our senior year book. I wrote a play in French and entered it in a statewide contest. I won third place. Out of five contestants. OK, nothing to brag about.  Except I did get to direct my one-act student play at Baltimore’s Hippodrome Theater with the other winners.

When I first went to college I signed up for creative writing and English Lit. classes. Exclusively. It was the writer’s life for me. (I would’a been a musician, except I couldn’t sing. I’m so happy my son can.)

Then life intervened.   The next thing I knew I was sitting at the kitchen table writing my stories, supper bubbling away on the stove, a baby on the way and a couple of young ‘uns tearing around the house.  Somehow I wrote a lot.  Words poured out, from where, I don’t know.

The next thing I knew I was divorced.  (Again! But we won’t go into all of that…)  I had to pay rent and put food on the table. The kids couldn’t eat the stories, my words weren’t putting milk in the fridge. So I went back to college – this time to become a registered nurse. RNs made decent money. Yeah, I could do that.

In nursing school I entered a writing contest sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and the National Student Nurses Association. And I won an award. Third place again. This time I received a small scholarship and publication in the NSNA magazine. And I thought, hey I can be a nurse, and a mother, AND a writer.

I sold my first article while still in nursing school, to a trade publication for nursing assistants, a job I had while in nursing school. And I joined a start-up audiovisual production company specializing in healthcare promotional and training videos. I was one of three principles, two AV tech guys and me. I was the scriptwriter. My partners also voted me to be Director of Marketing. I knew nothing at all about marketing, but I probably knew more than they did, even so.   We created and produced several custom programs before I left the company in 1986, a forced buy-out which is a story in itself…

I still didn’t have a clue about marketing, much less business development.

After graduation I got a job as a registered nurse in Denver’s Presbyterian Hospital. On the night shift. I wrote a humorous coping article for RN Magazine, titled “So You’re Working Nights”, the first of many healthcare related articles I would write over the next decade.

While I was a staff nurse at Presbyterian Hospital here in Denver I connected with other nurses who also liked to write and we formed the Writers Roundtable, a support group and editing workshop to facilitate and promote our writing. We created Heartbeats, a monthly collection of our creative writing. Soon the hospital’s slick, glossy, corporate publication, The Scanner, incorporated us into their newsletter.  At last our voices were heard by a larger audience. We felt empowered. We were better nurses for it. The hospital benefited, the patients benefited.

Stories matter.

(Well, that’s a start — but lots more of my story to tell.  Another brainstorming post to follow…)

 

 

 

Harper Lee’s first draft?

Harper Collins announced a July, 2015 publication of Harper Lee’s second novel after a hiatus of more than 50 years. (And I thought I took a long time to write a book!) It turns out the “new” novel, titled Go Set a Watchman, isn’t a book that took half a century to write but a manuscript written in the 1950’s, recently discovered by the 88-year-old author’s lawyer.  (Now here my imagination goes wild and I imagine a hoax or get-rich quick scheme by some unscrupulous agent…)

Word is, Harper Lee actually wrote Go Set a Watchman (already available for pre-order on Kindle) before she wrote To Kill a Mockingbird.  It’s about a grown-up Scout and “explores the tensions between a local culture and a changing national political agenda; family arguments and love,” according to Amazon.  Her editor at the time thought the flashbacks to childhood were the strongest and urged her to re-write the story.  To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960 and awarded a Pulitzer Prize the following year.

It sounds like Harper Lee’s lawyer has found what we writers all have an abundance of: Shelved manuscripts.  First drafts.  Rejects.  That doesn’t mean Harper Lee’s first novel wasn’t worthy of publication necessarily.  We have all written numerous drafts and various iterations of our stories — and we have all been guided or pressured by editors or agents. Harper Lee was no different.

Will the newly discovered old novel be any good?  The manuscript when “found” by the lawyer friend, was said to be complete and ready to go — with the exception of some light copy-editing.  In any case it should make the venerable author, her agent, publisher, and lawyer a heap of money as it’s sure to be a commercial success and will undoubtedly be optioned for a movie.

Excuse me now, I must go and print out copies of all my shelved manuscripts and keep them with my published ones.  Just in case…

Intrepid Dragon II; inspiration for a scary novel

 

Intrepid Dragon II under full sail, in better times

Water Ghosts began, not with a plot or a character, but with a setting – an old junk moored at the Ala Wai Small Boat Harbor on Oahu. The first time I saw her was after Bob and I had moored, Tahitian style, on Ala Wai’s 800 Row, not long after sailing 2500 nautical miles from Bora Bora. Walking through the harbor to the Hawaii Yacht Club we passed Intrepid Dragon II, a few rows away. Her foredeck was crowded with crates, jerrycans and 50 gallon drums, covered with a blue plastic tarp. She looked more like a floating storage shed in need of a little varnish. But I was intrigued. Very intrigued.

