...I've been doing a lot of editing, I can't seem to write, but editing is easy. Lots of cut and dried, black and white. Is it good or bad? For some reason I've been getting bad, and I don't think it's, "here, give Jodi the bad stuff", it's luck of the draw. There are so many submissions, and people want to tell me about their third place contest wins, or stuff going on in their lives--their cats, dogs, moms and non-craft magazine articles.
Passive voice, back story drop, omni pov and people who take three pages to describe backing out of the drive. I don't need to know it was sunny outside, or she decided to go to the local Daffodil festival which she helped organize back in the sixth grade along with Tyler, the scrawny kid who turned into her boss, or the feel of wind in her long auburn (hair color. Always auburn) hair, or the way light shimmered in her exotic aqua eyes. People have brown eyes, brown hair, and they can't see it, not from a point two feet up and stage left. I've seen a lot of "cute" hooks that go nowhere and mean nothing, but are stand-alone cute.
Is there someone out there telling everyone that they need to start, like that thread over on RD, with an F-bomb? Or in the midst of stripped down action with not one, but two exclamation points and no dialog tags.
Jodi's list of things to do to impress a potential editor.
1. Tell me about your family, your pets, your volunteer work, your other job, and every workshop you've attended in the last ten years. I want to know.
2. List all the books you've had published with now defunct erotic-romance e-pubs, and tell me how much they sucked, why you hated your editor, and how your stories will touch my heart.
3. Make sure your website is full of excerpts. Honestly, I will Google your name and check you out. If your only credit is a free read in an e-zine, make sure you give me a link.
4. And remember those exclamation points. Love'em. They're very Margaret Mitchell.
6 comments:
Well, first things first. I have the damn hiccups and that may affect my impressive list for you.
1. I have one mother (she smokes too much), one father (he's a deadbeat) and one sister (she squeezed out four kids, ow). Our first pet was a dog that we called Doobie. Not for the Doobie Brothers, but for the stuff you smoked.
2. I've never had a book published, but I'm SURE it's because I've never submitted anything. Of course, I have done my share of editing online website content. Pissed off a lot of people, too, so there's your heart-touching moment.
3. Hey, my website IS full of not-finished story excerpts. And, uh, I think you once said I was doing a great NaNo. Um hm, um hm.
Don't Google me, though. It'd be too embarrassing.
lol--when you're ready, email me and we can work something out. I'll be kind :)
AND I'll send you to a friend who buys the kind of stuff you write, since I don't acquire for that line.
I LOVE Google. People don't realize how much of their lives are public knowledge. (like the letters I wrote a couple years back, venting about parking, terrorists, politics and the mayor. There's a school up in Maine that collects "letters to the editor")
I just subbed to HQ last night...I'm happy to say I avoided those pitfalls in my query.
However, the heroine did have red hair. I never called it auburn. The hero called it fire-red.
I'm getting burned out on the editing though, myself.
You don't like my exclamation points?! Oh no! What ever shall I do?!
Gwen, you've been doing it longer. I on the other hand--have just started. I've still got a couple of good years in me, lol.
Alice!!!!!! You're guilty of Exclamation points!!!!!!????? :)
Dang. Maybe I should wish my editor a Happy Valentine's Day.
Too late!
(Ha.)
!
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