Enough Is Enough?

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Ileandra Young

I’ve changed the title of this post several times. Each time I thought I captured the essence of what I’m trying to say, but this is my favourite. I attribute that fact to the youtube video I managed to find from one of my favourite shows; Will And Grace.

The clip is only nine seconds long but enough really is enough by the time you make it that far.

So what am I talking about?

Editing of course. That horrible little bug bear that drives all of us crazy. You know what I’m talking about. You refine and correct and rewrite and restructure and pare down and tighten, all the while thinking; ‘when will I know when I’m done?’

This is heavy in my mind right now. As the deadline for HarperVoyager creeps closer and all the feedback starts to roll in, I have to decide on my final edits. [Aside; the response to my call for Betas has been amazing. Thank you, all, so very, very much, for your constructive words and kind comments. Your understanding has been brilliant and the speed you’ve all come back to me boggles the mind. You’re all awesome and I’m indebted to you. Please let me know if I can ever return the favour!]

If you’ve ever read the SORB page, then you’ll know that I’ve been writing this novel for almost half my life. It started as something so small and simple and has evolved into a major part of my writing life. I always come back to this novel, even after promising myself that I’m done. And every time I come back to it, there are changes. I can honestly say that recent changes have all been for the better; several chapters have been rewritten and some have been removed. One character is gone for good and two others have been given a major overhaul. Clunky, pointless scenes have been streamlined. Dialogue has been punched up. Naught adverbs and pointless verbiage has been given the old heave ho. But is it enough? How will I ever know?

If I’m waiting for validation in the form of an agent/publisher, I’ll be searching and waiting for the rest of my life. Possibly. I could be that this novel is never picked up and then what? Will I just keep editing it forever?

bird and little chicks in nest from OpenClipArtObviously that’s just silly. I can’t do that. Nobody should do that; eventually, everyone has to let go. The little chicks have to fly the nest.

I have decided, heaven help me, that this edit of SORB is my last. No more. After this, I bite the bullet and move onto the next two books in the trilogy. That or leave it alone completely and move onto pastures new. It’s sad, but I can’t keep picking at this novel any more. It isn’t healthy. Besides, I have plenty of other ideas that I need to tackle and I can’t do that while still lingering over this piece.

What about you guys? How do you know when you’re done? Do you have a novel that you’ve just beaten and beaten to death? Do these feelings ring any bells for you? As ever, I’d love to know. 🙂

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Erm… Ooops!

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Having a mooch, as I do, through my emails in the middle of the night – head nodding as I try not to crush a feeding baby – I made my way over to JM’s blog. The mini series ‘Blogs – How Do You Follow Them‘ has been incredibly interesting to read and I wish I had more time to read through the comments. Head on over there if you’re interested on a quick study on how people follow blogs, do their reading and their criteria for choosing who to follow.

Anyway, it was after reading these posts that I got to thinking. There are lots of bloggers that I used to speak to quite regularly, picking their posts out of my email and following the links through to read what they had to say. But some of them haven’t popped up recently. I assumed that they were just busy and hadn’t posted. After all, life happens to all of us, doesn’t it? Some days there is just no way to get a post out on time, whatever you do – which is why most of mine are planned out in advance, sometimes by as much as two weeks.

I logged onto the WordPress dashboard, thinking this was a bit odd, and followed the links through to my Reader. Well imagine my surprise; there are LOADS of posts there! Most of which haven’t made it anywhere near my email. Grr!

angry green monster with teeth - from OpenClipArtCrap. So when I thought I was caught up, it turns out that there are a tonnes of posts that I just haven’t seen because I never though that they wouldn’t come to my email. As a matter of fact, there are 43 blogs that WordPress thought to set as ‘Never’ when asked if new posts should come to my email!

Wuh? I never told it to do that!

*huff huff* I’ve fixed it now, and I know in future to double check it. Its fascinating though, that’s 43 blogs I’d forgotten I follow because its been so long since I heard from them!

This post is as much to apologise for suddenly going quiet on all those blogs, as to let you guys know; WordPress does weird things with your settings! If you think you should be getting more emails, or if a blog you follow has gone strangely quiet, just check out your Reader. You may get a surprise.

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Six Sentence Sunday 30/09 #34

Posted on September 30, 2012 by Ileandra Young

I can’t remember if I’ve told you this or not, but, when I was at university I wrote a sitcom. There is (very) brief mention of it on the Other Works page and possible a post here or there in which I talk about it. Not that I can remember them right now.

Anyway, this week’s six sentences is from a piece of flash written based on the characters from that sitcom. Leanne, Harmony, Nadine, Michael, Leo and Mark are all students at the local university and neighbours to boot. They boys are in the year above and were already in situ when the girls arrived in their first year.

A clash of different personalities ensues as the girls move in across the street and the lads, as lads do, try their best to impress them.