 

 

Sometime later I called the number on the flier posted on the piling, expressing my interest in the vessel. The caretaker invited us aboard to give us a tour and tell us about her current mission as the flagship of the China Seas Voyaging Society — a nonprofit whose purpose is educating Americans about Chinese maritime history and the attributes of the ancient junk design.  Intrepid Dragon II was built in 1969 in Hong Kong by the Woo-Ying shipyard. Built of Yucal teak, her passenger capacity is roughly fifty persons.  Length overall 80′, 18′ at the beam, she draws 8′.  The vessel participated in the 1984 Tallship Parade out of Long Beach, California and the following year led the Ancient Mariners Race for nine days,  from San Diego to Honolulu.



According to her log books, the Intrepid Dragon II is a likely contender for holding the world’s record for the most recorded circumnavigated miles for a Chinese Junk rigged motor-sailing vessel. Ccurrently home-ported in Honolulu, Hawaii, she has also served as a set on several Hollywood movies and an episode of Hawaii-Five-O.

Still, I found her a little creepy, I don’t know why.  As soon as I stepped onto the deck my imagination fired up.  My first thought was if this is Intrepid Dragon II, I wonder what happened to Intrepid Dragon I?

And so my interest in Chinese maritime history and fascination with Chinese ghosts began.  The resulting novel, a contemporary psychological thriller with historical and paranormal elements, is to be published  2015, by Fiction House, Ltd.

“Water Ghosts” is a spine-chilling tale where fantasy and reality spin out of control and James’s vivid hallucinations are orchestrated by the disturbed and malevolent spirits from a long-forgotten Chinese dynasty”  — author Margaret Muir

Cover design by Albert Roberts

Status update: Still in labor after 30 days!

Today, November 30, is the last day of National Novel Writing Month and I have not completed my novel, not even close.  Although I didn’t officially register for the event this year, I did make the commitment to write a novel of at least 55,000 words during the month of November. Thirty days later, here I am, still in labor. No end in sight.

“Ok, let’s examine the situation here,” my nurse says.  “Spread your legs, hon, let me have a look.”  

Me, panting.  “Wait, nurse; I feel a contraction coming on!”

Nurse feels my abdomen and looks at the fetal monitor at the bedside.  Then, when the gripping pain has passed, reaches up into my nether parts and frowns.  “You’re only dilated to 3 centimeters.”  Shakes head.  “You’ve got a way to go, girl. Probably won’t happen by the end of my shift.”

Well that’s encouraging. Not.

“Let’s be honest. Did you even start the novel, hon? ”

Yes!  Absolutely! My water broke and I experienced an encouraging warm flood of words as I rushed to the keyboard to capture them.

“Mmm.  That’s nice.  But how many words did you actually write this month?

“Ten thousand one hundred and seventeen.  Somehow it looks like more when it’s spelled out like that.  I don’t know, maybe I didn’t devote enough time to the project?  But there were circumstances beyond my control.  (There are no good excuses, saith Mr. Yealy, my sixth grade teacher, who also proclaimed the only certainty in life was death and taxes.)  Actually, I should be working on it still, right this minute, it’s not yet midnight, there is still time.  But I’m discouraged.  Do I still have to go through with it?   Can’t you sedate me?  To hell with this natural shit,  OK, I AM BEGGING FOR A C-SECTION!  MAKE IT STOP!

“Dream on, sister. No Caesarian deliveries for you.  Now look at me, Look. At. Me.  Good.  Now breathe with me, breathe through the pain, come on hon, you can do this, I got your back!”

I want to throw my keyboard at her.  Obviously there is only one way out for me.  I need to finish writing the damn story. Nothing to do but keep writing.  Keep breathing. Keep tapping out the words.  If only I could have a wee glass of wine?

Satisfied my vital signs are stable and there are no signs of fetal distress, the nurse leaves and from the adjoining room I soon hear the sounds of activity.  “Dad, stand right over here if you will.  “Atta girl, push now, push push push!”  Grunts, pants, and the clinking of stainless steel instruments on a tray.  OMG, somebody is delivering right now!  A baby is being born!  A thousand babies are being born and thousands of writers all over the world are completing their manuscripts tonight, champagne corks are popping!  It’s a boy!  It’s a girl! Good job, mom!  Congratulations, Dad!

