#IWSG JUNE POST - IS ANY WRITING EVER WASTED?

 Hello and welcome to the June IWSG where writers gather around the campfire and discuss the ups and downs of the writing life. It goes without saying that the purpose is to encourage each other. I know I always learn something! 

Alex's awesome co-hosts for the June 1 posting of the IWSG are SE White, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguire, Joylene Nowell Butler, and Jacqui Murray! If time allows, please visit them.

I'm not answering the question today. 

I haven't been able to get Michael di Gesu's last IWSG post out of my head all month. Michael posed the question - 'when is it time to do a complete rewrite of your novel?' 

Michael went on to say - 'Originally I wrote this [Mommy Kay] as a memoir and had sent it to a top editor in NYC. She made several suggestions and I was almost finished when the person I am writing about decided she wanted changes. MAJOR changes.' Which to me, Denise, tore the heart out of the book.

My heart plummeted. What a situation for Michael to face. I know he'll come to a positive conclusion, but at the end of the day, he's potentially faced with three years of his writing life coming to naught. 

Or is he?

I've always believed that writing is the best way to learn your craft. I struggle to make sense of the craft books that line my shelves - I don't have the brain for them - people are always saying - read this or that - my brain fizzes, probably because I'm basically a pantser, or Discovery Writer - trying to be a plotter. Which only works for me as I have two sharp critique partners who love structural editing and walk me through the 'beats' of a good plot. Painful, but you've gotta do it as readers are smart people, they know when a 'beat' is missing.

So I think I wrote Ray Bradbury's 'million bad words' before my writing approached competency. I have about 5 books I haven't touched yet, but I'm powering on with new ideas. Now the flow is much easier. The six books I published in 2021? Most were begun in 2016 when I didn't have much of a clue - so a long hard road to getting it anywhere near right. 

There are mainly two lines of though re a deep re-write. The self-publishing gurus at 20Booksto20K FB group recommend forgetting about published stories full of holes which you recognize after you've become a better writer. Just get on and write the next book, and the next. Whereas others recommend making those changes that annoy you or perhaps reviewers found irritating. (For a list of sites which help the self-publishing journey, click on the image in my sidebar where I gathered them together for Damyanti @Damyantiwrites).

I did a re-write on my first of series vampire novel, Betrayed, because I couldn't not,  mainly sharpening up the beginning. Edition 2, according to Amazon. Along with a more 'to market' cover, time will tell if a new set of ads will make the time invested worthwhile. (((shrugs))) Who knows?

With traveling and having the flu, I was out of writing commission for 5 weeks, so now I'm playing catch up. One of the things I did was to make a page of My Books, where all my publications, or soon-to-be publications are in one place. I hope you'll take a peek. If a book appeals to you, contact me in the comments or via email and I'll send you a free copy if you'll review it for me. As a beginning self-published writer with a small fan base, gathering reviews is the hardest part. The good news is that I'm going to cut down on the 5 years I polished these 6 books. The companion book to 'Paris Dreams' will take me a year at most. Whoop-de-do.

But back to Michael. To re-write or not, that is the question?

What do you think? I'm sure Michael would appreciate your input along with moi. (I've added the link to Michael's post above).

~*~

And always with the WEP. Today the first post of the month goes live. If you want to sharpen your skills, or get eyes on your new WIP,  you're welcome to post an extract.

Thanks for coming by.

Denise 

#IWSG post - What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

Happy New Year and welcome to the first IWSG posting for 2018! Here we encourage each other monthly on our writing journey.

The brainchild of Alex J Cavanaugh, his awesome co-hosts for the January 3 posting of the IWSG are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor, Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria! Please visit if you can.

Today I'm going to answer the set question:

January 3 question - What steps have you taken or plan to take to put a schedule in place for your writing and publishing?

I apologize in advance if this is a bit garbled. I had a very small window to get this done...

My writing schedule is pretty awesome at the best of times, and woeful at the worst of times.  Soon the Christmas holidays will be over -- for me the end of this week -- so I can begin my routine of heading to my office (called Den's Den) early in the morning when I'm at the beach and going early to the State Library on teaching days when I'm in Brisbane. Usually this gets me up to 4 - 6 hours a day at the laptop.

But it's not just about the writing, is it? I also have to factor in sending my work to beta readers, editing, paying an editor, rewriting, attending meetings with my critters and sending them chapters routinely to be discussed together. I'm never going to be one of those writers who write a book a month. How do you do that if you edit/rewrite? Please do tell. 

And then there's the reciprocal critiques I do for other writers. 

This year I need to factor into my schedule more book reviews of blogger books.

I'm planning to de-list my vampire novel on Amazon and republish in its new-beaut version through Draft2Digital who now have Amazon on their list of distributors, too!! My critters have been too busy over Christmas to re-read, but I have it with one beta reader who has already made suggestions, good ones.

• So, my Paris romance (75,000+ words) is still with Avon and Tule. Waiting to hear.
• It seems to be generally accepted that you need to self-publish more than one novel or it's not worthwhile, so I'm also working on getting the next vampire novel in the series finished and at least Chapter One on the third before I publish. We'll see.
• I've decided to go with a pen name for my vamp trilogy. I checked out the top-selling vampire novels on Amazon and the authors have very apt names. I started a thread in the facebook group I mention below and got 250 useful comments on the ways and means of pen names. So that means an author page on facebook, and a newsletter I guess, (jury's out on this one), all to garner interest before I self-publish.

I've been haunting the 20Booksto50K Facebook group which is a boon to see what successful authors are doing re self-publishing and marketing. A great place to lurk and learn. Can't sing their praises highly enough.

So, I won't hold you up. You can see I have a plan for 2018. You need to head to more posts for the IWSG. Go HERE for the list...

And over at WEP we have announced the winners for those who wrote for us in December. Please visit and congratulate them if you can. Also check out the awesome challenges for 2018! 

Now I'm looking forward to hearing all about your writing goals for 2018!

And please, if you have a newsletter, would you answer the following:

• who did you choose to go with? 
• how did you grow your reader base?
• how often do you send out your newsletter?
• er, do you actually recommend a newsletter? I know heavyweights like Anne R Allen say it's old hat, but that's not what I'm hearing elsewhere.

Thanks a mille!!