Eyes Bugging Out

Okay, this editing thing is kicking my...ego. I tried to finish markups today, but after three hours straight I just didn't have it in me to keep going. Of course, it might have something to do with umpiring nine baseball games this weekend. I'm not indestructible after all. There goes my pride.

But I will get it done, I promise. After all, you want to read the book, right? You want to be gripped by the plot, cry with the characters, and be rewarded with a flashy yet satisfying finale that concludes the first book and sets up perfectly for a sequel. You want all that and more.

So I better get crackin'. Which means I need a good night's sleep, a hearty yet healthful breakfast, a cushy chair, a good reading lamp, and strong coffee from Java Journey. I'm starting to think I should pay rent. But don't tell Jeff that. I spend enough money there already.

Editing Galore

I'm certainly not charting new territory here, but I am discovering how real the writing process it. Not that writing is new to me; I've been doing it most of my life. But it's mostly been marketing and advertising copywriting, with the occasional article or short story thrown in here and there. But this is the real deal. A novel. The cornerstone of literature. The big time. The Show.

The pain in certain parts of my body, including my brain.

I have now entered the agony phase, the one that makes or breaks authors, decides whether what they've written actually sees the bookstore shelves. I'm referring, of course, to editing -- the absolute worst part of writing.

It's hard to dissect your own words. It just is. Try as I might, I cannot detach myself from my own work. So I had Stephanie read through the whole thing since she hadn't seen but a few pages and didn't have the emotional attachment I do. Plus, she's really good at character and plot development. This is the same woman who can almost always figure out what happens next on "24."

After she made her neatly placed red marks on the pages, I then made her corrections, incorporated a few of my own, and printed it out again (at Office Depot, of course; I wasn't wasting pricing ink jet paper on 300+ pages). And I started the process all over again.

Now, thank to countless hours spent sipping capps at Java Journey, I am about halfway through the second run through, still finding mistakes neither of us caught and making changes to the storyline. I'm feeling very George Lucas-y.

So you want to write a book, eh? Get laid off from your job first, so you'll have plenty of spare time.

How to Start a Novel...in One Laborious Step

Many of you already know I'm writing a novel. Not news to you. But what you might not know is the amount of work involved in writing a novel. So I'll tell you how it started and fill in the details as needed...

About ten years ago, a character popped himself into my head and started nagging me to write about him. He set up housekeeping and refused to go away. But this wasn't all bad. At first he was a little annoying, but as I got to know him he grew on me (unlike hair) and eventually we became good friends. But there was a problem: while I enjoyed his company, I wasn't quite sure what to do with him. I mean, he was a nice guy and all -- assuming you weren't a foreign agent intent on destroying America -- but I didn't know exactly how to incorporate this man living in my head into an actual story line, with plot and all that. So I put him on a shelf and only brought him down occasionally to play for a few minutes at a time.

Fast forward three years. Finally I had an opening scene and the beginnings of some sort of action for him to be involved with. He had something to do. Well, at least a little something. I wrote about a hundred pages, taking him on his first adventure, careful to make sure he lived through it, and put him away, safely tucked back in his box. Then I met bestselling author John Lutz at a book signing, told him I was a writer, and asked if would mind reviewing what I had written. He was delighted! So I hustled back home, freshly signed paperback in hand, and rattled off a quick e-mail to him, including the first hundred pages I knew he would hack apart. A couple days later, he responded with both a note of encouragement and several excellent suggestions about improvements and possible character development ideas. I was elated! A real author taking the time to correspond seriously with little ol' me! We e-mailed back and forth several more times, discussing this and that, and I wrote some more story line.

But then real life sucked me away from my writing until the end of 2008, when I got laid off from my corporate marketing job with the company I had planned to retire from in 25 years or so. Best laid plans and all that.... So now I was faced with way too much free time on my hands. What to do, what to do?

Always one to see the silver lining (after I've recovered from the initial shock), I realized this was my chance to finally finish the book I had started a decade earlier, when Gordon McAllister first started paying rent in my already overstuffed head. So I sat down to write. And sat. And sat. And wrote a few words. And sat....

Finally, the story all flowed out and I was able to fill almost 300 pages of story, totaling nearly 100,000 words -- my goal. The manuscript was rough, but at least the story line had finally left my fingertips and I felt like the story was complete.

But the story's not really over at all. Sure, Gordon McAllister and the rest of the motley cast have done their jobs, but now I have to finish mine and polish them to a fine shine. Which is what I've been doing for the past three weeks. Stephanie has read the whole thing and made her notes and now it's my turn.

Editing is a pain in the posterior. Between grammar, punctuation, and making sure all the right words are in all the write places, there are also issues like character development (do you even care about so-and-so?) and plot cohesiveness (why would he/she do that?). Grueling stuff.

But I will persevere. And very soon I will have a finished manuscript, one that I can send off to prospective agents. Oh, you want to know about actually publishing the book? Stay tuned.