Category: revising

Happy Friday, Observations, reading, revising, writing

Happy Friday #14: Popping the question, Pelmeni and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

I would love to know what made YOU smile this week 😀

Popped the question: Since I started this new WiP, currently very wisely called UNTITLED, I have been thinking that I probably should snag one of those wonderful Critique Partners everybody is talking about. I have great beta readers for my work PLAYING THE FIRE but who wouldn´t want someone along the way? And I thought about Jaime right away. We have the same taste in books, we both haven’t started the querying process, I really enjoy her blog (she’s funny, insightful and inspirational) and the interaction we’ve been having and I knew that she didn’t have a CP. So, after typing several drafts of an email, I finally sent one with this title:

And she said yes 😀 My hubby made fun of me but I don’t think he understands how nervous we can get when it comes to our writing! I’m so very excited to start this process (and quite lucky because what I’ve read so far makes me want to read more, more, more!)

Writing: This week, I’ve been quite productive when it comes to this new WiP. I love being in Natalja’s head even though she’s dealing with a lot and I’ve managed to write almost 1000 words per day during my commute!

Reading: I finished reading COLD KISS and let me tell you, Erin Bowman was RIGHT! Danny is quite a wonderful boy to have a crush on…he’s dead but the way Wren describes the moments spent with him are enough to have him alive in our minds. There are many times, I wanted to reach out and give Wren a big hug! Plus, Erin mentioned to me yesterday on Twitter that there will be a Sequel! Yay!

Revising: Last weekend, I finished the second round of revisions on PLAYING WITH FIRE and I have one more segment to revise before I go through an editing round.

Cooking: So, my hubby is originally from the Ukraine…his family is Russian/Ukrainian and his mom makes the best pelmeni…plus there is that book I really love taking place in Russia where food plays a big role and I had gotten the cooking book based on it for Christmas last year. So, I finally tried (again) to make pelmeni. And while it does take forever, the result was quite good! Yummy! 😀

 So tell me, what made YOU smile this week?

 

Book Review, Books, Happy Friday, revising, writing

Happy Friday #13 – Jellicoe steals my heart and other stories

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

I would love to know what made YOU smile this week 😀

Friday the thirteeners rock my world: Another of my question has been answered on their website and again, I got to listen to a wonderful reply by Sara Walsh. You should totally check it out here…And I received my copy of COLD KISS which I ordered thanks to the generosity of Erin Bowman (and due to her recommendation). Yep, they rock! and if you haven´t already, you should really add to their truth or dare…

JELLICOE ROAD: I am not done with that book but..I…am…in….love….with…it already. While many warned me that the first 100 pages could be slow, I thoroughly enjoyed them. Maybe cos´ I was prepared for super-slow-what-the-heck-is-going-on? x 100 but nope I got in the story within the first chapter…The plot is layered, the characters are layered. It´s like you read one page and you discover a new string, a new element which you didn´t see coming or which makes you understand the full meaning of what you have read a few pages earlier.

The writing is…beautiful. And Jonah is living up to the high expectations set by the lovely Katy Upperman in this post 😀

Already before reaching page 100, those sentences got me:

“We were playing Rock, Paper, Scissors,” she told him once. “I was paper and she was rock so I lived and she died.” (page 30)

“Not just a name but a state of mind I never want to revisit, although I do keep him at the back of my mind for those times I get my hopes raised about something.” (page 54)

“I´m standing between these two intellectuals while the local photographer snaps away, asking us to say words like holidays and pornography” (page 91)

So yep, I´m about half way through and I missed my bedtime yesterday because I couldn´t put it down.  I suspect the same will happen tonight.

Revising: So I´m still working on the revisions for PLAYING WITH FIRE and it´s really getting somewhere which is super duper cool 😀 It´s definitely not in the final stages yet since I know certain areas still need work but it´s moving forward! My goal is to be done with it before going on honeymoon so that I can send it off to my beta readers before we leave. You know so that I can try not to obsess over their opinions or fight the urge to tweet them constantly 😀 What better way to resist than when you´re on holidays outside of the country?

Writing: I need to organize my schedule to continue working on my new WiP on top of revising. UNTITLED (do you like that title? :D) scares me. It really does. It must be what skydiving is like, jumping in the unknown but I am also very excited about it (so excited I already shared an excerpt here and re-read the comments several times while pinching myself, thank YOU!)

Tell me, what made YOU smile this week? 

