I’m anal. No one I know would describe me any differently. I write a book and then take a couple of days off. I come back to it with rested eyes and I begin a self edit. I look for all the telling that I know I do. I insert all the dropped words I know are missing. I look for pet words and phrases. I look for weak spots in the storyline or plot. I look for places where I rushed and could have explained better. When I’ve done all that, I turn it over to another set of eyes.

When I write M/M, the next set of eyes usually belong to a gay or bi man. Most other stuff I turn over to one of three people whose opinions I value as a critiquer. None of the three pull any punches with me. They are hard on me.  “You info dumped here, delete it.” “Too much scenery here, not enough emotion. Shift the focus.” “I really think you have overused the word PINK. You need to search on it and remove it.” Sometimes when I worry about how something will be perceived, I get a new set of eyes, a true reader. For Ride the Lightning with it’s suicide scene, I wanted someone other than my normal critters and betas to tell me the book was fine with that scene in it. So I handed the manuscript to one of the AWH puppies.

My point here is that when you finish a manuscript… you are far from finished. In point of fact, the real work has just begun. Trying to polish something that is your baby can be very difficult. You’ve been looking at it so long, you don’t see the dropped words and missing commas and hyphens. Having another set of eyes is IMPERATIVE. If you are doing it all on your own and subbing it to publishers you are probably going to get a rejection or at least a revise and resubmit.

How do I know this? I’ve been reading submissions for Freya’s Bower and Wild Child Publishing for nearly a year now.  I’ve seen a lot of authors turn in manuscripts that could have been better if only they had critters, beta readers, and had learned to self edit. Missing periods and scrambled words just don’t belong in a professional submission. You should not be sending your story to a publisher without someone else vetting it first. Even the best of us can miss a dropped word. In fact, most authors miss them because they’ve just been too close to the manuscript. The other set of eyes is pretty much mandatory for catching those boo boos.

Now, go ahead and crit my blog post. It’s a blog post, not a manuscript for a publisher. At the same time, it’s nearly 9 pm and I’ve worked OT today and I haven’t been sleeping well.That means  SOMETHING is bound to be wrong with this post! Will I see it? Maybe not.  Will you? Well, you’re more likely to than I am! And that right there is the thrust of my post.

As writers and authors, you should be self editing. But you should also have those manuscripts critiqued by someone who is knowledgeable and willing to tell it like it is. Sycophants need not apply for this job! (Don’t know that word? Dictionary.com! GO. Go, now!)

If you are not self editing and you are not using critiquers who know what they are talking about… you are not ready to be published. You deserve all the stinging red marks an editor is going to fill your manuscript with. And if you receive a rejection, well, you may just deserve that too because I am here, telling you what to do to help avoid those things.  If you choose to ignore my advice, you’re courting the big R or the grumpy editor with the red tracking marks. If you don’t believe me, ask the whacker wielders at AWH.

Avail yourself of the groups out there that can help you. Ask published authors or former editors to read your work. If you are a writer who has never been pubbed, don’t hand your manuscript off to a handful of other aspiring writers who are in the same boat as you. Give it to someone more experienced. If you are an author already, give the manuscript to another author or former editor. Perhaps someone who has been doing this longer than you or who has had more success at it. Don’t sit on your laurels and turn in shitty, messy manuscripts to your editors thinking they will take it cause they took the last three… You may find yourself shocked right out of your complacence with a big, fat rejection email.

Go on out there and edit yourself. Then get someone else to crit it. Give yourself a fighting chance to win at the publishing game.

Have a great day!

Lex Valentine

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Tess MacKall, moderator at Avoid Writer’s Hell (pssst…I also write). So what do I do as moderator? Mainly stare at the computer screen and scream at everyone to trim their posts. Nah…not really. What I do is pretty cool, actually.

I think of exercises for the group to participate in, trying my best to make them as interactive as possible. What kind of exercises? Anything from punctuation and grammar to word usage and point of view issues. We work on sexual tension, mood, characterization, etc. You name it, and we’ve touched on just about every facet of writing possible.

Recently, we started having contests. Our first one entailed flash fiction. Group members were given a prompt and wrote a five-hundred-word story. Our winner was Carol Percer. Nita Wick took second place, and Blake Devereaux rounded it out with third. Many thanks to those who worked so very hard on their stories.

Right now we are accepting five-hundred-word excerpts for editing. Michelle Ellis, Editor Extraordinaire, will receive excerpts from me with no name listed. She’ll edit the members “blind”.  Catch the double entendre there? She won’t know who the members are and at the same time will catch every error she can find. This exercise is designed to give authors the feel for what an agent might think when they read your work. She’ll give feedback that will be genuine, but firm—no holds barred.

This coming weekend a new contest will be begin. Best First Page. We’ll be looking for first line hooks as well as usual editing issues, and whether that first page can hold a reader’s interest. Prizes will be awarded.

In addition to all the exercises and contests, daily discussions take place on everything from publishers and editors to agents and cover art. The last two days have explored our author’s feelings on forced seduction in romance. And that discussion branched out into injecting realism in our stories. If there is a publishing issue out there, we’ve got the hot button covered.

So what is our mission? Regardless of what you write, erotic or non-erotic. Suspense or paranormal. Contemporary or historical. Psychological or legal thrillers. Whether you are bound for print or prefer the world of e publishing, we’re here to help. And what do we expect in return? To see you BLOW ‘EM OUT OF THE WATER!

