Tag Archives: Editing

Show Review and Other News

21 Sunday Oct 2018

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Dear readers

I’m not sure why I started with that, but there you go. Since I last updated you, Alex found that Milk Bar Mag have put up a review of our little show here. It’s always very gratifying for people  you don’t know to say they enjoyed your work!Nanowrimo

I’m busily preparing to go overseas for a few weeks on holiday AND do NaNoWriMo at the same time. Past Fleur thought this was a good idea, but Present Fleur is starting to doubt her judgement. I will press on though, and even if I don’t get much done, I’ll have nearly two weeks after I get back to catch up.

I attended my monthly Romance Writers’ group today, and we had a presentation from Lauren Clarke on Creating Compelling Characters. She had a great balance of information and activities, although there was a lot to take in. I took notes so I’ll be able to go back and look at it later if I forget.

It was a great opportunity to come up with some new characters, and from that I developed about half a plot for the new novel. It’s a relief to know I can still come up with stuff after taking a while off writing new fiction for the show, and to edit previous work.

I have a fresh new notebook to use for drafting, I bought myself fancy new fine-liner pens, in multiple colours, and I have the bones of a story. I might even make it through this NaNoWriMo with a novel that’s worth editing!

While I’m travelling and drafting, I’ve also arranged for the editor of my first book, Annie Seaton, to have a look at a new 45k manuscript. I’ll look at her feedback in December and aim to have something ready to publish in February. So keep your eyes peeled and on this blog for further announcements.

Lots of things are bubbling along, as is always the way, here at Fleur HQ. Thank you all for your continued support and love. I couldn’t do it without you.

Over half way to May!

17 Tuesday Apr 2018

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This is just a brief update post on what’s happening in April. Things have been progressing well in my world. So far I have completed my poem each day (not today but shhh) as part of NaPoWriMo and making good progress on the show for the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Firstly, the poetry. I’ve been writing everyday, which has been great. I’ve been hand-writing my poems, and then transcribing them onto the computer for posterity and editing (of which I have done little). So far most of the poems have been on the ranty end of the spectrum. There are one or two with potential to become something more polished. I wouldn’t show the raw poems to anyone, but as a way of getting some stuff out of my brain it’s been very effective.

I try not to judge the quality of my first drafts, but it’s a challenge to stay away from that judgemental thinking.

Last Sunday I attended a workshop run by one of the writing groups I’m a member of, the Melbourne Romance Writers Guild. We had well known author and all around champion human C. S. Pacat to talk about world building. It doesn’t sound much like romance at first but creating a sense of authenticity to the setting is important in any book, especially in fantasy or sci-fi.

The part of the workshop which really stood out to me was the idea of the creative phase versus the skeptic phase. The creative phase is when you write down every idea that comes to you. You ascribe no value to it. The skeptic phase is when you then go back and evaluate whether the ideas will ‘work’, if they’re practical, or derivative etc. Pacat said that these two types if thinking inhibit each other and doing them at the same time will not produce good results.

I’m very good at critiquing ideas as soon as they come to me, which is not very useful creatively. I’m sure it’s a skill, like any other, to allow yourself to ‘go mad’ in the first phase, and really hone in in the second phase. I aim to improve this skill set in future.

Secondly, Melbourne Fringe Festival registrations are now open. This means we’re de-prioritising script development to focus on venue selection and application submissions. I’ve also bought a bunch of materials to start making puppets, which is for later, but I’m excited to get started on them.

Alex and I attended a ‘venue speed dating’ event yesterday run by the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Artists and venues were brought together to meet. We spoke to a number of great potential venues, several of which I would not have otherwise approached.

It’s still all very up in the air and I can’t tell you anything more. Watch this space for an image reveal in a few weeks – Fleur and Alexandra are Out of this World and they’re coming to a theatre near you.

Things are chugging along happily for me, I hope things are coming along for you too.

Baby Steps vs. Leaps of Faith

14 Wednesday Feb 2018

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I’m not going to talk about the fact that today is Valetine’s Day and I am not seeing anyone.

