I’ve known quite a few people who’ve hired a freelance editor, and I have even done it myself. I can’t tell you how much it helps. Editing is not something anyone should try to do alone, especially those who self-publish. It can also be a big help if you’re struggling with how to improve a piece that isn’t getting good response from agents and publishers. Even the most experienced writer can’t see all her own mistakes.

So, if you’re interested in hiring a freelance editor, feel free to drop me an email and tell me about your project. I’m happy to have a chat about how I can possibly help. Be sure and tell me your wordcount, genre, and plans!

Have you worked with an editor before? Was it a good experience? Did anything about it surprise you?

Well, the US Open has started. (Go Murray!) I do love a good, dramatic tennis tournament. Used to be I couldn’t understand why people would enjoy watching two people bounce a ball back and forth to each other! When I moved to the UK though, I started watching Wimbledon every year. That expanded to wanting to see all of the Grand Slams, and now I will catch the Masters Tourneys when I can as well.

And, I’ve decided to read some books for fun. Not for critique, to edit, to review, to do a friend a favour, to keep up on the latest genre trends, but for FUN.

First on my vacation TBR (to be read) list is Blood Lust by Zoe Winters. She’s an indie author who’s making quite a name for herself. I knew the book would be coming out soon, but when I saw she had a promotional blitz for her book release, including giving away a new Kindle as a prize, I had to buy it now. For the next 24 hours (I think), she’s got the Kindle version of Blood Lust on sale for 99¢! A book! For 99¢! (But you can also buy it as a trade paperback if you prefer a book book.)

But sadly, Towers of Midnight, the pentultimate book in the 14-book Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordon, isn’t out until November 1st. Don’t they know that I need to read this book now?!?! How rude! Same goes for Terry Pratchett’s  I Shall Wear Midnight. I always do love a bit of silliness, and his books are hilarious adventures. But I don’t want to wait until September 28th!

Well, since I’m no good at waiting, I’ll have to dig into Peter James’ Dead Man’s Footsteps while I wait for his latest to come out, which will also be later this month.

In addition to reading this week, I think I’ll take in a couple of casual games, something slow and silly to pass the time without any stress, watch some trashy TV, and maybe knit myself a new hat.

Okay, so it’s not a Mediterranean Cruise. But it still sounds like heaven to me. I’m a simple girl.

So what would you do with a week off, if you couldn’t go away?

I used to have rather nice handwriting, but boy-oh-boy, I’ve gotten lazy with it. I used to write my manuscripts by hand and then re-type them, but I found that too time consuming when I got to writing full-length novels. These days the most practice I get is grocery lists and notes in the margins of manuscripts. (But then I’ve even started doing more of those things on the computer too!)

Interestingly, bad handwriting is one of those flaws most people will confess to. People will rarely admit to being bad drivers, having no sense of humour, being overly sensitive or talking about themselves too much.

I think I do judge people by their handwriting. If people have really lovely script, it makes me admire them just a little bit more. I wonder if people ever lose out on jobs because of bad handwriting on a job application. I do think if someone I was dating wrote me a note and they had really scattered or immature handwriting, it would have given me pause.

The whole thing is a bit silly, because hand writing is a skill anyone can learn, just as anyone can learn to touch-type. But it does seem to make a difference.

How do you rate your own handwriting? Do you judge others by theirs?

Yesterday I was sitting in the car, waiting for a Certain Highlander to get the food from the local takeaway place, and I looked up and saw a hot air balloon. I can’t explain why, but hot air balloons always make me feel a little happy. It’s not that I want to go up in them. I really don’t have a head for heights. There’s just something simple, quiet, and, darnit, nice about them.

Have you had any unexpected happy moments lately?

But! Free Books!

I have recently discovered that you can get free Kindle books! Long-time Kindle users may know this already, but for those who want to try out Kindle for PC or Kindle for iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad, it’s nice to know you can test out these free apps without having to buy a book. This way, you aren’t out any cash if you don’t like the reading experience via Amazon.

Free Kindle Books – There can be pages of crap to wade through, but if you’re interested in a particular genre, you can filter it out even further using the buttons on the side.

Kindle for PC (free download) – You’ll need this if you don’t have a Kindle.

Kindle for iPod Touch / iPhone / i Pad (free app) – If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, give this a try. I was surprised how easy it was to read books on my iPod Touch. Some people might not like the backlighting, but I find it much clearer to read than the paper-like screen on my Sony eReader.

Free eBooks at ManyBooks.net

The Open Library – Be sure you check the box that says ‘Ebooks’ or click the ebooks link on the search results.

Project Gutenburg – huge collection of public domain books

Planet eBook

Finding Free eBooks – many books besides the usual classics

Dr Who books free from the BBC

Happy reading!

The absolute best rule there, however, was from Margaret Atwood. It probably just seems best to me because it struck on something I hadn’t thought of, and she put it in a way that made me laugh and think at the same time:

Don’t sit down in the middle of the woods. If you’re lost in the plot or blocked, retrace your steps to where you went wrong. Then take the other road. And/or change the person. Change the tense. Change the opening page.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve done that… sat down in the metaphorical woods. It never occured to me to backtrack to the last place that the story made sense, and to start writing anew from there.

Lately I’ve been working on editing an older novel. I’ve been enjoying it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that part of the reason is that I have been stuck on my WIP Wildings. I know how I want it to end, and the beginning is solid, but there’s something in the middle I just don’t know how to do. You see, I’ve painted my way into a corner.

