Insecurities

I don't know about you but I tend to oscillate between feeling good about my novel and what I've written, and being very insecure!

Generally when my story is on the screen in front of me and I'm working on it, I'm fairly confident that what I'm writing is pretty good and readable.  I feel fine about it.

But often, especially lying in bed at night, I become plagued with insecurities about my novel.  I worry that it's too far fetched to be believable, that it's too short , possibly too simplistic in style for an adult novel and that I haven't got the sex scene right!

I guess most authors probably have similar feelings sometimes.  Perhaps it's how we respond to these feelings that can make or break us.  For myself, I'm just continuing to edit my novel, trying to make it the best that I can.  I think for me part of the problem is that no one's really seen what I've written so far.  Some people have read the opening chapters (via the youwriteon.com novel-sharing website) and my husband looked at part of it for me, but that's about it. 

So I'm a bit unsure of how it rates as a story, how well written it is and whether people will actually be bothered to read it.

I guess to use an age old saying, the proof of the pudding is in the eating:  once I self publish and promote it I'll see what the response is!

Do any of you struggle with insecurities about your work?  I'd be interested to hear.

Renting or buying?

It occurred to me the other day that in some ways it's possible to compare self publishing versus traditional publishing with buying or renting a house.  Let me explain what I mean.
 
When you rent a house you pay a monthly price for it.  The house is not yours.  Often as a tenant you're allowed to decorate and alter the house to some extent to get it to be how you want.  But often you're not able to; part of the contract says that you can only do certain things with the house and much of it must be left alone. 
 
I think that being published in the traditional way is similar.  You provide the work i.e. your novel and the publisher keeps it up for you.  That is to say the publisher negotiates with you a fee for your work and will then provide a cover for your book, edit, promote and distribute it etc.  Of course as hte author you expect to be kept in the loop at all times regarding your work.  But in the same way that a house you rent is not yours, similarly although the story you've written is your own (as is the money you give to your landlord) a lot of things to do with actually getting the book out there have to be negotiated and may not always prove satisfactory to you.
 
Self publishing can I think be compared to buying a house.  The work you've produced remains entirely yours.  You have to spend the money, time and effort to get it to the point at which you feel it can be shared with the world via Amazon or whoever.  But you are a free agent; you don't have to answer to anyone except perhaps your audience/critics who may not like what you've produced.  Admittedly self publishing is nothing compared to taking on a mortgage!  However, as with maintaining a house, the onus is on the author to make sure their work reads well, that the spelling and grammar are correct and that the cover of the novel is appealing.  One of the most important aspects of self publishing is that the author must rigorously promote their work, a little like forking out for that mortgage payment each month.

I am planning to self publish my novel and I'm currently editing it.   I'm very aware that I need to make sure it reads as well as possible, with no grammar, punctuation or spelling mistakes.  Some people have suggested I hire a proofreader.  Personally I feel at the moment that's too expensive an option for me and I may not see a return on that sort of investment, but I do feel it is very important when you're self publishing to ensure that your work is of the highest standard possible.

Of course there are many benefits to being published by a bona fide publisher.  There can be nothing like seeing your novel in print and holding the final published book in your hand.  But there are certainly many advantages to self publishing and perhaps in the future it will enable authors to have a better deal when it comes to negotiating with a publishing house. 

As always it would be great to hear your views.

The final stretch?

Well I'm still hard at it, beavering away on my novel.  I'm still editing.  It's going well, but starting to get a little tedious now!  Some weeks ago now I printed out what I'd written to read through and make corrections.  I don't know about you, but I find it harder to take in what I'm reading when it's on the screen compared with a paper copy in your hand.  Also it was quite nice to see it in a physical form.

So I read through that, making corrections and a few changes, and now I'm about half way through reading on the computer again.  I'm not sure how most writers go about their editing.  It would be interesting to me to know if there are certain things that writers do/don't do or try to avoid when editing.  I'm just trying to go through it as much as I can - though saying that I'll probably stop when I've done this read through and then print out another copy/copies to give to (kind) friends who wouldn't mind reading it for me!!

After I've done that and taken on board what people have said about my story, then I guess the time will come for me to seriously start looking to self publish on Kindle and possibly Smashwords as well.  I do need to do some research before then, but I have a secret weapon (ie my husband!!) who is very knowledgeable when it comes to computers and has even said he can design my cover for me! 

This is quite an exciting time for me as I've never been published before.  I realise that technically I'm self publishing, but as many people on Twitter tell me, it may well be the way things are going in the future.  It seems obvious to me that more and more people are going to self publish.  It's so much easier to get your work noticed and as I think I've mentioned before on this blog, if you self publish and lots of people look at your work, it has the potential to lead to publishers getting interested and taking a look as well.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.  As always, please send me your comments.  I'd love to know what you think about the writing process.

It's coming together!!

Just done my first print out of my novel.  I know it's only A4 paper but it still feels great to see it printed out.  I feel a real sense of achievement.  I do have some insecurities about my novel - who doesn't? - the main one being that it's not long enough for an adult novel - less than 50,000 words.

