Tag: Editing

Transition From PM to AM…

Ah, the best-laid plans… am I right?

I was a fool to think this holiday would be rife with gaming, reading and writing. We just moved into a new home! There are boxes to unpack! Floors to clean! Furniture to buy! A property to sell! The list goes on, and on, and on… and… well, you get the gist of it.

On top of all that I was in no way, shape or form a handyman prior to moving here. In fact, it wasn’t until we bought this place I’d worked with concrete. I’d certainly never used a pickaxe (I foolishly thought shovels had come a long way, I was wrong). What was a drill bit? I’d seen 8, 16, 32 bits… But Sonic and Mario had never taught me how to use a hole saw. In the past week, I’ve donned many a hat; from plumber (no goombas were hurt in my adventure) to carpenter and labourer to janitor. Thank god for YouTube!

I have written a bit, just not as much as I wanted to. Then again, it never is. I had a lofty goal of setting myself into a routine in the new house. New home, new me. I swore it, by the old gods and the new! Ha ha ha! I laugh aloud, well more in hushed tones so I don’t trigger a barking fit from the pups in the laundry below, but alas the feeling is the same. I’ve been a fool! Three weeks, squandered on moving and eating and cleaning and sleeping and all for what?

*SIGH*

I am the very definition of a writer: suffering from extreme anxiety, sorrow, or pain.

Oh no, wait… that’s the definition of distressed. My apologies. I think that may stem from work calling me back early from holidays. Imagine having six days left, suddenly to have it become five with no actual passing of time! I hadn’t travelled to the future! I stared at my phone for what felt like another day, as I was already wasting the day at hand waiting for people to service our windows and quote us for flyscreens.

They need me. I thought. Normally, there’s a good feeling attached to that.

Fast forward to this evening, I’ve been reading an extended family member’s memoir and there’s always this guilty feeling I get when I’m reading. You should be writing. But reading is good too! Who knew even my imaginary friends would end up peer pressuring me? I’m an adult goddamnit! I’ll do what I want! Oddly, in editing through her writing I’ve suddenly become more aware of things I do as well; Punctuation I don’t use enough of, some I use too much of, run on sentences. I was just too close to see.

Not only has editing her work helped but much of her writing is entertaining. I’ve found myself chuckling through more than a few of her experiences and wishing I was living nearby now. Not just because she’s living in one of my favourite countries in the world, but I’d like to discuss writing in person. That being said I could find more people here to write with and discuss our stories, however, there is a lot of poetry focus nearby and as much as I enjoy poetry… I need to discuss my stories with people who are excited by the same thing I am. It helps with the motivation and also keeps the gears turning.

At one in the morning, however, I sit tapping away at my illuminated keys for a blog post as opposed to editing or creating. Why I don’t know, but if I’m ever to be a published author, eventually I will have to knuckle down and give it a fair go, especially with my NaNoWriMo plan slowly progressing. As for now, I should probably sleep before I stop making any sense. I am a writer who dares not to drink coffee, so wish me luck!

My First Query Letter Attempt

So… Hindsight… 20/20… Yadda Yadda.

I imagine the folks at HarperCollins who may have received my manuscript for Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse most likely opened the file for a single moment before deleting it. Harsh right?

No.

In fact, now, I wouldn’t blame them.

I kind of let my excitement and nerves get in the way of rationale and sanity. When I sent it through, first I hoped I’d sent the right file. Second, I hoped I’d sent the right story. Third, I abandoned all hope and wrote the whole ordeal off as a mistake. Back to square one? Don’t mind if I do!

Fast forward… uhh… to a few weeks ago. I started getting Writer’s Digest emails because I’d been looking at their Writer’s Market books. This all stemmed from my partner asking her favorite author, Diana Gabaldon, for some advice on writing for me. She actually replied and with some good tips to boot! On her recommendation, I began to look into the Writer’s Market books but couldn’t take the plunge. Just too expensive in my mind and I couldn’t really get a feel for what they were actually about.

As if by some divine guidance, an email dropped into my inbox.

Now 75% Off! 2017 Writer‘s Market Books!

75%?! That had to be wrong. I mean, I know the 2018 editions are coming soon but 75%? That meant I could get five books from there including shipping and it would cost me less than two of them with free shipping from Book Depository (let’s not even talk local bookstore pricing, yeesh). The order was placed with the support and approval of my lovely partner (who by now was wondering why I hadn’t already bought them).

