A piece of advice I received from Marty Chan regarding Editor’s comments was, don’t necessarily make the change they suggest. Always look at why the suggestion is made and understand how to fix it in context to the story. His words or wisdom were extremely timely for me. I had just gotten back the edits from my Publisher for Mik Murdoch: The Power Within. When I read some of the comments, my first inclination was to say, “Did she even read the first book?” Then I thought more about why those comments were made and I realized that I don’t want readers to need the context of the first book to ‘get’ the second one. I needed to do a […]
Read moreCategory: Irreverent Muse
The Finish Line is in Sight
I received my second set of edits on Mik Murdoch: The Power Within a couple days ago and I’ve got to say, I’m both amazed and delighted. Amazed that there don’t seem to be any major issues with the current revision of the book and delighted that there don’t seem to be any major issues with the current version of the book. Wait…was I just repeating myself back there? I suppose I was which should only illustrate just how happy I am. Normally, there are an ever-decreasing number of edits for me. For example, I might need to rewrite three or four sections of the story in the first edit and do another in the second. Not so this time. […]
Read moreSubconscious – Friend or Foe?
I know my subconscious is always working in the background. It tends to show itself in the form of remembering obscure facts or names. I will try to think of something, draw a blank and an hour or so later it pops into my head. Either my internal data retrieval system is very slow or I have so much useless data in my head that the search algorithm takes some time to complete. It also is very good at helping me work through story ideas, plotting and story problems. I give some thought to whatever element is troubling me, set it process and go about my other daily tasks. Sometimes I go for a walk to really focus on the […]
Read moreResetting the Clock
In the movie Pacific Rim, after every Kaiju attack the Marshall resets the clock. The clock is counting the time until the next attack. Before you start to panic, this isn’t exactly that kind of clock reset. No, the Kaiju that afflict me are less the 500-foot monster variety and more the, holy cow I’ve got a lot of clutter. In my case, the clutter takes the form of partially thought out projects, mostly complete projects, story ideas and so on. Every once in a while it makes sense to take a step back, list everything that I’m working on and reprioritize it all. Some of it becomes my immediate priority, others further down the line and still others might […]
Read more