"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

Edit Edit Edit

Hey All !!

i know it has been awhile....

i have been buried in editing.... let me explain.

my version of I'm Not Crazy Just Bipolar for www.lulu.com has small margins and single spacing. it is just over 300 pages.

when i began the process of publishing it with AuthorHouse, and turned in the book file, according to their preset margins, my book would be over 40o pages !!! YIKES! ~

So it was back to the drawing board. I had yet another person edit. Already Heather, mom, me a whole bunch of times and Kim graciously had edited. Now I needed to call in another favor.

Carol McC to the rescue !!!!!!! I'm on my last 40 pages of the editing process. I will be sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy when it is turned in. When the book is done, has an ISBN # and can be purchased on Amazon.

Oh Lord, let this move swiftly. I am so done with this book. I want to move on to the promotions phase.

I want to begin writing DinerGirl.

I want to begin writing my book of love and search for sexual identity.

I am so done with this book.


Stay tuned all.


Thanks for stopping by!
xo luv me

Book Expo

Hey everyone!  It's your bipolar blogger here....

Went to BEA all weekend (Book Expo America) in nyc @ the Javits Center.  It was my first.  So I'm officially de-virginized by the BEA now.  I had no idea how huge is was going to be.  I know, I know, duh, it was at the Javits Center Wendy.  

I had high hopes of getting face time with an agent.  Who knew you needed an appointment?  Ugh.  That would've been too easy if I had met an agent at BEA, who fell head over heals for my book and was dying to sign me.  Realistically it goes like this:  new writer sends queries to 5-10 of her top picks for agents.  All but one blow her off.  Maybe one says 'yes send me sample chapters... or your proposal....'  etc. etc.   I had delusions thinking maybe I'll get to speak w/ an agent there, pitch, hand them my fabulously clever new business cards with reduced, also fabulously clever book cover on it, sample.  The'll flip through it, enticed by my cover (not the post it note on top !).... but they'll glance at it, like a little of my writing....perhaps cut to the back and see my article and see I was published somehwere in this galaxy thus far in my lifetime.  THEN maybe THEN they'd give me a buzz and say "I had a cancellation at 2 pm Sunday, can you meet me in an hour?"  I'd be there, wagging tail and all, and they'd be enthralled by my entusiasm, style and obvious determintaion setting me apart from the other 5,184 brand new writers who had contacted them that month, and set up an immediate appointment next week to discuss representation at their nyc office.  

Okay I never said anything about experience and I did just use the word delusional.  So get off my back okay?  

So here I am, knowing my book is calling to me because you can never edit enough. Although Heather  (who skillfully edited the book once, no make that twice already) thinks I'm done done, I'm not done done.  And a book is never really done done until it's in print.  Let's just get THAT point across to any aspiring writer who may not get that point yet.  It's never over until the fat lady sings.  And in publishing, that is when it is in print.  GOT IT?  Cool.... you're with me and that means you're right about where I'm at.

Sooooo here we are, finishing touches need to go on my proposal and I'm blogging.  In my mind I'm procrastinating by blogging.  But really maybe my fingers are getting their warm up.  I mean if I were TRULY procrastinating, I would be outside, at the beach, on this gorgeous day.  I deserve it, I put in a long weekend of BEA-ing.  Right?  Well, yes, but I don't have a 9-5 job so right now I need to be working.  And if I'm not clocking in, I damn well better be doing something that is going to contribute to my success as a writer.

Which brings me to my next item.  Writing.  When did you all know you were one?  I mean we all wrote when we were little, right?  Or no maybe not.  Maybe I did because I am a writer.  I mean essentially we all have things we're good at.  Some people were born baseball players, gifted at pitching or swinging a bat, or both!  Then they really get the big bucks.  But let's reel it back in because I have chosen, or perhaps have been given (and we are assuming I have talent in this area.....of course the jury is still not out on this one!)  So you have this propensitity to do something, to want to do something, some talent.   Some people always drew (Kim!)  Some friends were always wanting to learn sign language (Beth) and are gifted at that.  Some friends knew sooner than others what they were good at.  

For me, I was writing poetry alone in my room, when I was 8.  That's as soon as I can remember doing it.  Maybe it was 7? To play it safe, let's go with 8.  I have something dated then.  SO I'd fill up these little poem books.  Well never fill.  I'd do it in a book for a while then get bored of that book.  Or maybe in defiance, give up for a while.  Maybe I was waiting to get moved again.  You can't spit up poem after poem, day after day you know.  YOu have to feel it first, then it flaps around your brain like a roomful of bats flopping to and fro.  Until you write it down, the bats aren't free.  And who likes bats flapping around up there?  Terribly uncomfortable.  SOmetimes I can't write until it is terrribly uncomfortable.  There's nothing like pain.  Pain is a fabulous motivator for me to write.  Especially poetry.

So I wonder, all nobody of you who are actually reading this, at what point do you know you are doing what you are "meant" to do?  I thought it was when I was doing real esatate after escaping waitressing.  

