Tag: editing

What´s Up Wednesday

What’s up Wednesday? The editing edition ;-)

Elodie

WUW7

What´s up Wednesday is the brainchild of Jaime and Erin. It´s a weekly meme geared toward readers and writers, allowing us to touch base with blog friends and let them know what’s up. Should you wish to join, make sure to leave a link to your What’s Up Wednesday post in the widget on Jaime´s blog or Erin‘s blog.

What I´m reading

 I think I’m going to start BEHIND THE SCENES by the lovely Dahlia Adler.

What I’m Writing Editing

I am editing ONE DREAM ONLY and…I think I’m doing it the right way because I ended up bursting into tears while writing an additional scene.
It is a sad scene.
Sad, I tell you.

What else I´ve been up to

 Preparing for my cover reveal on September 2nd. Do you want to help me with the reveal, you can sign up here 🙂

What inspires me right now

The reviews ONE, TWO, THREE is getting.

Thank you again so much everyone for taking the time to read and review. It means the world.

It totally makes me smile to know that people really do fall in love with Nata and Tonio.

“With compelling characters and sudden musings, this book is sure to break your heart and make you sing at the same time.” Girl in the Woods
 
“One, Two, Three was everything that I hoped for, from the parts dealing with ballet, to Nata and Tonio and each of their families, to the romance that I just couldn’t get enough of.”Books Live Forever.
 
“Definitely give this one a read!” Cait from Royal Social Media.
 
“The ups and downs Natalya experiences were beautifully written and very realistic.” Gabic reads. 

“One, Two, Three is a beautiful novel which will definitely leave you in a “reading slump” for days.” Bookaholic Reads.

I can’t wait to check all your posts and see what you’ve been up to 🙂

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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?

Editing, personal, Query, writing

Don´t be scared…

Elodie

That would be me hiding away on Friday after posting my draft query to be reviewed. I thought “hmm sounds good…let’s get this baby rolling”…After receiving some very constructive feedback, I realized “hmmm that sucked”

The wonderful thing about feedback is that it helps to make us better and stronger. Plus, I realized there was something positive in my very crappy-I´m-even-wondering-if-I-should-not-delete-the-message-on-forum-first-query (somebody liked my voice in that mess :-))

I also appreciated something else which for somebody a tad perfectionist can be difficult: I will not be perfect at my first-go. This will take time and it’s ok. I am swimming in unknown waters. Finishing the first draft is just the first step in a looong process. On a brighter note, I started editing and even though it is kicking my butt, I can see my story getting to a better place 🙂

Now, tell me 🙂

What do you do when you just want to put your paws (huh I mean hands) in front of your face?