The Edit

Also better titled, "Keeping, cajoling, bribing or in any other ways ensnarling the skills of reliable editors or proof readers..."

To begin with, I don't have all the answers to this dilemma. Sometimes a good editor for a writing project is a gift, just a surprise delight in an on-going writing process.

Most of our family members and friends either feel unqualified to critique our work, which may be true; live in fear of offending by their responses or thoughts, which may also be true or don't have the time and energy to devote to a quality edit, alas, this also may be true.

Sometimes it is a challenge to get anyone to read our budding projects, much less provide constructive criticism.

I have had the luck or privilege of a husband who enjoys proofing and editing writing. However, I have noticed that after long, repeated edits, he loses his fine eye for detail. He also will not give broad suggestions or observations about my work, assumedly because he realizes he has to live with me!

My daughter, a writer herself and recently completing her Master's in English, and her husband, have been great editors and encouragers in my writing process. So too, I have offered my editing and proofing as my daughter explores and creates her own literary works. I have learned not to abuse their generosity with too frequent of requests for material editing.

My current novel, with already five to ten major edits behind it and maybe one or two more to go, was a product of varieties of inputs. Several years ago, my daughter was my first major reader. She gave me feedback primarily on character development and some plot and process issues.

After a few major rewrites, I was fortunate to have a cousin of mine, a talented writer, high school librarian of many years and soon to be completed MFA, provide a wonderful, detailed edit of my novel. She was able to catch my repetitious poor writing habits and suggest some creative literary tools to improve on my presentation. I am very indebted to her willingness to share substantial time and effort in improving my writing ability.

In the process of editing, Niki taught me a simple but helpful way to read another author's work and give feedback. She suggested that when we review a work, we observe what we liked, what we noticed and what we wondered about as we read. This type of reflection and subsequent sharing of our insights or questions gives power and process to the author. One then can share positive strengths, incongruities and questions about plot or characters with the writer, while not taking away their creative energy or ability to choose plot and styles.

One book my cousin suggested was Ursula K. Le Guin's, Steering the Craft:  Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or Mutinous Crew. This is a delightful reflection on storytelling and methods to improve one's writing. Although I typically don't enjoy writing exercises, some of these were fun and creative.

I also have received helpful suggestions during sessions with literary agents at writers' conferences. Their expert, quick observations about story and plot lines, character development or even the sometimes simple questions about the choice of title, have been very helpful in the process of writing my novel.

Some people are privileged to be part of a writer's group that provides support and feedback on writing projects. These types of groups can be very helpful. Sometimes they may be "closed" groups, only allowing members that match their "level" of writing, i.e. published vs. unpublished. A writer's group is useful when it matches the needs and personality of an individual writer.

The rare opportunity when a literary professional reads our work and gives constructive feedback can be a great asset. It may be couched in the "rejection" notice, but yet be valuable information to our continued writing, whether or not we entirely agree with the observations. Or even rarer, one can be given the privilege of working with literary professionals as their work moves towards publication.

Even though there are for-hire editors, most new writers cannot afford the investment and continue to work through family, acquaintances and writer's groups. There may come a time when the investment in a good "unrelated" editor may be timely and appropriate. It would then be imperative to investigate information about these editors, their skills, history and fees.

Wherever your writing is taking you, if even mainly for your own self-expression...enjoy the process, the freedom, the deep creativity... and may a few good readers, editors and proofers grace your journey, to the measure that you need...

Is "Vanity" Press a Thing of the Past?

Who of us, as non-published writers, has not dreamed about a novel or book of our very own creation, our name and title splashed across the cover, just waiting to be discovered by eager readers. Even if we haven't completed the first chapter of our novel, we still dream about being "in print."

In the recent past, paying to have your own work printed, hopefully distributing a few copies to family members, a few friends and maybe some limited sales, was often given the derogatory term, "vanity press." Three or four years ago at my first writers conference, I caught the not so subtle hint that self-publishing or financing your own book printing was frowned on, especially by those who were published or at least well-educated in literature and writing.

The veiled reference was that self-publishing was not a dignified undertaking for the hopeful writer. A writer, it was assumed, had to go through the grueling task of submitting one's work through a query letter to literary agents, typically buried by thousands of letters. After many rejections, an agent may want to see your work, or you may be lucky enough to know someone, who knows someone. Then the literary agent may or may not offer to represent your work. If the agent offers to represent you, they in turn spend possibly years pitching your work to publishers. If you don't progress or succeed in this process and you choose to do your own publishing and printing, well, that was given the stigma of vanity publishing and was considered not really being published.

Amazingly, this year, only three years after I was informed about the need for real writers to endure a tedious process of approval, nearly half of the workshops and presentations at the writers conference I attended were about how to self-publish through e-book formats. The encouragement and information shared was about how to get your own work out in whatever method you can.

During his presentation at the conference, Mark Coker, CEO and founder of Smashwords.com, an e-format, self-publishing and distributing company, stated that this is a uniquely creative and powerful time for authors. At this time in history authors have the ability to get their ideas, information and creative writing out to readers through relatively easy and inexpensive methods. Authors are not dependant on the approval process of the mainstream publishers to determine what is published and available to read.

