The Final Edit – does it really exist?

My novel for young adults, Spooking, comes out on 13 April with Crooked Cat. I’m currently checking the final edits. This is a combination of accepting – mainly – those suggested by the editor and adding a few of my own. We’ve used Track Changes, but I’m currently reading out loud a “clean” version of the text – and notice that a few new mistakes have crept in – probably because it’s hard to see the text properly with the changes showing.  

Now, this novel has been around a while. I completed it in 2009 and it has gone out to a few agents and editors. I’ve had some positive rejections, including one from an agent who read the full script and said “I liked it but I didn’t love it. If you don’t get this placed, please send us your next one.” Naturally, I’m delighted that Crooked Cat like it. I’ve considered every bit of feedback I’ve been given and in many cases followed suggestions or reworked bits that others thought were not working. And I’m still tinkering. I’ll have to stop early next week: Crooked Cat want it back then.

I have a similar novel, Veiled Dreams, that I also want to get out and am actually making some changes to that in view of the comments made by Crooked Cat on Spooking. An agent recently said she though the narrative voice was a little odd. All of a sudden I’m agreeing with her. This novel has also been tucked away for many months and it was pretty well perfect when I put it to bed, I’d thought. Even my beta-readers had agreed. Yet now I’m making changes.

The latest novel is generally the best and I have high hopes for Potatoes in Spring. I have just a handful of edits to do on this, including the read out loud one. I wonder how long it will be before another one is better?

And so we go on learning. Thank goodness for editors. They save us from ourselves when we get too bogged down with all of this. And if it wasn’t for that deadline they gave us, we’d go on forever. Indeed, I’ve been known to edit as I read out my work at events.    

Ten Writing resolutions for 2010

1. Catch up on that 2000 words / two hours a day thing. How can I call myself a writer unless I do at least that? That is after all what it is all about. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fiction, non-fiction or academic papers as long as it’s writing.
2. Get Babel finished. Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve three and a half more edits to do. Mid February will see the end of it perhaps.
3. Finish And They Thought I Didn’t Know. A little relief from edits of Babel. It’s my first poetry novel.
4. Sack my publisher if she doesn’t come up with the goods.
5. Get funding for Potatoes in Spring. Could this be the basis of a sabbatical? It fits in so well with Holocaust studies yet has the odd twist of showing a German Point Of View.
6. Start Peace Child. Odd, working with that title again. For years it was the title of The Prophecy which was actually published in September 2009.
7. Give some thought to Voices. This will be a Young Adult novel about a girl who hears voices in her head.
8. Give some thought to In Search of the Sun God. Will this be an excuse to go back to Tenerife? It’s all about the people who went there looking for the Sun God.
9. Heavily market Babel. What will it take to make sure that that really gets out there?
10. Keep doing all those other writerly things that still count. Remember that nothing is ever a waste of time – including waiting for the tram.

Procrastination

I guess I’m putting off two jobs I don’t really want to do.

One is making those phone calls, or even the decisions about which phone calls to make to get that huge novel of mine out into the world. I keep telling myself I have other things to do. I am not quite sure, actually, how this fits into the bigger scheme of things. How do I fit it into my routines which are already based on principles similar to the 7 Habits as by Stephen Covey. Am I being proactive, beginning with the end in mind, putting first things first, thinking win / win ( I get my book published; they get a great book), seeking first to understand and then be understood, synergising and sharpening the saw? I haven’t really got it safely and sensibly programmed in.

That’s easily fixed – change what you do. But I’m getting the feeling that I’m quite glad I haven’t got it properly programmed in because it gives me the excuse not to do it. Ha!

The second is getting back to “Potatoes in Spring” and writing the chapter about how the German girls reacted to the outbreak of war in 1939. I keep telling myself I don’t know a thing about it, but what happened to the writerly idea of exploring with the imagination? Is it just that I don’t want to face the issues?

I spent some considerable time yesterday writing to the Head of one of the Stuttgart Waldorf (Steiner) Schools. I already have an interesting reply from him and from a colleague of his who will really be able to help. I guess I’ll now use having to reply to them as a further excuse not to actually write that chapter.

Plus, I have to get all of my worksheets ready for a couple of school visits the week after next.

Schools Tour

Well, I’ve done three school visits this week. The children listened attentively, mainly, as I read form The Lombardy Grotto to them. They asked lots of questions. They didn’t ask that question – the one all writers dread – “Where do you get your ideas from?” That may be because I pre-empted that and asked them what they thought the question was that most writers get asked and dread answering and then I asked them where they got their ideas from for their stories.
The strangest question was “Is your study a mess, because you work in Southampton and Salford?” I’d mentioned living in two places when one of them asked me what I was working on at the time – I work on Peace Child in Southampton and Potatoes in Spring when I’m in Salford. I do that so I can leave my bits and pieces on the appropriate desk.
I did tell them a lot about how The Lombardy Grotto came to me, almost packaged as a whole, when I visited the Cider Press Centre and Totnes, Devon. How when we got back from the Riverside Walk, it was so very quiet, and we wondered, what if everyone had gone away?
I asked the children in all three schools to tell me what Sparky looked like, how old they thought Jayne was, how old they thought Michael and Toby were, why Old Fuzzy Locks was called Old Fuzzy Locks and how they would describe chocolate to someone who had never tried it before. The responses were good.
Some children asked me for my autograph. I think I’m going to get some postcards made, which I can sign for them. They will show images of my books and have details of my web site, where they can buy signed copes, or link to Amazon.

Potatoes in Spring

I’m not sure whether this is going to be the final title. This is my current projects and is based on a fantastic resource I have: a photocopy of a circular letter sent during the Second World War between he classmates of my mother-in-law. She was a German Jewess, who did not even know about her Jewish background until a few days before she came to England at the beginning of 1939. Three stories are told in the book:
· That of my mother-in-law getting used to her strange new life in Britain – and worrying about he mother being bombed by the Germans in London and her father being bombed by the allies in Germany
· The ordinary life of ordinary Germans during that time, including the rather innocent experience of these thirteen to fourteen year old girls
· The activities of the family in Stuttgart who saved the Jewish orphanage helped the Jews in the ghetto.
I think the unusual angle here is the taking a look at ordinary lives. We know about the Holocaust. We know about many acts of bravery and defiance. But what we lack is knowledge of the ordinary, and perhaps some clue as to how this could have happened when ordinary people were around. At least I have some good documentation here. However, I don’t have everything I need and I’m actually looking forward to doing some of the research.