carladoria.lasultimasfamilias.com

Author: Carla Doria

Editing services, why you need to love them! and the theory of the Leprechaun that lives in our heads.

Writers are strange creatures, stranger than you think. And the wannabe ones, like me, are even worst (For example, I just passed some work colleagues in the corridor and forgot to say “hello” why? ’cause I was thinking about some feedback I received from a query letter) They know I’m weird, but I didn’t intend to be impolite… sigh… I guess I must learn to detach from the fiction world and improve my social skills. (now you have a hint of why I have “loner” in the name of my blog)
But anyway, no more self analysis, and let’s go straight to the objective of this post: why you have to love editing services.

– Because writers are strange creatures (and back again to the first paragraph). We believe that when we write and we review like a thousand times, there’s no way we’re going to let a typo/grammar mistake slip away. After all, we’ve reviewed like ten times, we read it aloud, we passed the spell checker, we reviewed it again, and we read it again. And we think, the sentence is perfect. But wrong, the editor returns it with red everywhere and a typo that makes you just want to cringe under the bed. And you believe, Oh my god, this is embarrassing. I’m supposed to know the basics of writing. The editor must think I’m five years old.

But, yes, the dreaded “but” This is completely normal. I’ve learned to embrace Editing. We really need that set of extra eyes, you know why? because there’s a leprechaun that inhabits our brains and tells us our writing is perfect. (see? I told you, we’re strange creatures). That leprechaun is the result of writing our own world, our story, our characters and revising them continuously. We know our story too much. (more…)

July 17, 2015
The Pope is coming and I think I was an Eskimo in a previous life…

This may be one of the most random posts I’ve ever written. It’s just an ensemble of news/updates/internal realizations.

First, it’s quite surreal these days here in my country. Those days when you suddenly turn on CNN and the reporter is talking about the Pope visiting Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay. You see, we’re never on the news, unless something terrible happened, and this time, we’re on them because of something good, for a chance.

Of course, everybody is excited, but I’ll just follow up all the events on TV. I happen not to live on one of the cities where the Pope will be arriving. And even though, many people are travelling to those cities (La Paz, Santa Cruz), at this point it’s very hard to organize a trip because everything is sold out (plane tickets, hotels, etc.)

Although, I’m a bit worried by the Pope’s arrival in El Alto (4000 meters above sea level… oh I may need to convert this for some readers 🙂 13123.36 feet above sea level (according to Google)) He’s scheduled to arrive this Wednesday and then go down to La Paz 12,087 altitude and then in less than 4 hours go back to El Alto. Did they think this well? (more…)

July 6, 2015
I’m doing because I’m a chicken

Well, this time I’ve been lost like for ages, more than 2 or 3 weeks without blogging. Never have I missed blogging so much. But I have good reasons, but not new reasons (for those who’ve already read my posts), it was because of my manuscript (final revision, this time is the final one). It was taking me too much time and I want it to be over for once. The person who’s editing it is already working on the second part. So that means that yes, in a couple more of days, I will have to go back to it again to go through the revisions done by the editor. But I’m not worried, I’ve managed to review the changes of the first part in just one day, so the second part is not going to take me much (hope so). Well, enough talking about editing. I plan to do another post for that (some new lessons learned as always). I’m here to talk about exciting news. I’m attending Writer’s Digest Conference in NY this July 31st. Yayyyy!!! (insert dancing icons here) No, I don’t live in the US. No, I don’t have loads of money to go everywhere I please. I just thought that it would be a good Life investment and of course good vacations. And here are some of the plans/goals/realizations I have in mind for this trip: – I’m not doing it because I consider myself a great writer. I’m doing it because I’m a new aspiring writer and this step will allow me to compromise myself with this career. No, It won’t be a hobby anymore. – I’m doing it because of the talks and workshops. I know this conference is also about getting to know agents, publishers, etc. But sometimes, I believe that maybe I’m not ready for that yet. So I don’t have great expectations on that side. I’m doing it because of the two full days of talks, sessions, workshops, etc. I’m eager to learn as much as possible and absorb everything sponge-like.