But no one is celebrating in my room.  My husband has left for another coffee break, or maybe he’s at happy hour with his friends, he’s given up on me, surely.  I stifle a sniffle, feeling very sorry for myself. I have failed. Then nurse comes back, hands on hips.

“OK, buck up woman!  No pity parties allowed.  Time to ask yourself some hard questions.”

Another sniffle.  “OK.  Like what?”

“Like, what have you learned about writing these past thirty days?”

I haven’t a clue.  I search my tired brain.  “That’ it’s OK not to produce? I mean, sometimes the demands of everyday life seem to suck away all my creative energy.  Some days, especially this month, it was all I could do  to hunker in my life raft and wait for the storm to pass.”

Nurse checks her watch and examines her nails.

“I’ve also learned that one reason why I write fiction is to exert control and order over somebody else’s life, since my own life seems to be ungoverned.  But even my fictional characters have minds of their own.  My plots get waylaid, blown out of the water constantly, wrecking my outline all to hell but resulting in a much more interesting story.  When I’m writing I’m discovering.  It hurts to write but I feel more alive when I do.

“Yeah, whatever.  So, what is the point of National Novel Writing Month?”

Uh, to get your story out of your head and onto the page? To deliver a baby, however imperfect, even if it has a face only a mother could love?

Nurse smiles sweetly. “You’ve had the power to finish your novel all along, Dorothy.  Just tap your ruby slippers together three times and push out that child.”

Oh, hell, that’s a mixed metaphor.   But hey,  I’ve got my second wind now.  Let’s do this thing!  Nurse, start the pitocin drip and stand by!  I feel another contraction coming on…

 

Congratulations to all the 2014 NaNoWriMo participants!  

 

 

 

The first draft of my 2007 NaNoWriMo novel, Looking for Redfeather, was delivered in 30 days — but took six more years to rewrite, edit, and publish.

Why make an audiobook?

How we Write; a series of guest posts about the art, craft, and business of writing

 

 

 

 

 

Today my guest is Seymour Hamilton, author of the Astreya Trilogy, an historical fantasy adventure in a maritime setting.

Seymour and I have been discussing the pros and cons of audio formats.  My novel, Looking for Redfeather,  read by Aaron Landon,is for sale as an audio download from Audible.  Seymour has taken a different approach with his audio format — he is giving away downloads through Podiobooks.  Read more about his process:

Should I make an audio version of my book?

Short answer: Yes.

Here are some reasons to record, then some of the decisions you need to make before

you start.

Reason #1

Reading (and recording) your novel is the best investment you can make in editing

your work. As you read — and as you listen to the playback — you will notice infelicities

in phrasing, awkwardnesses in order, accidental repetitions, purple flourishes,

unconscious mimicking of other writers, and occasions when you are beating the

dead horse of too much detail. You will be doing what good and great authors alike

have done for centuries, and as a special benefit, you will understand what is meant

by ‘finding your voice.’

Reason #2

Some people like hearing books as opposed to reading them. Some want to listen as

they drive long, boring distances. Some are visually impaired. Some just like hearing

someone read them a story. They constitute an audience that isn’t served by print or e-

books.

Reason # 3

People who listen to books sometimes buy them. The jury is out on how much this

is true, but my preliminary analysis is optimistic: in the two months after Astreya:

The Voyage South was available in podcast audio, sales of the physical and ebook

improved significantly, some of the bump being sales of volume two of the trilogy,

presumably purchased by people who wanted to know what happens next. Moreover,

I received fan mail asking me when they would be able to listen to the next book in the

trilogy.

Reason #4

Audiobooks offer instant download, just like e-books, but with audiobooks, you can track

where you’re selling as well as how much. Podiobooks.com and its technical provider

LibSyn provide detailed analysis of when and where your podcast version is being

downloaded and read. I discovered that (as I expected) my major market was the US,

then Canada, then the UK, New Zealand and Australia. However, I was surprised and

delighted to find that I also had listeners in Norway, Germany, and a long list of other

places including (!) Thailand. Why? — My guess is the ex-pat community of people who

speak English in countries that don’t.

 

OK, you’ve decided. What’s next?

Before you start, you should know that you are about to invest time (for sure), money

(a little to a lot) and effort (above and beyond what you have already put into your

completed manuscript).

 

Sell or Give?

Decide whether you want to sell your audiobook version, or give it away. I give mine

away, free. Podiobooks encourages listeners to “tip” the author. So far I’ve received

nothing, but I’m encouraged by Reason # 3, above, to believe that far from hurting

sales, my audio version is encouraging them.

