Okay no excuses...summer is over

Okay...guess I'm out of excuses.

Another summer has lapsed and I'm just now proofing the galley of my first book.  I'm slightly ashamed it has taken an extra year than anticipated.  But two summers have seriously put a dent in my productivity (Okay, let's also not overlook falling in love and ALL that goes with that...et hem.)

SO anyways...
Here I am with the manuscript and I am searching the real truth behind the block.  
Is it that I can't cut the cord?  Has my first book really been that difficult?  Is perfectionism playing a part?  Is the fact that it is a memoir, my whole life, the good, bad and ugly, about to be out there for anyone to read, also a huge factor?  My guess is: "D:  All the Above."

Certainly I have come to learn through this process that cutting the cord on my first book has not been easy.  Partly because it is my first baby.  And partly because not only am I a perfectionist when it comes to my life story, but so is my editor.  Who is also my fiancee.  So you can see how many days and nights we spent choosing sex, movies, cooking meals, vacations, ANYTHING over editing the damn book.

And, unfortunately, that is what is was known in our house.  The damn book.  Because, you see, until it is in print, it is "the damn book." 

Now I know what you're saying.  'Wendy, that's not the attitude.'  It should be fun, your journey, it's your work, your story, your love.  Where has your passion gone.  Well to you I'd say "try editing your first book.  Then give it to 5 other people to edit.  Then after editing it yet again and having had read it, oh, say about 25-30 times, the passion is out the window for a while.  Unfortunately, that's where I'm at.  It's the "damn book."

But there will come a time, a time very soon, when I will be inspired again.  When I am promoting it.  Talking to other people with mental illness.  Other writers who are stuck but want to write their story or some other work for publication.  Then I will be energized once again and I can resume my journey.  It is this damn editing detour that has gotten me waylayed.  Oh, editing. Had I known it was going to be this repetitive and torturous, would I have signed up?  Perhaps not. 

Ignorance can be bliss, true.  I stand by that.  Now, it's not just for world events and politics (*which I loathe...they're 90% crooks I say), but let's add to that becoming a writer. 

I am so glad I have been ignorant in the beginning of my journey of becoming a writer.  Had I known I would become a novice web designer, pimped out self-promoter, tortured editor, reliving trauma over and over, I highly, highly doubt I would've signed up.

Then again, isn't masochism also a prerequisite?

Okay, maybe I would've.

Ciao for now. 
-Wendy

I'm ready to start my next book...but wait...gotta finish this one!

Okay...I'm ready to start DinerGirl.

Now I know what you may be thinking, but Wendy, you don't have your first book finished.  Well, that may be true, it's nearly done.  But, I have the itch to write DinerGirl (proposed title), my first novel.  I have begun the outline and am thinking about characters and plot.  When I get burned out on editing I'm Not Crazy Just Bipolar, well...I shift to my next book.

Then the other night I started thinking about my third book.  My journey of the past year that I want to explore through a separate book.  What I have learned about myself professionally and personally.  It will have a much different slant than my memoir because it will go deeper and go into falling in love for the first time.  The other times, the relationships I thought could be love.....well....this one blows them away and makes me realize they were not.  Even at the time I sensed they weren't the real deal.  But I had no idea why.  I understand why now.  And why not put those thoughts and feelings into another book?

So DinerGirl or the other book?  That's really the question on my mind these days:  which will come first.

And I'm working on articles for mental health month May.  I recently did one on "Wellness" and submitted it to the local paper.  I also revised one called:  "Sleep:  The Other Half of Medication."  It will be interesting to see which one gets published first.  And where.

Unfortunately I also have to start working somewhere.  Writers make money, but it comes in dribbles and drabs in the beginning. Until my book is on Amazon...well.....it's back to being Diner girl for real. ha ha.

I am also pleased and honored to report I was recently elected to the Board of the Mental Health Association (MHA) of Monmouth County.  It's exciting, they are a wonderful organization.  I feel strongly that they make a difference and have already impressed me with what a well run non-profit they are.  I can't wait to make a difference.  Induction is next month, appropriately their annual dinner is in May, in honor of mental health month.   Exciting, exciting, exciting!!!

Okay, back to the book.  I have to, have to, turn this book in.  Good thing I wasn't under a deadline and it was just a self-publishing venture.  Then it's on to the next!

"We will make no wine before it's time!"

Was it Gallo Wines that ran that ad?  Well whomever it was did a good job with their advertising because decades later it has come back to me as the perfect phrase!  It fits to a tee how I feel about the editing and publishing process.  Just when I think I might be done with my book, alas, I read through the manuscript and find I am, in fact. not.  And that phrase comes back to haunt me because I know it's the truth. 

I am beginning, however, to feel like a pregnant woman who is 4 weeks overdue.  I mean, I know it should be time.  I do.  However I revert back to the wine ad and I know in my heart it is not.  I want so badly to cut the cord of my first book, my memoir.  Ah, but I can't.  Not yet.  Soon. And oh how I will rejoice on that day.

Almost there and feeling a little nutty...

I never did think I was crazy...until...

...I got deep into this process of writing.  Or shall I correct that statement and say: editing.

Some say writing is harder, but the majority of writers I have read about and heard about have declared editing is the toughest part.

Seriously, I thought:  how is THAT possible?   That statement remained a mystery until I began the process.  Then I knew with absolute certainty that they were right.
 

