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Agony Aunt
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Today I mostly wrote ... the word count thread.
Alicia wrote: "Finally. Finished 24.111 - over 2K scene - and listened to it. I do my fine-tuning that way. Amazing what you catch when the robot voice reads your deathless prose back like a zombie.Believe it o..."
Well done Alicia. Yes, I have done that several times with the tome I'm currently going through for one last time before self publishing.
Nice going everyone. I am going on holiday tomorrow, to France, to eat and drink wine, so as you can imagine, I'm delighted to have just hatched a cold. Rhymes with clanging bell.
Arse.
MTM
Here are some cold germs so you can hurl invective at them.
Yeah, he's the one who makes your nose run like a tap.
It's the one with a saw going at my throat I really want to squash!
That's the grumpy purple dude.
Well done, Alicia. Having announced that I'd written 'The End' to the current WIP over a year ago, I'm thinking that such joyful announcements should wait until the amendments following the editing have been done - at least in my case!
I'll second that, having just had a last round of edits back on the revisions to the earlier revisions for Demon's Reach.
Elizabeth wrote: "Well done, Alicia. Having announced that I'd written 'The End' to the current WIP over a year ago, I'm thinking that such joyful announcements should wait until the amendments following the editi..."
No. You must celebrate every milestone connected with a book - that was the end of a draft. A professional then polishes further - if the book needs it. And gets another milestone.
There aren't enough celebrations - writing is a lonely business.
Alicia wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Well done, Alicia. Having announced that I'd written 'The End' to the current WIP over a year ago, I'm thinking that such joyful announcements should wait until the amendments f..."
But as Terry Pratchett is quoted as saying, it's "as much fun as you can have working on your own".
Bunches of snippets (it's how a scene clumps together), but I'm not counting anything until it self-assembles like a robot on Mars, which it should do today or tomorrow.Honestly, I have no idea where this stuff comes from, even when I deliberately ask for it. The 'how' is always a mystery.
pondering how deep the trouble is I could land myself in.Writing an article about the fighting in Warsaw and of course they used a lot of petrol bombs and in the books I've got (all written before 1970) they discuss manufacturing them.
And I check on the web to make sure they're right
And now I'm wondering how much of this stuff I can use because I'm going into a fair bit of detail about stuff......
Quite a worry these days, of course.You don't want to be accused of adding fuel to the fire
There's no smoke......(we use white phosphorous for that......)
Elizabeth wrote: "Well done, Alicia. Having announced that I'd written 'The End' to the current WIP over a year ago, I'm thinking that such joyful announcements should wait until the amendments following the editi..."
I feel the same. It's six months since I signed a publication contract for my debut novel Not Too Old for Love: Grace's turmoil, and only the editing is finished. I'm still waiting for the first round of suggestions from the proofer, and then there's still the cover artwork to agree.
Peter
1305 words self-assembled today. No other way to describe it. Individual pieces wrote themselves; then there was only one path through that made sense. Tomorrow - finish and polish.
Holidaying. Keep up the good work everyone.
A touch over a thousand today. Shan't get chance tomorrow.
I've been taking some time off actual writing to try submitting already written pieces around the place. Some of them are selling, although sadly for peanuts.
Will wrote: "I've been taking some time off actual writing to try submitting already written pieces around the place. Some of them are selling, although sadly for peanuts."yes I'm doing a fair bit of that recently, accepting the peanuts on the understanding that my name gets out there a bit
If I get in a magazine and 2000 people read my story and like it, and I get paid a tenner, even if nobody follows up and buys a book; it has to be better than spending a tenner to get 2000 clicks and no sales on facebook
Peter wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "Well done, Alicia. Having announced that I'd written 'The End' to the current WIP over a year ago, I'm thinking that such joyful announcements should wait until the amendments f..."
Good for you, having a publication contract. I decided not to wait for any publishing companies to get their act together (I could be dead by then...). The only person inhibiting my progress is me - I intend to use the same formatter and cover designer I used for my first book when I'm ready.
Alicia wrote: "1305 words self-assembled today. No other way to describe it. Individual pieces wrote themselves; then there was only one path through that made sense. Tomorrow - finish and polish."The remainder - another 700 words - gelled around (after adding and removing a bit) the previous stuff, and the scene is finished.
