Con report day 4: part 2

"Editing the novel" with Simon Spanton, Zoe Walton, Jean Johnson and Ginjer Buchanan.

Buchanan said that Jack [I'm thinking Dann, but it wasn't specified, or if so I didn't record it] once turned in an 800-page book, and she told him to cut it because it was 200 pages too long, which he did, but when he tells the story he says that she said there's no 800-page book that wouldn't be better as a 600-page book. She couldn't remember saying that, but it seemed she still agreed with it.

Spanton said he had one book he was editing that was too long and so he took two lines off every page and made further suggestions for cutting and returned it to the author, and the second draft came back 10,000 words longer than the first. [I'm glad I'm not the only writer who is capable of that!] He reminded us editors in the audience that he never has a better suggestion for fixing a problem than the author's -- that editors are not there to be creative alongside an author but to shift an author's creativity. I've never quite thought of it that way.

Johnson had a similar story of an author lengthening a book they were supposed to be cutting, whereas Walton said as a YA editor she was often looking for ways to make a book chunkier.

Buchanan talked about the other ways to finesse length: smaller typeface, adding lines to page lengths, running-in chapters etc. She has one author who always writes over but doesn't like rewriting, but rather than leaning on the author, she tells the agent that that's fine but the paperback will cost so much extra. The agent will then say they can't have that and will get the author to make the changes. Sneaky! But good.

Spanton talked about using big margins to make a book fatter. He said this can be advantageous because readers feel like they're getting through it more quickly, and therefore it must have flowed well and been a good read. [And I was sitting there thinking: and that may be so, but I always feel ripped off!] Buchanan added that editors aren't doing authors a favour in saying the book needs another 10,000 to 20,000 words if the story doesn't need it.

Spanton discussed how different parts of the market have different requirements -- he'd given a writer a brief for a book with economically drawn characters in a complex plot that really shifts, but some reviewers said not enough happened, there wasn't enough worldbuilding, so he let the writer fill out the later books, which didn't actually feel longer.

He also talked about there being no ideal book or style of writing and the need to wear different editing hats for different books in terms of what you're looking for. Buchanan commented on the advantages for continuity of having the same editor across a series, especially in terms of deciding what information needs to be imparted again: that not all readers will have read all books. [This is tricky, isn't it. It isn't something I've had to face as an editor, but I have had to face as a writer -- but I think there might be enough material in that for another post.]

Johnson said that as writers, you want five people to edit your books before you sent them out, and you should be specific about what you want them to look for.

There was some discussion about how people edit, and all do their editing onscreen, which surprised me. I have certainly done some of my editing wholly onscreen, sometimes using Track Changes, but when I did Cranium that was done in Filemaker Pro, and involved copying and pasting -- I was never allowed to touch the original text. I still prefer to edit on paper though, especially if I'm working on fiction. Johnson did add, however, that she edits short stories on paper, and that she does pick up more errors on paper than on screen. I second that. She also reminded everyone that editors need to read through for comprehension as well as errors. She has had authors who will just write "stet" against the whole manuscript, but the readership always complains.

Spanton, who is a structural editor, can't resist copyediting as he goes. Oh, I understand him completely! He uses a different method for each author: for some, all they need is a half-hour phone conversation; others need five to ten notes on every page. He does most of his editing at home because he doesn't have time at work. [Bit like all that workshopping and marking that we writing teachers do. But writers should take note of that -- imagine someone who puts in all this unpaid time trying to improve your manuscript: they've certainly earned the right to have every change considered. Not necessarily agreed with or accepted, but considered.]

He doesn't mind that he takes the extra time to copyedit, because it's hard to get good copyeditors and there's not enough time to spend on manuscripts anymore. [Or really enough money to pay someone to spend enough time to copyedit properly.] He said [and I like this] the copyeditor's job is to make the structural editor look stupid, and the proofreader's job is to make the copyeditor look stupid, but sometimes readers make them all look stupid. [Of course, I didn't like that end bit quite so much!]