Shut-up-and-take-my-money

Then, as if guided by the hands of fate herself, the books arrived in record time from the US and just in time for my day off. Not only that but we were informed our house may be ready by the end of next month, which means my writing room could be right around the corner!

As everything falls into place, I began reading the beginning of Writer’s Market 2017 which has a wonderful section about query letters. These are essentially the resume cover letter that we were taught about back in high school, but geared toward the writing industry and your product. It’s not just me I’m trying to sell anymore (yes, I see what I wrote there… close enough) but it’s the story too. Limiting yourself to a single page for all the important details is a fun challenge (read: the tears come at night) but I think I’ve managed.

The question is, what do you think?

<Insert El Editor’s Details Here>

Dear El Editor,

My 98,000 word novel, Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse, is fantasy fiction in the same vein as the Harry Potter series of novels but with a hint of influence from Star Wars as well.

Jefferson is a teen orphan whose feeling of being the outsider leads him to seek out the circus for its oddities and curiosities. Here, he discovers a performing magician, Gabriel, who introduces the boy to the wonders of real magic.

Finding his place in a secret society of magicians, Jefferson walks a dangerous line between the rise of forbidden arts and learning magic. As Gabriel becomes more erratic and dangerous, Jefferson finds he is the key to saving or defeating him.

From cursed magicians and multiple personality disorders to magical battles and time travel, Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse is familiar to fans of fantasy while taking a new approach to the question, “Where does magic come from?”

Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse would ideally fit in with Harry Potter or Dragonlance series of novels. Your website noted that you were seeking out fantasy novels over 75,000 words and this fits those criteria.

I have been writing and editing many of my shorter works for the below website and blog. My short story, Circle of Vengeance, was critiqued and edited more than twenty times before being self-published. You can find this on my website below as well as at lulu.com and on the iBooks store.

As stated in your guidelines I have enclosed the first 30 pages. Thank you for your time and consideration of my novel, Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse.

Sincerely,

TJ Edwards

<Insert My Details Here>

Let me know if there’s anything I could do better! I need all the help I can get!

Also… any tips out there for submitting manuscripts?

Thanks a bunch, as always you folks are legendary!

One Week(ish)

So last Wednesday I submitted the first fifty pages of Jefferson & The Magician’s Curse to HarperCollins’ Wednesday Post. I’ve been checking my email roughly one hundred times a day on the off chance I’m something that they’re looking for. That being said, I’m still not even sure if they’re back to work yet but I hope so. It kills me that my iPhone won’t alert me to new emails… some sort of glitch I assume as I’ve centuple checked the settings to the point where I’m starting to wear swipe marks into my screen protector.

That aside, I have definitely enjoyed being back on the blog and it feels really good to get back into writing regularly. Not that video games aren’t fulfilling, but it doesn’t have that same satisfaction of writing something to completion. Although I do have the Jet Pack in Fallout 4 and I am abusing its power to get pretty much everywhere.

My writing as of late has been entirely history, backgrounds and character descriptions. The reason for all of this? I’m trying to cut down on inconsistencies in my writing. Once a person’s eye colour is mentioned, it should always be that colour. Hopefully. Also, I really want to flesh out the main areas for the story so that I can keep them alive. Some of the hardest things for me as an author is describing scenes when that isn’t the most important thing that is going on.

Take this example. I can remember vividly the conversation I had with my Mother when my Father had passed away. Do I remember what I was wearing? Do I remember where I was? Do I remember what was around me in the room?

The answer is no, no and no. I remember the following vague details: I was most likely wearing jeans and a collared shirt, I was at work and I remember I was in the office. I remember pacing back and forth as the conversation went on, but I always do that. The rest of that day is more of a blur. I’m not saying this because I’m looking for sympathy, but I’m saying those details did not matter. So in a scene involving the death of a character, I probably won’t be using all of the senses. I’ll be more importantly using the emotions of the protagonist and supporting characters because that is why the scene is there.

That being said, keeping a busy scene hustling and bustling while the characters are a part of the scene is something I managed to accomplish in this story. There used to be the initial description setting the scene, and then the characters acted around it like everyone stood around like statues. Now, there is a flow where the busy street is experienced through the protagonist’s eyes. Do I have room to improve? Always!

Anyway, as I plot out the next two novels in the Jefferson Trilogy, I can’t help but remember how hard it was to actually write a novel in the first place. The only thing that really got me there in the end was putting one word after the other. NaNoWriMo was a fantastic help for that, and now that I know I can write a novel, the next one is that much easier.

How are you all doing out there? Is your writing going to plan?

Just remember, you’ll never find the time to write… if you don’t make the time.