You can make your audiobook available through your website, but you need a server

“behind” your site. At SeymourHamilton.com you can click on podcasts of my books,

chapter by chapter and either listen, or download to listen later. The recordings

themselves are not on my site because that would cost far too much beyond the cost

of standard site, because there is no “room” on most sites to store, provide access and

manage the recordings and the accessing needs of people all over the world. You need

a specialized sound service such as SoundCloud or Podiobooks. Podiobooks.com

specializes on books. Its servers contain and manage, my books and many, many

more by authors old and new. Podiobooks offers people in search of free audiobooks a

“bookstore” where they can browse, knowing that they will find an acceptable technical

quality of recordings and the electronic delivery thereof. Behind Podiobooks is LibSyn,

the server/technical service, which is system of servers “where the recordings are” and

where I go to find constantly updated statistics on how my books are doing.

Free is fine, but on the other hand, who can argue with a royalty check? However,

before you go to an on-line company that will pay you per download, consider both your

percentage of the take, and your up-front costs. There’s a saw-off between a turnkey

approach wherein you send someone your manuscript and wait for the money to roll in

(don’t hold your breath); and taking control of the process in one of more of the roles of

producer, reader and technician.

Cost/Quality decisions: Hire a reader or read it yourself?

There are lots of out-of-work actors out there who would love to read for you — at a

price. Don’t decide only on the basis of how the actor sounds to you — still less on

how he or she looks. Work “blind” by email, listen to recording samples. Have the

actor audition by reading a page or so of your book. Insist on credentials, preferably

in podcasting, radio or voicing animated cartoons. Find out if he or she is sufficiently

qualified and experienced to do the electronic technical work. If not, either get yourself

a producer or do the sound-editing and processing yourself.

On the other hand, do it ALL yourself. The cost of recording at home is low. You need

a quiet room and a good microphone — not just the one that comes in your computer. I

use a Blue Snowball for around $200. A friend loaned me a more expensive mic, but

it was so sensitive that in the context of my reading, it was like putting a gold link in a

copper bracelet. Software to record and process is free-to-inexpensive. I use Audacity

to record and Levelator to process, both of which are free.

Recording your book takes time. A lot of time. I’m on my third book and getting better,

that is, more efficient, but I find that every hour of completed, published podcast of 45

minutes to an hour requires at least five hours of recording, editing and processing at

my desk with a microphone and my trusty MacBook Pro.

Caveat: this isn’t my first rodeo. I acted in plays at school, was subjected to singing

lessons, did free-lance work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in the 70s, and

lectured at universities about Dead English Poets for more than 20 years during which I

always read the poems out loud.

 

Now go back to Reason #1. Whether or not you go audio, decide to read your book out

loud into your computer, and then listen to what you have recorded. Once you get over

the fact that your voice sounds completely different from what you’ve been listening to

for years while you were talking, you’ll find that you have a secret weapon for improving

what you write. So, read what you write BEFORE you send it away to be published! If

nothing else, your descendants will be able to hear you reading your stuff, long after you

are no longer punching away at your keyboard.

 

Seymour Hamilton was born in 1941 during an air raid on London, England.  After the war, his family moved to Mauritius for three years, where he was home schooled, and read books by Ransome, Kipling, Henty, Marryatt and Slocum.  In 1949, his family moved to Canada, where he remained, apart from trips and holidays and one horrible year at school in England.  He studied English, because he liked reading, which led to a BA, an MA and Canada’s first PhD on Science Fiction. He spent half his working life as an English teacher at Canadian universities from east to west coast, and the other half as a writer/editor for government and industry.  He retired in 2005, and by 2011 completed The Astreya Trilogy, which features a mysterious inheritance, sailing ships, treacherous relatives, night escapes, knife fights, secret passages and a long voyage to a lasting love.  The Laughing Princess, twelve stories involving dragons, was published in 2012 and a translation by Jessica Knauss, La Princesa Valiente a year later.  A new edition of The Laughing Princess, illustrated by Shirley MacKenzie, appears in time for Christmas, 2014.

You can listen to him reading his books (free!) at Seymour Hamilton.com.

The Madame of Covent Garden’s Gin Lane Salon

Catherine Curzon is the writer behind the personae Madame Gilflurt, whose online “salon” I attend on a frequent basis.  Her blog, A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life; Glorious Georgian dispatches from the Long Eighteenth Century, reminds me of  an eighteenth century broadsheet; it’s newsy, lively, highly entertaining and always instructive.  Madame writes concisely about people, fashion, places, and events of the day — the details that bring the past to life.  Or she features salon guests, such as novelist Alicia Rasley, to share some titillating bit of 18th century life.  Rasley’s topic, posted today, is about masquerades – a favorite subject of mine.  I sometimes use Madame’s posts as writing prompts to explore my own fictional characters and settings.