Then I wrote my first book and I felt ALIVE when I'd be at my laptop for 8 hours straight.  Getting up only to feed my stomach making noise or my bladder that needed to be empty.  That's how I knew.  

Or when I was walking around the BEA this weekend and I couldn't stop writing an aricle in my head about it.  I couldn't walk around without the editing and writing going on.  Finally (amidst the obnoxious drummer that lasted two Donna Summers songs on my iPod later), I had to whip open my laptop and write the article til my laptop died.  Then my iPod died.  With no battery power left, the article was still there floating around, bats loose up there, all bumping in to eachother.  

So back to the beginning.  This frustrated poet, recently de-virginized BEA-er has warmed up fingers.  It's time to get down to business.  For this is, after all, a business.  Like anything else, it does involve dollars and cents and pays bills.  

By the way, this whole thing about being crazy?  I had put that term away, filed it years ago when I realized I had a chemical imbalance and who cares if you can't handle that truth about me.  Oh well.

Then, after leaving the BEA and realizing what a maze the publishing industry is.  And what my chances of publication are, I realized this buiness is making me crazy.  Hey, if you're bipolar and doing well....here's my advice:  don't try to get published.  You'll head right back for the "I must be crazy" line of thought.

Ta ta for now.

xo wendy

Lots O' Stuff

Okay well sorry it's been awhile.... (is anyone reading this anyway??)

Here's what's been going on. The Red Bank Writers' Group has kept me relatively busy. Planning the meetings has been a bunch of emails, a little time and exciting most of all! We had a great guest speaker last week, the fabulous Heather Lennon of Locust Point Publishing. She was informative and fun and everyone enjoyed hearing her speak!

Next is my article. I was looking to get published to begin building my resume. At first, I pitched an entertainment article to the Asbury Park Press. After I met the very energetic and motivational Miller twins (directors/writers/actors of the film Touching Home and authors of the book Either You're In Or You're In The Way), I was INSPIRED. And so I pitched my first article. It was a cart before the horse kind of thing, I hadn't written it yet. I had no Q & As done w/ the twins. The producer had not answered my email (*didn't think I was really doing the article...frankly neither did I!!) Anyways, I wrote it sans Q& A and it didn't go over as written. Was going to resubmit to the Entertainment Editor Kathy but couldn't get Jeromy the producer back in time. Bummer, opportunity lost.

As the universe would have it, I was meant to do an article on bipolar disorder. It is my fate or at least my order of the moment I suppose. Pitching the Asbury Park Press was my beginning though and I ended up doing an article entitled, "My Bipolar Journey" for the Two RiverTimes. It went over well and got on the front page of their Healthy Living section. I disliked my picture but I could've predicted that. :)

So about the book.... isn't that what this blog is really supposed to be about? Well the article w/ my book mention came out before I knew it would. It said my book was avx on www.lulu.com and well...it wasn't yet. Because Wendy hadn't uploaded and formatted it yet! Yikes. So I rushed home and sat down and did it. Hopefully the people who wanted to get it did. There was a day when the paper was out that it wasn't on line though. Lesson learned: find out in advance WHEN the publication will be out AND make sure you don't announce a book when it's not available yet. Oh I'm learning slowly. Never said I had it all together! ha ha.

Well seems as if Dr. Jay Carter isn't responding so I suppose he isn't going to endorse me. Okay I can deal with that. Such is life. I'll persue someone else. Hmmm..... but who? Hard to get an endorsement from someone really top shelf.

Working on getting the book properly formatted. Found some typos while reviewing again on lulu. Oh this is endless I tell you. Why oh why have I decided to embark on this tortourous adventure I ask myself?

That's easy. I'm clearly a masochist with no desire for a real income and time to kill while I pretend to be a busy real estate agent. As my boyfriend (or EX boyfriend I should say... !!) says anyone can fill up 8 hours a day. I suppose it takes a real man to work 8 hours a day and I am well....just a not so real woman trying to be a writer. So I don't clock in. But you better believe I average the same amount of hours. I just don't punch in anywhere. Maybe I should and I wouldnt' feel such a silly persuit of my dreams.

Maybe I shouldn't be aspiring to publish. Rather just to help other bipolars. But exactly how do I help a lot of bipolars if I can't get my book out. Maybe my book won't help bipolars per se. Maybe then, I should speak. Hmmm..... how do I hit the road and speak if I'm so broke I can just about pay my bills.

Just a thought. Stay tuned.

Wendy

Motivation time

Hello bloggers (does anyone even read this??)

Well to keep you up to date, just wanted to let you in to what I'm doing.  I'm working on getting articles published in local magazines and editing (yet again!!!) my book.  Ugh.  When does editing ever end?  I'm sure even when it's in print I'll find a hundred and two things wrong with it, but whatever right?

Hope everyone is doing well.  Happy spring.

Peace out,

me