Tag: revising

Happy Friday, revising, writing

Happy Friday #26 – WriteOnCon, revising and other stories…

Elodie

Yay, it´s time for Happy Friday 😀 Looking forward to know what made you smile this week!

 

WriteOnCon: This conference – wow. No, really: wow!!! Here are my favourites

And I got to ask questions in the chat, which totally humbled me, and I simply loved it. Loved all of it. All those advice, the passion, all the talent, really amazing, those wonderful people giving their time!!! And congrats to everyone who got feedback by the Ninja Agents!

Webinar by Sara Megibow “Ten Queries In Ten Tweets”: I signed up for this webinar and I am super excited. Yes, I will have to get up in the middle of the night to attend (technically I could also just watch the video later but I want to be there :P) I’m very much looking forward to absorb and discuss.

Revision: This week has been full of revisions. I received feedback from Taryn on my first ten pages (thanks to the fact I was one of the 3 winners of her query contest) and wow, she really is amazing. I think my chapter one is ready and powerful. My CP and beta readers also have so much patience with me as I’ve reworked that chapter SO. MANY.TIMES. But I think thanks to them  it was all worth it because the stakes are clearer, and the reader can really connect with Natalja from the beginning now. I’ve also been working on formatting, on strengthening some sentences, diversifying their lengths and all. And it truly feels like something amazing is happening as I do this, it’s like all strings are pulling together to make my novel better. And I’m falling in love with it all over again.

Reading: I read two books of Jennifer Echols (inspired by the fact that Jessica Love was gushing about her) this week and I’m now an official fan 😀

And I’m looking forward to the weekend…It’s a pretty special one for many reasons, celebrating my birthday tomorrow and on Sunday, an early celebration of our anniversary 🙂

I’m just lucky!

So, tell me what made you smile this week?

revising, writing

Revising and rewriting…

Elodie

I finally updated my projects page as I’ve noticed more and more visitors click on it. Everybody can finally see what I’m working on 😀 Oh and remember, WriteOnCon starts tomorrow! So exciting…

As most of you know, I am currently revising ONE TWO THREE and I’m loving the process of it. Really! Seeing the manuscript transform, deepen, reach its potential is truly beautiful and fun. Not always easy but so worth it.

For me, revisions can include creating/deleting a character or adding/deleting scenes but I am not tearing the entire manuscript apart. I am not starting anew.

What this made me realize is that my first manuscript currently entitled PLAYING WITH FIRE could not be revised. Or it could but the amount of work required would not make it a revision, it would be a rewrite.

Wiki Commons

A rewrite means that I am completely rewriting the novel. The main plots will stay the same, some scenes might stay  similar but the story will change. I have a basis point but the canvas is almost blank.

Gasp.

I have so many ideas in my mind for future novels but Erin and Aleksi were begging me to reconsider their story, to give them a proper voice. So, I asked myself (and Twitter) THE question:

I received many helpful comments, including to listen to the loudest voices in my head. (by the way I love it that nobody probably stopped at this sentence except my hubby who must have rolled his eyes and said: “voices in her head. Wonderful”)

And after thinking about it, I went with my feelings and the loudest voices. And I’m having a blast. Erin is turning out to be this fun character to write because I finally know her. And I know Aleksi too. My main problem with the previous draft was not the difficulty of keeping track of every event (even though it was) but the fact that Aleksi and Erin were not real. Right now, I can have conversation with them. Which I don’t. Not really. You know what I mean 😀

So, tell me have you ever decided to rewrite instead of revising?

Are those things the same for you?

Blogme MAYbe, Happy Friday, personal, revising, writing

Happy Friday #16: Twitter, In Honor and other stories…

Elodie

Yay! It´s time again for Happy Friday! and it works well with the BlogMe MAYbe prompt for Fridays: May I share something funny? I am very much looking forward to know what made you laugh or smile this week.

A lot of things made me laugh this week, lines from books I do not want to spoil for you, my hubby (but I doubt he’d like me to share his silliness…) My Tweet feed also cracked me up this week because let’s face it those people are awesome! Here are just three from the past two days…

Reading: I read some wonderful books this week and just finished IN HONOR by Jessi Kirby. This book….Honor, Rusty, Finn, the road, the stars, the sea…Sad, funny, emotional, adorable, hopeful…If you do not have it on your TBR yet and you enjoy YA contemporary that may kick you in the gut but help to put back the pieces, then you definitely should add it. I added MOONGLASS to mine after reading this  novel to dive again into Jessi’s writing.

Writing & Revising: I had to tackle some revisions concerning the part of my story which takes place in 16th century France. I am not  100% done but it’s getting there. When it comes to my YA contemporary romance, I am making slow but steady progress (I have reached 6000 words this week :D) and I’m loving it…Talking about loving, reading Jaime’s work totally rocks…If you do not have a CP yet, really go grab one!

Yummy food: You know how much I love food, really, food is good! 😀 Well this week I got spoiled in that area. Not only did my hubby take me to a very nice restaurant last Saturday, he also cooked one of my favorite dishes on Monday. Yes, he is wonderful!

Hmmm chocolate
Hmm Hubby can cook

Honeymoon update: I am very excited because not only are we going to go see EVITA in NYC, we also got some tickets to see THE DAILY SHOW! Yay!

Wow, that’s a long Happy Friday post but before I ask you my usual Friday question, I’d like to share something else which made me smile and that is The Kindness Project, you should totally check it out 😀

Now, please tell me what made you smile or laugh 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

Happy Friday #7 – A smile is worth a thousand words…

Elodie

Yay it’s Friday…and it’s Happy Friday 😀 Hope you had a wonderful week!

* Valentine’s Day: February 14th put a big grin on my face. Your comments brightened my day and….hubby got me those beautiful flowers. Yes, my hubby is wonderful and patient and funny and charming and so smart! I am thankful.

* Writers’ Platform-Building Campaign: Thank you Rachael for this opportunity. It’s fun hopping around 😀

* ChangeWriteNow: You know this wonderful opportunity where you set yourself goals and have the great support system of your team and others. Many of you commented that you would have liked to join. Cory, Sarah & Gina are preparing round 2. It’s really fun! Don’t hesitate to sign up here!

* Revising: I am almost half-way through the first round of revising. Nobody has read it through yet but soon enough it will be ready to be sent out to my wonderful beta-readers 😀

*Anna and The French Kiss: I re-read that book this week. I was in need of a lift-me-up novel and I knew it would definitely make me smile to fall in love again with Anna & Etienne. It did. Thank you Stephanie Perkins!

So tell me what made you smile this week?

(oh and be prepared for a loooong post this weekend…I have been tagged by several wonderful bloggers which means I have a lot of questions to answer 😀 Should be fun!)

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?