I’ve recently started attending a Meet-Up group called Abundant Artists. The purpose is to get together with other local artists, predominantly working in visual art, but there are some performers too, and discuss what you’re struggling with and what you’re working toawrds. We talked about the ways in which we sabotage ourselves, procrastination is one of my big ones, and the things we fear.

So I’ve been thinking about the next steps for my writing. I could keep going with baby steps, learning about creative writing through various short courses and workshops and producing manuscripts, or I could take a leap of faith and dip my toe into self-publishing.

My leap of faith is to engage a professional editor to look over my Choose Your Own Adventure Novel. I think this is a good book to test out self-publishing with; it has a lot of nostaglic appeal to 90’s kids, and it’s probably a bit weird for a big publisher.

It’s expensive to have a manuscript professionally edited, but it’s an investment in my future career. If the experience is positive, and the feedback constructive, then I’ll look into having other manuscripts edited for self-publishing.

I’ve also entered by manuscript ‘My Mother’s Secret’ into the Kill Your Darlings Unpublished Manuscript Award. I entered last year and was not shortlisted, but this is a new story and a new year, so I’m hopeful!

Finally, I created a poetry chapbook – a small collection of my work – which I’m going to take to The Sticky Institute. Sticky specialises in zines, so it’s the right place to test out the market for angry feminist poetry.

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Poetry chapbook pic from my Instagram

I would like to thank everyone who has told me it’s worth investing time and money into my art/writing. Without you I would never get through those days when it all seems pointless. With you I have the confidence and resilience to keep on keeping on! Whether it’s one small step forward at a time or one giant leap into the unknown, I know you’ll all be there to catch me.

PS: I’m still accepting donations towards my Get Hairy February campaign.

Is it ever ready?

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

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Last week I finished a manuscript. Well, I typed ‘The End’. It was a project I started as part of last year’s NaNoWriMo and ended up being 104,000 words; my longest manuscript to date. It sort of feels like I’ve finished it, but I know that the next step is starting the editing process.

I have another manuscript that I’ve submitted to a couple of competitions which I wrote a few years ago, and I was working on edits of that right up until the day before the competition. I’m still not sure whether I should rewrite whole chunks of it because it doesn’t work the way I hoped it would.

The thing is, there is always more work that can be done on a piece. I could rewrite some plot point, or change the point of view of a section. A couple of the earlier manuscripts I wrote, back before I knew about genre conventions and other such things, now feel like they need to be completely rewritten so they’re more like what people expect. Of course there is an argument for originality of structure, but I’m not sure how far I’ll get with that.

The problem I’m facing now is when do I call a project finished? I know I have to let go of things, not least because I’ll drive myself batty with boredom, but I’m also afraid that they’ll never be ready.

I wrote an epilogue for the most recent project and I felt so naff tying everything up so neatly. I know that some readers like that, especially in a romance novel, but I was spent the whole time writing it thinking it was the worst drivel I’d ever thought up.

I’m heading up to the Romance Writers of Australia annual conference in Brisbane in August. It was a lot of money, but I decided that it was worth it for the professional development, networking and opportunities. I’m not really sure what to expect, although people who I’ve spoken to about it have sung it’s praises. I plan to have a second draft of the manuscript ready by then so that I can send it straight to any publisher who might request it or even seem even vaguely interested.

Slowly but surely I’m working my way towards releasing a novel that I’ve written myself into the world.

Winter is here

04 Monday Jul 2016

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I left my job about a month ago and almost immediately I got really sick, because of course I did. I had a cold, then it was a chest infection, then antibiotics did nothing (clearly it was viral), then I had to take asthma medication to get the inflammation in my lungs down. I think I’m coming good now, I even ventured back to the gym. And although I lost 5kg I do not recommend the chest infection diet!

