Pauline Rowson's Blog - Posts Tagged "editing"
Reader Feedback
It's always great to get positive feedback on one's novels and I am delighted to have received some lovely comments from readers over the last couple of weeks concerning the latest Inspector Horton Marine Mystery crime novel, Dead Man's Wharf.
I've also had some great comments from readers who have just discovered my earlier crime novels, Tide of Death, Deadly Waters and The Suffocating Sea, as well as my thriller In For Kill. If that sounds like bragging then please it's not -far from it. I am just soooo grateful for a kind word or two...
When a new novel is published, us authors wait with baited breath, not to see what the 'official' reviewers are saying about it but what the real readers think about it. We are nervous, sensitive souls who have lived, breathed and eaten that last novel. We've shared our characters fears, thrills, sorrows, joys and more, so much so that it feels as though a part of us has been laid bare. We want the book to be good - great even. And we really want people to enjoy reading it.
By the time I have finished writing, and endlessly revising a novel, I know it inside out and back to front. And that's not the end of the matter, I then have to go through the proofs. I am then so close to it that it is difficult to be objective. There comes a time, I am sure with most writers, when you believe that everything you have written is rubbish, so when feedback of a positive nature comes through you have to be scraped off the ceiling you're so excited. It's a great motivator to carry on.
Giving pleasure to my readers in the form of a thrill, a good mystery novel, a gripping and enjoyable crime story is what I love doing. I adore my central character, the flawed and hunky Inspector Andy Horton with all his faults, and I am delighted to say that my readers also love him.
I know I'm probably opening myself here to adverse comments because there's bound to be others who don't like the books -but then that's art for you - it's subjective, and although negative comments hurt I know that I can't please all the people all the time. I'd just like to!
A big thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to let me know that they are enjoying my crime novels. And, yes, I have written the next Inspector Horton, but I'm not sure when it will be published. I'll let you know as soon as I do, here, and on my official web site at http://www.rowmark.co.uk where you can read all about my novels and business books and listen to extracts from them.
Now I'd better get back to writing. I left Inspector Horton in a tricky situation... but then when isn't he?
I've also had some great comments from readers who have just discovered my earlier crime novels, Tide of Death, Deadly Waters and The Suffocating Sea, as well as my thriller In For Kill. If that sounds like bragging then please it's not -far from it. I am just soooo grateful for a kind word or two...
When a new novel is published, us authors wait with baited breath, not to see what the 'official' reviewers are saying about it but what the real readers think about it. We are nervous, sensitive souls who have lived, breathed and eaten that last novel. We've shared our characters fears, thrills, sorrows, joys and more, so much so that it feels as though a part of us has been laid bare. We want the book to be good - great even. And we really want people to enjoy reading it.
By the time I have finished writing, and endlessly revising a novel, I know it inside out and back to front. And that's not the end of the matter, I then have to go through the proofs. I am then so close to it that it is difficult to be objective. There comes a time, I am sure with most writers, when you believe that everything you have written is rubbish, so when feedback of a positive nature comes through you have to be scraped off the ceiling you're so excited. It's a great motivator to carry on.
Giving pleasure to my readers in the form of a thrill, a good mystery novel, a gripping and enjoyable crime story is what I love doing. I adore my central character, the flawed and hunky Inspector Andy Horton with all his faults, and I am delighted to say that my readers also love him.
I know I'm probably opening myself here to adverse comments because there's bound to be others who don't like the books -but then that's art for you - it's subjective, and although negative comments hurt I know that I can't please all the people all the time. I'd just like to!
A big thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to let me know that they are enjoying my crime novels. And, yes, I have written the next Inspector Horton, but I'm not sure when it will be published. I'll let you know as soon as I do, here, and on my official web site at http://www.rowmark.co.uk where you can read all about my novels and business books and listen to extracts from them.
Now I'd better get back to writing. I left Inspector Horton in a tricky situation... but then when isn't he?
