Paul Whybrow
Full Member
An outsider’s view of being an author is something like this: write a story, make a couple of corrections yourself, then, with the help of an editor insert a comma you’d missed out (silly me!), before getting your book published (no mention of querying) and making oodles of money while receiving adulation from adoring fans. Then, laze around a bit, before penning a best-selling sequel.
As anyone who’s attempted to write a book knows, there’s a lot more to the process than that, and much of the work is boring.
Don’t get me wrong, I love creating a story—my soul takes flight with joy and parts of my brain activate that are normally dormant, helping me out with ideas beaming in from the ether while awake and asleep. I also enjoy the research, which makes me feel brainier than I am!
Editing the work is the first bit of tedium to appear. I’ve learnt to edit as I go along, staying in a chapter for a few days, rather than do it all after typing The End. That was the approach I took with my first novel, which, at 180,00 words was only 100,000 words longer than the recommended word count! I was lost for five months, though I managed to excise 40,000 words.
That story The Perfect Murderer has returned to haunt me, as I’ve devoted three months to turn it into an audiobook. Narrating isn’t entirely onerous, but, believe me, re-recording (and remastering) sections owing to mispronunciation and noise interference soon becomes tiresome.
As for mastering, I think it’s the most boring task I’ve ever done, and, believe me, I’ve done a few, such as factory production line where I did the same action endless times daily. Mastering a recorded chapter requires great attention to detail, eliminating little gasps of breath and adjusting the spacing between words, sentences and paragraphs to make it sound natural. I’m on the fourth trawl through my recording, which put me in mind of rearranging thousands of tins on the shelves of a huge supermarket. I timed how long it took me to master a 15-minute chapter: the answer was two-and-a-half hours! Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Try it.
The boredom of querying literary agents would be alleviated if the dear hearts could get together and choose a standardised format. As it is, most want something slightly different from their rivals. Thus, unpublished writers are required to change fonts, word counts, length of submission and how much detail is needed in the synopsis. Some agents are going over to a standardised online submission form, which makes being a supplicant easier. Once a query is made, one waits for a form letter of rejection or, after several months, it sinks in that they’re not going to reply at all. Tell me that’s not boring, though it does encourage one to grow a hide as thick as a rhinoceros.
Mastering the business side of promoting your humble self and your wonderful book or books means being immodest and churning out content for your blog, the website devoted to your work, social media you’ve joined...all to get your name out there, in the hope that you’ll impress potential readers. And, you should be posting regularly. It’s more of a chore than artistry.
Waiting around for a literary agent to notice you, while debut authors get published whose book is in no way special or better than yours is boring. How long does one have to wait for acknowledgement? Years. Many boring years. in which you’ll start to doubt your talent and wonder why you ever began writing.
But, you’re tougher than the rest, and you accept that being bored is as much a part of writing as being frustrated, disappointed and rejected.
Do I have a point?
As anyone who’s attempted to write a book knows, there’s a lot more to the process than that, and much of the work is boring.
Don’t get me wrong, I love creating a story—my soul takes flight with joy and parts of my brain activate that are normally dormant, helping me out with ideas beaming in from the ether while awake and asleep. I also enjoy the research, which makes me feel brainier than I am!
Editing the work is the first bit of tedium to appear. I’ve learnt to edit as I go along, staying in a chapter for a few days, rather than do it all after typing The End. That was the approach I took with my first novel, which, at 180,00 words was only 100,000 words longer than the recommended word count! I was lost for five months, though I managed to excise 40,000 words.
That story The Perfect Murderer has returned to haunt me, as I’ve devoted three months to turn it into an audiobook. Narrating isn’t entirely onerous, but, believe me, re-recording (and remastering) sections owing to mispronunciation and noise interference soon becomes tiresome.
As for mastering, I think it’s the most boring task I’ve ever done, and, believe me, I’ve done a few, such as factory production line where I did the same action endless times daily. Mastering a recorded chapter requires great attention to detail, eliminating little gasps of breath and adjusting the spacing between words, sentences and paragraphs to make it sound natural. I’m on the fourth trawl through my recording, which put me in mind of rearranging thousands of tins on the shelves of a huge supermarket. I timed how long it took me to master a 15-minute chapter: the answer was two-and-a-half hours! Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Try it.
The boredom of querying literary agents would be alleviated if the dear hearts could get together and choose a standardised format. As it is, most want something slightly different from their rivals. Thus, unpublished writers are required to change fonts, word counts, length of submission and how much detail is needed in the synopsis. Some agents are going over to a standardised online submission form, which makes being a supplicant easier. Once a query is made, one waits for a form letter of rejection or, after several months, it sinks in that they’re not going to reply at all. Tell me that’s not boring, though it does encourage one to grow a hide as thick as a rhinoceros.
Mastering the business side of promoting your humble self and your wonderful book or books means being immodest and churning out content for your blog, the website devoted to your work, social media you’ve joined...all to get your name out there, in the hope that you’ll impress potential readers. And, you should be posting regularly. It’s more of a chore than artistry.
Waiting around for a literary agent to notice you, while debut authors get published whose book is in no way special or better than yours is boring. How long does one have to wait for acknowledgement? Years. Many boring years. in which you’ll start to doubt your talent and wonder why you ever began writing.
But, you’re tougher than the rest, and you accept that being bored is as much a part of writing as being frustrated, disappointed and rejected.
Do I have a point?
it was so easy back then