Many thanks to Faith for allowing me to be a part of such a wonderful group. And thanks to my bud, fellow author and AWH Puppy, Lex Valentine, for helping us out with this brand new blog. Lex is a damn fine writer and you can find her work at Pink Petal Books.

http://pinkpetalbooks.com

And finally, thanks to all the AWH Puppies for making the learning experience fun!

Come join us. Http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avoid_Writer’s_Hell

Welcome to the blog of Avoid Writer’s Hell. Pour yourself a glass of bubbly over there and help us celebrate our new blog!

My name is Faith Bicknell-Brown. I’m an author and an editor. Many of you know me, but for those who don’t, you can visit my bio page at my website for more information. In a nutshell, I’ve been in publishing over twenty years, I’ve been editing professionally for nearly twelve years, I’m represented by an amazing literary agent, and I’ve written for national men’s print magazines for a long time. I’ve written under a couple names some of you might know such as Zinnia Hope (retired now) and J. Emberglass amongst many other nom de plumes I still use or have launched.

It has been nearly three years since my first nonfiction book for writers was published by Wild Child Publishing.com. There are four books in the series, and they were written in Laymen’s terms with my offbeat sense of humor (or warped for those who really know me, lol). The books are based on my experiences from my years of contributing to print magazines, e-zines, and e-books. My journey in writing was a difficult one and I often wished I’d had someone to rely upon to guide my way. Sure there were editors and authors from Marion Zimmer Bradley to my wonderful Gent Magazine editor, Jack Lisa, who offered encouragement, advice, and tips. And believe it or not, I even encountered a few literary agents who took time out of their busy schedules to write me letters or messages to point me in the right direction.

However, there just wasn’t a site that I found online nor any book that really helped to give me those ‘ah-ha!’ moments.

When I began editing professionally, I had one writer and editor after another who said I should write nonfiction books on what I know about publishing, grammar, punctuation, and publishing etiquette, and, after much thought, I decided to write the Avoid Writers Hell Series.

Oh, but it went beyond that.

One night a year and a half ago, I had a chat at The Romance Bistro. While waiting for the chat to begin that evening, I formed the Yahoo Group, Avoid Writers Hell, to go with the books. Little did I know that by doing so, the group would turn into something that has been a hub of information and camaraderie that has kept me hopping ever since. The chat kept me busy for nearly four hours,  literally hundreds of messages went through in that short time, and nearly one hundred people signed up for the AWH group that night. Three hundred members later, I’ve covered countless mini lessons on various aspects of writing and publishing, and finally had to take on a moderator, Ms. Tess MacKall, to help me in my absences and to simply moderate due to the amount of posts that go through the group.

Writers come and go, but 80% of the original members have remained and new ones have joined who state they’ve found a cyber home as long as I choose to keep the group open.

I have grown very fond of my AWH puppies, and I wield a cyber newspaper that whacks them whenever they repeat the same errors in their excerpts and exercises. We laugh, we cry upon one another’s shoulders, we rant and vent, we even do a li’l bitching, but the group is a safe haven. All there know that in order to survive this business a writer MUST keep an open mind and develop a thick skin.

Publishing is nothing like it was thirty or forty years ago. Now we have digital publishing. e-Books and the gadgets to read them on are beginning to boom. The English language changes constantly. Publishing changes constantly. And readers’ tastes change constantly too.

I teach what I know as a way to help aspiring authors to avoid some of the potholes and craters I encountered. Writing, when it’s a true calling of one’s soul, is an emotional roller coaster ride. To me, writing is the same as breathing; I’ve shed tears as well as celebratory moments over the years. That said, I understand what it’s like to struggle in this busness, so when I can help another writer dodge the slings and arrows of publishing, it puts a smile on my face.

Moreover, in order to keep the group a place of learning and communion with others in the business, and due to the growth of AWH, I had to impose special rules—and I hated to do so.  I know authors want to shout about great reviews or new covers. They desire to point fellow authors to a cool blog posts or a new website, so I was forced to impose days that promo, review announcements and so on could be posted. Confusion ensued.

Tess and I discussed the matter, and she suggested a blog. I didn’t have the time to set one up or constantly monitor it. Afterward, I found out she’d talked it over with author and web designer, Lex Valentine, who graciously offered to design and host a site for my AWH puppies. They surprised me with this beautiful blog and I sat back and thought, “Wow, I truly have some special  friends out there in Cyberland.”

Whether you’re a devoted AWH puppy, a newbie to the group, a newcomer thinking of joining AWH, or simply someone who enjoys reading blogs, take a moment to thank Tess and Lex for their lovely work and time involved to create this blog.

I hope you’ll visit here often. And if you’re interested in joining AWH, you can find us at THIS LINK. Membership is upon approval; we do this to weed out promoters and spammers.

Remember: AWH is about learning and support.

And if you’re curious about the AWH books that got this all started, you can find them at www.wildchildpublishing.com in their how-to section and at Fictionwise.com under Faith Bicknell-Brown.

Literature is a gift. It’s a means of escape from the stress of our world, and a method in which to learn. It doesn’t matter if the written word is in the form of an e-book or a hardback published by NYC…cherish books and encourage others to do the same.

I wish you all much success in your writing endeavors.

Warm regards,

Faith