Writing Progress Report: January
The first month of the new year has been productive, even if my submission output to magazines and agents has remained minimal (something to fix this next week). So far this year I have:
1. Completed a full revision of my hardboiled dystopian mystery Reaper City, cutting it down from 109,000 words to 103,000 (after having cut it down from 130,000 last spring). This book has been in the works since 2007 so I’m hoping that this revision will be the one to finally earn the book a home somewhere.
Self-editing is one of the most widely discussed “craft” topics for writers and everyone has their own B.S. methods and tricks. Most of the tricks are just common sense, such as AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS, because you will never not ever catch all of your own typos, but you can try! (And you should try…nothing is worse than typos. Not taxes, not typhus, not anything.) Here are a few things I suggest.
1. Oh god, just hire someone else to do it. They’re probably better at it than you. No, not probably, they are. I just read six websites that all said something like “The author is the best person to edit their own work” and that’s such a load of garbage. You are certifiably the worst, because you know the material too well. Find someone who doesn’t know it at all.
Ah, resolutions…that list of promises we make to ourselves that we damn well know we won’t likely keep...and yet sometimes they do work out. Last year’s list of resolutions (which disappeared when I transitioned websites) went pretty well actually, aside from my promise to do more overseas travel. That didn’t quite happen, but with some bumps while transitioning from 9-5 work to freelance, that was expected. But overall, my own resolutions went well even if 2014 was rather dour overall. Not the worst year I’ve ever had, but far from the best.
Somehow this rebirth into 2015 feels extraordinarily promising. It’s the most positive and ambitious I’ve felt in early January since the beginning of 2011, when I first moved to NYC. I have writing projects to work on, I’m feeling healthy and upbeat for the first time in ages, and most of all, I’m putting the old problems where they belong: in the rubbish bin with NYE party hats and dried up Christmas trees. This year is all about breaking new ground, starting new traditions, and saying yes to having fun. In that spirit, here are some goals I plan to keep.
My Top 10 Books for 2014
As usual, my list is formulated as such: The books don’t have to be released in 2014, but I must have read them for the first time in 2014. I noticed this year’s reading trend leaned heavily toward espionage, noir, horror, and genre fiction in general. My goal is to mix it up a little more next year, but then again, the heart wants what it wants. We’ll see. Enjoy the list, and feel free to comment with your favorite books of the year!
10. A World Lost by Wendell Berry
A gorgeous little book that sometimes reads more like a series of character and location sketches than a "story," but it's beautifully done. The main character is a 9-year-old boy whose favorite uncle is murdered and it forever alters the young boy’s simplistic worldview and daydream-like existence in rural America during the 1940s. The prose isn’t minimalist in the way some might use the word to describe Hemingway or Carver, but minimalist in that while not much happens, what does happen is described with a casual insightfulness and innocent wonder, making even the most mundane moments a work of art.