I turned in the book!

It's a gut-twisty feeling. This must be what a guy feels like right after he asks his girlfriend to marry him. There is the thought, "This could be the best day ever!" but it's mixed with "Pleasepleaseplease don't reject me and make me cry like a little girl."

There is happiness with a finished draft. There is anxiety about the impending revision letter. Like last time I'll post any non-plot-spoiling editorial comments here on the blog to help demystify the publication process for those of you who are headed down this road.

One funny thing. It's been so long since I've turned in Dead Lift that I couldn't remember my own pre-submission checklist items. I had to look them up in the blog archives.  While looking, I rediscovered Ode to Revisions from back in 2010. Apparently, I'd blocked it from memory.

A coincidence, or perhaps not, is that both Ode to Revisions (2010), which I have no recollection of writing, and Ode to First Draft (2012), which I do, include the phrase "wear me down" in the first two lines. Apparently this is a running theme with me.

Maybe revisions kill more brain cells than alcohol.

What happens when you listen to audiobook Disk 2 before Disk 1?

Nothing really. Which I found remarkable.

I'd never read The Devil Wears Prada (Lauren Weisberger) or seen the film, but plenty of my girlfriends have loved it, so when I saw the audiobook at the library, I picked it up. Rachel Leigh Cook did a fabulous job narrating and I was completely immersed in the story when Disk 1 ended and I reached for Disk 2, which turned out to be the real Disk 1.

Huh?

Had I really just jumped into a novel partway through and not noticed?

Yes. Thank you, library patron who borrowed this audiobook before me.

I struggled with how to handle it. Put in Disk 1 and catch up on what I'd missed in the opening chapters? Or stay in the flow and go forward with Disk 3?

I went on to Disk 3.

The remainder of the book was as entertaining as I'd hoped and I had no trouble following along. When it ended, I went back and played Disk 1, finding that it didn't reveal anything I should have known to enjoy the rest of the story. The mistake actually reminded me of something I often hear in writing circles, which is that many of us open the action in our novels too soon. In fact, with Dead Lift, one of my critique partners told me to open the book with Chapter 4. That is the scene that now appears as Chapter 1 in the published copy.

My audiobook gaffe was amusing. I learned two things: Read the labels on audiobooks. And I want to rent this movie. :)

Dance (and write?) Like Nobody's Watching

Today at the Stiletto Gang: how good friends prevent a writer from looking stoopid.

Before Sending Off Your Novel

My friend Chris La Tray posted this excellent find today. I confess I'm guilty of many of these in my early drafts. The trick is spotting and fixing them on later passes, before the world sees.

Ode to Revisions

You wear me down
Make me confused
I type in words I have already used

Forgot that guy's name
Need a new twist
Finding the stuff my spellchecker missed

Due date is coming
Brain waves are humming
If I don't fix this soon I'll be majorly bumming

Red ink in the copy
Notes everywhere
No time to be sloppy
My nerves are bare

Kiddos are loud
TV through the walls
Pulling out hair
Nonsensical scrawls

"Part of the process!"
"Good for your work!"
Revisions, I hate you.
You make me berserk.

Procrastination...
welcome back.
With you at hand I feel right on track.
Facebook, Twitter... all progress slowed
And my latest time waster,
Writing an Ode.

What's in a revision letter, anyway?

The revision letter came, and I promised I'd share. In the interests of demystifying the process, here it is with as much detail as possible. At the end of the letter I'll add a few closing remarks . . . one potentially helpful to fellow writers, the other just plain funny for anyone. Here we go!

Dear Rachel,

I hope this finds you well. Happy new year.

I finished the MS of Dead Lift. Much improvement in some areas we discussed, especially Jeannie and her interaction. And less of the old story.

I will write to you fully when I get back end of the month, but some points to consider are:

Emily working for [character omitted] – is there a satisfactory wrap up to this issue, ie her dislike and the role Richard has put her into…. Maybe she needs to consider more the ramifications of a new job and thus how to execute it (doing stuff she doesn’t like). I do think you do a good job with the mix of [character names omitted], it’s a poignant position for all.

The cell phone deal, Richard not replacing hers, its unreliability. I see why you need it disabled for the plot mechanics, but a new cell would be so easy and so cheap to pick up, this isn’t very credible. What real reason can you give when say Jeannie is flinging money around on clothes etc and Emily at the spa while snooping why Emily doesn’t just buy a new one? Why must it be a phone purchased for her by Richard and why is she willing to leave herself vulnerable and unable to do her job well by waiting on him?

[Character]. Is it believable she is so criminally careless with [details omitted]?