Coker provides several free downloadable book articles to assist with the self-publishing process. They include; Smashwords Style Guide, Smashwords Book Marketing Guide and Secrets to E-Book Publishing Success. Once an article or book is formatted according to the needs as listed in the Style Guide, it can be uploaded to Smashwords.com, which then processes it through the "Meatgrinder" to make sure the text is flowable in different e-formats. If it passes this process and has a "cover" it may be accepted for the Premium Catalog and then provided to other e-book distributors.

Coker acknowledged that the great majority of self-published authors sell very few books and that the self-publishing world does allow for a lot of substandard work. A quality control loop is missed without the literary agents, editors and publishers. To counter this short-coming, he encouraged authors to do exceptional work with their writing, editing and proofing.

After all this is said and done, the question an author is left with, as always is, "How can I get people to read what I wrote?" or in commercial terms, "How to do I market my book?"

This is where the shoe meets the road, the pedal to the metal, the finger hits the power button. How does one get their work out where others may find it, know about it and read it? Marketing one's work can be a difficult and time consuming project. Authors accepted by publishers through the traditional route may possibly have the leg up in gaining assistance with marketing. However, even here there seems to be frequent complaints from published authors that publishing houses are not stepping up to the plate to assist with marketing. The success or failure of the book and its sales is often left to the responsibility of the author.

Marketing or getting one's materials read remains the most challenging, intimidating and frustrating part of the writing process. The deeper "dream" to be read, to be listened to or to entertain is still difficult even with the removal of the cost or stigma of "vanity press" and the relative ease of e-publishing. With or without vanity press or self-publishing, being heard is an accomplishment that remains yet and still a difficult task.

Journaling - Discovering the Voice Within

When was the last time you wrote whatever leapt into your awareness? Maybe you already regularly write. It could be you are hoping to jumpstart a writing process or give new inspiration to your words and thoughts.

Parking oneself in a chair with pen in hand and writing paper or a journal on one's lap engenders a rare opportunity to slow down our usual racing mind. So often, our brain is teaming with ideas, plans, emotions and thoughts of events both the past and future. Here, maybe in our favorite chair or quiet hideout, we can pull in the reins of the charging horse, calm and quiet the tumultuous din and observe the countryside we have so blindly been galloping through.

For me, writing or journaling my musings allows me to actually follow a single train of thought, to let that event, thought or dream be filled-out with the attending emotions, questions and subtleties that are on the edge of consciousness - just hanging there, waiting to be noticed and brought forward. Therein discovering a richer level of awareness and acknowledging the sometimes deeper or more difficult questions that may be presented.

Occasionally the gifts of an "ah-ha!" moment or a resolution of tension or confusion is given. Or sometimes it is simply the ability to "voice" what is within.

There are myriads of different types of journaling. For some people journals are records of mainly factual events such as weather, precipitation, meetings and events. Others are poetic endeavors full of the inspirations and verbal melody of free thought association, without care to punctuation, proper grammar or sentence structure. Some contain writing and reflections on dreams, hopes, fears, significant happenings or powerful emotions. There is no one right way to journal - which makes it an exceptionally personal and free undertaking.

Fifteen years ago, I even began an "exercise" journal to add to my regular journaling. I used it to record and inspire my daily or weekly exercise routine. Over the years it gradually also became a health journal, a place I could jot down my health issues and attempts to resolve them. Time has a way of providing real forgetfulness. I have marveled and been surprised at the turn of events or my forgetting about how something had happened.

When I was raising small children my journal entries were pretty meager. The demands, exhaustion and high level of activity with keeping little ones going left little time or energy for writing. Those days probably were some of the most full, interesting and challenging hours of my life.

I have told those close to me to not judge my life by the tone of many of my journal pages. I have used my journal to work through and let out some of my less than pleasant emotions - be it as it may.

Over the 35 years of journaling those pages have displayed the joys and struggles of spiritual longing, the creativity of significant dreams, wonders of key life events, the complexity of emotions and relationships and at times the reoccurring boredom and loneliness that sneaks up behind me.

Most of us don't intend or even wish to have our journals read by anyone else. Some people write with the intention or eventual desire to dispose of the words in some fashion. Others wish to tease their writing to find the hidden gems, the unique twists of vocabulary and thought, barely exposed in the tilled soil.

An excellent jumpstart to writing and creative inspiration is Julie Cameron's, The Artist's Way:  A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It is a series of writing and reflection exercises of "daily pages" and encouragement to go on "artist's dates" to help access the inner creative urges and dreams that are within each of us. Recently, a young couple I know gathered with six other people to journey through the 12-week The Artist's Way series together. They met once a week and shared their reflections from their daily pages and weekly artist's dates.  The Artist's Way is a wonderful tool to free up inner creativity, access buried dreams and hopes and provide a format to one's writing and inspirations.

Anyone can journal and do it anyway they like. The invitation is to begin and let the process be its own without any great expectations. If we journal a long time, our writing and thoughts will vary in content and complexity from one time or phase of our life to another. Yet too, we may see the similarities, patterns and processes that carryover 20 or 30 years and more and return once again.

