Copy Editing is Hell

Copy editing is tiring. You go over the same work over and over again, picking up thr tiniest errors of grammar, questioning your every word choice, trying to work out exactly what you did mean by that sentence, and searching a 500 page document for a single reference that you hope you made because it’s vital to the plot but you can’t remember now.

I like to do it in sections. Ten minutes and have a break, play a quick game on my phone. Having music on helps too. Or work at it and then read.

Slogging through for a few hours seems like it might work, and some people it will. But there is a danger that if you just keep going you get so tired, or so used to the work that you just miss vital mistakes. Copy editing requires your brain to be fully switched on and hyper-vigilant and that’s difficult to do for three straight hours at a time.

You also get to a point where you hate this manuscript, never want to see it again, and you hate all writing. That’s your cue to take a good long half hour break, preferably with something completely different, like gardening or running.

Copy-editing your manuscript is hard work – sometimes I think it’s harder than actually writing it. But it is worth it to have a well written manuscript at the end.

And don’t worry if you miss something. Everyone always misses something. That’s why publishers and agents and editors also read it.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Your subconscious did it

Isn’t it odd when someone asks you a question about a choice you made in the book, or a particular character development and you think ‘wow, I didn’t realise I had done that’.

There’s a meme that goes around sometimes that has a teacher saying ‘the writer wrote the curtains are blue to symbolise depression’ and the writer saying ‘I just wrote the curtains are blue’

But I think there is a third part – the moment where the writer, long after they have finished the book – even if they haven’t read it for a long time – looks at the book and says ‘wow, I really did just mean the curtains were blue but now I look at it I always introduce something blue when this character enters and oh my gosh, I did mean it to symbolise depression!’

Because sometimes our subconscious does odd and occasionally brilliant things, and we don’t realise until someone who is not in our head points out.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

I’m Just Too Tired

No, sorry, not today, I’m just too tired. A full time job while dealing with chronic illnesses and also writing one book and publicising another book is just too much.

No-one ever tells you that, do you they? A writers life is imagined to be sat at a desk, staring off into space as the ideas drift around your head. No one ever mentions that somehow you have to frantically squeeze it between the job (because barely any writer gets paid enough to live on) and housework and the laundry and possibly illness. They never tell you it’s not just the writing, it’s the publicity and advertising and doing the workshops and doing the interviews and everything else.

So today, I’m just too tired.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Lost in the book

I actually forgot I was supposed to write this today. I’ve been forgetting everything because I’m on a round of edits before the book goes back to my agent to be sent out and my head is completely in my book – not just this book, but the sequel to it too.

At times I forget the outside world exists. I read other books only to be inspired, even the most different TV show gives me ideas, and I resent every second spent on the day job for taking me away.

And once it’s done I’ll crawl out of the book and look around and remember yes, there is another world, another place, and I should really live in it for a while.

But for the moment, even when it seems like I’m thinking about something else, all my thoughts are of the book.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Ideas come at the most inconvenient time

Yesterday I had a really good idea about the next book to write and as usual when I get one of these ideas I stood still for a moment to contemplate it – in the middle of a zebra crossing (if you’re not in UK, that’s a road crossing)

If I sat down in a nice safe place to think about the book, I’d never have had such a good idea.

No, ideas come in the middle of the street, in the shower, lining up for the toilet at the theatre, running for the bus….anywhere that means I don’t have easy access to a notepad to write it down.

So I have to repeat it under my breath over and over again until I get a chance to note to down. And as I write crime stories, what I am muttering can be quite gruesome if someone overhears me…

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Apologies

Apologies.

No post last week as I was on holiday and I have a firm rule that holiday means no work.

But this week – I have a mild case of food poisoning and am fairly incapable of stringing a coherent thought together.

If I do have a coherent thought this week is – you don’t have to write every day to be a writer. Do write every day if you can and want to and are well enough. But there will always be days when you just aren’t up to it, especially if you have a chronic illness. And there will be days when you need a rest, because life is exhausting and sometimes you need to just take a break.

You’re still a writer. Writing is not a daily task that must be ticked off or you lose the title. You are a writer if you write daily or once a week or write intensively for one month and think for the rest of the year or only do ten minutes before bed.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Enjoy Your Villain

The problem with writing a villain – a really good villain – it’s that they’re so damn attractive. I don’t mean good-looking (although that it’s always enjoyable, as there is a tendency to equate beauty with goodness). I mean they are so much fun to write and read.

They have all the best lines, and oh boy, those lines are fun to write. The beautifully crafted cynical bon mot purred out. The angry snarl of rage at a society that they don’t fit in. The breath-taking insight into the hero’s soul.

And yes, they are evil. But sometimes – what they do is understandable. Sometimes you just wish you had their power, their cunning. Of course you’d never do what they do, but it’s tempting…

And once in a while, the hero teams up with the villain. And you get a choice to write a crisis of conscience for the hero, while the villain questions his motives – or does he? You can have twist after twist after twist for the villain. And somewhere in there, you can make the point – these two are not so different. These two could have been friends, once.

Enjoy your villains. Your readers will.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Fashions Change

There are fashions in books like everything else. One particular books becomes popular and suddenly that’s all that gets published. It remember when fantasy was almost missing off bookshelves, and now, thankfully, the shelves groan with fantasy of all kinds.

This can get annoying. I never want to see/read another police drama where the protagonists partner has left them (usually murdered), their kids hate them, they drink too much and they catch the secretive serial killer no-one else believes exists by breaking all the rules. It’s not this trope is bad. It’s just – I know all the beats. I know where this is going. (Having said this, when a writer takes this trope, seems to follow it, and then changes all the beats and the direction, it’s intoxicatingly good).

So do hold onto the manuscript that’s been rejected a lot. Refresh it and send it out again a few years later. In that time, fashions could have changed, and it could be the next big thing.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

We Need Books Now More Than Ever

I learned something interesting this week (in fact I learned about 57 interesting things this week, but this is the relevant one).

In Ukraine, the vaccination take up had been low. So, every time someone has a vaccination, they were given a culture voucher, to spend on theatre, cinema, or books.

Vaccine take up went up, and so did book sales. Ukrainians bought hundreds of books.

And now they take refuge in these books. They read them in the shelters. They pile them up against windows as a defence. They talk about them and gain strength from them.

I also read a book about libraries that were set up in bomb shelters in London in WWII. These libraries offered a respite from the daily grind of constant work and constant shelling. Books about murder and romance were favourites, with women becoming avid readers. Anything to escape. And for some reason a lot of people read Mein Kampf, to ‘know your enemy’

Personally, I am reading a lot more than I was. It’s relief to turn off the news and turn to a book and I’ve been devouring them.

We still need the books, whatever happens.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad

Write Something

People are finding it difficult to write right now. Social media is full of writers who can’t concentrate, or who feel guilty for escaping the news to write.

If you can’t work on your story at the moment, then write something else. I’d suggest – a complete and utter break from everything else you write – a fantasy or a fairy tale. Oscar Wilde wrote fairy tales in prison.

Or – record what’s happening. How do you feel, what do you see, what are other people doing, what is the impact, what makes you cry, what makes you smile. Use writing as a form of therapy.

You may not be able to write your WIP right now – but you can write something. Even if it’s never read.

House at Baker Street by Michelle Birkby

The Women Of Baker Street

Sent from my iPad