Getting In My Own Way by D.F. Krieger (Author Spotlight)
Tonight, D.F. Krieger visits the blog to discuss the dual role as writer and editor and promote her new release, Panthers and Precincts. I’m very pleased to have her here tonight, not just because I enjoy her stories, she’s also my editor at Breathless Press! Without her, passive voice, telling, and head-hopping would ruin me! Welcome D.F.!
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Getting In My Own Way
Being an author is hard. You have to remember all these rules and stuff. Don’t head hop, don’t enable POV departures, remember to use showing instead of telling, comma splices are bad, m’kay? You want to know what’s worse than being an author? Being an editor by day for a publishing company, and moonlighting as an author in your free time. Why is that bad? Cause you will never write a novel again…unless you can put masking tape over the editor voice in your head.
I’ve seen more than one author who gained a position as an editor with a publishing company. Their writing tapers off to a trickle almost immediately. Once they have a good grasp on editing, the author side of life turns into a drip. That annoying drip that bugs you in the middle of the night. Dink…Dink…Dink dink…*long pause*…dink. Let me tell you from personal experience—it’s maddening. Do you know why this happens? Because we get in our own way.
Personally, I can spend an hour trying to figure out how to write just one sentence.
She smiled at him in joy.
No. Bad! That’s telling. Rewrite it.
Joyfully, she smiled at him.
Awkward sentence with a comma splice. Come on. You know better than this crap. Do it again. Never time to do it right, but always time to do it over. Isn’t that what Mom used to say?
Joy bubbled within her as she smiled at him.
Eh, better. I guess…
Now imagine every single word, sentence, or piece of dialogue with this struggle. Eventually, you become so frustrated you snap your keyboard shut, walk away, and shoot things. Well, it’s what I do. Those zombies really needed to die right this minute anyway, and the book can always wait until later. Except later turns into tomorrow, and the problem with tomorrow is in the fact it is never now.
How do you beat this? The process is easier said than done. Just write. You can always smooth things out and edit them later, but as the saying goes, “You can’t edit an empty page.” I of all people can promise you that turning the editorial part of the brain off is so very difficult. I second guess, I rewrite, and I search for errors that usually aren’t there. The best advice I can give is this: Strap on a set of headphones, blare your best writing music, and drown that editor voice out. (It will scream for a short while, like a kid throwing a tantrum. Let it. Editor Voice is just an attention who-ray!) Get in the zone. Above all, learn to say, “I understand what I’m trying to say here. I’ll come back and flesh it out later but right now I need to worry about getting this scene out.”
When I find myself struggling with the desire to write, I use this dirty little mind game on myself: No editor ever receives credit when authors become best sellers. ~ D. F. Krieger
Stop by and LIKE D.F. Krieger’s official Facebook Page and the Faxfire Series Fan Page!
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Meet Zeara—zoologist, crime solver, and crazy cat lady. Throw a literate panther and a sexy detective into the mix and watch the trouble ensue.
People didn’t just happen to “drop by for a visit” at midnight. Whoever was on the other side of that door either had a good reason, one that she probably didn’t want to hear, or would wish they had once she finished tearing them apart.
Dr. Zeara Faxfire and her side-kick cat, Magic, are on the case when a panther is discovered during a police investigation of a missing boy. The fact the panther can write is only slightly scarier than Zeara’s attraction to Detective Markovich. Add a little magic, some mayhem, and scientific proof of the paranormal, and she ends up knee-deep in trouble. Can she find the missing boy, solve the riddle of the panther, and face her own past before time runs out? Or will the only way to give everyone a happy ending come at the expense of the job she loves?
Pick up your copy of Panthers and Precincts today at Breathless Press, Amazon, or ARe!
