writing

Alarms Needed: Writing Takes Over Life

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 8 Comments

I don’t know if this happens to others, but when I’m writing my entire brain focuses on what I’m doing, and it tunes out ‘real life.’

This can be a problem while writing and living on a sailboat.

It’s shocking, I know, but sometimes I have responsibilities on the sailboat. My husband, Matt, could be off windsurfing, playing volleyball, or spear fishing, and I’m on the boat writing.

I might need to turn off the water maker when the tanks are full, turn of the generator when the batteries are charged, or re-angle the solar panels when the sun moves – which it has a tendency to do during the day.

Matt learned that when I’m writing, there is a slight chance I could forget my duties. And yes, he learned from experience. His solution: he sets an alarm.

Now you’d thing that would be enough, but it’s not. He leaves me a note for what the alarm means.

I’ve learned to read the note as soon as the alarm goes off and attend to the task right away. If I sit back and start writing without doing what I was supposed to do, there’s a good chance I forget.

Sometimes the boat needs take precedence over writing, but I still love to write while I’m on my catamaran.

Thanks for reading . . .

Writing while Sailing: Retyping a novel

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 4 Comments

I love to read books and blogs on how to write and remember reading a tip I’ve never followed before.

The tip: When you’ve finished a good quality draft of your novel, put in a drawer for a least two weeks, longer if you have the patience. I’ve done this part. What I haven’t done is the next part of the tip. Retype your entire novel.

What? I thought, who has the time? And is it worth it?

Now that I’m back on Mattina, and we are in the Exumas, I’ve found the time.

I’ve typed in the first 8 chapters and am amazed at what I’m discovering.

First, typos appear fresh. I’ve seen some that I was sure I’d edited out.

Second, dropping clues too early jumped out at me. By letting time go by, I can see the novel with fresh eyes and have been able to hold back information. I think this will make the novel more tense.

Third, I had a few names that didn’t suit the character I’d assigned them to. Yup – changed those too.

Fourth, and the best result, when I read a sentence and it’s not the best it could be, I don’t want to type it back in. It’s easier to let go of writing and rewrite a sentence when it’s not on the page yet.

I’m amazed at how well this technique works. Yes, it’s a lot of work, but I think Look The Other Way will be a better novel because of it. Too bad my typing sucks.

If you have any editing techniques you’ve tried that worked for you, let me know.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for reading . . .

Early Drafts: Having Your Novel Reviewed

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

Last year at this time I was working with Garry Ryan (2011 CWC President) through the CWC mentorship program on my 3rd novel Burnt. Burnt is now with my literary agent, Margaret Hart, awaiting comment.

I sent Garry about 10 pages at a time, he commented, I updated and sent the next 10 pages. I learned something new with each section. If you get the chance to be part of this program, it’s certainly worth it.

Many of you know my brother, Michael Conn, is also an author. I’ve convinced him that the process I went through with Garry improved my novel and that he, Michael, should do this with me for my next novel.

I’ve finished the first draft of my fourth novel, Look the Other Way, and Michael is reviewing it chapter by chapter. I send him one chapter, he comments, I update and on it goes.

At this early stage, Michael gives me his thoughts on story line, whether he likes a character or not, whether he thinks a sentence is foreshadowing something, and if the writing is good enough.

This helps me see the novel through his eyes and understand what impression I’m giving a reader.

It takes time and effort, but if you can find someone willing to do this for you, I recommend it. My only caution is that you must find someone you trust. It’s hard to put writing out there when it’s not in its most polished state.

Thanks for reading . . .

 

Mattina Underway – so what happens to my writing?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 9 Comments

It’s travel time again. Matt, Farley and I are heading south along the Florida east coast and hoping for a weather window to cross the Gulf Stream and enter the Bahamas. We are traveling with one buddy boat and trying to hook up with 2 or 3 more. It’s fun to arrive in a pack, with your friends already imported with you.

While we are traveling, I have no idea if I’ll have internet access along the way. My next shot at blogging will probably be once we are in the Bahamas. So if I’m quiet on this end, that’s why.

I always think I’m going to have time to write while we are underway, but it never turns out that way. Somehow, when the sailboat is in motion, I can’t concentrate on writing. Writing while sailing is a romantic idea to me. It’s a dream, really. The reality is I get busy.

I need to be in a quiet anchorage in calm weather to produce a good word count.

See you on the flip side.

Thanks for reading . . .

British Dictionary and American Style Guide Used by a Canadian

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 14 Comments

The Chicago Manual of Style says, “The more we learn, the less we seem to know.” Anyone else feel this way about spelling, punctuation and grammar?

So here is a question.

I follow the Oxford English Dictionary for spelling but the Chicago Manual of Style for grammar and punctuation.

The first is British and the second American.