I know, I know....I know what you could be thinking anyway.  Editing is what someone else does... but you don't write your book and hand it over to one editor and POOF, it's done.  (Not unless you are a best selling author anyway.)  

Often, this is not how the process goes.  Especially if you are a brand-spanking new writer like me.  Eagerly awaiting your first book deal, struggling through this pain-staking process called self-publishing.

For me, this is how it went.  This is how I discovered the truth behind editing is the real...well...bitch for lack of a better word.

After my first person edited the book...

then it was me editing it over and over until I couldn't stand my own words anymore. By that point I wanted to chuck the whole manuscript (and my laptop) out the window.  Or, take a lighter to it and watch it burn slowly.


Then, gathering my senses for the next phase, it was a few dear, very qualified friends who entered the editing process.  I was so lucky to know these talented individuals that took it upon themselves to spend so much of their free time in order to do it for me. I mean, who has free time anymore?  It's a luxury to most.  As a result, my book got tighter, grammatically correct and they caught many things I missed.  No surprise there. My last English (or writing) course was in high school.


Now, based on a lack of enthusiasm from the first three people I reached out to on the endorsement level, I had to look at it again.  What was it about my book that turned these people off?  It was as if I were a desperate, single guy wearing bad cologne at a night club.  You could practically see these potential endorsers wrinkle their noses, turn their heads up, spin and walk away.  I had become a desperate, single wearing bad perfume trying to pick up an endorser.  What was the worst part was I was not only having no luck, no one was even responding to my emails.  It was that bad.  

Here's the thing...

You can give your book to friends and family.  Most of us self-published, new writers do this initially.  We do it out of inexperience, necessity and security.  I know I did.  After my first editor, my mom was my first reader.  And they may give you some extremely valuable and much needed criticism.  (my mom did give me some valuable feedback....which I incorporated into my second round of changes.)  But more often than not, they say "Oooh I loved it!"  Or..."It was great, funny....I read it in one night!  There are very few people who will go on to tell you "The chapter about the guy you got drunk with all summer was really too long."  Or "I was bored as hell when you went off topic for half the chapter in the middle of your Vegas chapter."  These are little tidbits that your endorsers (or general public) are thinking, not telling you, that your first round of readers are also not telling you.

And it hurts you, rather than helps you, at the very beginning of the publishing race.

So...join a group on line that does critiquing.(be careful though...there are many.  Some are good, some are not so good).  Join a writers group that does it.  

And/Or...


Give it to friends who are brutally honest, maybe people you don't even like that are extremely well read.  Hey, you don't have to be great friends, but you do have to respect their opinion.  They are probably right anyway.  We, as writers, are too attached to our work to have an objective opinion.  We need others to tell us when we suck.  When we are too long-winded and off topic.  When we are describing a character that we too soon drop and so...why bother introducing them at all?  Are they really imperative to the plot and story?  


If there's no group in your area, start one. I did.  We are not a critiquing group.  We are merely a support group.  But that's what I and everyone needed.  Those that needed critiquing broke off and started a group for that sole purpose.  

My point is: test your manuscript out well.   

Don't submit it to potential endorsers,  

or local supporters 

or anyone for review

or..for God's sake....(self)-publish it 

until you are absolutely

190% 

no doubt whatsoever

READY !!!

Don't do what I did which was to edit the hell out of it, have others edit the hell out of it and think because of all the editing that it is okay enough to publish it.  The friends and family are a help as your initial readers, but don't make them your test readers.  Give it to some people who don't know you.  Some people who will rip it apart.  THOSE are the people who are going to help you the most.  

I had one friend who, like me, has bipolar and ADD. She couldn't get past the third chapter, saying it was too long.  She got bored.  She was my test audience, and only one of two people that read it that share the same illness.  I took her advice over that of others because she is my audience.  I was forced to weigh her opinion as heavier, more important than my own or others because she is my target market.  Even if I thought it was my best chapter (which luckily I thought it was my worst), I would've had to look at that and weigh her opinion heavier than say, my mom's or, my first or second editor's opinion.

Find a book club and have them read and discuss it.  This is a step I intended to do but never followed through with.  It's a suggested a well known author made to me at a talk he gave my writers group and had made in his book about getting published. Not a bad idea, I thought.  It probably would've helped me a lot.  One could make up a questionnaire with what you want to know, specifically, about what they thought.  Dissect it a bit, you know, through specific open-ended questions to the book club members.  Just a thought.  The questionnaire idea is mine. It just came to me....

Anyways, I better go now.  Time to edit.  I have to get my book in print.  It has been two years since I started it.  My mind is really on my first novel that I'd like to attempt:  DinerGirl. 

Stay tuned.

Keep writing!

Wendy ; )

My Website....Check it OUT!

Hey Everybody!

I don't remember if I published my website on here yet or not....so here it is.  Check it out.  There's information on the book, an excerpt, The Red Bank Writers Group and how to contact me.


www.wendykwilliamson.com  (Click on link to go directly to my site)

Anyways....you can read a page excerpt from my first chapter "Diagnosis Disaster.'  Hope you like...

In the meantime, me and my editor-in-chief are making last edits before it goes to print.
The secret of any book is to edit, edit, edit and edit more again!  There can never be enough editing done by different eyes.  That is something I had no idea about prior to writing the book. 

Alrighty, check it out.  Let me know what you think.

Take care...and keep writing!

; )   Wendy