Karen GoatKeeper's Blog - Posts Tagged "editing"

Spring is such a busy time. Baby goat kids. Gardens. Wildflowers. Distractions galore.
And the book sits there on the computer screen. Nineteen Investigations to go over and edit.
Do they have the same format? Where are all the pictures? Are the pictures resized? What about the tables? Do the conclusion questions make sense? Are the directions complete?
Details, infinite details, mind-bending details, boring details, important details.
The initial flush of excitement over the book has passed. The main draft is done. Now the hard work is at hand.
The goal is worth it. As the book nears completion, some of that original excitement comes back. Now it is tinged with accomplishment.
Distractions 0 Book 1.

I started "The Pumpkin Project" ten years ago. It was fun. It was challenging. I roared ahead on it.
Then my mother became ill. Work stopped.
For me it is much harder to return to a writing project than it is to start a new one. Perhaps the new one has that aura of excitement the older project wore through. Perhaps the vision of what the older project was to be has slipped away. Perhaps there is a difficult part in that older project and a new one lacks those snags for now.
Bit by bit I am working my way through "The Pumpkin Project" as I must get it done this year. Every year I tell myself: This is the year I will finish it. And each year slips away.
This year I'm doing some personal blackmail.
First I'm posting the Investigations on my website over the summer as my Outside Project. (This has the added benefit of having most of the projects already done instead of needing to be done.)
Secondly I signed up for CampNaNo to do an edit of the book.
I did make it all the way through all the written parts, the stories, the Projects and the Investigations. They are now formatted the same way. The stories sound good and are rearranged to fit into the book better. The main Project is split into more doable pieces and enlarged so anyone, even apartment dwellers, can do it.
Now I get to go through the book again. All the Investigation tables will become images and look nicer. All the pictures will be resized and will look more uniform throughout the book.
Just in time warmer weather is arriving here in the Ozarks. Time to plant my pumpkins: giant, sugar pie and miniature (in a container). There are those missing pictures to take. I even arranged with other people to grow some pumpkins and take pictures in case the squash bugs attack my vines.
Will this year be the year "The Pumpkin Project" gets done? Determination, persistence and blackmail say yes.

Page by page I am again going through "The Pumpkin Project" even though the writing has been gone over several times. This time the pictures, tables and page numbers are the targets. Each page is listed so I will have a list of those pictures and other items I need to complete the book. The list will also correct the Table of Contents.
Such editing is essential to complete a book. Mistakes do slip by from time to time but most get caught by a careful edit. A sloppy edit can sink a new book for potential readers.
But is editing writing?
Rewrites can be. A piece can look entirely different, a new piece entirely other than the subject when a rewrite is done. So a rewrite can be writing.
But what about editing?
I tweak a word here and there. I may add a sentence or change one. But I am not writing anything new.
So I don't think editing is writing, only a necessary adjunct to writing.
Perhaps that is why editing can feel so stifling and plodding.
I long for the freedom to write. A story is distracting my brain. Yet, if I start writing, can I continue to plod faithfully along on "The Pumpkin Project" edit?

Warm and humid has moved to hot and humid in the Ozarks. The pumpkin vines love it. Ripe pumpkins are already appearing.
Now I have lots of new pictures for "The Pumpkin Project" to fill in those missing pieces. Even the pattypan squash finally produced a squash.
I'm getting tired of starting over, going page by page through the book adding and editing. Maybe soon the Investigations will be done with all of the necessary illustrations.
Then I get to go back to the puzzles. So far one permission request has been denied.

There will be five mazes in the Pumpkin Project. Four are now done.
Designing a maze is challenging in some ways. It is simple to use a table, merge rows and columns then move it to paintshop to finish it off. It is also boring.
Coming up with mazes with pictures, twists and turns makes the mazes much more interesting. It makes it easier to make a mistake too. There can be only one solution. There must be a solution.
The same advice applies to designing mazes as to editing a book: have a fresh set of eyes look it over. Remember the writer or creator sees what they expect or want to see not necessarily what is there.
So the latest maze went to Sarah, my maze checker. The others have been fairly simple. This one was challenging.
Sarah starts at the finish and goes back to the starting point. She says it is easier to solve a maze this way.
When I think about it, I do several things backwards too because they seem easier that way. Yes, I've solved mazes this way too.
How do you solve a maze? What makes going backward seem easier?
I think I will go back to creating that last maze. it's easier than pondering the questions.

My book deadline looms. Pressure mounts. Should I cut a corner or two?
Definitely not.
There is nothing more annoying to a reader than a book where corners have been cut. The timing is off. The grammar is off. The spelling makes you cringe. Facts are wrong.
Don't think this is only found in independently published books.
I was browsing my way through a lavish botany picture book. An easy plant was misidentified. A family name was incorrect.
Indie books may have these problems more commonly simply because the author, like me now, is pushing too hard to get done and cuts corners.
The advice is to hire an editor for grammar and spelling. The editor may not know English or it seems that way. If your English skills aren't the best, what do you do?
The easy solution begins with spellcheck and grammar check. These are not perfect but are a place to start. Double check in a dictionary.
Next find an editor. Then find a friend with a good grasp of English and have that friend read the book. Be sure this friend will tell you the flaws found.
This is fine for spelling and grammar. My main problems in Running the Roads is different. The ending follows five different groups of people interacting at various times and places before converging at one place at one time. The action takes place over five days.
I wrote out each set of actions separately and matched them up to the day and time. Timing problems were corrected. Additional actions were inserted.
Even so there was one I missed.
In a way I'm glad I'm working on two books. The easiest way for mistakes to slip by is to reread the same book over and over without a break. I'm alternating.
Will I find all the errors? If I don't, it won't be from cutting corners.
This does have an additional benefit. My speed reading is getting a work out.