Books, Editing, revising, writing

A “Tada” moment or saying goodbye to my darlings…

Elodie

My first round of revisions mainly consisted of changing:

  • the tense (I only figured out in Chapter 22 that I needed to write this in present tense – my novel has 25 chapters, oupsie)
  • the first name of my main character (how did I even think of calling her Laura? She´s an Erin through and through!)
  • one subplot of my story…

It was tedious but necessary. However, it wasn´t painful and when I was done, I thought: I´ve done it! I may have some more changes but nothing too too major. Yep, I had not yet realize what revising could really entail.

 
 

William Faulkner said: “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.” and Stephen King added: “kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings“.

While I accepted this at face value, I didn´t realize what it really meant. I spent two years with that novel already. Scary. While I tried my hand at other stories, it´s the one I always came back to. I rewrote it, I changed some of the subplots along the way but the more I worked on certain parts, the more they became engraved in my heart. Some dialogues, some images, some parts of the story just needed to stay…until I came to a “Tada” realization: my story sucks.

Ok that was dramatic. It doesn´t suck. At all. Actually, it´s pretty great. But the way I was tiptoeing around it, afraid to hurt it had more to do with the fact that I was afraid of hurting my own self-esteem. What I finally saw was how much better my story could become if I actually dared to change it a bit. I am not rewriting the entire thing but I am deleting the first chapter (Tarah´s feedback on it helped with that…I finally saw my story more as a reader than as a writer…), I am changing the curse a bit to make it 1) more dramatic and 2) more coherent. I am adding one or two layers to some of the characters and I am taking the story to another emotional level. It will be a lot of work and it will not be the end of it (since I know more changes will probably come once it´s going through the beta-reading). but it will be worth it.

So, basically, my story with revising has been a bit like this:

 

Source: pinterest.com via Elodie on Pinterest

And even though, I fell on my butt the first time around, the important thing is that I still managed to go back up and transform it into a “Tada” moment 😀

How about you, did you have any “Tada” or “Aha” moments in your writing/revising recently?

Happy Friday, reading, revising

Happy Friday #11 – Little things and big smiles

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday!

Looking forward to knowing what made YOU smile this week!

Revising: I am going through another round of revising. Every morning and every evening in the train, I take out my beloved netbook and correct a lot of my previous silliness. I´ll post more about this on Monday but I think I´ve reached a “Tada” moment in this process and that brings a BIG smile to my face.

Reading: For Tracey´s YA Book club, I´ve read WANDERLOVE last weekend and I cannot talk about it yet but it did make it to my happy friday so it should give you a hint 😀 I´m also reading Stephen King´s ON WRITING and I´m falling in love with this book. I´ll explain the reasons soon and thank you Sara for giving me the slight push to actually dive into this book. If you´ve read those books, don´t hesitate to click on those wonderful bloggies´ links to join the fun!

ChangeWriteNow: A big wave to my team and to all participating. I´m really enjoying the support. We´re scattered all around the world but encouragement is one computer screen away 😀

Pinterest: It had been awhile since I worked (well ok played) with the shiny things on Pinterest….and yesterday I let my fingers run free and  found (among many other things) this quote –

Source: etsy.com via Elodie on Pinterest

The beauty of Twitter: I´ve raved before about how much I like connecting with other writers on Twitter. Really, it´s fun! And thanks to Twitter (and Katy), I came across this video…

“Sh*t Writers say…”

So, tell me, what made YOU smile this week?

revising, writing

What Desperate Housewives taught me about my novel…

Elodie

In case you’re not a Desperate Housewives fan, you do not know that they killed off Mike Delfino. You may be going “Say who?” so here is a little recap: Mike Delfino has been Susan’s love interest since season 1 – they had their ups and downs (a lot of downs) but they found each other (several times) and were finally on a somewhat stable and happy spot.

Mike held a special part in my “Desperate Housewives” fan heart. Not only does he have these rugged good looks which I totally see on my husband, he was supportive, nice, could be funny at times and he protected people.

And then pfff, Mike is shot dead. 5 episodes until the finale and he’s gone, protecting Susan of course. This didn’t make me happy at all (understatement of the week :D) even though my hubby did remind me: “you know the actor is still alive, right?”.


 So what did this little episode teach me about my work-in-progress:

  • It’s ok to be even meaner to my characters while I revise.
  • Even if I get attached to my characters, the unexpected can happen (especially if they put themselves in a dangerous situation)… I cannot hold it off because it may make me sad.

And it reminded me something important:

  • Include a bang, one which will make the readers go: “oh no he/she didn’t”.  Characters may die or survive, they may lose someone close to them or get their heart broken  but they will go through something. When they do, I’d like my readers to dab their eyes, to scream at me for putting them through it, to cry (if they cry). It sounds a bit Cruella Devil to say that but let’s face it, if the readers do go through this while reading one of my novels, I’ve done my job as an author.

