Tag: editing

Editor’s Block

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m not editing or writing. It’s taking a really long time to get anything out or to get motivated for writing. Today I visited Beth and she showed me how to Google myself.

I know, I know, how did I not know how to Google myself? Well, the how is pretty obvious, but it never occurred to me to do that before.

Beth found one of her books on Ebay, then all kinds of links that she didn’t know about. Including a tweet she hadn’t realized had been posted at her. Then she handed me her laptop and told me to do the same for myself.

Fun… I exist online, whoo! Except the first thing that popped up was my blog, which I haven’t updated in forever. That got me a cuff upside the head.

To which I cuffed Beth back because she hasn’t updated in longer.

The third link down was my Goodreads page, which has only attached to 36 books I’ve read because I couldn’t recall the others. I stopped, bit my bottom lip and basically moaned.

When was the last time I read a book?

When was the last time I read a good book?

I need to get a good book. I’d like some Romance with a twist of fantasy. None of that bear or wolf pack stuff either. Some good, honest fantasy without vampires (any variation of that spelling) but plenty of smut.

Or I could pick up the novel of a big time traditional author. Maybe reading a book or two will get me back on the editing and rewriting the last book. Something I desperately need to do.

Contract Taken and Contract Broken are almost completed for editing. I’m trying to go through the first edit for Contract Renewed but it takes a lot of re-writing because I skipped out on an important thing so I have to flush it all out and fix it all. Which is fine, the re-writes will make it so much more … interesting.

If only I could get motivated. I don’t know, maybe I’m kidding myself with the editing them all as one and I should put up the first for pre-order and keep working on the last one. Should I do that?

Beth keeps telling me to shut up and do that. Dorian just looks at me the way he does and then the writing gets put off for a while longer.

Suppose if I’m going to do the pre-order and all, I’ll have to contact my cover artist and ask her very nicely to get the covers done. Then however long it takes her to complete the covers is however long it takes and that’s just more time for me to beat my head on a wall about this re-write.

Reading Through

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I just finished the trilogy—reading it, that is. The first and second books are great, there’s a running theme to the sex and everything else. The third seems to be lacking the theme on the sex.

I asked Beth to read them, as I had mentioned before. She did and her response to the first two was to basically blush. The third she said, “well… I feel like it needs a balance. The others were sub, sub, the last one is like… wtf is going on? What happened to all the talk about domming?”

She’s right, I need to rewrite a few chapters. Fix a lot more things in the third book than in the others. It’s okay, I got this. So besides the opener, things have to be swung into the domme mode instead of having them switch back and forth and there’s not so much play or sex in the last book. Which is kind of understandable.

Now I’m just talking to myself as I try to figure out how to position everything to get it ready.

The first book has some timeline edits and small things like that, but mainly typos. The second is the same thing, really. A fact change here, a fact change there. I’m actually on the fence about the decision I had made before. Reading through, I don’t think it works any other way.

I suppose my fear is upsetting some readers with that, but removing it would require altering three other things throughout the entirety of the book and I don’t think I could accurately give the presentation any other way.

So far the titles I’ve come up with are Contract Taken, Contract Breached, Contract Renewed, or Contract Taken, Contract Lost, Contract Found. With the first being the preferred.

I realize in the genre I’ve chosen, I want to write fast but I’ve just never been that sort of person. The Contract trilogy was written fast for me, at one book a month. Still need to go through edits, however. And I’m so happy I put off the edits until I was finished writing them.

A month or so to edit, set the first release three months from now, the next one three months after that, the next three after that. I think that’s the pattern that you need to have. Not certain. But maybe by the time the second book releases, I’ll have the next trilogy done and schedule that up.

That’s actually a good idea. Just one problem…

If I’m writing at that rate. What’s my world after the next one going to look like?

Ugh. This is the point where I rub my face, shake my head, and remind myself that I have to get the first trilogy off the ground first.

Taking Time For Yourself

Posted on by Aya DeAniege

I’m currently at Beth’s, on her computer, as she eats an omelette I made her. She’s a good cook, but her idea of breakfast is waiting for lunch.

I’m at Beth’s because her last day off was sometime in January when her cat passed away. She also told me to make certain I take days off because everyone burns out. Then, of course, kept working because things need doing.

So here I sit, on her computer, as she slows eating the omelette and realizes I’ve been typing away on the computer. I’m going to tell her that I’m just doing a blog post while she eats, true enough.

When she’s done eating, I’m going to shut down the laptop and take the battery with me.

Don’t worry, everything is saved, everything is backed up. I shut down her computer once without saving first. That was a little scary.

Our cellphones are already off. Hers because she’s off her day job (I need to get one of those) and mine because I’m avoiding Dorian.

Today will involve nothing more stressful than watching a movie, playing a game, or going for a walk—Not that either of us consider writing to be stressful—and whatever I can get into Twitter before she finishes eating.

Thankfully, she’s making coffee as well. Beth inhales my breakfast offerings faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. Claims she doesn’t like breakfast, but will eat if I cook it.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the last book of my trilogy for me and editing for her.