After a busy personal period which continues I had a #SuccessfulSunday
Allison’s first edit is complete (thankfully I finished this earlier this week, gone). Today I submitted a short story into a competition. I was thoroughly immersed in my characters and lost track of time. When that happens when writing, editing or reading it’s special. It’s how it is when I’m in full flow. We talked about this recently at my Writing Group, Stories@Dogberry here in Okehampton, Devon and all of us could relate. Since childhood I could become immersed in this creationism.
Then later today I uploaded four more chapters of my online book to my website. https://amandababerauthor.wordpress.com/author/amandababerauthor/
There are many competitions out there to enter folks, go for it! Gill here (owner of this blog and our awesome author, and publisher extraordinare) regularly keeps an eye on opportunities. Slowly I’m working on entering more and my Writing Group is making me write more; its purpose! Then there’s the list of writing festivals and events in the south west I’m compiling too.
Keep writing everyone! Here I am writing on holiday two years ago!
Sunday 23 February 2020
Wednesday 19 February 2020
The Best of CafeLit 8
Clikc on image to view on Amazon |
Selection
It’s always good fun putting together The Best of CaféLit books. For the last couple of years we’ve asked
the writers who appear in the current book to select their five favourites for the
next volume. We use a points system: five points for the top story four for the
second, three for the third etc. We’re currently going through this process for
The Best of CaféLit 9. This year may
be interesting: we may have more stories than make a comfortable paperback volume.
There seems to be less overlap in choices than in previous years. However, the
solution will be simple: we’ll make out usual volume of about 35,000 words to sell as a
Kindle book and paperback. Then we’ll make an extra e-book of the rest. No one
will be left out!
Freedom from editing
All CaféLit stories are edited as they go on to the site. The
very best story is chosen each day anyway. So, all that needs to be done as the
book is made is a light copy-edit and a proof read. However, the stories do
have to be formatted and this can be tricky sometimes; all sorts of random code
is embedded in the texts and it can make formatting the books tricky. Help us by
first creating your story in a simple Word document then paste it into your email.
A new financial model
We experimented recently with publishing our paperback version
of a book via Amazon’s own print on demand service rather than Lightning Source
whom we usually use. We were pleased with the results so we’re now going to use
that for future CaféLit books.
It’s difficult to get Amazon paperbacks into bookshops. But
that’s okay for CaféLit book; we don’t want to get them into bookshops, we want
to get them into cafés!
We’ve tried to keep prices down to £6.0 RRP and £5.00 for authors.
We may have to revise this. Currently The
Best of CaféLit 8 hasn’t covered costs though authors are getting a reasonable
royalty.
It’s important that we cover the costs of a book. We can’t
offer a new contract until we do.
Making the video
This is always fun. However, I’m still using Movie Maker but
as this is now obsolete I’ll need to start using something else. I always use https://pixabay.com/ for free and copyright
free pictures and https://freemusicarchive.org/
for free and copyright free music. (Be sure if you use the latter to put the
right filters into your search) It’s a shame about Movie Maker. I’ve really got
to know all its tricks and foibles.
For the The Best of Cafélit books I list drinks, themes and authors.
I find pictures to go with some of the drinks and themes, then list authors in
the credits. I look for a piece of snappy, lively music.
Saturday 8 February 2020
Editing and its Joys
I've recently completed an Edit 1 on a lovely flash fiction collection, which is best summed up as slice of life type stories. Am looking forward to working further on this with the author.
But I have found in both of the collections I've worked on for Bridge House so far that the editing process has made me look more critically at my own writing. That, I think, is a good thing!
What no writer (or editor) can afford is to become complacent. Being made to think is this the best I can do, or could I rewrite this in such a way the story has more impact sharpens up your own skills so much.
Let's hear it for the joys of editing then!
But I admit it can be hard to think of those joys at times. The joy of creating new stories etc is obvious; the joys of rewriting (and again and again etc) less so.
I've come to appreciate the importance of clarity much more. Are the images I'm trying to conjure up in my own writing really coming across the way I've intended? Likewise, when editing another author's work, can I get the true sense of what they are trying to convey? Are their images hitting home the way I believe the author intends they should?
The other thing that has really struck home since working for Bridge House is how important it is that another editor does see your work. You really do get too close to your own work.
But what is fantastic, both from the writer's and editor's viewpoint, is when the editing is done and you both know the stories are sharper, stronger and hit home better as a result of working together to produce the best possible prose. I don't think I'll tire of that feeling whether I'm wearing the author's hat or the editor's one. Happy writing (and editing) everyone!
But I have found in both of the collections I've worked on for Bridge House so far that the editing process has made me look more critically at my own writing. That, I think, is a good thing!
What no writer (or editor) can afford is to become complacent. Being made to think is this the best I can do, or could I rewrite this in such a way the story has more impact sharpens up your own skills so much.
Let's hear it for the joys of editing then!
Enjoy the joy of writing but good editing will shape your prose up wonderfully. Pixabay image. |
I've come to appreciate the importance of clarity much more. Are the images I'm trying to conjure up in my own writing really coming across the way I've intended? Likewise, when editing another author's work, can I get the true sense of what they are trying to convey? Are their images hitting home the way I believe the author intends they should?
The other thing that has really struck home since working for Bridge House is how important it is that another editor does see your work. You really do get too close to your own work.
Playing around with words can spark creative ideas but are your images coming through clearly enough? Pixabay image. |
But what is fantastic, both from the writer's and editor's viewpoint, is when the editing is done and you both know the stories are sharper, stronger and hit home better as a result of working together to produce the best possible prose. I don't think I'll tire of that feeling whether I'm wearing the author's hat or the editor's one. Happy writing (and editing) everyone!
Lightbulb moments come to editors too but should be used to inspire the author with ways they can use to strengthen their imagery and impact of their prose. Pixabay image. |
Monday 3 February 2020
Nativity
Many of the stories, but not all, in this collection take
place at or near Christmas time. There are a couple that deal with the joys and
sorrows of the annual Nativity Play. There is new birth, rebirth or a new
beginning in many of them.
Again this year it was difficult to choose. There are so
many skilled writers out there. There was little wrong with any of the writing
we read but in the end we went for the strongest stories and for those tales
that best interpreted the theme.
There are some familiar names in this volume and also some
new writers. We treasure them all.
As usual selecting stories for and editing our this anthology
was a very rewarding experience. Each story in the anthology goes through up to
three stages of editing. This year in most cases we only had to do one!
We’re pleased to say that the book is already in the black
and has covered its set-up costs.
We’re experimenting for our next collection with anonymous
submissions. Our call for submissions is here.
Do take a look at our book and please leave us a review.
Click on the image to read more on Amazon.
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