Category Archives: Editing

Keeping up with Myself

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The last couple of weeks have been hectic. Learning a new job, writing two stories, editing Finding Sam Healey…

I have officially started into my normal roster, which means I’ve worked this weekend. Some of you are probably thinking – why would you work a weekend. Easy – I do it once a fortnight, and I get paid handsomely to do it. And you know what, there is plenty of time in each shift to do my own thing. So yesterday I started editing Carol’s Christmas! If this keeps up, I’ll run out of writing before I do editing!

But I have my regular roster, so I know when I have time for writing and when I’m working, so that gives me a clear idea of where I’m heading, because the last three weeks, I didn’t know when I was working half the time. But now it’s clear, I can set some boundaries around my writing time.

Because things have been so chaotic, I decided to focus on editing instead, and after missing my deadline, (and with agreement from my editor) I was able to get the document to her on Thursday. I will know how good, bad or ugly the story is by the beginning of April.

And now that is out of the way, I can crack back into writing. Which I have been itching to do, because I haven’t done it for a few days – maybe two weeks now. It will be good to get back into writing and I hope to have at least one of the stories finished by mid-April.

With all of the mess that has been going on, it is nice to finally be coming out the other side and starting to get back into normal and routine, because I cope better with that than chaos and crazy.

Steeping Learning Curves

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I’ve been at my new job for three weeks now, and it’s been a steep learning curve. I’m having to learn not just one CMS (Customer Management System), but also an outdated requisitions website, which I’m not allowed access too until I’ve done appropriate training.

I’m enjoying the new job; it is certainly an eye opener. I’m already aware that I’m not a keen ear when it comes to gossip, like my two cohorts are. They can tune into any conversation and follow along, no matter how noisy it is. I struggle to remember to open the door when the door chimes! Never mind answering the telephone. As a gardener, I didn’t need those skills.

I’m working in ICU (or ICCU – Intensive Coronary Care Unit), and it hasn’t been full on like it expected it to be, although that is probably a good thing because I don’t think I’m quick enough to get ahead of the eight ball if I need to be. I will be with time, but right now, not so much. I have to say that the staff are amazing, and really helpful. A couple of them have been able to answer any questions I’ve had or find answers if they can’t help. I also have the trainer on speed dial, and I might need her this week, as I am going it alone this week, on my first roster shift on my own.

As a result of the large learning curve, I haven’t had a lot of time for my writing, or editing, but I have today (Monday) off, so that will help me get ahead in my editing, because Finding Sam Healey is due to the editor at the end of today…eek!

Being Organised

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This is my last week of not working, as I start my new job on Monday 17th. And while I’m keen to get started and feeling relatively calm at the moment, next Sunday night I’m probably going to be a nervous wreck.

But I’m now having to plan to be organised in my daily life to make sure that I still have time for my writing and creative interests as well as working.

I know 20 hours a week doesn’t sound like a lot, but I’m a natural born procrastinater, and I can clean my house faster the more pressure I put on myself to write. It can be funny to know that I should be writing, but instead, the floor suddenly needs to be vacuumed or washed, or the toilet need to be cleaned.

It’s been over two years since I started my writing journey in earnest, knowing that I do have enough time in my day to write and do my creative interests. I managed to do it when I was working 40 hours a day, I took the twenty to thirty minutes each morning to write.

But since I’m writing two books, and spending about 45 to 60 minutes per story, I need to make sure that I spend that time actually writing. I’ll be working from 1pm until 6pm and weekends on a rostered basis, which add up to 20 hours a week. Which means that I have the morning to get my writing, editing and anything else I need to get done, and the evenings will now be relaxing and kicking back.

I’m looking forward to getting back into the workforce, and to spend time writing and getting my books out there, because I eventually want to make some money off my books. I won’t be making millions, but I want to be able to not have to work full time.

But that is in the future. And I only live day to day, so we’ll have to see what the future brings.

2025 Goals, Dreams and Wishes

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Welcome to 2025! Did you set any resolutions? I didn’t. I don’t because I can’t keep them. But I do make small changes in my habits throughout the year, which culminates at the end of the year with a fitter, healthier, slimmer me. I’m pleased with the changes I made last year and hope to make more this year.