But I reckon I can maybe expand it if need be and I think that for me personally it's better to get it finished, to get all my ideas down and then maybe see about tweaking it further at some point in the future.  What do you guys think?  Maybe you could let me know...

In the meantime, I've had an idea for my next novel which I can start planning soon.  Watch this space!

Editing and more editing

I've finally finished the first draft of my novel!  I'm pleased with it, but there's a lot of tweaking to do before I publish it.  I've decided to self publish, need to do some more research into how exactly to go about it, but I really feel that it's the best way for me to go.  I just want as many people as possible to see my work, and as I'm an impatient person, as quickly as possible!

I'm currently reworking my opening chapters; nothing too drastic but using the advice I was given via youwriteon.com, I'm just making improvements which I hope will make reading my novel a better experience for my audience.  I think editing can be really hard.  It's often difficult to know what you're doing wrong as an author and how you can improve.  So using this website and getting feedback from other authors has been invaluable to me.  As I reread their comments and look at my work, I can see a little bit more clearly the direction my editing should take.

I'm actually enjoying the process of rewriting parts of my novel.  It's good to continually question whether what you've written actually reads well and if it will be enjoyable for the reader.  I hope it won't be too much longer before my story is finished and I can get it out there!

Are writers born or made?

You might think there's an obvious answer to that question.  Of course they're not made; you can write or you can't - end of story.  Or is it?  Almost two years ago I decided to apply for an MA course in writing for young people.  At that point I was developing a fantasy story for older children which was going well.  I was inspired that autumn when I went to a talk given by the lecturer and ex students of the course who said it was an invaluable help to them and led to them being published.

So after some thought I applied and was given an interview for the following April.  I went along to the interview and although I was very nervous I enjoyed meeting the lecturers who conducted the interview and hearing more about the course, which sounded fantastic.  I felt it went well and was cautiously optimistic, especially as the interviewers told me I had done well to get to the interview stage as many applicants did not.

I was hugely disappointed when I found out a short while after that I had not been accepted onto the course.  At first I thought about reapplying, but then I realised I didn't really have the funds for it anyway.  The fantasy story I had been writing became less and less enjoyable for me to write.  As I mentioned earlier in this blog, I found that because of the advice I'd been given by the lecturers at the interview and from others, I was confused about what changes to make to what I'd already written - which was a lot - and how to go forward plot-wise.  The story has been abandoned at least for now.  I may resurrect it at some point.

This may all seem a bit irrelevant to the title of this blog entry.  Actually it isn't.  Whilst the course intially sounded wonderful, a chance to review your own and others' work, to hone your craft with the support of other writers (students and teachers) and to be studying in a truly beautiful setting, after a while I began to wonder if actually it's better in some ways as an author to forge your own path.  You have more autonomy over your own work, you're not under pressure to constantly edit your work to suit others' suggestions and you can work at your own pace which can be a lot less stressful.

I feel that writing courses, whilst they can be hugely beneficial, also have drawbacks.  Can you train someone to write well?  Or is it more a case that writers really are born, not made?  Do authors have to be born with the skill of being able to communicate artistically through the medium of literature?  Or can you take anyone of average intelligence and with a lot of training turn them into a writer?  Maybe that's a bit of an extreme proposition, but ultimately how do you teach someone to write?  Perhaps it really is a case that writers are born not made.

Of course writers can improve their talent but most published authors - I'm guessing - haven't been on expensive writing courses.  They've simply honed their craft over the years and found out what works and what doesn't.  A friend told me that they were convinced after reading one novel that it had been written by a someone who'd done a qualification in writing, an MA or suchlike.   This interested me a great deal; the notion that it's possible to differentiate between a writer who has been 'trained' and one who hasn't.

Personally I feel that a true writer is born not made.  They can be encouraged and helped along the way to improve their style, but ultimately the talent comes from them.  So overall maybe it was for the best that I didn't get on to that MA course.  I can forge my own path with my writing and be a free agent!

Word count for a novel

As I've been working away on my novel, I've been thinking a lot about the nitty gritty of writing and one of the things I've been considering is what the word count for my story should be.  I've currently written about 41,000 words.  It's difficult to know exactly how many words my novel should have as different people say different things.

The trouble is I'm getting towards the end of my story now and I want to wait until I've finished it to go back and edit/add stuff.  As I've mentioned before on this blog when working on my previous story I spent so long trying to edit it to include other people's suggestions before I'd actually finished it, that I got bogged down in it and it was no longer any fun writing it.  So I gave up.

Back to my current story.  I realise that 40,000 to 50,000 words may not be long enough for the average novel.  But as I go over it once I've finished, I may be able to expand on that to get the word count up.  As one website says, a novel is as long as it takes to tell the story.  That same website also suggests that electronic publishing favours a shorter novel, although I think it may have been written before the advent of the ebook!!  It may be that once I finish it, I publish it on Kindle with a shorter-than-average novel word count and get people's feedback on it, then maybe adapt and lengthen it at some point.

I wish there was an easier answer to how long a story should be.  And that I found it easier to write longer stories!  Although, having said that, I did complete a novel for teenagers that was nearly 72,000 words long (and also that I hope never sees the light of day!).  So I can do it!