On editing my first true professional release…

Writing has become a rather comforting ritual.  When I started, I won’t lie, it was an enormous chore.  Trying to structure my thoughts into words was not exactly laborious, but was very involved.  I had a lot of things getting in the way, not the least of which was my desire to make every word I put to paper absolutely perfect.  Almost half a year into my new lifestyle, however, I realize that writing is not about creating absolutely perfect words every single time your fingers hit the keys.  It’s about being willing to create words even when they aren’t going to be winners.  You just have to get into the muck and start shoveling for all you’re worth.  There’s a very real sense of zen within that frame of mind.  I lose myself in the words I write, fingers almost moving automatically, as I pour my heart and mind onto the paper each day.  No matter what happens in my life, no matter the ups and downs, each day I have a couch, headphones, a wonderful blanket, and a laptop to keep me warm.  I guess human beings truly are most comforted by rituals.  It’s odd, that realization. 

I’m chomping at the bit to get my copy of Temple in the Stars back from Karyn.  She’s taking the time necessary to do a good job, and that’s always and forever what I care about.  I would like to advance the story, release the first part, and begin avidly working on the second one.  I have the overall bones of the story that I’m trying to tell, but I’d really like to make sure each release is congruent with the next.  It’s so easy to get lost in writing several installments ahead, only to have the story dramatically shift under the guiding hands of the editor.  And make no mistake, having an outside voice to provide reason and direction for your work is beyond vital.  Part of why I continue to write these posts, these story installments, is to engender a sense of community and the commentary that goes with it.  Feedback is a writers most vital asset.  You can’t write in a bubble, because you’ll hardly ever get any better that way.  If you make a mistake, and continue making that mistake until it has become an ingrained part of your writing, you’re in for an enormous headache trying to correct it.  So when I realized how I wished to proceed with growing my professional career, I knew I would need to find an editor to help keep me in line. 

Getting the draft ready for her was also an enormous challenge in and of itself.  This is a woman who considers me a talented writer, even when I do not think of myself as such.  To say I was nervous to hand her a document for a highly critical and in depth review is to do a disservice to the word.  Mind-numbing panic might be a more accurate description of my frame of mind.  Yet there was nothing for it.  This is something that I want to do with my life, something that I need to do with my existence.  I want to create.  I want to grow, I want to struggle, I want to engage.  I want to finally find the limits of all that I can accomplish.  I knew right away that I would never hand the first draft of anything over to someone for review.  That’s… dishonest.  The first draft of anything, barring those individuals gifted enough to have great first drafts, is not fit for human consumption.  So it behooved me to edit the thing first, then send it off to get edited.

To start with, I gathered up what I had posted here on Temple in the Stars.  Not a small amount, something like twelve thousand words.  Then, I began a start to finish rewriting of the story.  Tighten things up here, remove things that didn’t work on second glance there, just going line by line through the story to make sure it was just that: a story.  It’s easy to sit here and vomit out words to reach a certain number.  It’s much harder to make those words actually accomplish anything.  So I had make sure I accomplished something with Temple, as it is the flagship of my professional career.  I had to pick a length, which ended up being about ten thousand words.  It wasn’t easy either.  The draft that I was working on ballooned to over 20k words.  That’s not short story material at all.  I want Temple to be something easily consumed on the Kindle platform I will be calling home for the foreseeable future.  You want a story that is both engaging, as well as easily consumed.  Something that can be read, or re-read, during a morning commute.  Something that can be read in a short car ride, or during an office break.  That’s how you get people.  So my goal was to keep it under ten thousand if possible.  I still think something like six thousand will be the ideal entry length.  However, that will come with time and experimentation.

So once the re-write was accomplished, I needed to do one last edit.  This edit took a Herculean effort on my part.  I’ve never made my struggles a secret.  Depression and ADHD do not a good combination make for the consistent focus required to do an out loud reading edit of my work.  It was slow going, taking the better part of thirteen hours to accomplish.  The word count once more grew, going from a slimmed down eight thousand back up to ten thousand once more.  The issue is that a book is vastly different when it is read aloud.  I cannot lie, I loathe entirely the words “he said” or “she said”.  If it kills my earnings or writing speed, I swear to all things holy I will avoid those words like the plague.  You can write dialog without them, it’s not hard.  It just takes more effort, and the out loud reading of your work becomes imperative to actually succeeding at it.  As the great John Scalzi also notes, writing in this fashion will make you a better writer.  You’re forced to develop a stronger voice for each of your characters, so that readers don’t become lost transitioning in a conversation.  Further, you’re forced to put in more actual writing, rather than relying on the artificial word count created by having so many dialog notations.  Think about it, in a book that crests a hundred thousand words, how easy would it be to have a few thousand of those be “he/she said”?  Not hard to believe, and I’d much rather that the words I write serve a true purpose.  So, better or worse, richer or poorer, more or less writing, doesn’t matter.  That’s my stance.

So when all was said and done, I was required to touch the work I sent to my editor three times, start to finish.  The first part was my work generating the content, which occurred organically on this here website.  Second was the total and complete breakdown of what I had generated into useful material, while refining, redirecting, and making sure to jettison superfluous nonsense which served no purpose other than inflating the word count I set myself when generating content.  (Protip: That’s the only time word count should matter.  It helps to have a goal to force yourself to write more at the start of a project.)  Once the total and complete rewrite was finished, I did the out loud edit to make sure everything made sense when read aloud.  You’d be amazed at how many things required touching up, even after the rewrite was finished.

Don’t forget: The paper is still being edited.  This will happen, according to my understanding, in a few waves.  First, I’ll get back her full edit, complete with her opinions on everything on the story.  I will go through, tweak, twist, and reassemble things in a fashion that addresses what she has pointed out.  Some of it will involve me making executive decisions on some things.  However, I’m going to keep those few and far between.  She is a professional editor for a reason.  It behooves me to rely on her judgement.  Then, I will send the edited story back, she will look it over once more, then she will send it back one last time.  I’ll touch up anything that she and I both feel is still an issue.  Then it goes to the beta readers for proofing and feedback. 

This is not a small process.  I’m kind of amazed at just how much is required to produce professional material.  However, that having been said, I am proud that I’m taking the time to do my work this way.  It would be so easy to take my work straight off the website, slap it into Kindle, and call that good enough.  Many men and women do just that.  I want more for myself however.  I want to see my name on a book, with Tor on the spine.   I want that, I need that moment in my life.  So I have to demonstrate that I’m able to function in a professional environment.  Nothing says that more than having my career start that way right out of the gates. 

Editfully,
Justin