Pop over to my other blog, for a few musings of mine, about editing 🥰
https://ritubhathal.com/2020/11/22/the-importance-of-being-edited/
The Importance Of Being Edited
22 Nov 2020 Leave a comment
in #AmWriting, My Writing Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, editing, Ritu Bhathal
5 Editing Terms All Indie Authors Should Know #GuestPost by Claire Jennison – Ritu Bhathal
06 Jun 2020 Leave a comment
in My Writing Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, editing, Guest Post, Ritu Bhathal
Some fantastic information about Editing and jargon for indie authors. Head over to my other site to read.
Link below.
As a writer, we have the craft to create worlds, characters, and their stories. Inside our heads, those stories run like an all-singing, all-dancing movie. (Well, they do in mine…) but do our…
Source: 5 Editing Terms All Indie Authors Should Know #GuestPost by Claire Jennison – Ritu Bhathal
The Big Reread Has Commenced #AmWriting #AmRereading #AmCringing
28 Apr 2018 50 Comments
in #AmWriting, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: #AmWriting, Author, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, Blurb, editing, Publishing, Rewriting, Synopsis, Wedded Stress
Well, some told me to leave it ages, up to three-six months, before rereading my baby. Others said get right on it. By the time you are ready to reread from the start, it will have been a while since you began anyway.
Updated this too!
I decided to take the middle road, and it’s been around three weeks.
Yesterday, I took to my printout with pencils and post-its, and read the first few chapters…
Sonu Singh was at the ready to help me along.
And it really struck me, as I read, just how much my writing has come along since I started this project 18 years ago.
Sure the ideas are good (I think) and the characters are forming, but some of the writing!
Wow!
It’s clumsy and repetitive in places.
I didn’t know exactly how much I used the words actually and really in my manuscript, and that was the first three chapters!
But at least I’m looking at it with a more mature head now, and hopefully, I can rectify these issues.
I need to use this reread to find silly errors and plot holes and make copious notes about what needs rewriting… EEK!!!
And even though I’m not remotely at the stage where I will be ready to publish anything, I started wondering what the cover could look like.
#ProcrastiQueen – yes I believe that may be me!
This is what I came up with…
The bangles have some significance which you find out as you read the story…
I’ve been looking into the whole self vs. traditional publishing thing too, and researched agents… It’s a bit mad!
I’ve had quotes for editing/formatting too if I was to go down the ‘self’ route, and I have had some wonderful offers from great friends, to help along the way.
Once I do this mammoth reread and first change around, my next step will be beta readers.
I need to know if this is WOW! enough to even go down the agent/traditional route. Or if I get decent feedback, whether to push myself on the self-publishing route. Or if it is truly awful, and needs a lot more work!
This whole writing journey is a long and winding one, and I hope you are enjoying following it with me, Peeps! Your input has been invaluable so far!
In case you didn’t get it before, the prospective blurb is:
Aashi’s life was all set.
Or so she thought.
After finding out her fiancé was not the man she thought, she vows to put him, and her innocence behind her.
Accompanied by her brothers and best friend, she embarks upon an enlightening journey, where memories created and new relationships forged, have far-reaching effects.
I will also need to work on a synopsis too!!
This whole writing journey is a long and winding one, and I hope you are enjoying following it with me, Peeps! Your input has been invaluable so far!
What Happens After You Finish Your First Draft #AmWriting
13 Apr 2018 133 Comments
in #AmWriting, My Writing, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: #AmWriting, Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, editing, First Draft Editing, Grammarly, Print Outs, ProWritingAid, Wedded Stress
So, you know my BIG news from this week, that WIP is finally a fully formed first draft!
What is a writer supposed to do once it is all done?
I’ve had many tell me to put it to bed for a little while, before reading it again.
Then, get it out, read it, and start the LOOOOOONG process of editing, and redrafting, getting it beta-read, redrafting, editing, re-reading, more editing… you get the picture…
If it took me 18 years to write the first thing, I may be finally ready to publish in, oh, about 2050! Then it could be classed as historical fiction too!