Writing first drafts of novels - exciting, tense and frustrating
Authors differ on their approach to writing first drafts, some love it, some hate it and many are somewhere in between. Me? Well, I find writing first drafts exciting, tense and very often frustrating. Exciting because it is fresh unchartered waters and although I have a basic plot outline and character sketches I'm still not sure where the tide will take me and which shore my novel will wash up on. Tense because I am in a hurry to write it as fast as I can while my head is full of ideas. And frustrating because I can't write quickly enough.
I try to resist editing too much as I write the first draft because editing slows down the creative process and it is very easy to get hooked on editing and therefore postpone finishing the novel. However, because I research as I go along and the characters and plot grow, some editing is inevitable. I resist the temptation though to revise every paragraph, sentence and word, that can come later.
The aim is to write the first draft as quickly as possible. So a good rule, which I therefore try to follow (although not always successfully) is to begin each day from the last sentence I wrote the preceding day. So far I am up to chapter four of the new Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, another police procedural, and just over 10,000 words. There's a long way to go yet, but at this stage I am pleased with the how it is progressing.
I try to resist editing too much as I write the first draft because editing slows down the creative process and it is very easy to get hooked on editing and therefore postpone finishing the novel. However, because I research as I go along and the characters and plot grow, some editing is inevitable. I resist the temptation though to revise every paragraph, sentence and word, that can come later.
The aim is to write the first draft as quickly as possible. So a good rule, which I therefore try to follow (although not always successfully) is to begin each day from the last sentence I wrote the preceding day. So far I am up to chapter four of the new Inspector Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel, another police procedural, and just over 10,000 words. There's a long way to go yet, but at this stage I am pleased with the how it is progressing.
I've nearly finished writing the first draft of the next in the DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime series
I've now written 70,000 words of the next DI Andy Horton marine mystery crime novel which will be number eight in the series. Number seven, A Killing Coast, is scheduled for publication in hardcover early in 2012. As soon as I have the jacket image and more information on the publication details of A Killing Coast I will obviously post them on my official web site. Meanwhile there is the paperback and e book version of the sixth in the DI Horton series, Footsteps on the Shore, to come, more about that on my web site next week.
I was looking back on my blog to last year's entries when I was writing A Killing Coast and saw that on July 2 2010 I had written 10,000 words so I'm pleased that I am so far ahead with this new Horton novel, which I have promised to get to the publisher in January 2012. So far, so good.
Writing a first draft is always exciting but it is also irritating because I am so keen to get everything on to my PC as quickly as possible, while my head is swimming with the plot and sub plots.
I try to resist editing too much as I write the first draft because this slows down the creative process and it is very easy to get hooked on editing and therefore postpone finishing the novel. However, because I research as I go along some editing is inevitable.
Now, on this new Horton novel, I am at the stage when I am eager to bash out the final few chapters as quickly as possible, which I should be able to do over the next week, or couple of weeks at the outside. Then I can have the wonderful pleasure of going back through the novel, adding character details, refining plot and sub plot, adding colour and depth, inserting clues and red herrings, and making sure that everything ties up and Andy Horton lives to fight another crime in DI Horton marine mystery crime novel number nine!
I was looking back on my blog to last year's entries when I was writing A Killing Coast and saw that on July 2 2010 I had written 10,000 words so I'm pleased that I am so far ahead with this new Horton novel, which I have promised to get to the publisher in January 2012. So far, so good.
Writing a first draft is always exciting but it is also irritating because I am so keen to get everything on to my PC as quickly as possible, while my head is swimming with the plot and sub plots.
I try to resist editing too much as I write the first draft because this slows down the creative process and it is very easy to get hooked on editing and therefore postpone finishing the novel. However, because I research as I go along some editing is inevitable.
Now, on this new Horton novel, I am at the stage when I am eager to bash out the final few chapters as quickly as possible, which I should be able to do over the next week, or couple of weeks at the outside. Then I can have the wonderful pleasure of going back through the novel, adding character details, refining plot and sub plot, adding colour and depth, inserting clues and red herrings, and making sure that everything ties up and Andy Horton lives to fight another crime in DI Horton marine mystery crime novel number nine!