Walton said she never wants authors to agree with all of her changes, but she hopes they will say we don't agree because ... and be able to suggest something else. Spanton also talked about how it is the author's work so although he may suggest strongly for changes it is the author's call, and everyone will live with the consequences. An unhappy author may hide resentment, but it if it's there it will come out.

Buchanan said that authors you've been working with for years need very little, and this gives you more time to work with other writers.

Johnson had three rules for writing:

(i) start your book

(ii) finish your book

(iii) know how much editing is enough and then let it go -- put it out there.

Another long report, so I'll leave it there for now.

Almost a perfect day

Yesterday was an almost perfect day for me. It was good exercise-wise (which I'm usually not so good at, but which we, as writers, do need to think about because writing is such a sedentary job), I had fun, and I was productive! What more can you ask for?

I started out by taking my dogs for a long walk (or amble really) along the beach front (in an off-lead area), so they had lots of swims and socialising. It was just a tad too warm for my liking, which is why we went early. I came home and did some emails and stuff, rang a few people (all business related) and then took one of my kids bowling. The other hadn't struggled up yet (though it was now lunch time). We won one game each (we're both pretty hopeless), so it was nice and even.

Came home and got to work on my novel and spent a very productive couple of hours going through reader comments. The major thing I did was trim a three and a half page scene down to two and a quarter pages, and it was much better for the cut. I have a tendency to have my characters gab too much, so it's largely a matter of seeing what dialogue I can cut -- thinking about why I have included each piece of dialogue. Is it there because it's advancing the plot or adding to character? Is it showing character motivations or character interactions? Is it giving a feeling of a larger world? Is it adding to atmosphere or helping set the tone? Is it doing more than one thing?

After getting off to a false start where I took out one slab and then realised it was essential that I keep that, I put it back in and thought some more and found something less essential. I'll often show a lot of the conflict through the dialogue, but it can't be pointless bickering -- the conflict has to escalate. Anyway, I felt it was all very successful: the scene is zippier because it's more focused and still has plenty of dialogue to keep it moving.

Then I cooked dinner (something easy), went for a swim, stewed a whole lot of apricots and watched some television with the kids.

We're currently ploughing through "Spooks" and enjoying it immensely, which was a great way to wind down at the end of the day.

Draft's finished

So this was my plan for the holidays:

2 weeks: working on novel and finishing draft (included going in to work one day for staff meeting)
1 week: stuff for classes
1 week: R&R -- movies, bowling, walking, reading, reading, reading

This is how it's panned out:

3 weeks + : working on novel (and reading one and a half books)
rest: doing the rest of the stuff, which I suspect means very little R&R. Never mind.

This editing pass has taken a lot longer than I expected. The rewrite started at 195 k approx, and finished at 185,663, which was my starting point for this editing pass. It's finished at 178,285. There's something nice about being in the 170s. It's still not quite as low as I'd like, but it's a big story, and I had a horrible thought that I was adding words rather than cutting!

And today it's finished, other than some minor adjustments (I hope) after I get it back from my readers. In the end I cut two-thirds of the words with general tightening -- things like getting rid of prep phrases, cutting repetitions etc. But there were four things I cut at the end that took out a couple of thousand between them:

(i) a scene from the POV from someone whom I'd taken out as a viewpoint character -- so how did this slip through? I think in the end, I'd decided to keep it because it was towards the end of the novel, and he is a viewpoint character in the second, and so it seemed like foreshadowing. The trouble with not using him was that the one viewpoint character in that scene was now dead, and so couldn't convey the scene. In the end though, there was nothing in the scene that was essential to the plot. Wholesale cut. Easy solution.