This little snippet is actually based on the action immediately after that in the first episode I wrote. The girls caught the boys covering their car in shaving cream and have yet to forgive them. However, the boys need a lift to the local supermarket to pick up some supplies.

Its still form my A-Z of Flash Fiction and features ‘yoghurt‘ as the trigger word.

~Mark and Leo argue about who will ‘do the deed’…

“YOU ask Leanne!” Mark touched his arm. “I’ve not forgotten the last time I bothered her.”

Leo snorted, laying the comic down with obvious reverence to snatch up the TV remote. “Oh yeah, how’s the bruise?”

“Healing,” he muttered.

Aaaah, boys will be boys and these boys are scared of the girl(s) next door! Well that’s what you get when you try to shave a lady’s car!

See you all next week, guys. Entertain yourselves with the other authors taking part this week by clicking the banner link below. 🙂
Six Sentence Sunday

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What Next…?

Posted on September 28, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Since the end of the 80 Post Challenge I’ve been thinking hard about what should come next. I already have my next ‘challenge‘ ready, but it will be a while before that kicks off. If you’ve been following Six Sentence Sunday then you would know that I’ve been using excerpts from my A-Z of Flash Fiction. These pieces of flash range from 500-700 words and have all been writing using a single trigger word through the alphabet.
I’ll be using these as my next feature, posting the flash once per week like I did with the 80 Posts, but as I mentioned previously, they need some heavy editing before they are fit to meet the world. So when I get a little ahead on those, I’ll have them ready.

pink ball of yarn/string from OpenClipArtThat still leaves me with some thinking to do however. This time of year – usually – finds me prepping for NaNoWriMo; putting threads together into a tidy ball that I can stitch or weave at my leisure. November is racing towards us, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to do it this year. If only because my time is so restricted.

By then I would have finished edits on SORB, but I hesitate to start something new. Not because I don’t have the ideas (there are some old projects that really need the attention of older, more mature me), but because of time. I don’t need you to tell me, however, that failing to start something just because of a little thing like that hurts me more than starting and not finishing.

So I will start something new. Make no mistake. Even if I don’t do NaNoWriMo, its more than time to work on something fresh, lest my ideas stagnate. I have the second novel in SORB’s trilogy to consider. There is also an old project, started years ago, in which the roleplay Ileandra Young had her back story fleshed out. That is rather a large undertaking however; as it isn’t a short story by any means. I see it stretching into six, maybe even eight books of about 100k words each. The first draft of the first half was 300k and there was still lots to go.

All in all I have lots to keep my busy in the writing world; I haven’t even touched on my plans for the erotica, or the other-other project I have standing by for this blog. *phew* Time to make a list, I think!

What about you guys? Does this time of year bring out the need to plan for the next? What projects are you bringing to a close? What new ones are you starting?

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Imma Huntin’ Beta Readers

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Ileandra Young

Times New Roman Greek small letter betaIf you missed it a couple of weeks ago, Harper Voyager, an arm of HarperCollins, is accepting unsolicited manuscripts for a two week period at the start of October. Since the genres they’re looking for includes fantasy, I’m racing against the clock to get Silk Over Razor Blades (more commonly known here as SORB) ready to submit.

Its on this time, in a way it never has been before. The news has lit a fire under me like I’ve never experienced. Part of me doesn’t expect much, since I doubt I can properly guess at how may thousands of people will be racing to take advantage of this opportunity, same as me. But it would be downright stupid not to try.

I’ve had two runs of submitting SORB before. Once in 2010 and again in 2011 and each time, with hindsight, I was far, far from ready. I’m not going to make the same mistake again. Hells no! That means I need to find beta readers. Readers who will take my manuscript, read it quickly and come back to me with frank, honest thoughts.

From what I understand, not everybody is up to a job like this. I’ve done some beta work a couple of times, and I loved being able to help somebody, though I’m sure I could have done an even better work if I was better read in that genre. But I digress… I need people who read in my genre, with some time to give over to helping me make Silk Over Razor Blades as good as it can be.

little pink work reading a book; bookworm from OpenClipArtSo this is a request in readiness for when the novel is ready; are YOU able to help me out? Do you have time to spare to read a book and give your opinions? Are you able to do so frankly and honestly knowing that I understand your comments are about my work and not me? Are you able to do all this in a tight deadline?

I realise its a big ask. More than ever, I understand how precious and valuable time is. Next time I’ll be far better prepared to do this within a sensible time frame, but October 1st is really not all that far off and I’m beginning to feel I need all the help I can get. If you can help me, hit me up with a comment here or ping me an email and we’ll chat about how to go about this (and just how many boxes of chocolates you’ll be receiving from me as a sign of my thanks!).

Incidentally, how do the rest of you go about this process? I’ve done a lot of reading in the past few months and it seems people pick up betas through Twitter and writing groups. Some people use online resources, forums and groups. What is your preferred method of huntin’ down a beta reader?

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