I learnt a lot with my first novel. I had various drafts of Drama Queens with Love Scenes assessed before I contacted publishers, and through that process I learnt the first rule I still stick to. 1: Find the right word. When my manuscript came back from my assessor, she often had a word circled …
Words. They have power!
I've often blogged about my favourite editor, Mary Belk. She was assigned to my first novel and totally helped me re-imagine it. But I realised something the other day. I have no idea what she looks or sounds like. That's not unusual as I have the same relationship with my current editor, Jason. I wanted …
Editor, take a bow.
Back in 2011 I worked with my first editor. It was my book, Drama Queens with Love Scenes, which had not only been professionally assessed three times when I scored my initial publishing contract, but had been developed over eight drafts over as many years. This is not uncommon for first novels. I was assigned erotic writer and …
Americanisation or Americanization
It all began when my editor gave me my notes for my novel. One main complaint was the spelling mistakes. I was surprised. I was certain I had ironed out any errors, but there were her notes in black and white. All over my latest draft were bizarre corrections. Realise became realize. Single L’s were …
Eight Drafts, and the one we don’t talk about…
About ten years ago I started writing a fantasy novel on Thursday nights, as that was the only free time I had (My partner, Warren, had started playing tennis on those nights). It was handwritten in a journal and called Staging Life. I had written about five chapters when a friend bought me a ‘How …
Continue reading "Eight Drafts, and the one we don’t talk about…"
