Inspirational prompt 7

It’s time for another prompt to help your creative side shine. The following image kind of stuck with me for some time and after searching the web for a while (I didn’t save it when I first saw it, DOH!), I managed to find it and pin it on Pinterest for everyone to see. Though I prefer fantasy settings (as any of you can see if you visit either my tumblr blog or my pinterest board), there are some images that “say” so many things when one looks at them. That, or they simply inspire.

What do you think? Do you see a setting somewhere there or an interesting character? How about writing a children’s story, this time from the cat’s POV? That would be fun, no?

The art of writing, is editing

For the past few weeks I’ve been editing my novel and three short stories. Though in the past I’ve always edited my short stories, only now that the stakes are high enough do I see how important, I mean REALLY important, editing is. In my mind there’s no doubt about it: writing is all about editing.

My editing process is somewhat… strange. Perhaps it’s because English isn’t my native language. Perhaps it’s just because my first drafts are in worst shape than the ones the well-known writers produce (yeah, I know I shouldn’t compare myself with them, but I can’t help it. I want to be traditionally published and to make it happen, I feel I have to be better than them. This is what I meant earlier when I said “the stakes are high”).

The first thing I do, is to restructure each sentence and each paragraph. I’m never satisfied with the way I write my sentences, even after several edits (language barrier and related linguistic insecurities apply here).

Once that’s done, I activate my macros. Yes, I use macros for specific mistakes I know I make, and yes, they’re more than one. I have one for filter words (which somehow still seem to make their way to my drafts) and another one for useless words (like “very”, “that”, “just”, “even”, “There was”, “there was”, “there were”, “There were”, “actually”, “practically”, “literally”, “suddenly”, “really”, “again”, “Again”).

The third step deals with how I use the word “as” in a sentence. That’s a tricky one to deal with. I often use it in a sentence when I shouldn’t. The following example is from http://blog.janicehardy.com/2010/04/re-write-wednesday-dont-tell-me-why.html (Bob ran for the cabin as the zombie swung at his head.) In this example the AS implies that both actions happen at the same time. The problem is that’s not the case. The second part of the sentence is the reason why the first part happens. The zombie attacks Bob and because of that, Bob runs away. Using AS here is wrong (though “wrong” sounds so strange when it comes to a creative art like writing, no?). Still, I not only overuse that word, I flood my MS with it. Hence, the need for yet another macro to evaluate each occurrence of that word.

The last editing step (for the first round of edits, mind you) is the worst of all; my incomplete macro for adverbs. I consider it an incomplete macro for two reasons: 1. some adverbs don’t have the -ly ending (https://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/adverbs-manner.htm), 2. That last step should include adjectives as well, but given the nature of the words (they don’t have a special ending), I can’t include them in a macro. Which means I have to go over the entire passage and highlight every single word that’s an adjective. Why is that bad? I’m a perfectionist when it comes to doing something that I love. What’s wrong with that, you ask? Humans make mistakes! I often miss them because I either fail to identify them (oh, language barrier, if only you had a face I could punch…) or because my brain has turned into mush and I fail to notice them.

Once these steps are done, and I’m ok-ish with the results (I tried using the word “satisfied” instead of “ok-ish”, but alas I couldn’t! Not even for this post!), then I turn to beta readers and critiquers (if such a word as critiquers exists). And then a new round of editing starts, which includes the above but also their suggestions. Grand total of edits? As I mentioned in a previous post, between 9-12 up to this point.

What happens after that to my MS? Well, then and only then can I say it’s no longer in its first draft status.
Is it ready, you ask? A few weeks ago I would have said yes. But these past few weeks I’ve been reading Self-Editing For Fiction Writers by Renni Browne and Dave King (http://www.bookdepository.com/Self-Editing-for-Fiction-Writers-Second-Edition-Renni-Browne/9780060545697  or if you prefer Amazon,  http://www.amazon.com/Self-Editing-Fiction-Writers-Second-Yourself/dp/0060545690/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1421593167&sr=8-1&keywords=Self-Editing+For+Fiction+Writers

Now I cry every time I finish the steps I mentioned earlier, because I realise there’s SOOOO much more that I have missed.

I was about to send my cyberpunk short story out to a well-respected, VERY well-paying, professional magazine. Who was it that said that manuscripts are never perfect but simply abandoned, meaning the writer refuses to work on it any more and considers it ready for publication? Yeah, I’m not ready for that yet.