I do set goals for my writing, and I have purchased Joanna Penn’s Your Author Business Plan because this year, I am going to take my writing seriously.

I was out for a walk on Friday and decided that since I’m not working (at present, I have work for about 12 weeks over apple picking season), I will write until my fingers bleed (okay, maybe a little bit less dramatic than that), and work towards building up my writer business, platform and products. If I can build my writing business to make at $50,000 then I won’t need to look for full time work.

Of course, this is a big leap for me. I made my first $100 last year, from the previous 9 years of writing. So, I haven’t even reached my first goal from last year of making my first $1000. It’s a huge leap to expect me to earn $50k from my books this year, but if I don’t try, then I won’t know if I can do it or not.

I also want to write at least three books this year, again, and stretch for that fourth book. I did write three last year and published two books. This year I want to publish at least three (Finding Sam Healey, Carol’s Christmas and the first of the Racing Harts books).

But to start the year off, I am embarking on a little secret project. So, secret that I can’t tell you otherwise I’d have to kill you. But all will be revealed. I should know in the next couple of weeks if I can do it or not. But I know that I can write a book in 30 days, so I plan to give myself a little grace and work on 45 days. I should be able to write just over 8 books a year if I mathed right. But I don’t want to burn out, and I know that at least two weeks in between in a good break, because I’m normally busting to keep writing again after two weeks off.

My dream is to be writing “full time” within 5 years (4 if I count last year). Is this achievable? Maybe, I have a whole dream board with my five-year plan on it, including what cars I want and when, and then I had to calculate in my partner’s Monaro as well.

It’s going to be a big year for me. One I am ready to tackle head on, because I can do this, I just need to put the effort and work in.

What are your goals and dreams for your future?

Moving Forward

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A lot of reflection is done at this time of the year. Looking back to see what went well, what didn’t, how things can be improved, and a writer’s life isn’t any different.

What went well this year – the launch of Second-Hand Daughter. It actually went better than I expected, and I can’t explain why. I wonder if it was the topic, discovering your husband had a secret second life you had no idea about. Anyway, the book sold okay (not thousands, that will be in years to come) but it sold well.

What didn’t go well was the launch of Compromising Positions – this is a fun little romance, but for some reason, I didn’t sell many copies at all. Another writer friend of mine launched her contemporary romance at the same time (November) and she didn’t make many sales either. We both have to wonder if it was too close to Christmas, and people were looking at big ticket writers for their books. It’s hard to say.

As a writer, we often bombarded with so many mixed messages. Write to market / don’t write to market. Write from your heart / don’t write from the heart. Write what you know / write something new / don’t reinvent the wheel. This year, I followed my own thoughts and feelings, and now, more and more people are saying, follow your own goals. I published two books this year, the most I’ve published before. And I loved every minute of the writing and editing process, until I have worked on the piece entirely through and think it’s shite. Then I put it out into the world, and let it float away into the abyss of Amazon / Kobo / Draft2Digital to be swallowed up in the millions of other books out there.

I’m really pleased with both of the books I produced. I’m looking forward to putting more out there next year, which will include Finding Sam Healey, which I am currently editing, and then Carol’s Christmas. Whether I start publishing the Racing Harts series I’m not sure, but I intend to write three books next year.

I wrote three novels this year. The Dragon story, which is part of a five book series, and needs a lot of work, because it became a never-ending story. That doesn’t work in the publishing world, but that’s okay. It needs work.

I also wrote 2 other novels, in the Racing Harts series, Fatih and Hope’s stories. And I hope to have Grace’s started in January. I have ideas for about five other stories, which are all up in the air at the moment, so I’m not sure what will come next, but I’m hoping to write my Ice Planet sequel, featuring the son of Kelvaras and Vyvica.

I’m contemplating splitting off my fantasy / science fiction books under a separate pen name, but again, not something I am fully decided on just yet. If it happens, I’ll let you know, because you’ll want to follow one or the other, I don’t expect everyone to follow me on both. There will be the odd one or two of you, like me, who will read just about anything. I read a large variety of books, and can’t say I’m solely a romance reader. If I have a thriller, I will enjoy the storyline even without romantic elements. But that’s a whole other blog post!