Image source: www.wisegeek.com

– I’m doing because I’m a chicken. Yes, you read that, and not because I consider myself an animal (or I believe the chicken is my spirit animal), but because I’m a coward for these sort of public events. You see, I’m not the most extrovert person you’ve ever known. I’m shy and I feel akward at these gatherings. And there’s a session for pitching agents in this conference where you’re supposed to dazzle them with the magnificent plot of your book. Believe me, I actually considered skipping this part of the conference (which had an extra fee) because I knew I was going to be a complete disaster. I imagined myself trembling, sweating, stuttering, and even running away. And I’m also worried about my English speaking skills, which because of nervousness, seem to flee (that’s why I prefer to write ;)) I get nervous, stumble among words, and forget parts of the language. But I refuse to be a chicken forever, so this is going to be a challenge. I know I have to do it, I have to be brave!

(more…)

July 3, 2015
There seems to be light in all futures…

I believe all writers are filled with doubts; from am I really good for this? will I ever publish something? will people like what I wrote? should I insist on this path? Do I have what it takes to be a good writer? etc. I think almost all writers have gone through this stage at some point in their lifes, even the accomplished ones, if not, then I’d love to know of a writer who never doubted about his/her skills, and how did he/she manage to keep confidence at all times…

However, there seems to be light in all futures. I believe that light is for the ones who never surrender and work hard to achieve their dreams. More than a year ago, I started working on this lifetime goal of being a writer. I’m still working on the editing on my first novel; but last week, I felt the impulse to put it aside for some days and let myself get involve with another project, a short story. I got this idea of a shocking ending for a story, but haven’t thought of a plot or characters yet. I was eager to see how much I had improved in my writing skills. I wanted to see if my first draft of anything else would be much better than the first draft of my novel; if I had improved in creating a plot and characters, in describing the settings, if I finally understood showing vs. telling, if the dialogue would come easier now after the experience of my first novel. So I sat and wrote an almost 3300 words short story.

Image source: shantellemaryh.blogspot.com

I dug into the Goodreads beta reading groups to see if somebody wanted to give me feedback. In the end, three people revised my story and I got really good, amazing, unbelievable feedback! It felt so good. Never ever, did I expect to receive such good feedback on my writing. I finished editing it this morning and used NaturalReader (a software that I really recommend for having your writing read to you by the computer) and I was surprised. My writing had improved a lot and the pacing and everything else was quite decent.

Image source: writingnorthidahow.blospot.com

I learned that writing is about practice and hard work. But also, I understood, that any goal in life is achievable; that it is only about perseverance and faith. I had reached a point in my novel, where I seriously doubted my writing skills. But now, I feel more empowered and more encouraged to continue writing.

And you, have you ever been in a situation where you’d almost given up but found encouragement when you less expected?

June 3, 2015
Receiving feedback from your manuscript is not terrifying is confusing!
You would think that receiving feedback from your manuscript can be scary, discouraging, etc. But I’ve concluded that in my case, it was only confusing.

How do you filter the good advice from the bad one?

From the four people I asked to read my manuscript, I got feedback from two. We´ll call them reviewer A and B.

First of all, let me thank A and B for all their time and patience (in case they read this post). But their points of view were so different in some aspects, that it only got me confused. Now, reviewer A and B have experience writing, critiquing and even publishing.

Image source: www.celullartelephones.net

The following are only some of the many aspects they pointed out. They only agreed on the first one, but I happen to disagree with them in that one 🙂

Background

Too much background at the beginning of a story is not good. People will get bored, you need to go to the point, and start telling your story, etc. Have you heard this advice? I swear I’ve seen this advice on all books, writing manuals, guides, tutorials, webinars, I laid my hands on.

Reviewer A would like to have more background from my main character at the beginning. Reviewer B agrees that it’s not a bad idea at all. But what about the advice I heard on other sources? I believe I’ve given my MC the main and necessary background, I don’t believe he needs more, but now I’m confused. What’s your take on this?

Adverbs

I’ve been trying to omit them as much as possible. It´s not natural for me, I guess I´m used to them when speaking. They seem to flow in my writing very easily (ha! two adverbs there, one after each other, that wouldn’t happen in my manuscript, not ever.)