The largest problem has to do with [character names omitted]. First, if [this guy's] mom was 90, then how old is [this guy]? Mom left two sisters and a brother in law who are still alive albeit elderly. So where are they in this picture? Is [this guy] an only child?

[Unfortunately, I'm cutting a huge part here in the middle because it has to do with the Whodunnit portion of the novel, sorry.]

Further, I see no way [character] would have [done that]. And anyone who went into the house would discover as easily as did Emily what [bad guy] is up to.

One way you could deal with this – you perhaps should get legal advice about [character's situation] – would be to [editor suggests a plot alternative here].

You should try to talk to [professionals in the field, basically do some more research] and think this through. It’s a good plot idea but simply can’t work the way you have set it up.

When we get back I’ll send the MS to you with my usual scribbles and they may reveal a few other points but this is the big one.

This is a relatively short novel so you have room to expand without damaging the pace as long as you weave it in with dialogue etc and don’t drop in facts. Might be fun to embroider on the plight of people like [character].

You have already realized that your audience for this is going to be mostly women via the spa setting, which is fine. But it’s a bit different than the appeal of Final Approach, and a landscape of interest to men, ie sky diving. No criticism, just reiterating. It probably fits well with the central trope of Emily, Annette, and building some kind of family.

Vince progresses nicely and as said, Jeannie is great!

Cheers,

TEE

When I received my first revision letter for Final Approach, I wondered what "TEE" meant, because those are not her initials. I was afraid to ask. Eventually, another author at the press clued me in: The Evil Editor. But the truth is, she's not evil at all. In fact, "I luv my Editer." :-)

Cell phones, on the other hand, are the devil to mystery writers. Or at least to this one. That bit about the phone up there says it all. To put characters in true peril, we take away their lifelines and force them to be resourceful. But today phones are so fast and easy to replace. I shake my fist (and my red editing pen) at cell phones.

As promised, here is a helpful article by Jennifer Hubbard about dealing with revision letters. I was lucky to read this before Final Approach sold and still approach the revision process the same way.

And finally, an oldie but a goodie. This is kinda how it feels to be me today. Enjoy!

Pre-submission rituals. I have no shame.

Last month I turned in the first draft of my next book. After finishing the substantive changes my critique partners suggested, I went through some pre-submission rituals to check the copy. My list isn't exhaustive, but I thought it might be useful for some.

1. Spellcheck. Enough said.

2. A "Find and Replace" that changes two spaces to one. When I learned to type, we were taught to space twice after periods. The habit is mine for life now, but it's unnecessary now that we use computers instead of typewriters.

3. Check that chapter headings go in order. This manuscript went from Chapter 31 to Chapter 33.

4. Search for my personal over-used words. When I turned in my last manuscript, my editor said I used the verb "yank" too much. I checked it out. Sure enough, curtains were yanked, hair yanked, etc. She also said, "Everybody in this book wears a boring t-shirt!" It's normal; we all do it. A best-selling author I enjoy has a protagonist that "turns on her heel" every time she gets upset, in every book. The thing is to try to become aware of those words and phrases and find substitutes. This manuscript had a few that I found:
"irritated/irritate/irritating": appearances cut from 12 to 5.
"for the first time": appearances cut from 8 to 4.
"random": cut from 6 to 4.
"eyebrows": cut from 16 to 8.

5. Look for words I don't need. Examples: just, that, was, saw (28 uses), heard (41 uses), smelled (0 uses). There is almost always a stronger way to build a sentence.

6. Check for unnecessary dialogue tags. "Said" is the preferred one, but if it can be removed and replaced with a character action that indicates the speaker, all the better: "I can't believe I used the word 'eyebrows' sixteen times." Rachel reached for a cookie. "Am I really going to admit this on my blog?"

7. Try to remove adverbs. I did a search for words ending in -ly. I was horrified! 931 uses! Thankfully (there's another -ly) these weren't a bunch of quicklies, swiftlies, softlies, tenderlies, and smoothlies, though. Most common -lys that I found: Emily (34 uses, and that's excusable!), mistakenly, definitely, only, probably, eventually, actually, finally, family, personally, immediately. You can see that not every -ly word is an adverb. Still, I think it's worth a look.

The revision letter is coming, guys. If there are comments that I can share without giving away story elements, I'll post them in all their horror so we can learn together.

Write on!

From the Trenches: When Every NaNo Second Counts

For the scoop on my NaNoWriMo experience and the lessons learned, scuttle on over to the Stiletto Gang today. If you participated in NaNo, let me hear how it went for you.

Now I'll return to Book 2 and incorporate suggestions from critique partners before turning it over to my editor in late December. Once she gets it, you guys can look forward to a few months' worth of posts from Revision Hell. Stick around. We'll have great fun. :-)