@bellam
Active 3 days, 4 hours agoForum Replies Created
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Bloody Norah! (Sorry, Norah.) I have also just happened upon this. How ghastly and scary. Some aspects are all too familiar to me after a 2 week stint in hospital with evil pneumonia a couple of years ago. It’s surprising what a state we can innocently get into with no idea we are quite so ill until suddenly the ambulance has to be called. I’m glad it was, and glad they have sorted you out up to this point. I hope further recovery goes smoothly and there are no horrible discoveries awaiting you with regard to item 4.
Admittedly the last edit I had done was via someone I have known for a while. But still, you are commissioning a job so it is up to you to tell them/ask them what you think is necessary.
I’d write along the lines of
Hey, Editor. Sort out this pile of horror for me, there’s a good fellow.
OK, OK. More along the lines of
Dear Editor
I got your details from xyz and think you’d be able to help me with my MS because xyz.
My MS is [details of genre, word count, maybe give the elevator pitch as if you were subbing to an agent]
The problems I think I may have are:
The theme/point I am trying to make is:
My ultimate aim with the MS is [getting an agent/publisher/self-publishing]
Do you have availability to help? How long will it take? How much will it cost? Do you need to see a sample (how long?) of the MS?
@daedalus there is a small, red lightship in Harwich. Lightvessel LV18.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/museum/gb/trinity-house-lightvessel-no.-18-harwich/.html
They did a bit of broadcasting from there.
This wiki has quite a bit of info that might help:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_CarolineI don’t know anything about the Communicator
<p>I’ve never seen one that big in the UK but we spent a few summers holidaying in Finland when I was a child. Coming back from the lake one day my sister and I found a huge green and gold (or maybe brown and gold, I can’t remember exactly) dragonfly lying motionless on the path. We prodded it (gently) but it didn’t move so we concluded it was dead. It was beautiful so we picked it up and carried it to the cottage to examine it more closely. The cottage had a large enclosed verandah/porch, and the light was very good there, so we put the dragonfly on the table in the porch and looked at it. Then mother said we had to go shopping, so off we went. When we came back it sounded as if a chinook helicopter was flying around the porch. The dragonfly had come to life and was trying to find a way out! I can’t remember how mother got it out but probably employed a method similar to Richard’s and ushered it to the door.</p>
My participation is very sporadic, although I do actually pop in here most days and read what’s been written. I’m glad it can continue, at least for now. I would miss it if it went.
I’ve popped over and had a look. It all seems great and the looks is fine as far as I’m concerned.
How one goes about getting more punters is a bit of a head-scratcher.
Interesting. I’ve used writing as a way to process the emotions linked to some pretty unpleasant episodes in my past. I know that a lot of therapists advise one to write a letter (never meaning to send, a la Nights in White Satin). I’ve tried that, though the letter format doesn’t work for me, whereas more of a blog style recounting does.
I’ve had strong emotional responses when doing the writing, and realised many things I didn’t realise at the time of the experience (in each case at least 10 years prior, maybe many more). In most cases I’ve then just left the thing behind and moved on. But I have kept the writing. I have not revisited much of it (the idea being to move on) but, like you, if I have gone back to read any of it, the emotions are not there to feel. In my case I’m glad, since I really don’t want to be giving emotional space to those episodes/people. If they were accounts of happy times I guess I would feel some regret that the emotions had gone, but I have a feeling that wouldn’t be the case with something joyful, or with something essentially connected with joy. I say this because I wrote a lot of stuff about having to put my dogs to sleep. If I read those accounts (or think about it) I am reduced to a blubbering heap, still, but the dogs themselves brought so much joy, and are still in many ways a part of my life as we speak of them often. So I haven’t had cause to rid myself of any emotions related to them, pleasant or otherwise.
However, it sounds as if your blogs were about more happy times so I’m not sure what to make of the absence of emotion now. Is it important? Maybe. I don’t think it’s a bad or harmful thing, though. Just neutral. Maybe the act of writing emotions we don’t want (or need) to keep is a way of clearing out brain space. Maybe the very urge to write them was because your brain knew the matter was important but did not want to keep the full experience, for whatever reason.
I also don’t beta read to any sort of checklist. I will always check first with the author what they particularly want feedback on – if they feel something might not be working, but aren’t sure, or whatever. Then I will make sure to address those issues, as well as make other comments as I think necessary.
I have quite a sharp eye from the proofreading point of view, so will point out typos if I spot them, unless specifically asked not to. (Or I may get so carried away by the story I stop bothering to notice typos, in which case I will say at what point that has happened.)
Any beta reading I’ve had done for me has been very useful, helpful, and given more feedback than I had been promised. It can be tough but the worst I’ve had is a paid-for full manuscript assessment from Jericho (as WW). By “worst” I actually mean a reply so quick that I could not believe the editor had read it thoroughly, and one so padded out with boiler plate information that there was not a great deal of helpful material in there. The editor clearly thought it was crap. It was, I now realise, truly grim – but it was salvageable and I was none the wiser really on why it was grim, so at that point I couldn’t salvage it.
I always try to point out the good as well as the stuff that’s not so good. That said, I have beta read a lot of work for one author and now know her pretty well. So in her case if I am short of time we are both happy for me to read and only to point out what’s not working. That would be depressing if you weren’t expecting it, though.
The biggest down side of beta reading is that I now tend to “beta read” novels I am reading for pleasure. Sigh.
Also – apologies of lack of participation. The Covid situation has totally mucked up my mojo. I’ve not written a word, stopped playing my (relatively new) sax, hardly even read a thing blah blah blah. It is what it is. I have developed an obsession with weightlifting, so haven’t been entirely idle! But I’m starting to feel the odd twinges of interest in an MS I started way back, so maybe the mojo is returning.
