That was a misleading title. I hate editing. It takes forever and it’s tedious and when you have to cut chunks of text it’s soul-crushing. That being said, it’s necessary, and it’s currently the next step I have to take if I ever want to publish Chasing Nonconformity. Thus, I edit!
I’ve been putting it off for several months now, and sometime last week I just got tired of seeing the manuscript sitting on my bedside table. I think my sudden burst of excitement for editing has come about partially because I’ve been playing around with formatting the interior for Imminent Danger. As you may or may not know, I intend to re-publish Imminent Danger in the near future via Amazon KDP (and Createspace), so I’m starting to look into exactly how I’ll go about doing that.
The key to editing for me, I think, is that I just need to get into the writing mood. It doesn’t matter how I get there, but once I’m in, I can force myself to direct my energy toward whichever project needs attention — in this case, Chasing Nonconformity.
As of today, I have finished addressing my editor’s notes on the latest draft. I am now preparing myself to go through the manuscript again, with the intent of ironing out inconsistencies and attempting to cut the manuscript down to size. It’s currently sitting at around 115k words, which is much too long. As you may remember, however, Imminent Danger was once at 120k words, and I got it down to 94k, so I’m cautiously hopefully I can repeat that feat here.
If anyone has any words of wisdom or encouragement for me as I delve back into editing my magnum opus (ha!), please share them with me in the comments below.
I shouldn’t even be on the internet right now — I have a ton of work to do, and my attempts at working yesterday were thwarted by bowling and apartment hunting — but I just had to pop on and thank all you wonderful people for following this blog! I’ve officially hit 200 followers (in the sense that I’ve reached a milestone, not that I’ve taken to pummelling people), and that’s really exciting for me (obviously!).
When I started this blog in May, I didn’t really know what to expect. I figured that WordPress was sort of like Facebook — I post, you post, we both hit “Like”, rinse and repeat. But blogging is incredibly fun, more so than I’d ever imagined, and I’ve met some brilliant, insightful, hilarious bloggers who make my day every time they upload a new post.
So, muchas gracias to all my followers, for clicking that Like button, leaving clever comments, and basically being awesome. I would explain how much I appreciate it, but you probably know already. Bloggers unite!
Random movie trailer of the day:
This is the second trailer for The Hobbit (came out a couple of days ago — the trailer, not the movie). It’s really awesome, so check it out.
So as my book nears publication (don’t get too excited, I’m *still* cutting the darn thing down to size), I’ve been trying to come up with an idea for a book trailer. I just watched Candace Knoebel’s book trailer for her novel Born in Flames, and it seems like a really cool idea.
My main concern is that I don’t want the trailer to look too amateur-ish (or “n00b-ish”, if you prefer). My friend has offered to do a trailer, but her vision is more of an author interview rather than an actual trailer with photos, music, etc. And that sounds like a great idea–I’ll definitely be taking her up on her offer.
So I’ve got the interview planned–now I need an actual trailer. I was considering starting to browse through stock photography websites to track down appropriate images. Then my brother suggested a different trailer concept. Ready? Steady? GO!
Film a scene from your book
As in, take a scene, find some actors willing to work for free, get a camera, and make a mini-movie. I think it’s a great idea! The big issues to overcome, as I see it, are:
I’ll need to find actors willing to work for free. I live near a university, though, so I’m sure I can round up some drama students.
I’ll need to pick a scene from the book that is a good representation of the story, as well as being something I could actually film.
#2 seems to be the bigger challenge, mainly because Imminent Danger (my book) is hardcore sci-fi. As in, it takes place in outer space with aliens and spaceships and laser guns. So I’ll probably have to choose one of the very few scenes on Earth, in order to ensure the video doesn’t look one of the movies those robots make fun of on MST3K.
Crazy idea … or awesome?
Has this been done before? Make a low-budget film of a scene from a book for promotion purposes? Most book trailers seem to provide a summary of the book, complete with dramatic voice-over. Is such a thing even feasible? Would it look unbearably bad?
The last home movie I made was in grade eleven. It was called “The Spanish Guide”, and featured my cardboard cutout of Legolas as the lead character. He led my friend and I up a volcano–I don’t remember why–and the whole movie was spoken in really abysmal Spanish (it was for Spanish class). The best part was when my friend complained about her stomach hurting, and then we cut to a can of pea soup spilling on the ground to represent her throwing up.
It was really bad.
Anyway, assuming I’ve become moderately more competent since then (or, at least, acquired friends who don’t fail at everything film-related), I think this could be a really cool idea. And all my blog friends are welcome to steal this idea, if it tickles your fancy. I really don’t know how realistic it is.
Oh yeah, and if you do know of something like this being done before, please link it in the comments!
So my brother’s been trying to explain dubstep to me, especially the concept of “dropping the bass”. At first I thought he meant the musicians were literally dropping their bass guitars. This, it turns out, is incorrect.
Then I found this video. It features one hour and twenty-eight minutes of “dropping the bass”, and I now have a much better understanding of the so-called “Dubstep” phenomenon. Give it a listen (you can stop after 30 seconds if you want), if only to educate yourself on the current music trend that is sweeping the globe. Also, please don’t sue me if your speakers/ears/brains explode.
Michelle Proulx - Author 