Jennifer Oliver and I gave a talk about Online Publishing
for the Dorset Writer’s Network over the weekend, which seemed to go down well.
There was a literary agent there – it was good to have the agent process
demystified. What I think is most exciting about the roles of agents is the
working relationship, the fact that the agent wants to bring the best out of
the writer and offer a platform of support. I could really use that.
Steve Elsworth gave a talk on digital publishing. He thinks
that within 10-20 years printed books will be obsolete/ have the same status as
LP records have currently. I really hope that this won’t be so, books have a
very long history and I hope that they are as ingrained in our society as other
ancient media. Maybe it will be more like painting – a medium that many thought
would be replaced by photography.
Some of us Storyslingers (my writing group) went to Bath on Tuesday for a Speculative Fiction workshop lead by
Bath Spa University
Many of the Bath Spa students have the opposite problem –
they prefer to edit as they go, which means that they don’t get to write THE
END for a long time, and when they get there it’s at the same stage as I would
be after a few edits and re-writes.
A key piece of advice I was given was to finish up one novel
in its entirety, to a level that’s ready to send out, and don’t start anything
new until it’s done.
I’ve been struggling with editing my Arthurian novel over
the past few days. My main problem is lack of confidence. I’m not the same
person I was when I first wrote this story and I feel I could do a better job,
or at least I want to be capable of doing a better job. I’m not quite convinced
that I’m a good enough writer yet. This makes editing a pretty depressing task.
I wonder if anyone else has this problem? From what the Bath Spa students said; it’s
fairly common and normal to feel like your work isn’t matching up to your
expectations. Writers are naturally self-deprecating.
I have one question to any writers out there: Do you listen
to music while you write and/ or edit? Does it help? I find that listening to
music helps calm me down, gets me past my self-deprecation so I can actually
write or edit. But a level of focus is then lost. My writing seems better when
I’m editing to music than when I’m editing it in silence – so I cut less out
when listening to music. I’m not sure if it’s better to listen to music or face
up to my words in all their silent force. Any thoughts?