(ii) cut the guts out of another scene. This was a scene involving a telepathic conversation, where the main character reveals something she's about to do (at the beginning of the next book), which is going to have serious repercussions. I really liked this scene. It seemed like good foreshadowing of the trouble that was to come. The characters she's conversing with used several techniques to get her to change her mind, all to no avail. Heaps of conflict. Snappy dialogue. Fast paced. Working well. Only, when I looked at it again, I thought -- she wouldn't tell them. And she wouldn't. And that was that. It had to go. All of it. All those lovingly crafted words. Gone. A scene has to serve the story, and while the foreshadowing was good, the characters have to be true to themselves. Absolutely. One hundred per cent. And she wasn't being. Really, too, readers are going to get that the consequences for her are going to be dire. They're quite good at picking up the hints -- and we writers have to be good at leaving them room to work!

(iii) and (iv) two nice moments between two of my main characters -- the first from one's point of view, and then a reflection on what had happened from the other character's POV. Neither of these were huge -- a couple of paras each, but this whole idea contained within was no longer relevant after other changes I'd made to them and their relationships with one another. Or not at this point. I may rejig this to reflect something else and use it in the next book. I'm not sure at this point. I do like the idea of what went on, but it just wasn't necessary. Zap. Gone.

On the other hand, there was an earlier scene where I'd cut out a half-page incident between the two of them when I was doing the rewrite, and when I came across it again, I was really sad that I'd done this, so I put it back in the editing pass. Not wholly the way it was. I didn't dig out that earlier draft -- just captured the essence of the exchange in a quarter of the space. It's not essential to the plot, but is a nice character moment for them both, helps define the shifting dynamics of their relationship.

So, as much as I've not had the chance to have that R&R, I have a great sense of satisfaction at having completed this draft. It really is a great feeling!

Making the changes

I'm a bit light on blogging at the moment because I'm fully immersed in my editing pass over my manuscript. The rewriting's finished, and I'm two-thirds (three-quarters?) through the edit, and I'm loving it. The process, that is.

Some days are better than others though. A few days I got to a scene that just wasn't working for me -- too passive, too much telling of things after the event. The fix wasn't too difficult. I moved the scene backwards in time so that I could show the events as they were unravelling. It's not an action scene, but it feels a lot more active now. Of course it meant I added about 400 words, at a time I'm desperate to cut words. That said, I've eliminated nearly 3000 at about the halfway point, so I'm on target. (Well, I would've liked to get rid of 10-15k, but realistically that was never going to happen because I'm also trying to add some characterisation and some non-plot related thinking.)

The day before yesterday, though, I came across a different kind of hurdle. Let me backtrack... When I started the edit pass, I had a brainwave about how to increase one of the main character's motivations so wrote a new scene that I banged in at the start of her story, and have been editing along the way to take this into account. It was all working beautifully until I got to the midway point and realised that I'd undermined one of the basic tenets that I'd based my alien culture's society on. Oh, dear. What to do? In the end such decisions can only be made when taking into account what will most benefit the story. And this time having the stronger motivation is a definite plus, so I've had to rethink that aspect of their society. It took me most of a day to sort that out, so I felt frustrated at the end of the day with how little progress I'd made, but the main thing was that I had made progress, and that I'd ironed out what could've been a problem further down the track. And in fact it still might -- but I'll be looking for it as I continue editing and will be able to fix it as I go. Bring it on!

Into the end of semester

I'm likely not to be posting much over the next few weeks as I move into full-on marking mode. Today, I've been collecting up major assignments, and will get more tomorrow and more next week. As well, I'm currently reading a friend's novel, plus reading an anthology (and proofing) for another friend, and reading short story competition entries. But where does that leave my own work? On hiatus unfortunately. The only writing I'll be doing this week will be an editing test. Not exactly the stuff that feeds the soul. On the other hand, the course I've been writing is almost finished. Soon, I'll be at the end of semester break, and then it will be full-on novel. I'm hoping to get my draft finished in the first week and get it out to a couple of readers. How exciting is that? This is the worst time not to be writing -- so close to the end. So close I can smell it, and there's no better incentive.

