Tabitha McGowan's Blog, page 2
February 10, 2013
Anal.
Heheh. Bet that got your attention...
So, I re-read my book on kindle yesterday. It's been a couple of weeks now since I put it up, and I knew everything would be fine with it, because hell, I'm a WRITER, darling, and my husband is also a really nifty writer (and also part of the global Grammar Police Force), and my close friends are ... well, you get the idea. I've also got a great little team of beta writers, and a brilliant author-friend of mine did a nuclear job of formatting the document for kindle. And did I mention my reviewers regularly terrify me with the amount of detail and attention they put into a report?
But my kindle was sitting there, unused, and anyway, I needed to read a few chapters just to get back into Finn's speech patterns. And there it was. Back in November, I *know* I typed '...room for fear...' as Finn and Lilith discovered a creative method for stress-release. I carry my own GPF card and polish my badge with pride, dagnabbit. How could I type anything else? I mean, nothing else would make sense, for a start. Yet there it was: '...fear for fear...'. I think I might have screamed. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? How many times have I read, re-read, re-re-read my own work? Did a rogue chimp burst in and add to my text whilst I was making a cup of tea?
Ah well, I can only apologise (and edit. Again. It makes sense now...), and marvel at how the eye and brain can make assumptions based on the surrounding text. I'm also pretty glad that I appear to be the first one to spot it, or at least raise it as an issue.
Is it worth being this anal about my book? The answer can only be 'yes' - I'm fortunate that this format allows me to tweak as necessary - although I need to resist the temptation to endlessly rewrite huge chunks, because the story needs to be finished; it is as it is, as far as I'm concerned - and people have paid to read something that should be as good as I can possibly make it.
But if you spot anything else, blame the chimp, would you?
So, I re-read my book on kindle yesterday. It's been a couple of weeks now since I put it up, and I knew everything would be fine with it, because hell, I'm a WRITER, darling, and my husband is also a really nifty writer (and also part of the global Grammar Police Force), and my close friends are ... well, you get the idea. I've also got a great little team of beta writers, and a brilliant author-friend of mine did a nuclear job of formatting the document for kindle. And did I mention my reviewers regularly terrify me with the amount of detail and attention they put into a report?
But my kindle was sitting there, unused, and anyway, I needed to read a few chapters just to get back into Finn's speech patterns. And there it was. Back in November, I *know* I typed '...room for fear...' as Finn and Lilith discovered a creative method for stress-release. I carry my own GPF card and polish my badge with pride, dagnabbit. How could I type anything else? I mean, nothing else would make sense, for a start. Yet there it was: '...fear for fear...'. I think I might have screamed. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? How many times have I read, re-read, re-re-read my own work? Did a rogue chimp burst in and add to my text whilst I was making a cup of tea?
Ah well, I can only apologise (and edit. Again. It makes sense now...), and marvel at how the eye and brain can make assumptions based on the surrounding text. I'm also pretty glad that I appear to be the first one to spot it, or at least raise it as an issue.
Is it worth being this anal about my book? The answer can only be 'yes' - I'm fortunate that this format allows me to tweak as necessary - although I need to resist the temptation to endlessly rewrite huge chunks, because the story needs to be finished; it is as it is, as far as I'm concerned - and people have paid to read something that should be as good as I can possibly make it.
But if you spot anything else, blame the chimp, would you?
February 3, 2013
"OhmigodwhatdidIbuy????"
Five sales overnight (always a nice thing to wake up to. Far better than that time one of the cats had puked on my pillow and I didn't find out until I rolled over, anyway...), plus three returns.
Returns always amuse me - did someone buy my book thinking it was some sort of gift-wrapping guide? I like to imagine someone flicking through Amazon, when suddenly, 'Oh look, honey - now we can send that awkward gift we got your Aunt Audrey!' followed a few hours later by a horrified screech and the need to bury the kindle under a pile of cushions until the nastiness has been deleted and the cranial cavity thoroughly disinfected.
Either that, or there are some bloody impressive speed-readers out there, the bastards.
Returns always amuse me - did someone buy my book thinking it was some sort of gift-wrapping guide? I like to imagine someone flicking through Amazon, when suddenly, 'Oh look, honey - now we can send that awkward gift we got your Aunt Audrey!' followed a few hours later by a horrified screech and the need to bury the kindle under a pile of cushions until the nastiness has been deleted and the cranial cavity thoroughly disinfected.
Either that, or there are some bloody impressive speed-readers out there, the bastards.
February 1, 2013
Slaughtering
I just killed one of my characters today. I think it's something of a speed record. She was going to be a major player in the TTM sequel (this is how raw all this is - the bloody book hasn't even got a name yet, and I'm already dispatching innocent people to the great literary beyond), there from the very first chapter, and essential to the plot. Except on the 10-minute drive to work, I realised that she didn't work; would never work; her relationship to Lilith would be false and... well, just *wrong*.
I also realised that this was why it was taking forever to get the opening chapter underway. Years and years of writing, and I still haven't quite learned: when it takes forever for me to finish a page, there's something wrong. Something doesn't work; it's from the wrong viewpoint; someone has to be killed (or in this case, kind of 'un-existed' as they weren't around long enough for them to ever draw breath). So she's gone before she was here, and I'm celebrating her passing with a rather nice Prosecco.
I also realised that this was why it was taking forever to get the opening chapter underway. Years and years of writing, and I still haven't quite learned: when it takes forever for me to finish a page, there's something wrong. Something doesn't work; it's from the wrong viewpoint; someone has to be killed (or in this case, kind of 'un-existed' as they weren't around long enough for them to ever draw breath). So she's gone before she was here, and I'm celebrating her passing with a rather nice Prosecco.