Should I be following the Oxford Guide to Style if I use the Oxford English Dictionary? Or is it okay to follow one British and one American as long as I am consistently British in my spelling and consistently American in my punctuation and grammar? Now let me add that I am Canadian, and I get really confused. The borders seem to be disappearing on me.

And this gets me back to the first line, “The more we learn, the less we seem to know.”

Thoughts?

Thanks for reading . . .

Comma Splice: Acceptable or Not?

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 22 Comments

Like anything else in life, grammar rules adapt and change.

Some say it’s okay to spilt an infinitive, start a sentence with ‘but,’ and end a sentence with a preposition.

My question: Are comma splices becoming acceptable?

I’m finding more of them in novels than I used to, and I’m not sure if this is due to the way publishing a novel has changed or due to a change in acceptable style.

I’d love to hear your opinion.

Written by a person (me 🙂  )who edits out every comma splice she sees.

Thanks for reading . . . and hopefully commenting.

Writing While Cruising

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 2 Comments

Writing while cruising seems like a dream come true. And mostly this is the case, but there are pros and cons as there are with most things in life.

I enjoy having time to myself without distractions. We often go days without Internet access, which frees up time. The temptation to check how many people have read my blog, if my agent has sent me an email, or – and I hate to admit this – check Facebook disappears. My phone never rings since I don’t actually have a phone. J

On the flip side, the difficultly comes when I want to research a topic. At home, I can do this any time I want. Underway, I have to wait until we have a decent connection with enough bandwidth to be able to search. I am less active with other blogs and don’t tend to comment as much, so sometimes I feel like I’m missing things.

Each year in the Bahamas we find the WiFi access improves. I use my Kindle for email, but can’t really do much else with it on the Internet. At least I can stay in touch with family, usually on a daily basis. I start to worry if I haven’t connected for a while.

Internet gets removed as a distraction, but other distractions get added while we are sailing. If something is happening on the boat that needs attention, I might have to stop typing mid-word. There’s no time to finish a thought.

One evening, I was alone on Mattina after dark and having a productive writing session. The winds picked up, changed direction, and it started to rain. So while I was writing without distractions, I was keeping an eye on the GPS. It gives us our exact position and would let me know if Mattina started to drag. A little bit of tension and stress doesn’t hurt (I don’t like to be alone in a storm after dark on the boat – did I mention I was alone?), but it does mean I’m not 100% focused on writing.

Every ten minutes or so, I walked around the boat to check our position and check other boats in the anchorage. The risk of being dragged into rises with the number of boats in the anchorage.  All ended well, but I probably wrote fewer words than I would have if the weather had remained calm.

Would I trade Mattina for any other place to write? No way.

Thanks for reading . . .

Scrivener Writing Software: Pros and Cons

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 7 Comments

Based on recommendations from other writers, I decided to try Scrivener. I’ve been using Microsoft Word and Pages (on my Mac) and like both but am always game for something new.

I’ve finished my month free trial and bought the software.  Overall, it’s useful for writing a novel. It has some features I liked and others that I didn’t.  These are listed below.

I’d love to hear what your favourite features of Scrivener are. It’s time-consuming learning new software and if you would like to share how you use it, I’d appreciate it.

My Likes:

  • Try before you buy: Only the days you open the software count toward the trial period. I had a month of days to play with and learn the software.
  • Split screen: Allows you to read 2 versions of a scene at the same time. This is useful when you are trying out changes but don’t want to commit.
  • Meta Data customization: I’ve used this to replace my Excel spreadsheet.
  • Meta Data located at the side: You can fill in as you write the scene.
  • Automatic Chapters: This avoids typing the wrong chapter number.
  • Customization to compile into word: You can format the way you, your publisher or agent prefers.
  • Notes: Handy to have right in the scene you are writing or for the overall document.
  • Synopsis: Reminds me what I wrote in the scene.
  • Comments: When I imported my manuscript from MS Word, my comments imported too.
  • Cork Board: I don’t like index cards, so this works for me.
  • Page Breaks: You can indicate which sections you want a page break before when having the manuscript scenes compile into a novel.
  • Text to speech: Is easy to use. I always have to dig through Microsoft’s menus to find this.
  • Storage of documents: Everything related to my manuscript is now in one place. I don’t have to use Excel and multiple word documents. This makes referencing the different information quick and easy.
  • Importing research files (right into folder) – Keeps me organized. I don’t have to worry about where I’m going to store documents.
  • Saving to ZIP file at end of session – good for obvious reasons.
  • Highlights dialogue if quotes don’t match.