What I have been happy with is that I've started implementing some of the changes (ie transferring them from paper onto the computer). I was hoping to cut 15,000 words in the editing pass, but every time I looked at how many words I was adding, I was worried -- really worried -- that I was going to add 15,000 words. Happily, I am actually cutting. Not as many as I'd hoped, but definitely cutting. Oh, let me at it: I long to be finished!

Writing the novel

I had a discussion with a student last week about how many projects a novelist can work on, because our students who are taking multiple classes that involve novel writing are expected to work on different projects. Of course, there's no correct answer to this question, and I've always said that you've got to find what works for you. Only this last year I've found that that's not necessarily the case.

Up until recently, I've always thought I was a one-project-at-a-time person. Even when it comes to short stories.

I get an idea and think about it, and that's where my focus is. It's one of the reasons I don't write many short stories -- because mostly I'm focused on my novel. It's a lovely, indulgent, obsessive thing, writing a novel. I don't get that same pleasure out of short stories or poetry -- but they do offer their own pleasures and satisfactions, especially the satisfaction of finishing something!

Some people have bags of projects on the go -- they swap and change depending on their mood or deadline, even working on several in the same day. My friend, Sherryl, is like this, and it's always made me shake my head in wonder. But writing our group novel this year has taught me that I can work on more than one project at a time, and the longer I've been doing both the easier it's becoming.

At the beginning, it would take me a few weeks to reacclimatise -- I'd have to sink back into the depths of whichever project I was working on. Being in the writing group and doing the plotting or reading out what we'd just written and discussing it made it easier to get back into this. But there was the unfamiliarity of what others had written -- I say unfamiliarity because clearly I had heard their portions and discussed them, but they weren't integrally part of me the way the parts I'd written were. I know the details of my character's background, for example, in far more details than I know of their characters'.

The challenge with my own novel has been different. I've been working on this book a long time, so I'm very well acquainted with it. But it's a complex story with multiple viewpoint characters, and worse than that, multiple drafts. I say worse because the problem is that when I've been out of it awhile I forget which things belong in which draft. I might remember that A does this, but it might be something that I've taken out of the current draft for whatever reason.

Paradoxically, I've found that the thing I thought I needed (time to reimmerse) has been the thing working against me. It's actually easier to work on multiple projects if they're all on the boil at once, if I'm working on both in the same week, rather than having that gap between them. This works really well in that I can do whatever the mood takes me. If I'm in a writing mood, I'll head off to the group novel. If I'm in an editing mood, I'll work on my own -- which also requires some slabs of writing as I make changes that I've decided on. This week's change, for example, is in a background scene that my main character remembers. When he was a small child, he found his sister hanged, and that change has been to make him find her a few minutes earlier, when she was dying and imploring him to help her when things went wrong (knot on the wrong side of her neck so that she was strangled slowly). This secret he has kept. Everyone else thinks he found her dead. It's all about making the worst thing possible happen to your characters. This doesn't have a great effect on the story as a whole, but does strengthen his motivation for doing the things he has to do, and is perhaps something I'm thinking more about because I'm busy writing the other novel, putting my character there through the wringer. Honestly, you have to love writing!

Immersed in editing

Writer at work -- it's a hard life!

Here's a great recipe:

Take two writers, two partially finished manuscripts, four days, a holiday house on an island, and Easter -- throw them all together and what have you got? You've got a recipe for getting lots of work done. And feeling inspired.

Four days and lots of chocolate later and a serious amount of work has been done. Last time E and I went away together I was NaNoWriMoing (and working on book 2). This time I was doing an editing pass on book 1.

Normally, when I'm editing, I work from front to end. Simple really. Start at page 1, finish on the page that says "Ends". But this time I decided on a different approach. I have eight POV characters (I think) in my novel: four in each storyline, and one in each is quite minor. This time I chose the major storyline (about two thirds of the novel) and worked through the storyline one character at a time.

