And this is when the fun really starts: months of redrafting and re-editing, which will probably take much longer than it did to write the first draft. So, a few weeks later, I can approach my editor’s comments with a fresh and slightly less hostile perspective. The point is that I don’t touch the manuscript for at least a fortnight. Never dive into an edit as soon as you get the comments back. I might head off for weekend break, go on a short course, maybe visit friends and family (who probably haven’t seem much of me since I started writing the book). Then comes the part the hard part: I take a few days off. I’ll get the piece back and spend a few days reading through her comments and suggestions. When I’m happy with the story, I send it to my editor who pulls it part. No edits, no spelling corrections straight from my head to the paper. In the early stages, it’s a lot like an engineering project: lots of research, character sketches, visiting possible locations…all good fun.Īfter that comes the creative part: raw writing. I think the reason is that I’m very methodical about my writing. ![]() I know this because I’ve managed to write and release two novels, rather than write one novel that spends eternity in a cycle of rewriting and copy-editing. Trust me it’s unbelievably annoying.īut weirdly enough, this affliction doesn’t seem to affect my writing. My neighbours are fascinated at how I can leave the house, get in the car, drive away, then come back twenty minutes later to rattle the front door handle. I have a deep-rooted mistrust of global search & replace, so I’d have to read the whole book again – just to be sure □Īnyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a little bit OCD. ‘What do you mean “I can’t find the rubber chicken”?’įortunately, I don’t have to do this that often because for me it isn’t much of a time-saver. Seems like a faff, I know, but having a distinct character for embedded quotes means I can search and replace without messing up the apostrophes (which unfortunately take double duty as single quotation marks).
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