EVEN GREAT AUTHORS GET DECKED

Dave, an acquaintance, shared an article with me that made me giggle. It seems even authors that time and academia have deemed “classic” or “noteworthy” get creamed by critics from time to time. In the universe of literature, no one is exempt from a scathing rebuke.

Feeling glum because someone dissed your work? Read this. You’ll feel better. You may still have to re-write, but you will feel as if you are in good company.

The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History

By Emily Temple on Jan 1, 2012 1:00pm

[Editor’s note: While your Flavorwire editors take a much-needed holiday break, we’re revisiting some of our most popular features of the year. This post was originally published June 19, 2011.] Sigh. Authors just don’t insult each other like they used to. Sure, Martin Amis raised some eyebrows when he claimed he would need brain damage to write children’s books, and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan made waves when she disparaged the work that someone had plagiarized, but those kinds of accidental, lukewarm zingers are nothing when compared to the sick burns of yore. It stands to reason, of course, that writers would be able to come up with some of the best insults around, given their natural affinity for a certain turn of phrase and all. And it also makes sense that the people they would choose to unleash their verbal battle-axes upon would be each other, since watching someone doing the same thing you’re doing — only badly — is one of the most frustrating feelings we know. So we forgive our dear authors for their spite. Plus, their insults are just so fun to read. Click through for our countdown of the thirty harshest author-on-author burns in history, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments!

For the complete article, go here:

http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-harshest-author-on-author-insults-in-history/view-all

New Author Education from Lauren Carr

Lauren Carr, top-selling mystery author, has a new book in the works: Authors in Bathrobes. It is a down-to-earth tutorial for the new author. It will be  available before Christmas on Amazon.

I want to share an excerpt from her book that describes where I am in the publishing process. It is an educational eye-opener for the new author who has a publication-ready manuscript and wants to know what comes next.

ARC: Advanced Review Copy

When you traditionally publish, approximately three to four months before a book is released, the publisher will send out advanced copies of books to publications, reviewers, or even celebrities. Authors will sometimes offer ARC’s as giveaways or prizes for fans.

The purpose of this advanced release of the book is two-fold:

The reviewers are able to read the book and provide reviews, which will come out at the same time as the release. This is how big-named books by major authors have hundreds of reviews posted, sometimes even before the book is released. Big publishers will send out hundreds (sometimes thousands) of ARC’s, also called Uncorrected Proofs, to get the publicity ball rolling. The reviewers know that they are reading a proof, so they are forgiving of typos and errors.

Meanwhile, the author is reviewing the book for any last-minute errors he or she may catch.

Because I am a new author and do not have a staff of editors to do the work of editing for me, I am s-l-o-w about getting my changes made. I grossly underestimated the time it would take to proof and correct my book manuscript.

Lauren’s book will help you avoid lots of mistakes that beginners make. Watch for it. It is coming soon!

 

Affirmation–The Payoff for Hard Work

To those of you who have followed this blog for a while, “Thank you.” I can think of moments when several of you, through comments, kept me motivated, tilting at my windmill–finishing my novel. When I doubted myself, you chided me. When I celebrated a breakthrough, you cheered me.

Besides writing my book, I had another goal: I wanted to share what I was learning with others. I wanted another writer to learn from my mistakes or discover a tool to save time. In that vein, I shared my embarrassing moments or time-wasters, so you could learn. Other times, I shared wisdom from experienced authors, so we all benefited.

Yesterday I received a tweet from youth book author Jim Denney that is one of those special remarks. The tweet read:

“Jim Denney‏@WriterJimDenney @MooreFay By the way you have an awesome blog for writers at https://faymoore.wordpress.com/ . Every serious writer should follow it. All the best!”

Thank you, Jim. If you are unfamiliar with Jim Denney, you can learn more about him here:

Jim Denney Author of the Timebenders series for young readers, beginning with Battle Before Time. Author of the ebook Writing in Overdrive: Write Faster, Write Freely, Write Brilliantly. Visit me at my Timebenders blog site: Jim Denney’s Timebenders and at my blog site for writers: Jim Denney’s Unearthly Fiction. On Twitter: @WriterJimDenney

Marketing My Novel, Step 2

I hadn’t anticipated writing about this topic under marketing my novel. On reflection, I think it is where it belongs. It is about making mistakes and learning from them BEFORE the book goes on sale. I said I would share my mistakes, so you can avoid making the same ones. Here goes.

Today I had a discussion with one of my editors. He is a perfectionist, which is why I like him reading my stuff. He kicks my ass when I make mistakes. He makes me a better writer.

The conversation today went something like this:

“I have a couple of thoughts about the manuscript. First, I want to tell you it is difficult to keep track of the story when you send me only a chapter at a time. ”

“The re-write process is taking longer than I anticipated. I feel less guilty if I give you something.”

“Oh, you are re-writing before it gets to me?”

Oh-oh, I think. This sounds ominous.

“Yes, that’s why you aren’t finding a lot of mistakes. You aren’t returning pages to me with many marks. I’ve already edited the chapter during the re-write.”

“Like I said, it’s a long time between chapters, so I am having trouble retaining the story line between edits. I read so much in between your chapters. I want to mention a suggestion to you. I have to think about it in my own writing.  It’s how a writer introduces backstory. The chapter I just read has a lot of backstory. I can’t remember what happened in your earlier chapters.”

More discussion follows on the skill of integrating backstory into the actual plot.

“Yes, I understand what you are saying. I just read an article about Sue Grafton. The article described her mastery of mixing backstory directly into the storytelling. I will make a point to read one of her novels solely to study that technique, so I can improve my skill. I know of a different writer who warns authors who use “data dump” to tell the backstory that they are boring their readers. So I understand what you are telling me; I need to be careful about loads of background weighing down the pace of the story.”

“In my novel, chapter one starts the story. Chapter two goes to backstory. In chapter three, I go right back to the story line.”

“Are you telling me I’ve used too much backstory?”

“I am saying ‘maybe’ because I can’t remember the detail of your earlier chapters. I know this chapter had a lot of backstory.”

There are two lessons here for you and your work.

First, think about how you tell backstory. Don’t bury your reader in it. I’ll have to look at my manuscript, once all the editing is complete, for how I have handled the history of the characters. I may have to re-order chapters to avoid too much in one night’s reading. My nightmare would be having to re-write the story to fix the problem.

Second, give your editor the entire manuscript–or at least a big chunk of it–at once, not a chapter at a time as I did. It handicaps the person who is trying to help you improve your work. My editor reads so much other material between my chapters that he can’t recall the flow or detail of my work. He’s limited to remarking on each chapter as a stand-alone piece.

I was planning to finish another chapter this weekend to hand over to the editor. I will hold it now until I have several chapters ready to be edited. At least that way he will be better able to critique the flow of my story, whether I have loose ends dangling, and the like. The upside to handing over the whole thing is I get a better editorial commentary on the novel. The downside is there may be many more editorial notes about corrections I need to make.

But, wait, that’s an upside, too.