I have a feeling Atwood’s advice holds the key for me. Now I just need to go back and see where I lost my way. The good news is, I think I know where it is.

Just as a side note that has nothing to do with writing advice: Whenever I see the title to this post, my mind adds “because bears have been shitting in there“. Yes, my crazy obsession with word-assosiation really can ruin just about anything.

In the past month, I’ve run across a couple of articles that provide some good checklists for authors. From Writer’s Digest: 11 Plot Pitfalls — And How To Rescue Your Story From Them. This one talks about unoriginal plots, overly complex plots, unsatisfying endings… things that will turn a reader off immediately. What I like about this is the practical advice that comes with it. These solutions aren’t quick and easy — they involve a lot of work. But when it’s the difference between alienating readers (assuming the manuscript even makes it past the query stage), and a satisfying story, the work is well worth it.

The second article I found was actually notes from a writer’s conference: 10 Tests a Novel Must Pass To Prove It’s Really Ready For Submission To Publishers. This one more addresses wording than serious plot or characterisation problems, but with the market being as tough as it is, polish can’t be neglected.

There’s one thing I would add from my own personal experience: Be careful that your fabulous story doesn’t start too slowly. I often end up cutting off anywhere from the first few paragraphs to the first few pages of a novel. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to make a note (I use a symbol like [#] in the ms) of where you start writing each day. I find it can take me a few lines/paragraphs to warm up, and I babble a bit before I get into a groove.

Just this past week, I was trying to read a novel by a Twitter friend. I couldn’t get into it. I put it away for a few days, then went back to it. After all, maybe I was just in a mood when I started it the first time. (I get like that.) Nope, the second and third attempt were just as difficult. 30 pages in, and nothing interesting had happened, and I didn’t care too much for the main character. By 50 pages in, a conflict had finally arisen and a new character had been introduced that would obviously be the source of the plot tension, but, well, I didn’t like her either. I can’t help but wonder, however, if I would have been more forgiving of flawed characters if they’d been doing something interesting on page 1.

While it’s true that I still can’t see my own mess, experience and critique partners have at least helped me know what to look for.

Lately the political scene (particularly, but not exclusively, in the US) has me feeling like most people are crazy, and not in a good way. But there is an antidote: the interwebs. While there are lots of people on the internet who are obviously off their meds, there are also many creative and funny people. Finding a few of those who share their talents with the world, asking nothing in return, gives me a sense of equilibrium. Yes, there are mean nut-jobs, but there are also warm, generous, and talented people.

This is an a capella group from the University of Oregon called On the Rocks doing Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. Very funny stuff. Even if you have never seen Lady Gaga, you’ll easily get the gist of it. Great stuff. (Via Bear)

I loved the book Where the Wild Things Are, and had read it more times than I can count, when Bear was just a wee cub. What surprised me was that he told me that when he was little, say around 4 or 5, he actually found the Wild Things a bit scary. I hadn’t remembered the book that way at all, and found the Wild Things charming and fun. However, while watching the film, I did think the Wild Things were quite scary! Especially the bit where they all jumped on top of Max and they slept in a “real pile”. (Got a bit claustrophobic there.)

In fact, although the movie was very well done and tugged on my heartstrings with a fantastic story, it didn’t have any of the sweet charm I found in the book. Instead it was somewhat dark and frightening. It made me wonder if the film was made for children at all, or if I was indeed the target audience: people who loved the book a long time ago, but they (or their children) had grown out of it.

I’m not actually sure if it’s time and perspective that have altered my impressions of the story, or if the book is, in fact, different from the movie adaptation. It has made me wonder if I was the only one who found the Wild Things of the book loveable! I can be a bit of a Wild Thing myself, maybe I could relate to their need for an occassional rumpus.

But the reality isn’t tinsel and tiaras. I recently read this 2004 article of confessions of a semi-successful author both surprising (because she’s not been living the jet-set life even though she’s reached what most authors aspire to–The New York Times Bestseller List) and at the same time, the article came across as a little whiney. She talks about how many copies she’s sold, the advances that she got, and her struggles with agents and editors. But,  I mean, come’on. She’s made a chunk of money in a profession at which most people who attempt it fail to make a brass farthing. Heck, I remember how thrilled I was at the first publisher that offered to pay me in copies for one of my stories.

A Twitter-friend posted something about this same article called Mopey-Midist-Authors where she said, “A lot’s happened since 2004, but one thing hasn’t changed. That thing is this: There are lots of writers, very few of them are published, and even fewer of those make kajillions of dollars doing what they do. (Okay, that’s three things. It’s Sunday and I don’t have to count if I don’t want to.)” Jen is right. Publishing is changing. But some authors seem more focused on the fact that huge advances are no longer the norm, publishers don’t shell out for publicity tours for most, and contracts are turning into huge grabs for the publishers. The truth is, most authors (even celebs) don’t earn out their advance, so it’s understandable that publishers no longer want to lose money on the majority of books they publish.

I think it’s all about adjusting our expectations as professional authors. Do your research. There are ways to find out sales figures for books, and know that although bestsellers sell millions of copies, a debut author will do well to sell thousands.

But you know what? So what? So, the job doesn’t pay well for 99% of those lucky enough to get accepted, published, and receive actual money. Get over it. As author BobWeinberg said:

Writers are driven. We are obsessive. We are the describers, the explainers, the comforters, the storytellers. We write not for the money, the fame, the fortune, but because it is in our blood, in our genes. We write because we have no choice. We write because if we did not, who would?

I would just add to that: We are the lucky ones.