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Hi all, I spent the weekend at the Emerging Writer's Festival in Melbourne, going to nine panel discussions of varying quality, some were better than I thought they would be while one was a bit disappointing. I learnt a few things, gained some motivation and got some reassurance. Overall, I got the impression that the quality of your writing and luck are not the most important elements in becoming published, who you know is much more important, although that did not help one of the speakers, Steve Amsterdam. His mother is a literary agent and he spent ten years working at Random House in the US, but he had to wait until he moved to Australia to get published by a small independent. Interestingly, when he got to Australia he did a Master of Creative writing at Melbourne University, which he did not think much of because it concentrated too much on theory. The one good thing about it was that he and some of the other stu...

Hi all, The editing of Stalking Tigers is going very slowly, even with more time spent editing last week than in previous weeks. I estimate that I cut over 2,000 words from chapter 4, and then added about 2,400 words. I got to the end and decided I had better go back and re-edit a substantially changed chapter. It still heads in the same direction and gets there much the same way, just with different words. One thing I have been trying to do is tweak the main character's attitude, make him a bit more pro-active, a bit more determined. At the moment I am, again, halfway through chapter four. I hope I need to change less in the coming chapters, but then again, most changes should improve it. At least I hope they do. I critiqued a time travel story that had a lot of plot faults and a huge tension destroying information dump at the start. I recommended the author read K A Beford's Time Machines Repaired While U Wait. I had a look at the authonomy site run by Harper Collins wher...

Hi all, Another week of very slowly editing Stalking Tigers. I haven't started muttering "I hate editing" yet, but it can't be far away. Not that I really hate it, it just takes so bloody long. I wanted to be rewriting another novel by now. Editing does have its pleasures, such as when I read something that I think is particularly good, and also when I read something that I consider woeful, as I can then feel that my writing is improving. In between those highs and pats on the back there is a lot of re-arranging of sentences and changing of words, especially "I" and "was". I have begun to cut out chunks of paragraphs where I found myself repeating myself, so at least the novel is not getting any longer at the moment. I am near the end of chapter four and, as I have already edited the last three chapters of the novel, I have now revised about 36,000 or its 133,000 words. Slow progress. I critiqued another story for critters (I can't rem...

Hi all, I was ripping through editing chapter three until I came to a section where I had previously wimped out on challenging my writing, so I stopped and meditated, and started to slowly construct a few sentences as I first poked then sliced bits off it. I've got a note written on my computer that says "If you think the piece will be too difficult to write, write it," but sometimes I try to skirt a challenge. Like other chapters I have edited, chapter three is growing. I didn't make time to look at other critiquing groups last week. I might go and see if Infinitas has any science-fiction stories in its files waiting to be critiqued. It, like OWWW , is dominated by fantasy. I critiqued a story on critters, where the author said he had written the original version many years ago. It had old-fashioned language and a seventies feel about it. Still an okay story by one of the more prolific submitters to critters. I did some reading, Yaaaa . On at least three nights I wo...

Hi all, I am as tired as. I spent all morning at work yawning. I am getting frustrated with the selfishness of others when it comes to noise. I finished editing chapter two last week. I ended up adding just over 2,000 words to it, so I am not editing like Stephen King yet (who says second draft = first draft minus 10%). I am more like the author who wrote in their blog last week (I think it was John Scalzi ) that their first drafts are usually around 80,000 and then they add to them, substantially, in the following drafts. My novel's word count is at 133,000 and continuing to increase. Chapter three is growing. I think I might have to cut a few chapters later in the novel where I have a sub-plot designed to show the main character's growth/regression and state of mind right before what he thinks will be the seminal event in his current adventure. The sub-plot doesn't really move the story along, so it might have to ...