I managed to do a bit of creative work while I was sick though. I’ve finished a round of redrafting for the novel manuscript I did at the end of 2014, and I’ve sent it to a few friends for their thoughts. I hope to be able to send it off to some publishers or book agents in the next month or so. I’ll need to write up a synopsis etc, but I think I’m ready for people to see it. It depends on the feedback from the beta readers though.

I’ve also got the manuscript from the Choose Your Own Adventure from last year to go through. I’ve started an initial read for typoes and other obvious errors, and then I’ll have to go back through and check that each of the endings is logical. I think that might take a little while because even though the manuscript is only relatively short there are over twenty endings.

The script for the fringe show is coming along. I’m starting to get a little worried though as September is approaching really fast. Part of me is wondering why I would agree to do a show, but it has been on my to do list for a while, so I’m looking forward to it as well.

Over the next few months, during the hibernation period, I’m hoping to get some stuff done creatively. I want to be a bit stricter with myself about achieving goals as I feel like the first half of the year has passed by without much really happening. My writing partner assures me that it’ll all be alright on the night.

The Coordinator for my writing group has had to go overseas for several months and I have volunteered to take on that role too. It shouldn’t require too much work, but I’ll have to put my project/event management hat on for the 20th anniversary lunch in July and the getting the anthology reader for production in early September.

It’s cold and dreary in Melbourne at the moment and we’re only a month into winter. I feel like my blog has become more of a place where I sporadically post updates and less of a place for actual creative output. Maybe that’s because the creative stuff is going into other projects, but sometimes I worry that the blog is neglected. Ah well, even if it is, I guess that’s okay too.

The Business of Creating

29 Sunday Nov 2015

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Last night I managed to get to the 50,000 word target of my fourth year of NaNoWriMo. Huzzah! I was so pleased to have been able to get it done, two days early, and with only a couple of thousand words worth of story to go. I’m going to wrap it up today and tomorrow and then put it away for a little while to stew.

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I’ve had some conversations in the last little while about my plan for the future. The only problem is I don’t really have a well thought out and detailed plan. What I want is a job that I like well enough, that’s part-time so that I can do my creative stuff on the side, and possibly one day I’ll get a job where I can use my writing skills, but maybe not. That’s the plan.

At the moment I have a job placement which is three days per week doing Human Resources. It’s a refreshing change from the basic office admin job placements I’ve been doing recently so I’m really enjoying getting stuck in. It’s only until the end of the year though, and then I’ll be back to looking for ongoing work.

So here’s the new plan. Starting from now I’m going to work one day per week on my writing. Now that NaNoWriMo is finished for the year I really need to start doing something with my older manuscripts. The one I wrote last year, in particular, needs a whole bunch of structural edits and additional sections.

I’m going to do what I’ve heard other professional authors do, for example Dawn French and Fiona McIntosh, that is set myself a proper 9am to 5pm day of work for my writing. In the morning I will spend my time researching writing opportunities, applying for jobs, finding writing competitions, magazines and periodicals and blogs that are taking submissions and do that. This will be my time to work on this blog. I will also look into networking possibilities in the industry and short courses in writing that I might like to do.

In the afternoon I’m just going to write (and rewrite). I’m going to start with the manuscript from last year’s NaNoWriMo, which needs some big stuff done to it, and spend a couple of hours a week just going through it and fixing it. Editing has never been my strong suit, I’ve always be much more interested in coming up with new material, but I must spend the time revising and reworking. Maybe I’ll set myself a deadline of the end of January to have it done and I can start sending it to publishers.

Some of you may have noticed that that only adds up to four days work. You’re right, and the other day I’m going to keep for my band. We meet once a week usually, and rehearse for 4 or 5 hours. That takes up most of one day of the weekend. I will spend some of the time on the other weekday practicing and the rest of the day getting the chores and life admin stuff done that I would have done on the weekend. We’re also going to start looking for performance opportunities in the new year so I’ll schedule those in too.

My aim in this is to get myself into a routine. I’m not studying anymore and I hope to have a solid, ongoing job by early next year. It’s time to get serious about the business of creating and make sure that going back to uni was not just a frivolous escape from being at work.