In roughly three months I will package up my speculative fiction novel, “Scrap”, and insert it into the designated slot of the publishing industry machine, with the hope that it doesn’t spit it back out and ask for another, crisper book.

Five years ago the industry was a giant, black monolith to me. No sunlight in or out. I had no clue where to begin reading about it and less of an idea where to start. Now I feel I know a little bit more, but certain parts still sit behind a curtain. The process of actually editing a book, what it looks like before the red pens hit the page, how long certain books took to publish – all mysteries. When I’m knee deep in the draft and I’ve just spent an hour trying to figure out the best way to describe someone picking up a cup, I get so overwhelmed that I find myself pouring through books just to reminder myself that other writers have made mistakes and to just keep writing. But even then that doesn’t help with some books, the close to perfect ones. I’d like to sit down with both the first draft of my favorite novels and their final draft just to compare the two.

When I said this to my friend Nataliya she showed me this New Yorker article where they show both the edited and final versions of a Raymond Carver story.

Out of eleven pages, four entire pages of material got cut out of the final draft by the editor. I’m not familiar enough with Carver’s work to say a lot more but that’s a lot of writing. And right away you can see the work that the editor did on this piece. While some of the decisions that led to these cut pages are a little vague, a lot of them help keep the characters consistent and the story incredibly focused.

If I have the ability, I think it would be fun to post the unedited version of my book after I get it published. (That’s if my editors wouldn’t harpoon me for it.) Seeing the kind of work that an editor does to polish up a book is just so interesting to me as an incoming writer and reader. Good editing is harder to spot the better it is, so sometimes I read books that seem like they’ve cut from the side of a mountain instead of worked on, edited, written and rewritten by a few to many people. It’s much less intimidating when I can see a reminder that writing a book is work, not luck, and if I could remind some other overly worried writer about this I’d feel pretty good.

Above you’ll see a video demonstrating work by NYC’s Joshua Allen Harris. His intentions are not ecologically focused and you’ll notice he never brings it up in the video. He just wanted to make something lifelike. Keep watching until you’ve seen the dragon/monster at the end.

Source: Hollowstone.net
(If this is not it then please tell me so I can correct it.)

I promise not to make this blog into a direct feed from Huffington Post’s book news section, but wow these libraries are amazing. There’s also a poll so you can vote for which ones you find hot or not.

I’ve become obsessed with Huffington Post’s Book News section. When did they add this? Did they slip it in their website to avoid unwanted attention? Maybe it’s a trap for people who don’t know what “NYT” means. Either way, I’ve been hooked on it for a few weeks now. My first favorite article was this one about the death of the slush pile™.

At first the article makes the concept of the slush pile sound a bit romantic.  Editors sailing around a room full of manuscripts like pirates, digging up sunken Roth’s and Guest’s. But to me, the mental picture of a room covered in paper stacks just makes me feel a sad for poor editor (or their assistant) that gets shoved in.

Now I’m as novice as they come. I’m about to Mr.Magoo my way into the publishing arena after reading a handful of industry/writing books. (Yes, I used Mr. Magoo as a verb.)

After everything I’ve read the agent system makes sense to me. A lot of people read books based on recommendations and reviews.  I’m not surprised that the publishing industry has just started to do the same.

The threat of lawsuits having an effect on what editors are willing to read is new to me. I knew that these kind of lawsuits were common, but I never connected this with the rise of agents in the publishing world.

Here’s my favorite bit:

And buck up. In 1957, Tom Wolfe interviewed James Michener, a former slush pile reader and the author of “Tales of the South Pacific.” Mr. Wolfe asked him if he had worried, upon submitting the Pulitzer Prize-winning tome to publishers, about competition lurking in the slush piles. “If you’ve ever read a slush pile,” said Mr. Michener, “you’d know I had nothing to worry about,” Mr. Wolfe says. “He knew how much garbage there was out there.”

It’s around 50 years old, but it’s still a little story that soothe this nervous writer’s head.

That’s right. Chapters 1-10 are now complete, to a point that I’d let people read them.

I feel like this (my book is on the left):

Book sales in November rose 10.9%, to $808.5 million, at publishers who reported to the Association of American Publishers. Sales for the year through November rose 4.9%. Audiobooks up, as well as e-books.

Very tiny article, but enough for me to trumpet a bit about how much I hope ebooks keep going, the same with the audiobook. Can you imagine an audiobook of “Magic for Beginners“? Or “Trickster Makes This World“? That would be great.

Every time I open a new tab in Google Chrome I get to look at my top eight web pages. It’s one of those mirror moments where your everyday habits perform a little beauty pageant for you. Are you going to cringe during the talent show or are you going to feel proud? It gives me a chance to either feel good about the website I’m going to or make me contemplate getting a real addiction like cocaine or chocolate.

Well, my most recent internet tongue swab did not make me too great. Every day has just a slow bar crawl from Woot.com to the usual webcomics before I stumble along to Digg and The Daily Show. Then things get really bad. At rock bottom, hiccuping and stumbling, I start hitting up flash games like a dive bar coug hits on her video poker machine. Each site isn’t bad in themselves but I’m pretty sure I’ve had the same routine for at least the past six months. I’m either going to have to start switching things up or submit myself as a method of telling time.

So, in order to improve my brain health, here’s some websites I’m going to start folding into the mix:

  1. Agent blogs: Getting serious about being a writer means you have to act like one. I’ve grown a beard, which is the first step, but now I need to get more familiar with the business. The first step is landing an agent, so I want to read up on their perspectives before I start throwing my work at them.
  2. Elizabeth Royte’s  blog “Notes on Waste, Water, Whatever”: When I found out that Royte has a blog I think I did a fist pump and possibly high-fived someone. Maybe one of my cats. I haven’t written about what kind of environmental websites I frequent lately, but this may replace quite a few of them.
  3. Jeff Vandermeer’s “Booklife” and “Ecstatic Days“: Jeff has a wonderful way of taking complex things, such as the life of a freelance writer, and shaving it down to the simpler elements. Whenever I need to clear my head about everything involved with writing I try to visit one of his websites, sometimes doing a quick search for anything relevant to my current brain trauma.
  4. Neil Gaiman’s Journal: I used to read this one every day but I kind of fell off the wagon. Time to re-wagon myself.
  5. Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s “Making Light – I’m planning on doing a post later in the week about Hayden’s “Stupid Plot Tricks“. Her blog is just as funny and smart. To someone outside of the publishing industry, editors can be portrayed as constantly frustrated robots ready to blast you if you aren’t the best (I’ve been reading too many writing advice books). It’s always nice to be brought back down to earth.
  6. Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Comedy can sometimes be linked to candy, if you’re reading certain kinds. I’d like to start eating different kinds of candy, I guess. Or maybe I need to go brush my teeth.
  7. Some writerly podcasts: I have no idea what to subscribe to or where to begin, but I’m going to start right now. Right after I finish this sentence and the one below.

Any other recommendations?

Cracked put up an article on 7 lost books that would have changed history. Because I’m a mythology buff, I would have loved to see the rest of the Epic Cycle. But I hope at least one of these books surfaces during my lifetime.