Have you ever watched something which reminded me of what you need to do in your novel?

Editing, Observations, revising

The beauty of words or the pulchritude of morphemes?

Elodie

If you have not entered my “I love reading” giveaway, you can still do it :-): You can win 2 books (up to a total of $30): one for you and one for a teenager or a child or a baby you want to share your love of books with.The giveaway is open to all countries that The Book Depository ships to. Just fill out the entry form by Friday March 16th.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet

This famous quote by Shakespeare reminds me of two things 1) he didn’t use any big words, he could have said: “woody perennial of the genus Rosa” but he didn’t, 2) reading Shakespeare for a class at the university in the US was a lot of work for me (which involved using a dictionary very often).

As I go through the process of revising, I worry much more about little details which don’t cross my mind when I write.

Most of you know that English is not my mother tongue. French is. I used to write in French. I could show feelings in French, I could create metaphors easily, I could either use simple terms or play with the so-called “big” words. Since I lived in the US for so long, studied at the university mainly in English or German and now use English pretty much all day, I cannot do this any longer.

I write in English. It comes naturally to me and I love it.

However, I sometimes wonder: is my English good enough?

(for some reason, I just experienced a Zoolander flashback)

Stephen King explained in his book On Writing (by the way, thanks again Sara for organizing a discussion on this book in April 😀 You should join if you already read it or maybe are planning on reading it):

“One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones. This is like dressing up a household pet in evening clothes. The pet is embarrassed and the person who committed this act of premeditated cuteness should be even more embarrassed.”

This made me feel better somehow.

Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy reading novels with big words. I know that the more I read, the more I learn. My vocabulary expands naturally but I cannot force big words into my work. It doesn’t feel right. So I will listen to Stephen King on this and promise to him (and mainly to myself) that no I will never say “John stopped long enough to perform an act of excretion” when I mean “John stopped long enough to take a shit”. (hmm yes I just used the word “shit” and yes it kind of feels weird to have that word on my blog :-)…).

Do you sometimes doubt your vocabulary or your grammar? Do you consciously use big words?

Editing, Giveaway, Happy Friday, reading, revising

Happy Friday #8: Giveaway, Books and Thanks!

Elodie

Yay it’s Friday…and it’s Happy Friday 😀

My fingers have been itching to type this post but I had to stay longer at work so it´s a bit later than usual…Ready? Here are some of the reasons why I smiled this week…

My “I love reading giveaway”: This giveaway is to celebrate my love of reading with all of you. There will be one winner (but I probably will repeat this in a few months) You can win 2 books (up to a total of $30): one for you and one for a teenager or a child or a baby you want to share your love of books with. If you’re a teenager, that’s one for you and one for a friend or somebody younger than you. The giveaway is international (open to all countries that The Book Depository ships to). Just fill out the entry form by Friday March 16th.

Revising: Two weeks ago, I sent my first chapter to Tarah…I was anxious to receive her feedback. How would I react to the possible criticism towards the words I put on paper? What did she think about it? Was it awful? Was it good? and wow, I never thought I would be so happy to see her many comments on this chapter. Tarah: again THANK YOU! She not only took the time to read it but she gave a lot of thoughts to it. She edited some and pointed out where it could actually get “tighter”. I am very grateful because I just have the feeling, that thanks to her, my story is moving forward. It´s getting better. I´m excited to dive into the story again!

Reading: I started reading Incarnate at the beginning of the week. I was not sure what to expect…but I was in for a treat. I had plenty of time while waiting at the French consulate to finally change my papers (got married in August and only getting around to it but that´s another story). I will probably do a full review soon but let me just say that Jodi managed to make me miss my piano even more. I also really enjoyed the world-building, the development and the romance. Right now, I am thoroughly enjoying Amy and Roger´s Epic Detour (thanks Jaime for pointing this book out to me some time ago :D)

So tell me what made YOU smile this week?

Happy Friday, reading, revising

Happy Friday #5: Reading, Revising and Rollers…

Elodie

It’s already the 5th week of “Happy Friday”.  Yay!

Ok I have to admit there will be no rollers in this post…I was just looking for another word starting with the letter “R” 😀

* Happy for Christa: I started following Christa a few weeks ago and I am happy I did  ( I found another Center Stage fan). In case you have not seen Christa´s news, she announced on Wednesday her book deal with SimonPulse. The story of Ani and Ben  is not the kind that will make your heart flutter with happiness, actually it might tear up and break but it seems to be powerful, gut-wrenching. It’s a story which needed to be sent to the world.