Al I need is a few hours of brain - and it seems so obvious. The next one is started. With brain - I'm a writer. Without - I'm not. Very simple. And it's just not up to me most of the time. Very frustrating.
As long as it keeps coming back, I'm okay. I'm ignoring the large pieces of my calendar inhabited by drugs and medical people earlier this year. No point in dwelling on what you can't change. My version of stiff upper lip-ness. Just get on with it.
Everyone walks through life with a heavy load - some (even presidents) just don't know it.
The rest of today will be, oh joy, financial calculations.
Sadly the palm pilot i brought with me has run flat at some stage and the keyboard no longer works withoutafile I don't have. However I've done some stuff longhand while sunning myself by the pool. About 2,000 words?Chuffed.
Well done! I'm taking a break now - got some serious reading I promised to do, and a little bit of family visiting is approaching, which I shall enjoy!
Writing longhand feels great. After all, you get to do a first edit when you transfer it back to computer.I'm still deep in the final production edits for Demon's Reach
That's very true Will. :-) Kath, enjoy your mini break.
And Demon's Reach is done. I'm going to put it out on pre order, see if that helps drive some sales
Well done. It sounds as if my lovely, lovely editor has died. I am praying that both I and the lady who told me have been misinformed. Gutted if it's true.
M.T. wrote: "Well done. It sounds as if my lovely, lovely editor has died. I am praying that both I and the lady who told me have been misinformed. Gutted if it's true."Oh Mary, that's so sad if true. Hope it isn't.
Sadly it is. We were about to start work on a short I wrote. She was great fun to work with so I was really looking forward to it. Bit gutted to be honest.
Really sorry to hear that Mary. Sounds like its a blow on a personal level as well as a professional level.
It's a bit of a disaster on both a personal and fiscal level. We were mid edit and just about to get to the bit where we bat emails backwards and forwards which was always fun and I was really looking forward to it. She was suffering from stress so I was trying to leave her alone and not bother her but we usually emailed a fair bit anyway. She could make me laugh out loud. The fiscal disaster is that now I have to find another editor who can give a big five level edit for the kind of cash I can afford. Luckily the thing in progress is a short so at least I can ask people to try a few.Ho hum.
MTM
So sorry, if it's true. I understand it can be a very intense relationship.
That's awful, Mary. So sorry. My editor has just been diagnosed with a bad form of diabetes, and adjusting to his meds is proving tough going for him, so I empathise, a bit
Yep, it's true. Very sudden. In fact if you've read goodnight sweetheart by Darren Humphries, it's that kind of sudden, heart stops and nobody knows why kind of death. Although I think Kate was older, in her late 50s maybe. So, same age as McOther basically. It's fairly sobering.Cheers
MTM
That's young, and very sad. Sympathies.
Too right. Back at you for your chap. It is doubly difficult when you feel a lot of sympathy for someone's plight but at the same time, have loads of stuff on the brink of completion and nowhere to put it! BUT don't want to overload them and stress them ... !
Well ... have had a few quotes from Editors but while they seem lovely people they are hugely expensive. Have decided I can't go for American pay per word folks. Sending a query to David Walling (as in Auto) this morning. Apparently he, too, edits. Cheers
MTM
M.T. wrote: "Well ... have had a few quotes from Editors but while they seem lovely people they are hugely expensive. Have decided I can't go for American pay per word folks. Sending a query to David Walling (a..."It always struck me that the way to make money out of writing is to charge writers for your services
I note with interest that the artists who provide the cover, the editors and suchlike are all paid well in advance of publication.
M.T. wrote: "Well ... have had a few quotes from Editors but while they seem lovely people they are hugely expensive. Have decided I can't go for American pay per word folks. Sending a query to David Walling (a..."I use him. He'll give you a decent quote and he quotes per 1000 words. Much easier for you to work out - for me, anyway!
I've booked him for a 2k non fiction and to edit the short Kate was half way through editing - or a new short if I can find someone to finish that/the confidence to release it myself - next Feb. So that's one sorted but I sense I may need more than one person. ;-) Going on his business and my ability to adhere to deadlines I will have to be booking him with 6 or 7 months' slack to realistically meet a prearranged slot!
I've already told him I'll shuffle around. I'm booked for September and December so far with some others in an unspecified future!You can book a slot when you're still working on it, then juggle it around if need be.
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Penderyn is rather smooth and lovely, yes. And Felinfoel is well named!