But then I got very different stands on this:
- Reviewer A said I should try to get rid of all adverbs (I must admit I left maybe around 20 adverbs in my whole manuscript. We´re talking about 20 words in 85000, is not bad, right? I felt those left were the ones that needed to exist or else the sentences would sound awkward.)
- Reviewer B suggested some changes in sentences, most of his suggestions included newly introduced adverbs. I commented this situation to reviewer B. He said he didn’t see any point in getting rid of them.
Use of was/were or any expression of the verb “To be”

OK, I also got this one from writing texts, books, guides, blogs, etc. Avoid using the “be” verb, it only stops the narration, it slows it down, it makes it look lazy, etc. So I tried to use it as few as possible. It’s difficult, and I must admit my manuscript still has lots of them. But now, I’m confused on what to do with them, because I got this feedback:
- Reviewer A emphasized to reduce the number of those sentences even more.
- Reviewer B said “It’s not necessary. It doesn’t make sense.”
My main confusion

I want my writing to be the best as possible. The first advice you get if you want to be published is “master your craft.” (that means your writing.)

Of course, I would love to be published someday, traditionally or self-publish, any of those. Now, I´ve been picking many best sellers, flipping through their pages, and most of them are riddled with adverbs, “to be” forms, etc. So how important is to get rid of them?

Reviewer A said the story had potential and reviewer B found many plot holes. Do you think this should give me a hint that they’re very different readers/writers?

Image source www.ibgale.net

My Conclusion

I’m going to review my manuscript one more time, one more round. I know I can do it better. I know there are some parts of the plot that need to be improved. I know that characters could be better developed. I know that punctuation needs to be perfected. I know that I can still reformulate some sentences to avoid adverbs and the “to be” forms. But I don´t want to overwrite the whole thing.

I have a queue of at least two dozen story ideas that I can´t wait to start writing about. Yesterday, I actually started writing a short story. I felt relieved to create other characters, other situations, and get away from my manuscript story for a while. I’ve invested many months in my current manuscript and I feel I need to move on to writing other stories. I’m willing to accept that if this one doesn’t get published, maybe the next one will be. Perhaps in the future, I will take my manuscript from a hidden box and review it again. Maybe I’ll make it better, with an improved perspective. (Of course, the manuscript won´t be in a box, since it only exists as digital, so it’ll probably be a hidden computer folder, but some writers like to believe that our manuscripts are physical tangible objects, bear with me in this one 😉

Do you ever get this feeling? Tired of a particular story or characters and that you’d rather start writing another story?

How do you relate to these editing aspects? What would be the best advice you can give me? I’m really looking forward to hear from you.

Image source www.ibgale.net
May 22, 2015
Mad Max: Fury Road = Badass movie

Well, I must be totally honest and admit that I really don´t remember much about the other Mad Max movies, the ones with Mel Gibson. I have a recollection of watching them when I was a kid, I remember Mel Gibson being in it, lots of cars running everywhere, particularly strange people, and sand, but that´s it. However, when I saw the trailer of this new remake, I was “Oh men I really have to see this one.”

Image source: http://www.madmaxmovie.com/

Living in a city where there are not many options for movies and movie theaters in general, there was only one other big movie (release) going around, the last installment of the Avengers. I was not very drawn into the latter, for some reason, the idea that Hulk, Thor, Iron Man and Captain American co-exist at the same time, puts me off. It´s like having Spiderman fighting next to Frodo, they just don´t fit together, well at least that´s my take on it. I love big action packed movies, but I have to admit that sometimes too much constant action, like fighting or shooting for several minutes, gets me bored, and in a feeling of needing something else. Mad Max redeemed the entire action genre; it was full action from the beginning till the end, but created in such a manner that I never got bored, not even for a single second. I´m not sure if it was drown into the anarchy of this surreal post-apocalyptic world, the contrast between beauty and the blatant repulsiveness of some characters, or watching Charlize Theron play the amputated heroin with grease on her face, but the total impact of the movie was mind-blowing. Each detail and scene were just so freaking bizarre and disturbing that it only made the movie even more interesting.

Images source: http://www.madmaxmovie.com/

Now Tom Hardy (who´s totally hot, I know I know… but I couldn’t help mentioning it) plays the main character: Max; (more…)

May 19, 2015
Beta Readers and the nerves of getting people to read your manuscript…

Well, currently I have 4 people reading my manuscript. Two of them are very good friends, one is my potential editor (we haven´t agreed on that yet), and another is an official Swap Beta Reader Partner (I don´t know if there is a term for that, just correct me if there is a better way say it.)