Back for another round of editing. Yay!

P.S. See how I knew I’d fail point #1 from this post? Will there ever be a time I won’t have to compare myself to those better than me?!

2014 – A recounting of events

First of all I hope you all had wonderful Christmas and a nice New Year. Christmas was brilliant for me and I got to spend it with the people who have stood by me the most, my family. Christmas is also my nameday (in Greece we celebrate namedays as well as birthdays, though I only follow namedays), so a lot of friends called to give me their wishes. It all added to a very nice day with a lot of great memories. I’m not a big fan of New Year as a holiday nor do I participate in any kind of celebration, as I don’t see the reason for it, but I understand others see it differently than me, so to all of you out there who do, I wish you a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2014 was for me a very successful and productive year and I hope 2015 will be, if not more productive then at least, as productive as 2014.

For starters I got to finish the outline of my pet project. I posted a small excerpt earlier this year from my fantasy serialised novel and wrote almost half of the first draft. Currently, it’s sitting and waiting for me to get back to it, but that won’t happen for a long while, not until I evolve as storyteller and improve my writing skills.

Following that I outlined and finished the first draft of the Darkening, my post-apocalyptic horror novel. That’s right; I finished a novel, my first ever, in 2014. It took me 5 months to write it, 3 months of which were spent writing on my 5-inch cellphone, since the heat in my study with my computer on was hellish. It was supposed to take me 3 months and be around 120k words but ended up being 149k words and 2 months overdue. Who cares? Bottom line is I finished my first novel! Yes, I’m still jubilant about this. I’m entitled to it, no? I’ll have plenty of time to feel miserable and doubt my worth once the first couple of tens of agent rejections arrive.

2014 also offered me my first publication EVER. I was honoured to have a short story published in Beyond Imagination, Issue 4, titled You Die When I Die. I still remember how high I jumped when I read their acceptance email. I also remember how many times I had to read the message over and over again, to make sure I read it right and that I was indeed going to get published (six times, if you’re wondering how many times I read it).

2 more magazines honoured me in 2014 by publishing my stories. Eternal Haunted Summer published When Hades Felt and Voluted Tales published the short story The Darkening (my novel The Darkening is based on that short story).

In 2014 I participated in my first writing competition ever for 2014 South African HorrorFest Bloody Parchment short story competition and on 31st December, a couple of hours before the New Year knocked on Greece’s door, I got an email from them saying that my story had been selected for their longlist that would go through for judging early 2015. This is also a first for me and even though I’ve no idea if being longlisted is even worth mentioning in public (if anyone has previous experience with writing competitions, please let me know), I see it as an accomplishment, since, as I said, this is a first for me. I dreaded participating in any kind of competition, thinking my writing was sub par to the standards they’d have. The email they sent me though, lifted my spirits and boosted my self confidence. I don’t have high hopes in getting published there, since there are soooooo many far better writers out there than me, with English being their native language (I hereby declare my hatred towards language barrier and all the problems it causes me), but one can hope, right?

Between the middle of November and the middle of December I manage to write 3 more short stories, a feat I had never tackled before but that month proved the most productive ever.

Finally, 2014 was the year I started this blog. Since April 2014 when I published my first post here, more than 120 of you have honoured me by following me and my rumblings, allowed me to write my thoughts and fears in my flawed English. Together we embarked on a trip – my trip – with many highs and even more lows. You were with me when I decided to write my novel, you were there when I finished it, when I published my short stories. You were there when I felt I was drowning while struggling with The Darkening and you supported me.

To everyone who followed or visited this blog, all 127 followers and 550 visitors, I have one thing to say:

THANK YOU!

Inspirational prompt

I hope you liked last week’s inspirational post. As I was looking for another one to post today, I came across this one

When I saw it, something clicked in my head. After working a bit with the 7 point story system I ended up with two stories, one of which draws many elements from my country’s mythology. Turns out that system helps me a lot to get my head around the main points of a plot. I only took notes for that one but I completed the first draft of the second story and although at first I thought there was something missing, the more I tweaked, edited and revised the more I came to like it.  So, in a month’s time since I finished the first draft of The Darkening, I have managed to finish 3 (!) short stories.  Now I need to have it critiqued somewhere. If only I could find a critique partner…

I hope the image proves as much help for you as it did for me. Let me know if it sparkled something interesting.