And all this before thinking of covers and actual publication, and suchlike!
I’m at a loss… Do I think to send it off to traditional publishers or do I go Indie, like I did with my poetry book, Poetic RITUals?
Pah, I’ll think about that after getting some opinions on the manuscript, I think.
Still, the idea of putting it to bed straight away was hard for me.
I wanted a paper copy.
I know many of you said you edit on screen, the paper edit is too tiresome and very paper-heavy… But the feel of that first tome… it just had to be done.
My home printer wouldn’t have coped. I contacted someone local who does printing, and arranged to pop in on Friday morning to get it all ready for me so I could have my copy to scribble on, and generally cherish.
I had it saved on my cloud, my machine, my hard drive and a USB stick, ready for print-off…
But I couldn’t let it lie, could I?
Oh no!
I thought I’d do a quick (Quick? Who was I kidding, there were 300 pages to go through!) spell-check and edit via the Word editor and Grammarly. I did start off with ProWritingAid, which promises so much, but it kept crashing the programme… Sorry, I am not risking losing all those words!
All was going well, then I realised there were a couple of schoolkid errors, like consistency with how I’d written certain words. And Word has a great Find and Replace tool to change them all…
So I used it with a couple of words – all good!
Then I wanted to change Er to Err… as it appeared to show in one of the editors as the best way to write that procrastination “Err” in speech.
So I did it, and instead of changing what I wanted, it changed EVERY word with the letters er in, to having Err in it instead!
mothErr, fathErr, sistErr, watErr… you get my drift?
And it wouldn’t undo!
I was up until midnight trying to correct as many as I could… after all I had a 9.30am appointment with a printer!
Woke up and was determined to get the niggles ironed out before going.
I even found a great discount on the Grammarly Premium… 50% off!
So excited was I that I went through the whole thing!
And it took me to 12 noon!
Dang!
Well, I got the kids ready (remember, I have little-ish people to look out for too) and we raced into town.
The girl at the shop was expecting me. Her colleague was the one I had spoken to, and she was prepared for the mammoth print and bind job that was due in.
She read my mini blurb as it printed, and mentioned that it was intriguing… I liked that! (I left her with my blogger business card!)
Then we left the precious manuscript with her to be bound, whilst I fed the kids and got my nails done – my treat for myself.
And here it is…
I’ll put it to bed now, honestly… for a little while at least, but I’ve tucked it away with some special bedmates, ready for editing…
Post-its and pencils!
Gotta be done!
When I get to the next stage, I’ll be sure to update you all!
Editing… It’s not just books you know!
16 Jun 2016 24 Comments
in My Writing, Thoughts Opinions & Memories Tags: Blog, Blog Post, Blogger, Blogging, editing, Poetic RITUals, reports, writing
After spending an age and a half scrupulously combing through the online paperback review checker for my poetry book (due for release soon!) and then doing the same for the Kindle edition, submitting for reviews, finding tiny errors then correcting and resubmitting, oh about a thousand times (slight exaggeration😋), I thought I would be done editing for a while at least.
But no…. That appears not to be the case!
Now I’m also in the throes of writing my first ever end of year reports!
Oh what joy! 😐
This is one of the hardest tasks I have had to do! Trying to be positive, where maybe you only have negative things in your mind. I’m becoming a real Spin Doctor here (another string to my bow?😜)
The first editions are almost complete, I think I have 6 more to go, then we sit, my editor (co-teacher) and I, reading each other’s takes and politely trying to change things we don’t necessarily agree with! She is doing one half, I am doing the other, the we get to be each others editors!
It won’t end there.. The cover is not the issue, it’s the data entry that then has to be synced with the reports… Waaaaay too technological!!!!
Oh, and hopefully I’ll get my proof copy today of my actual book! Admittedly I ordered it when I did the first edit check, thinking all was perfect, then I found a few school girl, and formatting errors. Those have been sorted and resubmitted, but once I have a physical copy in my hand, I will press that PUBLISH button, and don’t worry, you’ll definitely hear about it!!!!
But I Smile Anyway... 