27. Getting Wise (After the event)

Getting Wise (After the event): And why Stark3 took long!

As I’ve mentioned before, when a manuscript is off with the editor for a week or four, I’ll be working on the next book, or indeed ideas for those after (please note: you’ll only get to read those if you buy, and encourage others to buy, the early ones so my publishers stick with me – just saying…). So, when Between The Crosses was finished I was already well advanced with the third in the series and, riding high, I raced (by my slow standards) through to a first draft in record time.

After a couple of weeks off to free my head in choice titles from my teetering TBR pile, I read Book#3 front to back to see what shape it was in (see blog #3), felt rather pleased with myself, and set about two more drafts before sending it off to my editor.

This is they way I work. I finish the book (or get it as close to finished as I can) before sharing it with anyone outside immediate family. With the first, you have little choice unless you are part of a writing group or community (which I’ve never made time for, to my loss), as you likely have no agent or publisher to act as a sounding board. With the second, I did what I’d done with the first. In both instances this led to time-consuming re-writes, but this time I was confident. After all, I’d submitted a synopsis of books 3 and 4 to my publisher before they offered me my second two-book deal and they were enthusiastic.

But when they read the fully expanded version, they felt I’d let a sub-plot swerve the narrative away from the main crime thread right when it should’ve been focusing on the denouement. They suggested cutting it completely, but this sub-plot had been my very first idea for this book, the key misdirectional hook I had built the story around and contained what I felt was some of my finest writing and a delicious new character. So instead, I spent months turning a ‘What the f**k!’ swerve into ‘Wow, I can’t believe I didn’t see that coming!’. And it worked. It made it even better!

My publishers, however, still disagreed.

Remember all the times in previous blogs I’ve repeated the advice I was given – not to be precious…?

I hadn’t listened. And my wonderful editors had been too nice to be firm.

They, and I, want these Stark novels to do well. We love the first two but they’ve sold only modestly. The best chance of turning that around is to make each new book the best it can be. The best crime book it can be. And whilst I’d achieved a thrilling ending that I loved, it had more to do with my protagonist’s multi-book arc than the key crime in this book.

‘Sometimes,’ they said, ‘you just have to amputate’.

Sometimes (always dear reader, always) you need to listen to what the experts are saying.

So I necked the proverbial shot, bit down on the stick and cut – beloved writing, thrilling action, heartrending scenes, sharp ideas and that wonderful character who I may never now manage to re-weave into Stark’s future – all of it. Months of painstaking stitching and erasure of scars. And did any of this make it better…?

Yes. It did.

Editing can be agony, but in my experience it always makes it better because the desire to tell the best stroy you can rests behind every keystroke you make. I found new, better ways of keeping it deeply personal to Stark while ensuring his third adventure remains focused on what it should always have been, a crime book. I hope you’ll find it gripping, disturbing, thrilling and satisfying.

So Draft 7 finally passed muster. Draft 8 escaped the editing process. Drafts 9 through 11 took care of the copyediting and 12 was me making sure the finally agreed title (see blog posts #10 and #23 on working titles) echoed through the text. I’ll shortly be sending my proofreading notes (your last chance to read the page proofs for typos, errors or tweaks) back to Penguin – so the book that hits the shelves will be Draft 13. Instead of 2 years between books, it’ll be nearly five.

So, I have a new writing motto:

DON’T BE PRECIOUS. AND…

I have 30,000 words of Book#4 down, plus a lot more in oft-contradictory notes and increasingly messy synopsis. I’ve sent it all off to my editor. Once she’s had a good look, we’ll talk it through before I go haring off in directions that might later concern them. This is new to me, but I really hope it saves pain and time later. I’ll keep you posted.

26. Getting It Wrong:

Getting It Wrong: A belated confession.

Forgive me Reader, it has been a long time since my last post…

Through this website contact’s page I have received a delightful drip-feed of positive feedback from the people that count, the readers. I try to respond to them all, so please do keep them coming. This said, some time ago one gave me pause. As well as praising If I Should Die, this reader also had a question…

I turned out they had identified a continuity error. I wish I could say it was something that had crept in during editing but the truth was, I’d made a mistake. It’s minor but it’s there. At the end of the book a character mentions taping off the BWM and searching around it for a particular piece of evidence – but it should’ve been the VW Golf. I got the cars mixed up. I can only apologise. The reader who contacted me was nice as pie about it.

At that point the book was in its first print run, and the subsequent re-prints and the E-Book were corrected, but the audiobook is stuck that way.

At first I felt gutted, my debut novel, culmination of years of work, stared accusingly from the shelf. But over time I’ve learned through other authors that I’m not alone. These things happen apparently. As the author, reading your chapters for the umpteenth time, it becomes all too easy to read what you think you’ve written and miss mistakes. With luck, your editors spot those that slip past you, but for all the times a book is read before publication, errors can escape notice.

As an architect, I know all too well that no project is ever quite completed to perfection and nothing niggles like that tiny detail that perhaps no one else will ever notice. Experience teaches that when the inner perfectionist strives and weeps, the philosopher must nod and move quietly on.

25. Getting Published – Again!

Getting published – again: Your second book hits the shelves, and life goes on…

Through happy chance, my first book hit the bookshops as I was waking beside the Mediterranean, celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary in style (see blog #15). When my second hit the shelves on 8th September 2016, I was dropping the kids off at school and then running between meetings all day dealing with the day to day crap of real life.

 

You can’t always have your cake and eat it.

My publishers took me out for a quick lunch which I manage to squeeze in between yet more meetings a few weeks later, and sent me a nice bottle of champagne, which we’ve still not had the right occasion to open.

 

The point I’m clumsily making is that, like many authors, I still work for a living full time. Whilst getting published is undoubtedly like winning the lottery, aspiring writers should not expect to jack in the day-job and buy a sports car any time soon. That’s not to say it’s impossible. Catch the latest zeitgeist, get on the right celebrity pick list or win a prestigious award and you may indeed be off the races. It can happen for you and I hope it does. But if it doesn’t, you might find yourself looking around at more successful authors and wondering – why not me?

 

This is a mug’s game. And a risky one. Start chasing the commercial success of others and you might start trying to write more like them and less like you. My advice  – Try instead to remember why you started writing, what you wanted to say and do, and that you got published for writing your book in your style.

 

I’ve said this before, but if writing what you know is the old mantra then writing what you’d want to read should be just as important. There are plenty of writers knocking out deliberately commercial books that I simply wouldn’t want to read, even if I had the time – some, mentioning no names, writing more or less the same book over and over to rapturous applause. If fame and fortune are your goal, knock yourself out. But if you got into writing for the love of it, the irrepressible itch to get the words down and wrestle them in submission, symmetry and meaningful storytelling… then when you finally do see your work in shops, let it be with unquenchable pride. Measure your success in that, and sod the sales figures!

 

All that said, if you do manage to run into a bookshop towards the end of publication day when you should really be running for a train, only to find your beloved masterpiece isn’t on the shelf yet, you are allowed to feel a little crestfallen. It’d been a long day. I didn’t cry.

 

In the end, I didn’t get to revel in the sight of Between The Crosses on sale next to If I should Die for over a week, but it swelled my heart all the more, and still does.

(… So much so, that I’ve raced (by my slow standards) through writing the third in the series and now have a first draft – start, middle and end with no gaps. I’m taking a couple of weeks off to free my head in a couple of titles from by towering TBR pile, before I read Book#3 front to back to see what shape it’s in (see blog #3). There’ll be plenty of polishing to do before I send it off to my editor, but right now, I’m riding high.)