I wanted to know more about Catherine’s writing process.  For instance, how did she come up with her persona, the ginbag Madame Gilflurt?  How does she know so much about the “long eighteenth century?”  Is her blogging an end in itself or is there a novel forthcoming? Madame was kind enough to give me some insight.  Catherine Curzon, a.k.a. Madame Gilflurt, says:

 

Ever since I can remember, my life has been full of tall tales. Throughout childhood

I sat at my granddad’s knee in his cottage on the edge of Sherwood Forest and

listened with relish to tales of outlaws and highwayman, of willow the wisps in the

trees and, somewhat improbably as I later realised, the full-blooded tale of Lord

Byron’s ghost who, he claimed, haunted the rural pub in whose beer garden we

passed many happy weekend afternoons.

 

Those stories have never left me and whether bawdy, bloodcurdling of just plain

silly, my granddad’s tall tales made an indelible mark on my life. Add to that a

fateful children’s toy brought for me during a pre-school shopping trip and you

have the makings of who I have since become. As a child my sister and I loved

paper cutout dolls and we made our own though my sister was always the more

artistic of the two so imagine my delight when we were both treated to a Marie

Antoinette paper cutout doll set, featuring the iconic queen and a whole host of

bewigged flunkies. I fell in love with everything about the queen and her retainers

from the fine clothes to the powdered hair, the glittering jewels and, best of all, my

granddad’s spirited retelling of the gruesome fate that befell her.

 

My love affair with Marie Antoinette gradually began to expand and grow, as

these things do, and before too long I was nursing a fascination with the long

18th century. Growing up where I did, I was lucky enough to pay regular visits to

Chatsworth, Haddon and Hardwick and in each of these places I would picture my

fine ladies and dashing fellows, filling the houses with a thousand childish stories of

my own making. Eventually I began to tell stories of my own though these weren’t

period pieces, unless you count a novel I wrote set in 1957, but all the time the

glorious Georgians were nagging at me.

 

For all the love and support of my colonial gentleman , he is not quite as fascinated

with Georgian history as I and after several years of marriage, it became achingly

apparent that I really needed an outlet for the 18th century stories that were

clogging up my brain and, so, A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life was born.

My approach to blog writing is very disciplined and, since I publish a new tale every

single day, it has to be. I gather notes, inspiration and stories from everywhere and

keep them logged in a spreadsheet by date then, every so often, I dive right in. I

take myself off to my favourite coffee shop, where my order of a sparkling water and

pot of tea is ready before I even ask for it, sit at my computer and absorb myself in

the world of the Georgians. In the space of a few dedicated hours and with a steady

supply of tea and music, I might write a dozen first draft posts. I’ll then hone them

over the coming days, sure to keep a few scheduled and ready to go at any one time.

If I get to my blog and see one or two posts there, then it’s time to buckle down and

really get to it; I love sharing stories of the Georgian era so it’s really no chore.

When I started blogging I really thought that it might be fun for a couple of months

and hoped, if I was lucky, that a few dozen people might visit the site and perhaps

lose a couple of minutes there. Instead I’ve been blessed to meet readers, writers

and history enthusiasts from all over the world. Over the year and a bit that I’ve

been publishing the site I’ve featured guest posts from some favourite authors, read

advance copies of their work and even advised on the state of French roads in 1792!

 

All of this has been an enormous boost of confidence as I work at my own latest

novel, The Mistress of Blackstairs, in the determination that, unlike my three

unpublished non-historical works, it will not go unread by all but a few trusted

friends! I am on the second draft of Blackstairs right now and the coffee shop is the

same, as is the tea and water, the music and concentration. The only difference is

that this is fiction, just like those stories granddad used to tell me of Lord Byron’s

restless ghost and a pub in Blidworth Bottoms!

 

Glorious Georgian ginbag, gossip and gadabout Catherine Curzon, aka Madame

Gilflurt, is the author of A Covent Garden Gilflurt’s Guide to Life. When not setting

quill to paper, she can usually be found gadding about the tea shops and gaming

rooms of the capital or hosting intimate gatherings at her tottering abode. In

addition to her blog at www.madamegilflurt.com, Madame G can also be spotted on

Twitter, Facebook and Google+.