Grab a favorite pen, a blank sheet of paper, spiral notebook or carefully chosen journal and plop into a comfortable chair, ready to break into that expanse of untouched fiber with what teams and stirs within and around the unique, gifted human being that you are.

The E-book Upload

The E-book Upload

After a long 800-mile round trip to western Montana - the snow beautiful and roads fairly good for winter, I sit down before my computer, newly completed book cover in hand.

With excitement and trepidation I begin the long awaited process of uploading my 6,000-word book/article to Smashwords. Two years of gathering and digesting research articles and over a full year since I began writing the piece, the time has come. The proofing, reproofing and reproofing as well as multiple edits from a variety of sources are behind me. My other writing on my novel and newspaper articles has taken the back seat for a while.

Although I am not techno-savvy, I do get by. Over the past month, I managed to follow the Smashwords "Style Guide" http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 , stripping out all the formatting in my article to create a flowable text that will read on different devices. (We'll talk more specifically about that later.)

Filled with nervous energy I carefully follow all the leads and prompts on the screen to upload my book, the cover, author profile and other information. As I write the author profile, I can't help but wonder, "How much does one really want to share about themselves for the entire world to see?"

As I get ready to click the "Submit" button (or was it an "Upload" button?) I hope my book/article is well done, professionally acceptable and will be a benefit to those who read it. With some faith in the computer-gods, I plunge ahead, submitting my materials to the Smashwords "Meatgrinder" hoping to pass without any AutoVetting errors.

File uploaded, cover uploaded, author profile complete, I intently watch my computer screen as it flashes, "You are number 26 in the queue to upload at Smashwords." The tiny circle spins as I await confirmation.

Suddenly words pop up on the screen, "You have lost Internet connection." What?! No! All the time spent carefully uploading! I frantically check all my connections, then call the phone company. The phone line crackles painfully as I explain the problem. The service tech responds, "It will be 24 to 48 hours to correct the problem."

With deep frustration, I turn back to my computer and attempt to reload Internet. There, miraculously, pops up the message, "You have successfully uploaded your book to Smashwords, there are no AutoVetter errors." Yay!

Out from my email spits a three-page document about how to get an ISBN number, how to check for compatibility with epub and html files and how to get into the daunting task of marketing your work.

Shortly after completing a few more tasks, my phone lines and Internet go totally dead for nearly 24 hours, interspersed with numerous cell phone calls to the phone company. My carefully planned e-book upload is narrowly accomplished. Hard to believe how dependant we have become on the Internet!

Now the challenge of letting people know what my e-book/article is about and how it can be useful is the next step. What is your next challenge to writing and publishing? Do you have a plan to move forward?

Theresa Nichols Schuster's Smashwords Author Profile: http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/tnschuster

Book page to sample or purchase Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) or Excessive Mast Cells? Research Summary: http://smashwords.com/b/266579

Introduction to "Bridging: Writing the Journey"

For those of us who write - and I don't mean just writing for publication - our writing encompasses the ebb and flow of our lives. It is not only a means of self-expression, it is an avenue of self-discovery, processing and clarifying, that at times reveals more than we ever knowingly intended.

Currently I write, type and muse from the hinterlands of extreme rural northeastern Montana, just south of the Canadian border and not far from the Bakken oil fields.

I invite us on this blog site to share our writing journeys - whether that be from our own journaling or poetic creativity...or the more gritty process of writing to effect change, to publish, to be heard or to entertain.

Recently I stumbled upon the tiny tattered pages of a spiral notebook roughly stapled together. Scrawled diagonally across the first page was the word "Diary". Concealed in the pages was the world of an 11-year old. What was it like to be that 11-year old girl? How did she see, understand, act? Was that really me?

As I read, most of the pages were taken up by the birth and growth of a batch of kittens, multi-colored, black, gray and white; obviously an important event. The frequent words that Dad wasn't home from Miles City yet were scattered in different entries. Why was he in Miles City? A hernia operation at the VA? Finally, after a week and a half, there is the notation that Dad is home. No mention of why he was gone, how he was doing or if it was surgery. Hard to believe that's how I thought then - as now my curiosity and interest in things medical and health-oriented is almost insatiable.

A few pages later, the wonder of finding an inflatable canoe, although flattened, on the banks of the Yellowstone River, brought to mind my yearning to cross to the mysterious islands in the middle of the river. I could almost taste the disappointment, when the entry a few days later noted that the young girl had inflated the canoe and realized only baby could fit in it.

The words reminded me of the desire to explore the islands of the Yellowstone that regularly tugged at me throughout my childhood and teen years. I did swim to an island once; I wouldn't recommend it. And a few hairy crossings as the strong currents swirled around my knees and thighs and my feet slid over moss-covered rocks also were a little nervy. The impatience of waiting for the flood waters to recede each year added to the appeal of the isolated, darkened cottonwood forests, meadows and stands of willows far across the turbulent river.

Writing is our opportunity to explore, learn, express and create. The reading is the remembering, reliving, feeling and discovering.

You are invited on this blog to join me in exploring the literary field of writing and publishing from a stance of openness, playfulness and self-reflection.           Theresa Nichols Schuster