The exciting feeling I get starting a new writing project provides so much momentum. It helps power me through the plot problems, the story line doldrums. It keeps me plodding along until that rough draft is done.
My new two books were powered along by this momentum making it so much easier to keep working on draft after draft. Having the two did provide some help as I could work on one for a new draft. Then I would shift to the other one to do a new draft. By the time I was ready to shift back to the first one again, it felt fresher, easier to work on.
Now the two are done. And an old partial draft sits waiting for attention. That momentum is long gone. The draft isn't.
This is no fault of the draft. It is the third in my series and needs to close out the second book. I know the characters. I now know the complete, more or less, plot. Any writer knows plots can take surprise twists.
What's missing is the magic.
I'm in the middle section, the doldrums. This is the place where the draft suddenly feels like a stupid waste of time. It isn't really.
Writing will now be work. Each page will take outlines. Each word will take effort.
Maybe, if I keep slogging, some of the magic will return. I hope so. Slogging is no fun and writing is supposed to be fun.

Isaac Asimov used to have several books in the works at the same time. Of course, he was a genius. Still, it is comforting to know working on more than one book at a time is fine.
"The Carduan Chronicles" are my main writing project. However, it came to my attention that 2018 is a special anniversary: I moved to this spot in the Ozarks 25 years ago this May.
There will be a book of photographs of the place coming out later this year. It will have several essays mixed in. Most of these are written. One became my submission to my writer's group for the critique session.
Critiques of a piece of writing are about the writing, not the writer. My group is very good about this. So, why does it seem so personal?
It's personal because the writing is personal. These essays especially are personal. They are part of me.
Were the comments useful? Yes. Am I now doing a lot of rewriting? Yes. Am I glad I let a few feathers get ruffled? Yes.
Surviving critique time takes remembering, no matter how personal the writing may be, the comments aren't aimed at you. They are aimed at making your writing better. Even if you don't make all the changes suggested, each is an opportunity for you to take a closer look at why you wrote the piece the way you did. It lets you see your writing through the eyes of readers.
My essays will be better for it.

School writing assignments are often given a length, a page, two pages, a paragraph. This is the opposite of concise writing.
The objective is length by any means possible. Add extra words. Add extra short sentences. Write bigger. Add more adjectives and adverbs.
The result of such writing is a mish mash burying the topic under muddy wordage.
Serious authors need to abandon this habit. Breaking habits is hard. The cost of not breaking this one is losing your readers and poor reviews.
Where does the writer start?
Pick a topic and write an essay about it. This can be a mere 500 words although a thousand is nice.
Read it carefully making notes of how many times words such as the, and, but, that appear. Delete these and read the piece again adding back only the ones needed to clarify the writing.
Now look at the word count. Calculate ten percent. Rewrite your piece reducing the original word count by that many words or more while retaining all of the original information.
When I began doing this, I had to cut my pieces from 1000 words to 500 words. This taught me to write concisely, but was really hard to do at first.
Now I am doing the exact opposite as I muddle my way through the draft of Mistaken Promises. It will get even worse in the next draft as elements from the series get included such as the learning to live in the country and cooking.
Ultimately I will return to the goal of writing concisely and ruthlessly edit the draft into a publishable book. Not just a publishable book as the sloppy versions can be published, but a readable book, one I would love to read and am proud to offer to others.

“My Ozark Home” is essentially finished awaiting publishing. I’ve gone on to another project: Mistaken Promises, the third Hazel Whitmore book.
Hazel Whitmore is now a teenager trying to adjust to living miles from town with no cell service. She does have internet now, although, as is typical in rural Missouri, it is slow, maddeningly slow.
Life should be settling down. That would be a boring book. Books need excitement, things happening. Hazel’s life flares up, target of someone with a grudge in “Mistaken Promises.”.
Once the question of who this someone is was settled, the book draft got written. Now the rewriting and editing are in full swing. Now all the details need attention.
Hazel loves to cook. She started cooking in “Broken Promises” as a way of coping with her hidden grief. Focusing on cooking let her mind relax. Cooking still relaxes her.
Hazel now has cookbooks, her grandmother’s recipe box and new foods to experiment with. These recipes are based on ones I use. I’m a casual cook, liking the process, but rarely having the time for special recipes. I have dietary restrictions and habits so I change recipes to suit these.
This will not work very well for recipes included in “Mistaken Promises.” I will have to follow the recipes – mostly – to make sure they are right before putting them in the book’s recipe section. At present there are fourteen foods Hazel makes. Some are repeats from previous books.
Hazel and Lily will take pictures for the local paper over the summer using their DSLR camera, a lucky find. That is, they will once they decipher the instructions.
My camera is not a DSLR. Luckily I do have access to the proper instruction book. Study time followed by rewrite time is on the agenda.
A county fair is part of the action. I’ve been to county fairs years ago. Still, I plan to check out the local version this year. More details.
At times ignoring these details is tempting. Write it so it sounds right. No one will notice. Wrong.
I remember an old story about the original Star Trek series. A new director wanted Sulu to reach up across his console to do some maneuver. He protested. Yes, the reach would be dramatic, except the button the director wanted pushed was the self destruct button. And the fans would point this out loudly.
Back to researching and fixing all those details.