My Dislikes:

  • Meta Data sorting – I re-sorted the title column, and I couldn’t can’t get it back to original sort, so I had to number the titles
  • Converting section to folder: If found this awkward. I think there should be a new chapter command. If you know of one, I’d like to hear about it.
  • You can use command and click to get a new folder but it took me a while to find this.
  • Couldn’t figure out how to import so chapter and section breaks were there. I had to manually put them in.
  • For Meta Data, the software doesn’t pick up that a word has been types earlier in a column like Excel does. Have to type each word.
  • Software defaults to courier:  This is fine, but I like Times New Roman. I had a hard time figuring out  how to get all text to change. The chapter heading kept going to Courier.
  • Folder outline: If a chapter only has one section then you can’t just have the top folder. You have to have a folder and a section.
  • Folder Numbering: I thought folders should number automatically.
  • Snapshot: Is hard to use. I wanted to snapshot the manuscript, but could only get it to do each scene at time. Too time consuming.
  • Switched to straight quotes in the middle of a scene and I have no idea why.
  • Spell checker seems slow to catch errors. Not sure how to activate it properly.

I’m going to keep using Scrivener until I get better at it, but I think it’s going to work for me.

Again, if you have any tips, please share J

Thanks for reading . . .

 

For another review  see M.Q.Allen.

Copyediting – Proofreading Comments Summary (Part Two)

~ Kristina Stanley ~ 6 Comments

 So we continue with copyediting and proofreading comments . . .

After my five-part blog on copyediting and proofreading, I collected the comments from this blog and from the LinkedIn writing group called Crime Fiction managed by Theresa de Valence.

Today I’ll focus on Having Others Proofread Your Work:

I received some interesting ideas about having others proofread your work and have grouped the comments below. Some comments gave a similar message so I picked one of them to post. I hope you find these helpful.

  • I threw a party…after my manuscript had been proofread by a pro (and she was good). I invited five well-read, literate friends and gave them each five page stacks of non-chronological parts of the manuscript. They were to read them over, mark what was wrong, tag those pages with coloured stickers and then trade with someone across the table. I reassembled the manuscript and made the CX where needed. It’s a constant process as you know. Not perfect, but darn close . . . I was in the room because . . . when my readers had questions about dialect or some military or nautical term I could answer them immediately. They read silently for the most part . . . unless they had questions. Having the pages out of context made for closer scrutiny . . . helping eliminate the usual tendency to mentally fill in words automatically . . . which the writer may do when reading one’s own book. . BTW, the manuscript was 102,000 words and having five readers meant it was accomplished in about four hours. I had a thank you card and gift for each reader when we were done. They liked the chore so much they volunteered to do it with future books . . . and I’m going to take them up on it.

 

  • If you can, have two of your most obsessive compulsive friends or relatives read the galley. They’ll work hard to find the little mistakes, the kinds that editors miss. However, in the end, don’t beat yourself up over every error; we are human. 


 

  • As a newspaper reporter, I knew many editors, but only a handful as meticulous as needed for a book manuscript. When I receive galleys, I ask two really good editors to read copies. Each of the three of us has her own copy. It is amazing to see how many errors each of us find, mistakes not duplicated by the other readers. And this is after the books have been through editors at the publishing house. Wow! For the first several books I used editor friends whose work I knew. I took them to dinner or some other entertainment as compensation. In all, five different editor friends have read for me. Now, I write them checks, which are never enough for what they contribute. They fuss, but will cash the checks. They get a kick out of reading the first print-outs, even boast about doing it. Others have volunteered, but I need pros. It works for me.

 

  • Genre is extremely important. You have to know the
genre to be able to tell the timing, rhythm, wording and nuances of the
story. Each one has its own blood pressure and heartbeat. Editors are
inclined to pick out things that they say are wrong, and may actually take 
more
away from the story than they put in. They tend to be superior in demeanour. 
For
example, an editor might tell me that the language in EINAR is too formal, 
but
they do not know Scandinavian speech patterns. I speak Norwegian, Danish,
Swedish , as well as English, German and Dutch to varying degrees and know the
rhythm of all the languages. It also helps in research. It is their opinion
unless they are on the payroll of one of the major publishers. In that case you
kind of have to do what they say for the most part if you can’t prove your
point.

 

  • Be careful who you go with as an editor. Be absolutely sure that they are well versed in your specific genre. If you write horror, do not settle for a fantasy editor, it is not the same thing. Always look for personal compatibility. It is your baby that you are entrusting them with, not some mangy red boned mutt from the pound.

 

  • Trade with someone – you proof theirs & they proof yours. Errors tend to get less detectable with repeated readings, until they look more “normal” than more “correct” usages. And that script reading by your characters is probably a good idea for reasons way beyond proofing – might want to do it while you’re doing drafts as well, to try out alternative sequences. An audience helps, although they’ll get testy after a while, no matter how good the writing is.

Thanks for reading and thanks for the comments . . .

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