Editing, Editing & More Editing

Jennifer gives an update...

I’ve been buried in my editing cave for the past several weeks, and I’m just now coming up for air. What have I been working on? Glad you asked! J

For the past few years, I’ve been working on a new series that I hope to start pitching in the near future. So I was editing books one and two to try to get them into shape. I’m hoping I was successful. I still have book 3 to revise—and it needs some serious revisions—and book four to write. This is a series I work on in my spare time (ha!), so it’s taken a while to get up and running.

I finally received my galleys for Five Minutes to Love from my editor, so I spent a week scouring the manuscript for misspelled words, additional or missing words (like a double “is,” for example), spacing issues or punctuation mistakes. My eyes are buggy, but I think I caught everything. Next step is to make sure they corrected all the errors and then I will have a release date. In the meantime, Addicted to Love, the first book in this series, is on sale this month for 99 cents. So it's a great time to pick it up!

I’ve also been re-editing my first book, A Heart of Little Faith. The publisher who had it is getting out of the business this summer, so I took my rights back and will try my hand at self-publishing that title (and maybe one other). I’m curious to see how it compares to other means of publishing, and I like the idea of being a hybrid author. So I sent the manuscript out to an editor, she has come back with fantastic changes, and I’m slowly going through them, making the book stronger. Next step will be copyedits.

And that, my friends, is what I’ve been up to lately. Hoping to have some news soon!

Oh, and happy birthday to Debra! J

Everything Old Is New Again

Jennifer is editing an old manuscript...

I recently received my rights back from a book on my backlist and I spent a week going through the latest manuscript version and making significant edits. There were several reasons for doing this.

The first was that oh my goodness, it really needed it! As much as I had edited it before, my skills as a writer have improved (thank goodness) and I realized there were a lot of places that either repeated what I was trying to say or said things badly. There was repeated word usage and just all around writing that needed improvement. Unfortunately, that meant I had to delete my very favorite scene in the entire book! While it’s a great scene, it didn’t advance the plot and it repeated something that basically happened earlier in the story. So I copied and pasted it into a document that I’ll keep to drool over and maybe offer a deleted scenes bonus at some point in the future.

The second reason to edit the manuscript was that I am submitting it to a publisher as a sweet contemporary. Sweet means no sex and this publisher is very strict—the sex can’t even take place off the page. This book didn’t have sex in it, but it was clear when it was happening. And there were scenes that led up to the sex that were pretty steamy. So I had to tone things down and make sure there was emotion, just no smexy times!

And the third reason was that for this same publisher, I was about 4,000 words over their highest limit for submissions. So I needed to be ruthless. With all of the other edits I was making, cutting words was easy, and I ended up cutting my word count by about 10,000 words, putting me smack dab in the middle of the desired word-count range.

It was a great exercise. As I’ve said, you can never do too much editing, and I think the story is stronger than it was before. I’ve submitted it to the publisher and am crossing my fingers they like it. If not, I have other plans for it, so it will eventually be back in circulation, but with much better writing!

On Your Mark, Get Set...Wait

Jennifer is waiting for the next step...

I’m in the “hurry up and wait” stage of the publishing process. I have two books with my editor. One has been fully edited and galley-proofed and all I’m waiting for is a release date. The other has been fully edited and I’m expecting to see a cover for it momentarily. In the meantime, I’m waiting on galley proofs for it.

The waiting is killing me. Now, before I say anything else, I’m not blaming anyone for my wait. It’s part of the process. I’m in the queue and when it’s my turn, I’ll get my release date and I’ll see the cover. But knowing those things are coming is what’s getting to me.

Anticipation is always the hardest part.

Once I have a release date, I can get started on my extensive marketing to-do list: sending out postcards to everyone I know, contacting bloggers, setting up social media tours, putting together my newsletter. But until then, I’m sitting on my hands and looking at my reminders every day.

Getting a cover is always exciting—and nerve-wracking. I’m dying to see if what I described in my cover art sheet translated well. Since they did such a great job for the first book, I’m have high hopes for the second one. But I’m still nervous.

In the meantime, I’m helping others promote their books, getting to know fellow authors, reviewing other manuscripts to get them ready for submission and doing all the things around the house I had to let slide while I was editing.

It’s a roller coaster, but a fun one (I hate the real ones), and I know I’m very lucky to be on this particular ride.

R Is For Rewriting

Jennifer never stops rewriting…

You know how in life, you often wish for a do-over (please nod here and say yes—I don’t want to be the only one!)? Only a few of us are lucky enough to get that. For the rest of us, we have to just move on and keep going.

But writing isn’t like that. Writing allows us not only to create worlds, but to recreate them until we are satisfied. Don’t like a character? Kill her. Wish your character responded in a different way? Change the conversation. Realize that a situation is unbelievable? Redo it. It’s awesome and cathartic and just generally useful.

As for editing, ha! We can always write better, fix commas, choose better words. That never ends. No matter how many times I might submit something to a critique partner or an editor or a contest judge, I’m constantly playing around and fine-tuning my work. At some point, though, I have to let it go. But that doesn’t mean I won’t find a mistake I missed the first five thousand times I looked at it.

Writers, like parents, can always do better. It’s a never-ending battle to learn to let go. The good thing, though, is that we get to choose when we do so.

Q Is For Quest

Jennifer’s on an editing quest…

So as a result of my writer’s conference, I’m polishing my manuscript to send to an editor and a few other people who requested it. I’ve already done a read through, and I spent the past week going through it and making copy edits.

When I edit, I have a routine that I go through, which works well for me.

First, I edit for plot, making sure I close up any holes I may have forgotten. Then I edit for pacing and conflict. And finally I edit for word choice.

One of the resources I use is from a fellow writer who is also a freelance editor. She ran a workshop a few years ago on editing and handed out a packet of material that she uses when editing. One page had a list of commonly overused words.

Now, some of the words make sense, like “that” or “very.” By getting rid of such words, or severely limiting them at least, we tighten our writing. We also make it crisper and more specific by choosing better vocabulary words—like “exhausted” instead of “very tired.”

But some of the words seem a little silly. For example, “shoulders.” I think the point of not overusing that word is to make sure you mention other body parts, rather than just one or two.

So I take the list with a grain of salt, as I do with most writing rules. Very few are hard and fast and can’t be adapted. However, one of my weaknesses is using “-ing” words too often. In fact, in a 70,000-word manuscript, I had almost 3,000 of them! Sure, they’re great as adjectives and they allow me to vary my sentence structure, but I’m pretty sure something I do 3,000 times is too much!

I am happy to say that after an exhaustive week, and after probably destroying my eyesight, I have edited that manuscript to the best of my abilities. I’m doing one last pass on the first three chapters and then I’m sending it out and crossing my fingers.