I’ve long thought that people would bite your arm off for a decent beta reading service.
I flung out an idea on Jericho Townhouse ages ago along the lines of: author pays £X to Jericho who assigns the MS to a selected beta reader from their pool. There is a standard rubric the beta reader must follow (timescale, topics covered, length of report). When beta reader finishes the job and feeds back to the author they get paid a decent percentage of the fee held by Jericho.
If the service was at the right price then I don’t think it would matter whether it was provided by a published author/established editor or not. That’s what drives the price up (I think) at the likes of Jericho for a full editorial review and in my experience it’s very hit and miss whether the author gets value for money.
We’re all decent beta readers on here, I know for a fact. BUT it turns the whole thing into somewhat of a commercial entity, which has its own set of headaches. Hence why I suggested it at Jericho, which could easily slot that into its business model.
Well – I replied but it has not posted. Hmmph. Will try again.
There’s a little red light vessel LV18 at Harwich. They did broadcast from it a bit, I think.
https://www.radiomuseum.org/museum/gb/trinity-house-lightvessel-no.-18-harwich/.htmlThis wiki has quite a bit of info about ship damage. Mi Amigo seems to be the main one affected
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_CarolineI know nothing about the Communicator.
@daedalus there is a small, red lightship in Harwich. Lightvessel LV18.
They did a bit of broadcasting from there.
There’s a wiki on Radio Caroline which mentions ship and storm damage. Mi Amigo is the main one
I did link to it and the LV18 info but the site here seems not to like my posts so I am trying again without.
I was born a tad too late to really enjoy all of this, but your blog (a great read – thank you) brought back memories of a wonderful 3 day cruise we took in 2014 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Radio Caroline.
They had Johnnie Walker, Emperor Rosko and Dave Cash, Georgie Fame, The Rhythm Kings (we watched both their sets all 3 nights – it was a joy), Eddie Floyd…
They’d even got Howard Marks on board with a plan to do a tour of the Amsterdam coffee shops – but this had to be cancelled when the insurance company refused to cover the excursion, so he had to give us a talk instead.
The funniest thing was that they didn’t manage to fill the ship entirely with people who were there for the music. The publicity hadn’t been huge – we only learned about it from a small flyer in a pub in Harwich when we were visiting. So the company had then advertised a nice Amsterdam city break to the usual folks who used Cruise & Maritime. There was a large cohort of rather bemused worthies looking anxiously at the vast crowds of elderly reprobates living it up all over the ship.
Glorious.
I heard an interesting podcast a while ago by Sophie Hannah. She mentioned agents who reject with more than the standard brush-off. They are generally finding there is something the matter with the submission but can’t or won’t put their finger on it so instead may jump to an “obvious” criticism and give you that. Her suggestion was that you consider what was said but don’t necessarily treat is as being the actual problem, especially if you’ve only had that comment from one person.
Thank you for taking us with you on that trip down Memory Lane. What a lovely story. Here’s to Susie.
Well-written and informative blog, as always. Thank you.
I love seeing Welsh words and working out how they might be pronounced. I knew how to pronounce Abergele because my grandmother, father and aunt were evacuated there during the war, and Gran used to speak of it.
Many years ago, the law firm I worked at acted for a client buying a snooker club in Wales. Chepstow, I think. Anyway, I just adored the Welsh word for snooker – snwcr. Now, that would be guessable, at least. In today’s paper was a picture of a police officer. Had his jacket not had “police” written underneath, I would never in a million years have been able to guess what “heddlu” means.
In every case I have started with a main character, a beginning, and end and a rough idea of how to get to the end.
However, my characters have a way of bossing me around.
In one novel the guy gets the girl, but as I wrote it became clear that the girl was wrong for him and I then had to write a sequel getting him out of that fix (eventually the two were amalgamated because volume 2 was too reliant on volume 1 to be a stand alone). During the process a character who originally had only one throwaway line became vitally important and will be heavily involved in any sequels.
In another the girl and boy ended up together despite the odds and it took more than one reader to tell me this was nuts and the girl needed someone else. I’m currently tweaking that ready for a submission round.
In one languishing mid-way I know exactly what happens and my characters are being compliant. Since the work is currently in the doldrums I’m not sure if it’s a good thing.
In another I have outlined but only written the first chapter for, the story is fully formed but there’s enough wriggle room for the characters to express themselves so it will be interesting to see how that pans out.
I have no experience of writing MG, and it is a loooooong time since I was aged between 8 and 12 (that’s the MG target, right?) but I would say you are slap bang on the money. I’d certainly have gone for this at that age. It’s great fun.
I take a positive view and think that we will be fine. Like you I don’t want to discuss the pros and cons here. There’s been enough elsewhere.
I have had the Brexit blues while the whole thing has rumbled on, though. The uncertainty has been most unsettling and my writing has also suffered.The deep splits in the country are very unpleasant whichever side you are on. My biggest worry is that the rifts will take a long time to heal whatever the outcome otherwise. Views have had three years to become entrenched.
Sigh.
Anyway, happy new year to you. It’s good to see you.
Someone on Jericho has suggested that the best way to pick up typos is to read the book backwards. Much though I hate typos, I’m not sure I hate them quite that much.
O.M.F.G.
On top of all of that you have to deal with page proofs? I had fondly imagined that at least would be the publisher’s job. They certainly make you earn your crust, don’t they?
Thank you (I think) for this insight into the process. Before I smash my computer and run screaming for the hills, I must congratulate you on seeing it all through. Well done, you. I can’t wait to read it x