My SBRP (Swap Beta Reader Partner) was actually fun to find. I dig up into the Beta Readers Group from Goodreads and I found some people asking for beta readers. Of course, I knew that the best way to find a Beta Reader was by offering to read first for somebody else, so that maybe later, I could seek for the same favour in return. I was struggling to find an interesting manuscript blurb that I would love to read, one that would take me away from the books I´m reading now (Yes, I haven´t learned my lesson, I´m still reading several books at once, you can check out my previous post, to know what I mean). Anyway, a story blurb called my attention, it was a memoir manuscript. Memoirs are usually not my first pick when I go to bookstores, unless it comes from somebody famous (no celebrity type, but other interesting people). I must admit that I actually enjoyed all the memoirs I´ve ever read, so I thought it would be a good option to beta read for this author. I was thrilled to find out that she was willing to swap manuscripts, even better! that way I had somebody else guaranteed to read my manuscript in return.

I´m thrilled about my SBRP. I´ve already started reading her manuscript, and although we set a time frame of 10 days, I´m about to reach half of her manuscript in less than 2 days. It´s really good and I´m looking forward to see it published. And this leaves me in an insecure state, I can´t stop worrying about my manuscript. I mean, I know it´s my first novel ever and that I still have a long path until I learn how to do it properly, but still I can´t avoid thinking: “OMG, what happens if she is hating my manuscript or she´s getting so bored that she can´t see a way to finish it?” I know, insecurities on first time writers are normal. I know many of us fear sharing our work. But I guess, I just have to deal with it and take the feedback as best as I can.

I don´t fear too much the feedback from my friends (that´s why it´s necessary to get other beta readers besides your friends), because even though I asked them to be as honest as possible, I know they will try to do it in a way that doesn’t disencourage me.

How about you? For the people who write out there, did you face those fears when you had beta readers reading your work? I would love to hear your experience with beta readers.

May 13, 2015
Editing/Revision is done! I’m back and have learned very good lessons!

Well, it´s been more than a couple of weeks since I haven´t written a post, and I was really looking forward to do it. Do you remember I was stuck trying to finish the editing of my book? Well, these weeks have been plain hard work, not much sleep, zero weekends, zero days off, until yesterday I finished the editing/revision process.

I left many other activities (like writing on this blog) pending until I could totally finish with the editing.
So now the book is with my beta readers, and I´m going to take the opportunity to get up to speed with the blog and many other activities I left behind – social ones specially and house chores! I don´t have an excuse for them anymore 🙁
I´ve learned many wonderful lessons in this process of writing my first novel that I would like to share it with you:
1. It´s not easy at all! But possible, and that should be enough encouragement
2. The only way to improve your writing is by writing.

3. I was born to be planner in writing. I got so confused with my plot that when I started my revisions I only found inconsistencies and parts of the plot that I absolutely forgot or left hanging lose. I think that for the next time, I´d rather plan the plot beforehand.
4. Characters must live in your head, and thus you must really make an effort to make them believable. For my next time I intend to plan them ahead (for others it may work to let them flourish while writing but not for me) Believe me I tried to be the spontaneous writer, but I´ve realized I belong to the ones who plan.

I´m excited for all these lessons and I can´t wait to start my next project. I have the feeling that next time it will be easier. And during all these months (9 months) I´ve managed to keep a little notebook with dozens of ideas for new novels, so it seems I´ll be quite busy for a time.
I don´t know if this book I´ve finished, which until now, remains with the name of “They´re watching us” will ever be published. But even if it never gets published, I think the most important reward here is the learning process and the confidence I acquired is priceless, and I´m feel really happy and optimistic about that.

I´ll try to keep you with updates of this book and what happens to it (if anybody wants to join my beta readers, let me know)

In the meanwhile, I´m so happy to be back!

May 11, 2015
Writing fan fiction? cheer up!

I have a feeling that fan fiction writing will never be taken seriously. I have a confession to make, I used to write fan fiction some time ago. And even though, I’m not looking forward to pursue that path (that doesn’t mean that I won’t do it again), I will always be very fond of it.

How did I start writing fan fiction?

I’m a big nerd (proud to admit it 🙂 ) and the type of geek girl who is always into movies and series fandom. So many years ago, I discovered the world of fan fiction; where fans could read stories of their favorite movie/TV characters in other environments, situations, episode endings, etc. In few words, what fans didn’t get to see on the screen, or what they thought could had happened, was written into many types of fan fiction stories; some of them really imaginative, twisted, and of course with all types of adult censorships.