* Revising: Chapter 4 and I had a date. We fought. We made up.

* Reading: I am in the middle of a Daughter of Smoke and Bone and wow, Laini Taylor has a magical way with words. I love all the references of men with moustache (for some reasons, this reminds me of one of the short stories from Gogol)

I did a little happy dance yesterday as I joined NetGalley to receive ARCs on my Kindle (thanks to Tarah who posted about currently reading Goddess Interrupted) As you may have guessed from my January books post, I have a lot of time to read…so that will be great to get my fingertips on some not-yet-released-look-at-me-I’m-so-cool-books… And I already got approved for some. (more on them soon…ta ta ta da *that was me building up suspense*)

* On InstaLove by Jaimee: If you have not yet seen Jaimee’s post on InstaLove, go ahead, I’ll wait here.

waits, waits, waits.

Cool, you’re back 🙂 While I do enjoy Valentine’s Day a tad more than Jaimee apparently, I wholeheartedly agree with her take on InstaLove. My heart beats a bit faster when I can see the sparks between people as they first lay eyes on each other call it InstaYummfactor) and then the fireworks when they first interact with one another (call it InstaConnection). I do need the connection though, the laughing or the long discussions. I need something. If there are no explanations or if the love is just based on the looks or does not seem reciprocated (the guy is a jerk, stalker, ignores her completely…) then it can become more of an InstaObsession. While the story can still work if the main character conveys this to the reader (and not just the I am so happy, we’re in love), it needs to develop.

* Honeymoon: And because I just talked about love, I am happy to report that hubby and I have finally booked our flights for our honeymoon (we got married in August). We’re going to the US for 3 weeks. Road Trip. Mustang. Leaving the work Blackberry at home. We’re going to visit dear friends in many States  and spend some time in a Bed and Breakfast in Cape Cod…and I will get to roam the streets of Manchester-By-The-Sea (that is where my WIP takes place…I talked about it in my Dreaming of a Writing Retreat post)…

I wish you all a wonderful week-end and I am looking forward to know what made YOU smile this week 🙂 

reading, revising

My January books :D

Elodie

Yesterday, I posted a letter “Dear Book, it´s not you it´s me” in which I tried to explain to this wonderful novel that this was not the right time for us to become involved. I just figured out why. The book I was trying to read (and only got a few pages in) was in French. I love reading in my mother tongue as it helps me to remember the way the words flow, their melody, their strength and their passion.

However, I am currently revising my first draft – and I write in English. Reading in one language while my brain keeps on calling me back to my manuscript which is in another language just does not work right at the moment. The funny thing is that it does not bother me when I write.

And I did do plenty of reading this month in English. Really, I enjoyed 15 books (see my Goodread shelf for more info): 13 young adult novels and 2 were thrillers 😀

I commute and I took a short writing break after finishing my first draft. Plenty of time. Some of those books took my breath away. Out of 15, it´s difficult to pick only one book and I won´t 🙂 but I will name the ones that sticked with me for a long long time after I put them down.

The Hunger Games trilogy, Divergent, Anna and The French Kiss, The Statistical Probabability of Love at First Sight…

What do all of these books have in common despite being so different?

I felt with the characters on many levels, the voices were amazing and the emotions jumped out of the pages right into my heart 🙂

Which book(s) did you read this month that you simply could not put down?

reading, revising, writing

Dear Book…It’s not you, it’s me

Elodie

I need to apologize to the book I am currently reading. 

It’s just not the relationship it used to be and it is all my fault.

Dear Book,

I am sorry that I am not paying attention to you as I should, or that it is taking me longer to care about the characters. It’s not your fault, it’s mine.

I know you don’t believe me. I see you looking at me with your big dark words. You think I’m just saying it to make you feel better. But it’s true.  I am not ready for a committed relationship  at the moment.

It sounds cliché you say. Please don’t cry. I know you want my fingers on your pages. I promise to come back to you when I feel less distracted. I know I should not be looking at that other book this way but we grew older together. The words on its paper are mine, you see and I recognize their potential. The characters are in my head and they won’t rest until I give them more time.

You are truly a wonderful book and I do love you. I just don’t love you that way yet. Maybe we’ll get there if I give you a try. Maybe you will help me get the voice in my own draft even stronger.

I guess time will tell but in the meantime, please don’t take it personally. I am sure somebody else somewhere already loves you the way you deserve to be loved.

Take care

Elodie

Now tell me 🙂

Do you sometimes get too distracted to really engage in a book ? or how do you deal with revising/reading?