Collaborative writing

 

(My dog, Ahsoka, and cat, Serenity, collaboratively sleeping together)

There is something to be said in favor of collaboration when writing. On some level all writing needs to be collaborative. Now I'm not talking about so much collaboration that the story is no longer your own, but on the other end, there can be great advantages to letting others read your story and provide feedback.

Recently, I've managed to find a few beta readers for some of my short stories, and I received incredibly useful feedback. With the internet age, finding beta readers has become easier. Instead of going out and finding people in the real, live, three-dimensional world, one can post on a Facebook group, or other social media platform, that you have a short story you would like feedback on.

In many circles, you may have to pay an editor to do this, but there is a way around this. If you do not have the money to pay an editor, you can offer to read someone else's short story in exchange. The point is, it will cost you something. If you cannot afford to pay money, you will have to pay with time.

I also don't want to take anything away from paying a good editor. If you do have the money, chances are they may provide better feedback. But offering to read someone else's story can certainly be another viable option. Also, it allows you to read what other writers are working on and see how your own work matches up.

I recently had the opportunity to exchange short stories with a few other writers, and the feedback I received was excellent. It is certainly an experience I will try to replicate in the future. It was spot on in almost every case. Keep in mind, your stories are always your own, and you do not have to make changes that you feel will weaken your story. But in my case, the vast majority of suggestions were viable, and helped the stories overall. There were only a few suggestions I chose not to follow because I did not feel comfortable with them.

If you take any creative writing course that is worth anything, you will be asked to change stories and provide and receive feedback. This is almost always the most important part of the course. So if you cannot afford a creative writing course, this can also be an alternative to that as well. So go out and give and get feedback on your current works. It is invariably a key part of the writing process.

After One Year of Covid

 

It's been one year since Covid 19 shut down the entire world, and it seems there is finally land on the horizon. It had been about hundred years since the world saw a good fashioned pandemic (the Spanish flu in 1918 was the last), so we were long overdue.

But now we have a vaccine out for this virus, so we should be seeing its final throes soon. I finally received my first shot today, and will be returning in about four weeks for the follow-up. Additionally, one of the colleges where I teach just announced we are returning to in-person classes in the fall. While there are new variants of the virus emerging, getting the vaccine is supposed to keep us from getting so sick we need hospitalization, or even face death, even from those variants. Factor in that most people are just plain tired of being cooped up, and all indicators show that we this is ending one way or the other.

So what did you accomplish as a writer? And for that matter, what did I accomplish as a writer? Honestly, things were a bit distracting, with not only the pandemic, but also a TON of misinformation about it, and a very contentious presidential election. Factor in the summer of protests from the Black Lives Matter movement, and there was a lot to keep track of. I don't think I'm alone when I say I could have been more productive than I was. But there were areas where I was productive.

I did manage to finish editing my first novel. . . again, after a mentor looked it over. I wrote a query letter for it and sent that out. I also finished my other novel, and began editing it. I sent out a lot of works, and many of them fell to dead letters, but I noticed I'm starting to receive the rejection letters again (which is a very good thing), another sign this pandemic and quarantine are in their final throes. And don't be afraid of those rejection letters. I've started reading those books for my Frankenstein research project again. And yesterday, I finally wrote another short story.

Could I have been more productive than that? Probably, but it also goes to a point I've always suspected was true: the more you do, the more you want to do, and the less you do, the less you want to do. Writing kind of works like that, perhaps more than other aspects of life. So keep plugging away, and I will do the same.

Every Writer's Favorite Topic: Coffee

 

Today I thought I would blog about a very important topic for writers: coffee. The way your take your coffee and how your make it can provide very important information about a writer, and for the writer to be able to describe their characters. I am inspired to write about this for a very important reason: it seems my newest percolator has died. 😞

Before I get too far, that photo above is not my newest percolator. That is the percolator my grandfather used going all the back to when I was a little kid. But I chose to use that photo because not only is that percolator coffee maker still working, but it also makes better tasting coffee than my new percolator system! I don't know what its secret is (magic?), but that damn thing makes the best freaking coffee I've ever tasted (screw you, Starbucks!).

There's a meme that goes around with various coffee makers and what it says about you. Under the percolator system it says you're either pretentious or an old Italian. Well, that percolator pictured is from my Italian side of the family (mom's maiden name was Notarione). Both my parents were big coffee drinkers, my non-Italian dad even moreso than my mother. I can't say my parents knew everything, or that they did everything perfectly, but I can say they were correct about the percolator system being superior to the new drip systems.

So how do I take my coffee? I'm not so traditional that I take it black, but I do need a little cream and sugar. I'm also not a big fan of those longer coffee drink names you can find at Starbucks and other similar places. I have a hard time getting myself to spend as much as those modern coffee shops are asking for a cup of joe. I can't even imagine drinking iced coffee. I don't want to insult anyone who does like these types of coffees, but they are just not me.

Isn't it interesting how much you can learn about a person just by knowing what kind of coffee they drink and how they take it? So how do you like your coffee? And if you are writing, how do your characters take their coffee? Or do they drink coffee? And if they don't drink coffee, what do they drink, and how do they drink it? This can be important information for your readers.

Editing . . . Again.

 

 In a recent blog post, I wrote about editing a novel. Since I recently finished editing that novel, I would like to post an update.

It was the first manuscript I ever finished and edited to the point where I felt it was ready for prime time. By that I mean I felt comfortable enough to send it to agents and publishers, but to get it to that point, I had to edited it over and over again, to the point where it felt like the movie Groundhog Day, I keep living the same novel over and over again. It actually got the point where I promised myself I would never edit it again, so I could concentrate on completing other projects. Or at least I would never edit it again unless a professional like an agent or publisher asked for edits. Of course that would warrant another edit.

Then I applied to the Horror Writers Association to have a mentor, and was assigned one some time later. Since this was my only completed work, I sent him this manuscript. He provided me with some important feedback to the manuscript and pointers about my writing in general, which you can read about in the link above.

Since then, I set out to edit that novel one more time. It had been looked at by a professional author, so that warranted it one last edit. But the process at this point really did feel like Groundhog Day, working on the same thing over and over, reliving the same novel over and over. Well, that process is mercifully over once again. Don't get me wrong, I love that story I created, and feel it has great potential, and even after this many edits, there was some joy in revisiting it one more time.

But once a project like this over, there's nothing left to do but submit it. So I reviewed, once again, how to write a query letter, researched a number of small presses to submit it to, and geared my query toward one particular small press that seemed appropriate for my work. I also sent this query to my mentor, since he mentioned he often looks at former mentees' works from time to time, and I asked for his advice. I was very pleased he did not have any edits to the query. I have sent queries to professional writers before and have always had some edits in the past, so it was nice that for once, I seem to have mastered at least one part of the process. And I do think I wrote a pretty good query this time.

So the next step in the process is to continue editing one of my other novels and get it ready to send off to agents and publishers. This novel is starting from a different place than that previous one was. I think I have learned a lot since that first completed and polished manuscript, so I don't think this one will require nearly as much editing. I will likely also research more agents and small presses to send out that first manuscript, so several places can have a look at it at one time.

Such is the life of a writer: write, edit, submit, repeat.