Image source: ladygeekgirl.wordpress.com

So when I discovered this world, I got into it very deeply. I would first read dozens of them per day everywhere all the time. I got obsessed with it. But there were few stories that I actually liked. It was as if I was looking for the right story; the one that explained how exactly I thought TV character X did Y in episode Z. Rarely seldom, I found satisfying stories. Let’s accept it, every mind is different. Some fans were too much into certain aspects that I didn’t consider important, and others were just, let’s just say weird…

So how did I got into writing them? Well, since I couldn’t find the stories that actually gave me a feeling of “closure”, (more…)

April 13, 2015
11 Hilarious jokes for this April Fool’s day… according to me

This is a fun post, no analyzing the depths of my soul, my writing struggles, or doing thorough reviews of movies and books (actually my reviews are far away from that …)

So April’s fool day is not known in my country, but since we’re all now “globally connected”, we can’t avoid getting exposed to it.

I loved these ones for this year:

This one is from Tesco. Wouldn’t it be cool not only to reach the top shelves by jumping but also to navigate the supermarket with long strides? Of course, I can imagine when the place gets crowded, you could risk of bumping into another with a “little bit” of impulse/force.

A smart knife? We may laugh now but who knows! maybe the knife could tell us the amount of pressure to cut something, or the number of times we need to finish cutting an onion. Maybe the knife could alert us when we’re cutting those tomato squares wrong, or when we’re grabbing the handle wrong … I can start imagining a sort of app with the gravatar of your choice that tells you: You missed that! That chunk is too big! 😀

Ever been to the London Eye? Well, it’s absolutely amazing! but it takes aprox. 40 minutes to take the whole ride around. It’s not boring … but I wouldn’t do it twice. Wouldn’t it be better to have a zero gravity feature inside each capsule? I think it’s time to update these capsules! Only one tip, as girls we’ll have to be careful not to wear dresses or skirts on our visits… unless you don’t mind flashing underwear 😀

This one if from Virgin Trains. Now, I seldom use trains, but I know many places where people use them everyday to commute. On long journeys, it’s nice to delve into a book, but sometimes, the time spent there could be more useful… remember how we always seem to find the “no time” excuse for not going to the gym? Well, how about a gym on wheels while we commute back home? (It could be on the way to work, but showers would need to be a must inside the train) It’s actually a cool idea.

I don’t know how useful is this one from Domino’s pizza. But hell, doesn’t it look awesome? I could definitely see myself ordering pizza just to have one of this cool robots delivering pizza to my place. They kind of look like Eva on a bike from the Wall-E movie right?

This one is where you say: “Oh come on! you’ve got to be kidding!” yep, I would never see myself liking or using this. Unfortunately, our technology frenzy times are so crazy, that I can see some people actually thinking about developing this reversed toilet… Just one tip, never use the camera with this, come on, is disgusting!

Actually, I see this one being developed in the future. Many people out there are obsessed with tanning (not me) and I know these spray showers exist everywhere (even the girls who go to these beauty pageants use it! grr…) But no matter how against I’m into this, I can see some shower appliances with an extra feature for adding the tanning spray and I definitely see people buying it.

Lol! I would buy this one for all my friends who are on diet! just to see their faces (the evil inside me 😀 ) what I really like is the message attached to it “Because it’s not always what’s on the inside that counts”, yep but the interior of my Toblerone is sacred! 😀

Of course, this one is stupid, but it’s just so ironic! In our empty-brained digital social media era, I just can’t avoid feeling that this could actually happen sometime in the future (less the Holiday win, if that ever happened, I would just give up on Humanity) Just an irony of what’s happening in our daily lives as we see ourselves influenced and almost totally controlled by the power of social media.

Now, don’t laugh! Some people actually love the smell of their favorite smoking hamburger and wouldn’t mind using this perfume … (Not me I swear!)

Now, this one if my favorite! This one is from shoe store Miz Mooz (if the store wasn’t that know before, now it’s got it’s fifteen minutes of fame) It’s just so damn hilarious, and stupid, and funny. It’s a satire of how ridiculous we look when we take selfies (Yes, I’m not into selfies…)

Which one do you like the best? which one was the worst? Did you get a hold of another one that was also hilarious?

April 1, 2015