Editing: Are We Having Fun Yet?

Ink is currently editing her first novel, and she is, indeed, having fun. However, not everyone seems to be enjoying the process of ripping apart their literary babies so thoroughly as her, so here are a collection of links to ease the process:

Holly Lisle's One-Pass Revision: the Holy Grail of editing writers-first draft to last in one revision? Is that possible? Maybe for Holly Lisle. Ink didn't do so well, but Ink also wasn't anywhere near as ruthless as she should have been on the first pass, necessitating a second, more productive one. It's definitely worth a look, and an excellent method.

Paperback Writer's notes on editing: It looks good to Ink, although this article more of a description of how she does it versus how to do it yourself. PBW has a step-by-step here, which Ink found helpful and entertaining.

Sara McGrath's Editing and Polishing Suite: a nice article on how to edit a novel. Ink is also intrigued by the other articles in the suites, with titles like "Advance Techniques," "Theme," and "Marketing and Selling." A nice jumping-off point, and also worth a look if you want to write and sell a book with friendly guidelines from start to finish.

Self-Editing by Lori Handeland: This is a great prose checklist-follow it and Ink thinks your writing will not suck. However, if you're a NaNo novelist like her, you'll want to make sure your plot is coherent before you get down to the paragraph level.

NaNoWriMo.org's 'I Wrote A Novel, Now What?' Page: a good resource for those of us who stomach the notion of looking back over the fruits of our caffeine-induced labors. It will also help you if you're not so certain about your plot, as will One-Pass Revision.

Here's Ink's suggestion for NaNo'ers, ripped off Chris Baty's advice in No Plot? No Problem!: write out the events in the story scene-by-scene. Do this with the novel in front of you. See if they lead to the next one, well, like dominoes in a row, each event leading inexorably to the next. If not, delete the bad ones and put in new ones. Switch 'em around and see if that does anything for you. Once you've got that down, then, and only then, do you begin to work on your prose.

Good luck, guys! Anchors away!

Sisters Twice Removed

Hey, guys, I'm happy to inform you that Miri of http://miri-grace.blogspot.com/ is now a partner in crime (the boring Blogspot drones say "admin") of Ink and Words!

We plan to update weekly, alternating between whining about wordcounts and editing and doing silly things like helping others with Japanese lessons and harcore grammar beatings. Pfft. Charity is silly. Anyway, check in often, because those week-long (okay, month-long) gaps in updates are about to become a thing of the past.

You may know her well from her own blog (in fact, you probably know me from her blog), but I'll shut up so she can introduce herself now.

~*~

Well, hello again! As most of you probably know, I'm Miri, young aspiring writer, partner-in-crime of Ink, also a young aspiring writer. (The blogosphere's just littered with our type, isn't it?)

As Ink mentioned, we're going to attempt something new and groundbreaking: content! Well, our kind of content. Look to Ink for the aforementioned hardcore grammar beatings; I'll be making posts about Japanese, interesting historical snippets, and suchlike. So, I guess not much has changed. Except that we'll be updating more often. And eventually have all kinds of fun and useful resources for your perusal.

The nice little two-squigglies-surrounding-a-star symbol henceforward will mean that there has been a change of author within a post. We'll try to keep it to a minimum, because interrupting is rude. Usually. :)

I'm very grateful to Ink for the opportunity to join forces. Let the fun begin!

Hey, if she's Ink, that makes me Words...

The Big Braggy Post

You knew this was coming, didn't you?

I'm an official NaNoWriMo 2007 winner! Sure, I still have to finish the book, but it went a whole lot better than last year, so I'm just happy all over. Pfft, and they say sophomore year is hardest. (Watch, next year I'll get hammered. Karma does not rest.)

My novel's called 'Disenchantment' and, in summary, America has launched a War on Magic and sends vampires, werewolves, and all degree of magical creatures into rehab. My protagonist, Jordan Allaway, is a 17-year-old human girl trying to have a normal senior year. Unfortunately for her, 'normal' is the last thing on her roommates' minds.

Sounds like a decent pitch, just have to send out the queries for my first NaNoWriMo novel and edit this one before I get to use it again.

On this business side of things, find out with how much your blog is worth here: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/projects/how-much-is-your-blog-worth/

I'd tell you how much mine is, but the Intrawebz aren't cooperating, and it's pitiful anyway.

(And, yes, perceptive readers, I snagged this from Holly Lisle. If she comes by and asks me to take it down, well, hey, that alone would probably double my blog worth anyway.)