First was my major protagonist, who's story this really is. Working through his scenes was always going to be a joy, because, let's face it, I love spending time with him. And I did love it. (Though enjoyed the other characters almost as much.)

Things to think about for me in this pass were to add to characterisation, and make sure character motivation is always clear. When I was at Clarion I was told that motivation was one of my great strengths, but someone had recently said they thought it was lacking in my novel. Now this may or may not be true, but when I get a comment like that I always want to take it seriously and give it due consideration. After all, I want to put the strongest book I can in front of editors and, indeed, the world. So these two things have been my key -- oh, and cutting words. Not that the book is wordy. It isn't. But it's a big, sprawling story, and so involves a lot of words to get all that action across. But long novels cost more to produce so the risk is greater, and we're all about getting our mss into as publishable shape as possible, right?

The thing about looking at individual storylines is that it gives you a really great feel for whether the individual voices are working and whether they are what they're supposed to be: individual. Staying with just one storyline allows you to make sure the voice is consistent -- so, for example, the different characters speak with differing levels of formality, they notice different sorts of things, they have their own vocabularies and favourite sayings. Oh, this is such fun.

(Similarly, in an earlier draft I colour coded all my dialogue, by character, and that was equally insightful.)

Of course the trap is that you need to do this over a fairly short period of time to pick up any plot inconsistencies, because you're now not reading in a causal sequence anymore. It's also harder to evaluate pacing as a whole, because you're not looking at the whole novel. Still a worthwhile experience. I'll have to do at least one pass this way on every multiple-person POV story I ever write. More on the weekend later.

Towards the end

I'm getting towards the end of my current rewrite -- with less than 25,000 words to go. Now, to many writers that would be a big swag, but this is a big fantasy novel. I feel like I'm in the final stretches, and my enthusiasm to get to the end is waxing. I have found, however, I've moved more from rewrite to big edit at this point. Not quite sure why this has happened. Maybe it's because the later sections of the book were written later than the earlier sections and needed less? Maybe not.

After this comes a final editing pass -- this time on a print out, whereas at the moment I'm working on screen. What this pass is about is to make sure there are no typos, that the text is consistent (sometimes, with so many drafts still in my memory, I might insert something that relates back to something and not realise that the thing it related back to was omitted or reworked in this draft), that it all makes sense. I also want to have a quick look at a couple of particular aspects that someone mentioned may need a little attention. Easy stuff, and much quicker than a rewrite. Fun stuff. I love the editing stages, adding texture and layers and all of that. Then it's off to a couple of trusted readers for final comments and out into the wide world. Exciting stuff. And nerve-wracking. And then my dilemma is whether to hop right into the next book, or spend a couple of weeks reworking some short stories and getting them out. Might do a bit of both. And there's the group novel waiting patiently in the background too. So, plenty to go on with.

What's in it for me: NaNo

I've just passed the 30 k mark. Usually when I write I get into some kind of flow, and the words flow. I'm a splurger, not an agoniser, and I reckon that's a good way to be for a novelist -- which is not to say that agonisers can't write novels, because of course they can. But I think a big, fast output of words is a handy thing...

So am I in the flow? No. Of my almost 31000 words, I reckon 2 k have been easy, and the other 29 have been some of the most stubborn, intractable, obdurate words that I've ever met. Does it matter? Not really. Because I haven't given up on them. I have till Friday now to write 19000 words. Might seem an impossible task, but I'm quietly hopeful -- if not confident. Nothing like a deadline to egg me on.

