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A lesson almost learned too late.

12/2/2013

Recently I reviewed a number of books by Indie writers. I noticed a number of editing problems that leapt from page to page proliferating like gremlins. While they were distracting, they didn’t keep me from being able to review the books. Still they were notable.

Then, I started getting reviews also that mentioned typos.

Even though I had many lovely reviews, a couple of them dinged me (and appropriately) for little grammar/typo problems.

It wasn’t that I hadn’t gone over this manuscript a thousand times or that I didn’t care enough—it was that I edited one last time—entering a zillion little changes. And with every hundred changes or so, I would accidently leave a little marker, a typo that I never noticed.

I checked the manuscript four times for spelling errors and read it through to look for problems.

After the third comment that there were problems, I realized that this had to change and that no one person is capable of finding all the typos.

Two friends of mine read it through and found some of the errors. But I was nervous. I incorporated those changes and then hired a professional line-editor. It didn’t cost a fortune, as the editor commented that it was pretty clean. Nevertheless, I wanted them, the evil typos, GONE! He worked through and made even more little changes. And I resubmitted it for the paperback version of The Stone Lions.

Hopefully, for my next manuscript submission, I will allocate more time and resources at this critical step. To all of you who read it before these last edits, I thank you for your patience and kindness. I’m very hopeful that perhaps I can be trained after all.

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Research and more research

10/18/2013

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One of the things that is dear to my heart is getting the details right. I’ve read many historic fiction where the characters leap into American slang or phrases that are very modern. I check. That’s what I use the OED for (Oxford English Dictionary). All of us, or at least me and my friends, slip up when writing a first draft. It is imperative to check your details on the second or third draft and make sure that they would have been used in the time period you write about.

It isn’t always easy to get the correct information and there are so many ways to screw up. Food, tools, housing, landscape, weather, weapons, the list goes on with things to consider, ways to err. But there are ways to mitigate the damage.

I read original (translated) texts, read lots of history books, go to museums to see artifacts from the time and culture, visit countries, stand on reproduction ships, wander around old houses, meander through the countryside, whatever I can to figure out details that will make my books accurate and more interesting. Still it is difficult to get all the details correct all the time.

One of the interesting pieces of research that I did for The Stone Lions, involved corresponding with a scholar in Spain, one of the researchers for the Alhambra (I also joined the medieval Islamic listserve for a time). It was from him that I got the layout of theAlhambra during the late 1300’s and found out that the original fountain in the Court of the Lions had been stolen during the 1500’s. He kindly sent me photos of these both. Some of you might have noticed that the fountain on the cover of The Stone Lions is not what is there now. The depiction is of the original (not that anyone but me cares).

Then there are issues of food and culture and tools, all these must be thought about. Here are some examples from my and others writing that I have come across.

1. Transportation

In medieval times, there were no carriages. It is a hard thing for some of us to wrap our heads around, especially those of us reared on Disney films. Cinderella always rode in a carriage! Carriages, as we know them, didn’t appear until the 18th century. There were SOME cartlike/wagonish things earlier that would have jolted your loose teeth out.

2. Food

Fads have come and gone. If you are doing a contemporary book, watch out for what your characters eat. Regional foods can be tricky, not only with what is eaten but what decade and what they call it. Make absolutely sure that you get it right.

If you are placing your characters in a different country and time, spend some research effort in figuring out what they were eating. For example, the simplest error people make is putting New World foods (corn, potatoes) in pre-Columbus time. Even tomatoes sauces wouldn’t have been widely eaten before the mid-1800s.

3. Clothes

What did your characters wear? If they are in the ’60 in America or the 1500 in the lowlands of Scotland, you need to figure out what was being worn. The Society for Creative Anachronism can be a big help here. They have web pages on clothes and style.

4. Names of characters

One of the ways (the many ways) I almost screwed up in The Stone Lions was with naming characters. I looked up names on the web that were Arabic, patting myself on the back for doing a good job. Fortunately, I checked with an Islamic friend one discovered my spellings were Persian. That got corrected.

5. Buildings

Do you really know what the buildings were like at the time/world your people are in? With the Alhambra, I trotted though it. Of course, it has changed during the last 500 years. For other books I learned other interesting details, in Scotland, early on, buildings were very narrow, 10 or 12 feet wide, with steep stairs to an upstairs. I hadn’t believed one writer’s account of this until I saw a number of houses like that and walked in one of them.

6. Weather

This one can take a bit of thought sometimes. California (where I now live) is dry during the summer. But when I lived on the East Coast, getting drenched on a weekly basis, I could not wrap my head around that fact. How could it never rain?

These are just the very beginnings of things to think about AFTER your first draft is completed. I’d love to hear the research that you have done for your novels.

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Pre the book launch or things to think on

9/3/2013

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A book launch is an event where you won’t know how many people are coming until the last second. So you can only guess how many cookies and books you might need. Not like a dinner party for eight where you actually know how much to make.

Nevertheless, I’m as totally prepared as someone of my erratic nature can be. I’ve sent out press releases, created an author’s page on facebook, stopped at the bookstore to check out the space, figured out what foods to make, figured out who is MC, who is to talk and what pages I will read. Here are some of the suggestions I’ve been given:

Make sure you hand out post-it notes so people can write their names for book signing
Have posters made of me and the book cover (so they show during the video—see below).
Create flyers to put out early in various stores, libraries, etc
Get prizes: gift certificates, books, stickers, etc
Organize games—in this case all about symmetry and history.
Organize the two hours as if it were a symphony, but prepare to be fluid, as if it were an impromptu jazz jam
Choose someone to video the thing
Know who is speaking and when
Pick out and practice reading part of the book you think others will enjoy, something short and pithy--something that doesn’t give away too much of the plot
Have music in the background—hmm. Should I bring my soprano recorder and play a few bars of Handel’s Water music? I have to assume that for a book taking place in the 1390’s in Andalusia that accordion or bagpipe music is right out.
At the very end all that is important is that you breathe in and out, repeat. And have as good a time as possible. This is the celebration of the birth of your book—enjoy.

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I was born in the deep South, where many writers are grown along side the cotton and horses of that rich land, but I lived on Long Island most of my first years.

It was after I moved to Berkeley, dragging along three small children, that I started to think about creating something more...

For awhile I managed to subsume most of my afterwork creativity into dance. I flitted from Scandinavian to Irish, to English step dancing, to Morris dance and sword. Having a short (or sometimes long) fling with each until finally settling on Morris and English short sword (Rapper) as my favorites.

A lesson almost learned too late.

Research and more research

Pre the book launch or things to think on

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