I will list out my goals for 2025 on 6th January, I intend on having a decent break this year. No laptop, no notebooks, just 10 – 14 days of nothing but reading. We’ll see how that goes then aye?

Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely Christmas. Stay safe out there and look after one another. Look forward to catching up with you all in the New Year.

Looking Back to Look Forward

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Last year I set some fairly high goals for myself. And now I’ll go over what they were and how I did.

  • Write Dragon Story – This I managed to do early on in the year. I plan on making this a series, however this was a neverending story, so I need to reassess this story and find a cut off point and decide what I want to keep and what can go into the next book.
  • Write Faith’s Story – This I achieved as well, in early October.
  • Write another story – in November I wrote and completed Hope’s story in the Racing Harts series, so really pleased with this.
  • Edit Second-Hand Daughter – not only did I edit this, but I published it as well in May 2024
  • Edit Compromising Positions – edits were completed and was published November 2024
  • First draft edit of Finding Sam Healey – These I started, but I haven’t completed them yet. I have a date with the editor for March 2025, so it will be published next year.
  • First draft edits of Carol’s Christmas – this hasn’t happened, but I’m not too upset about that.

    Overall, that isn’t a bad year considering I was working fulltime for most of it. The results are pretty epic. At this stage, I have yet to find another job, so I now have to have a real think about what I want to achieve heading forward. I would love to be able to quit work and write fulltime, however I have some limitations as far as that is concerned (will talk about in a future blog post), and to start making money from my writing, I might have to write to market, which isn’t where my heart is. I want to write what I want to write, and that means that I need to find readers who want to read my work, and that proved elusive this year. I guess I could focus on writing in the first quarter of next year and really push my publishing timetable, but I also don’t want to burn out.

    It’s a fine line between doing something you love for money and doing something you love for the enjoyment of writing. I guess it is something I really need to work out over the next couple of weeks as we start the full on countdown to Christmas.

    Reading, Writing, Editing and Planning, Oh My!

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    I finished Hope’s story on Thursday, much to my relief. Because coming up to Christmas things will start to get really busy, even if I’m not working.

    I’m hoping to start Grace’s story in January, because when I write, I like to keep the flow going by writing every day, and with Christmas, then New Years, there would be too many disruptions for me to keep the continuation of the story. And as I explained last week, Grace’s story is actually going to be the second story, even though I’ve written it last. There is an overarching story over all three stories, and threads of that will need to be woven in with Grace’s story and then continued on when I edit Hope’s story. This is the story of their dad, who left the girls when they were young, after their mother died. I also plan on writing a prequel novella and sequel novella to wrap up the story.

    And talking of stories, I’ve headed back into Finding Sam Healey and reworked my first chapter or two. The first part of the book are letters, so that part has been edited. And now I’m into the diaries part. I’m enjoying what I’m reading and sometimes surprise myself with how much I like what I’ve written.

    I’m toying with my next few stories and starting to think about my plan for next year. There will be at least two books published, possibly three, but we’ll see how we go. Planning the next twelve months will be fun.

    And the Edits Start

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    Last year I wrote Finding Sam’s Family, which I changed the name to Finding Sam Healey, to reflect the Finding Yourself series which started with Finding Amy Archer. I thought having the surname worked better than ‘family’. While I’m editing, I refer to my book by the initials, in this case, FSH. FAA was Finding Amy Archer. It’s just something I do.

    When I’m editing, I do a quick read through, taking notes on post its before I sit down, with said post its and work through the story, and incorporating any of the changes I thought of. This might be as simple as ‘change the start of the story’ to ‘first person POV (point of view). Once I’ve worked my way through some of the edits, I will bundle up a bunch of them and send them to my critique partners for them to read and make sure that it makes sense, that they like the characters, and the storyline follows logic.

    Once I get the critiques back, I work through them and make any changes that may be needed. Sometimes it can be hard to swallow some of what the partner’s say, but sometimes it is crucial to the story, so changes are made. If both say the same thing about the same part of the story, then I know that something needs to be worked on.

