The Editing Process

            I haven’t had a blog about my writing recently, so I thought I ought to change that. Since I finished writing my latest book last week (throw confetti!), I thought it would be appropriate to share what happens next.

            While I budget myself a year to write each of my books, that clock stops ticking when I write the last word of the book (usually with a couple months to spare). The process, however, does not stop there. That is when the editing starts.

            First, naturally, I read through the book myself, fixing all the typos I can find, smoothing out awkward sentences and such. Sometimes I need to rewrite sections that aren't good enough and occasionally there’s a minor plot hole to fix (for a while, in my second book, there was an object in two places at once). Once that’s done, I hand the book off to my wife, Colleen.

            Now, Colleen has a very special job while editing. Not only does she have to watch for the same flaws I did, but she also needs to fill in a few... blanks that I left for her. Blanks that tend to look like [INSERT DESCRIPTION], [DESCRIBE PRETTY SUNRISE] or [DESCRIBE DAY AT FAIR]. Plus she has to report back to me on her thoughts on the book (incidentally, two chapters into the latest one she has emphatically declared that this is my best book yet. Be excited).

            Then the book comes back to me to go through once again. I read the whole book again, making the same edits as before and making Colleen’s suggested changes, as well as editing her new parts (sometimes – although rarely – I send some back to her to be rewritten with, usually with specific requests). Oh, and I get to read her delightful comments, particularly on some of the references I made.

            Once I'm done that edit, the book goes off to my parents. I know this might seem cheesy to some people, but my parents (along with being awesome) are very talented and, while most parents will shower their children’s work with praise, mine have always been fantastic at providing wonderful feedback.

            My dad has done a fair amount of writing himself, and – back when he had more free time – he used to tell his great stories at schools and events. He is also a library technician and he reads a lot. Like me, he is the type of person who analyses a book while he’s reading it, picking up on the foreshadowing and guessing what’s going to happen next. He’s my best source of feedback on the book’s overall content. He’s stopped bothering with doing technical edits because my mom will catch all of those.

            My mom is one of those (despicable) people who are amazing at everything they do. She knows her grammar exceptionally well and, if she’s not sure on something, she takes the time to look it up. She also reads at a snail’s pace, making her an ideal line editor. By the time she’s done reading my book, I'm confident that there are next to no technical errors remaining. It’s definitely worth waiting the six (or more) months it takes her to read the whole book.

            With my feedback from my parents, I go through the book again, making even more changes. Then, it’s time to get down to business. I sit down with Colleen and we go through the book together, making it as perfect as we can. This is where the greatest conflicts in our marriage come from – we once spent over an hour arguing over the wording of a sentence. It was great.

            At long last, the book gets declared done and I get to work on getting it published, which will involve even more editing.

            Blogs, on the other hand, are much simpler. I usually skim through them once after writing them, then don’t bother with any editing until someone sends me a text of Facebook message to let me know I've got a bunch of typos. Thanks, editing types! All literature would be a lot messier without an outside eye to whip thins into shape.

            (P.S. I'm taking the liberty of not reading a single word I wrote in this blog. How did I do?)

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

How to be a Writer

            You write. It’s as simple as that.

            When I tell people I'm an author, they often look at me in shock and say something along the lines of, “You wrote a book!? Wasn't that hard?”

            My answer is, “Yes, I wrote a book. Actually, I wrote three and am currently working on a fourth.” As to how hard it was... only the first one was, and even then it wasn't all that challenging – the most difficult part was gaining the confidence to actually do it.

            I first decided I wanted to be an author when I was somewhere around the age of twelve – at least, that’s when I started to write my first novel. It was a disaster. Not because I wasn't any good, no, but because at the time I was attempting to emulate my latest favourite author: Brian Jacques. When you write a book about warrior woodland creatures, it’s a bit obvious that it’s a rip-off. When I became aware of this, I started a new book and learning my own style.

            The new book was good, but it had one major flaw – the protagonist had no weaknesses. Oh, I did my best to give him some, but it was a very futile attempt. This, coupled with my difficulties writing descriptions, caused me to give up on my goal.

            I still wrote now and then. On occasion I even took a shot at starting up another book, but the thing that really set me on the road to writing again was when I chose to take a high school Writers’ Craft course when I was eighteen. I was assigned a short story project and, as I wrote it, I realized there was far more potential for the story. It was then read aloud to my class for criticism, but they all got so lost in the story that they forgot they were supposed to be doing work. Then a number of my classmates asked when I was writing the rest.

            You’d think that would be the kick I needed to get writing, right? Wrong. I still lacked the confidence in my writing – sure, I could write something short, but a whole book? That seemed like an impossibility! Over the next few years I wrote bits and pieces here and there, but never sat down to write seriously. I lacked the confidence.

            It wasn't until January of 2010, when I was dating Colleen, that I started seriously writing. I made a deal with her – I would write my book if she would help me when I got stuck. That’s all I needed. So, I started writing. Not just sitting down to write every now and then, but every day. If I wasn't working on the book itself, I was working on background information, developing the world I was writing in further and further.

By the end of July, I had finished the book. Well... okay, it had several locations where [INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE] was written, but other than that... I had written a book! It was such an exhilarating feeling! After that, Colleen went through it, then I read and edited the whole thing, followed by sending it off to my parents for editing and I started writing the next book.

            So, it took me a long time to get there, but I learned a lot in the process. The most important thing, though, was the confidence. I knew I had done it before, so I could do it again! So I did, and this time the book was better and had far fewer [INSERT DESCRIPTION HERE]s. The same was true for the third book. It was a bit of a revelation for me that “practice makes perfect” applied to creative writing.

            In conclusion, if you want to write a book but aren't sure if you can, here is my advice:

-Go for it!

-Write a little every day, even if it’s only a sentence.

-Believe in yourself, or find someone else to believe in you for you.

-Don’t read it until you’re done unless you’re going back to check on details. Many authors will tell you that they don’t like what they write. This is because you are your own worst critic. You see things that only you can see because you were the one who put the words there in the first place. But! Leave those words sitting long enough (say, long enough to finish writing the book) and you’ll forget that you wrote them in the first place. I can’t tell you the number of times I've read something and been amazed that I was the one who had typed it! All those little things that you were picky about will still be there, but if they still need to be fixed, they can be fixed later. By that time, the book is already complete, so it’s too late to give up on it.

Happy writing!

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.

If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.

Introduction

            As this is my first blog, I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself and what you can expect to find here. My name is Jonathan Rutledge and I am a writer (among other things) under the pen name J.C. Rutledge. I'm a somewhat insane individual with a passion for fantasy, an uneventful life and a touch of O.C.D.

            What you’ll find here, well, even I'm not entirely sure of that yet! I’ll probably end up rambling on about any number of subjects relating to my scribbling, my chainmaille business (www.ringcrafts.com) and various random subjects that pop into my head. On the occasion that I finish reading a book, I’ll probably give you a review. Once in a while I might ask my lovely wife Colleen (yes, that’s where the C. in the J.C. Rutledge comes from, you caught me) to jot something down for you. On occasion I may give you something funny to read. On rare occasion, you might find it funny too.

            My goal is to post a new blog every Monday. Only time will tell how successful I’ll be; it may end up being cut down to only once or twice a month – after all, I have books I'm supposed to be writing, who needs a blog?

            Well, that should be all that’s needed for an introduction; I don’t suppose there will be many people reading this, so I hope the briefness hasn't left anyone disappointed. See you all next week!

J.C. Rutledge

Click here to find the charity anthology containing a couple of my short stories.