Deadlines are good, helpful things. Pressure is good. I'm not sure why I lost the plot in week two (maybe I literally lost "the plot"?), but at that point I could have said, to hell with it. I'm glad I didn't, because around about now I'd be looking at the 15 k I've done instead of the 30 k. I am going to have a good bash at it and see if I can't win this stupid thing. Already, I've gotten what I want out of it: a more effective practice. I used to have that. Before I started teaching. Now I'll have to keep it up. My December goal will be finishing my first novel -- about 45 k to go, and to do an editing pass, but we will be away four days. (Still I can take hardcopy with me and edit... Oh, happy thought!)

Editing anthologies

The last few days I've been preparing an anthology for a competition. Now, while I don't want to go into too many details -- because it is meant to be anonymous -- suffice to say we were over the word limit and so I had to do some cutting. Now, perhaps the easiest part was that I had more pieces and longer pieces than anyone else, so it was easy to be ruthless. I didn't want to touch other people's pieces too much, except to fix punctuation, and iron out any inconsistencies. It's strange the small inconsistencies that creep in.

And it's always interesting trying to make substantial cuts -- in this case akin to removing a subplot. One small change snowballs throughout the manuscript. Interesting, too, trying to edit for balance. I cut one scene completely to get within the word limit, but couldn't take the one that would have made the least impact, because that was also the writer represented least. The trouble was that my scenes impacted other scenes, which therefore also needed parts stripped out of them, just so that they still made sense.

Cutting like this is a great way to learn editing skills. I think I learnt many of mine while trying to cut more than 10% out of short stories to get them within competition guidelines. I get my class to do this every year, and every year there will be someone who is unable to complete the exercise, and I'll get them to hand it to me. They're always amazed at exactly what they can lose, and how much more smoothly the text reads.

Getting closer

Today, I've been doing some workshopping of student stories, and I noticed one who has been struggling to write from inside her character's head has finally brought the action that little bit closer by using thoughts. In the group novel we're doing, I'd been given instructions that I was to deliver some of the back story, which largely had to be done by thoughts. I did feel, anyway, that my character didn't spend nearly as much time ruminating as some of the others. I think I'm always a bit wary of overdoing it, because I've read that direct thoughts can annoy readers, and I know I am rather fond of writing direct thoughts; therefore, I hold back.

Trying something new can be quite liberating. It's not that I've never tried to deliver backstory before, but rather that working on a new project can make you appreciate things in a different light. For me there was a minor lightbulb moment (or perhaps the turning on of a low wattage light!) that I don't deliver that much backstory throughout my novel. It's something I could bear to do a little more of.

I am currently approaching the end of my thirteenth draft. At least I'm calling it my thirteenth, but there are some that are labelled something like "draft 12.5", which means it started as the thirteenth incarnation, but was abandoned for various reasons halfway through, so never became a complete draft. On the other hand, some drafts are really just editing passes. I have long ago determined that this will be my last draft (unless an editor takes it of course and wants me to redraft, which I am perfectly happy to do). This is the first draft I have been happy with, and that is an important milestone for me. I can't control whether it's ever published or not -- not beyond making it as good as it can be. The rest, then, is up to my agent, and even then I know it involves a modicum of luck.

I have determined though that I will do an editorial pass at the end of this draft. It was just to be a quick read over, but since my new discovery about my own writing will play in nicely with what the last editor who read it has said, I will pay attention to this as I go through. (For comparison, a quick read would take me a couple of days; an editing pass a couple of weeks; a full rewrite, considerably longer.) Of course my one problem is that I will again be adding words when I need to cut, cut, cut. Oh, for a publisher who loves a truly fat fantasty book!

Editing

I'm having a few days off the rewrite to edit some of the chapters I've been rewriting. I love editing. Trouble is that I just want to flesh and flesh and flesh when, really, word counts dictate I must pare and pare and pare. And it's not like there are that many adjectives and adverbs to pare. When I was at Clarion, Jack Dann told me my style was much closer to Hemingway's than Faulkner's. So the dilemma is what to cut. Sometimes it's a bit of setting, or a bit of action that is incidental to the plot. I have to be careful that I'm not cutting characterisation, because more than anything I want a sense of fully rounded characters -- I want readers to care for my characters and empathise with their struggles.