    Once I’ve edited the next section, I send away to the critique partners and I get it back, and this continues until the story is edited thoroughly. I then put it through a spell / grammar check, and I listen to the story being read back to me. It’s surprising how many words are missing, or wrong words used until you hear it back.

    Once that’s all done, I normally book it in with my editor, unless I have already done that. But a novel can take me a couple of months to get through, so even though I’ve started editing, it might not be finished until January, all depending on how I go.

    At this stage, I’m looking at booking the editor for February, and hopefully release Finding Sam Healey May next year.

    At this stage, I haven’t started writing anything new. I like to have a break, plus still trying to work out if I want to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in November. I’ve done it before, and I’ve done Camp NaNo, which I also won. I like to have a break to allow my creative juices to flow, and they are flowing. I have about five story ideas lurking in the depths of my brain.

    Hope you all have a lovely week. Take care out there.

    I’m Finished. Now What?

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    I finally finished Faith’s story this week. Oh, how that woman tested me. I certainly was losing Faith, but I knew how I wanted the story to end. And dammit, I ended it my way.

    So now that’ I’ve finished Faith’s story (one of three sisters who are into racing, hence Racing Harts being the series name), what do I do with the story.

    Well, I let it sit. For a while. Some authors jump straight into editing, but to be honest, I kind of like to let mine sit for a bit longer, normally about six months. Then I will pull it out, do a quick read through, making note on sticky notes (which I LOVE), and then I work through and start editing, changing bits here, things there, adding in a dash of spice, a touch of pepper, stir and mix. Then I send it to my critique partners. The read through it, laugh out loud then confirm that it’s a bunch of bullsh!t and I feel terribly bad. No, seriously, by the time I’ve edited it the first time, I think it’s crap. My critique partners come back with thoughts, any comments about plot holes – (what happened to this guy in your story?), and generally their opinion about the story. These are actually very helpful, and after drinking plenty of whisky, I actually allow myself to sit down and read what they’ve said.

    The final part of my editing process is going through the story AGAIN, and then listening to it being read on my computer. It really picks up lots of errors and missing words that others had missed, because we sometimes all know where the story is going.

    Once I’m happy with the story, I send it to my lovely editor who reads it through and then comes back to me with edits that may be required. Mostly they’re grammatical errors, because for some reason writers write, they don’t talk or do grammar. (Writers don’t math well either.)

    So, there you go, that it what happens to my story from start to finish, which generally takes a year from starting writing to publishing it.

    Now, I’m not doing much writing, because I am in the process of formatting Compromising Positions and getting it put up for pre-order.

    I hope you had a great week. Take care out there.

    Catherine

    Creating New Things

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    Hello there, how are things? Well, it’s been a busy week. What with work, and stuff.

    Actually, work has been quiet lately, I’ve been busy with writing, planning and editing, and it’s been a lot of fun.

    I was planning on writing Hope’s story next in the Racing Harts story, but I’m not sure now. The reason? I had a dream the other night, and have a plan for a sequel to my ice planet story – oh, sorry, Shards of Ice. It’s based in the future from the original story, and it’s their son, who’s an arrogant so and so, but he’s redeemable. The story idea is just about all there, but then, so is Hope’s story. And then I have my Dragon shifters story that I need to get back to, but I have a feeling that story might have to be written, divided up and then edited and published in one big heap…only because at the moment, it seems to be a neverending story, and I really want to split it up with different characters in each story. I guess this needs more planning.

    I’ve also been working on a personal project for my partner’s sister, I started it two years ago for her 50th birthday, and then ended up in lockdown, so didn’t get to give it to her. I’m revamping it and making it better than it was, and I have to have it finished by next week, because my partner is heading up north to see her.

    I also have another personal writing project that I want to work on, it’s a non-fiction book, and it’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. It is something that would benefit all creatives, not just writers. This is still in the planning stages, so won’t be happening anytime soon.

    And I’ve also been talking to a friend about websites and colours, and I have some new colours that I want to try out on my website, make it a cohesive site, bring the fonts and colours and covers together. I think it will work, I have the colours, I just need to find time to work on the website now.

    I love being creative and having creative time, what about you?

    Take care out there.

    Catherine