So, I was very happy today when I found a paragraph that repeated something I'd said in an earlier chapter, and I was able to nuke the whole para. I liked the writing, but repetition is deadly for a reader. They're left thinking, I got this already -- why are you telling me again? Kristin Nelson, the agent, recently blogged about repeating dialogue in the narrative (or vice versa), and I must admit it's one of my pet hates. Some of my students do it too. It drives me nuts. They only do it once or twice, and then it becomes obvious to them. I can't remember ever repeating anything so blantant, but perhaps I did in my earlier days. When I'm being repetitious, it's usually because I'm worried that the reader isn't going to remember something, but it's better to trust the reader. Don't speak (or write) down to them. Anyway, time to get back to the editing. I love the way I can blog as a break from writing!

Progress

Well, today I've officially passed the halfway mark with the rewrite of my novel, which is exciting. This is the last rewrite I'll do (unless some editor signs me on and wants me to do more, of course!). I love rewriting. I love fleshing things out, tightening up phrasing, making the dialogue more oblique, honing images, adding texture. But I'm conscious with this draft that I have to cut words. This draft started at about 193,000 words, which is too long for a first novel. Too big a risk for a publisher to take. So I'm aiming to finish with 170,000. I'm down to 188,000 so far so have got a fair bit of cutting to do yet.

What worries me is I've removed whole chapters from the first half and cut a few POV characters, and all I've lost is 5,000 words. Still, when I've finished I'll do a final editing pass -- in the past I've done the cut-ten-words-out-of-every-page approach, and that's helpful too. With the novel at well over 600 pages, that's 6000 words straightaway. And really, I've reworked the beginning more recently than the end -- I abandoned an earlier draft that was a tightening draft because I decided the whole thing needed rewriting, which is what I'm doing now. So, the words should come out of the second half more easily than the first. At least that's what I'm hoping. If not it will be tighten, tighten, tighten.

Many of my students come into Novel 2 having done short story writing as well. They all know that in a short story every word has to count. But I tell them that every word has to count in a novel as well. There's no room for padding, for flab. We all want to write the best novels we can -- novels that make the readers stay up well past when they want to go to bed, and flabbiness is a surefire way to put them right off. So I'm going to relish my cutting -- that's what editing is about: taking a rough stone and polishing it until it becomes a gem.

The business of writing

One thing I hate is how much time the business side of things takes up -- the looking up of guidelines, the preparing of a story, keeping track of it, all that sort of stuff. I suppose, if I'm honest, it's the preparation that's time consuming, and it's because I've always got to have a final read over it before I send it out to the wide unsuspecting world. And inevitably I find it needs tweaking. There's an awkward sentence here, a word that could be improved there, a weak verb coupled with an adverb there. Today, I've had the extra fun of getting something ready for the US market, which means thinking about all the spelling and punctuation.

I still remember an editor friend of mine who got an abusive letter from someone in the States because there were so many spelling mistakes on her website. Only they weren't spelling mistakes -- they were words that are spelt differently.

Now, for me, it should've been as easy as changing the PCs dictionary from Aus-English to US, which I did, but it still flagged the Americanisms as wrong. So I had to do a read through, and noticed that while I had changed "travellers" to "travelers" most of the time, I had missed one -- perhaps one I'd added after a global search and replace? Then I came across "armour" and "organise" -- all of which I thought I'd fixed. But I wonder about the words I might have missed, the ones I never suspect, like "ax" for "axe", the ones that just look completely wrong. Sometimes I got out my old trusty Webster's dictionary, a behemoth of a book if ever there was one. Then I started trawling, which hopefully picks up any I'm suspicious of, but not those I'm not, of course. Anyway, the sub's done, and I've posted another off to a competition, so I feel I've been successful, even if I haven't done any writing yet. Hopefully, tonight...