A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the concept of the “Writing New Year.” I wrote how, on 1 May 2013, I made the decision to start writing again. This time, in earnest. What I ended up with with a second “New Year’s Day.” It’s my writing “New Year’s Day.”
I’ve thought about it in the days since then and I’ve come to the conclusion that having a day that you Start Writing* is important. It’s a starting point, a bright line in the sand. I do have an older one: July 27, 2005. That was the day I started working on my first novel. I think you can do the math and realize I fumbled for eight (man! I hate writing that number) years. I don’t count that first one since I didn’t follow it up with anything of substance. What’s fun about that first novel is the comp book I used to keep track of everything I experienced writing that first book: my research, my trials, my triumphs. I return to it every now and then just to relive the experience.
In the sixteen days since 1 May 2014, I’ve been able to look back on the year and see the highs and lows. Having that day, separate from anything else--it’s not my birthday or Christmas or Arbor Day or the actual New Year’s Day--makes it a unique day in my life, a day by which I can measure my progress and see what I can do better.
A Creative New Year’s Day is also a way to celebrate a year’s worth of work. Do y’all have one?
*I use the phrase “Start Writing” but you can substitute anything you’d like to do or learn.
I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating:
Your book.
Needs an editor.
Earlier this evening I was talking to Neil Broadfoot (whose debut, Falling Fast, you really should check out) and we wound up discussing the importance of editors to the process of writing. Editors are a vital part of the process. And you can see their importance, especially when a writer has clearly not been edited. I'm not just talking about dotting i's and crossing t's, or checking spelling and full stops. I'm talking about someone getting involved in a writer's process, making them question decisions they made.
The reason I'm thinking about it because of the original ending of THE GOOD SON. Regular readers will know that the book ends on a vaguely hopeful note of McNee moving forward from his own despair. Its a light touch on the hand from Susan Bright, a moment of human connection in a book about loss. And it works. It also set up the ongoing question of whether McNee and Susan will ever actually have anything resembling a relationship, or whether the bad stuff that exists around them will keep them apart.
Its great, because it sets up an ongoing thread through the books that I've been able to use as a counterpoint to the crime plots. Its also been great for making McNee a little more human than he might otherwise appear. But in the original draft, that whole thread wasn't there. Instead, McNee's human connection was with Rachel, the sister of McNee's dead fiance.
Which made that final scene very strange indeed.
I couldn't see it, of course. I had invested a lot in these characters. I thought that this was the way to go. But my editor looked at the scene and asked whether readers might not appreciate the fact that McNee - who has spent much of the book mourning his fiancee - was suddenly looking like he was about to cop off with the sister. It didn't do much to engage sympathy for either character.
My editor was the one who noticed that the scenes with Susan (she was a background character then) had some spark to them. He suggested using Susan as McNee's touchstone and in doing so opened up a whole new way for me to look at McNee and to create some of my favourite scenes in the series. It also allowed me to add more weight to book 3, where McNee's mentor (Susan's father) is killed at the very start of the book.
Without an editor, I would have kept things as they were. And the books would not have felt so complete. They wouldn't have been so honest. And when I looked back on them, I don't think I'd have been as proud of them as I am, now. A good editor is not just a reader. A good editor is not replaced by a friend reading through your book. A good editor is someone close enough to the book to want to love it, but removed enough to tell you when you're missing the mark.
An author is the ultimate voice of a book. But I truly believe that collaboration with a good editor - even if it only makes a difference to a few scenes - is essential to any good writing. A good writer creates a great book. A good editor finesses the work of a good writer. Often subtly, and in service of the artist's vision. But they do it in a way I believe can be indispensable when done properly.
So this post is dedicated to all the editor's I've worked with. For catching things big and small. For making me question my own convictions and for helping me create better books.
One of the greatest things about being me is my forgetfulness.
Sure, we've also got my ginger charm, lactose intolerance, and uncanny ability to fall asleep at the beginning of an NFL halftime and wake with exactly five minutes left in the third, but the forgetting has proven pretty cool.
I was reminded of my forgetfulness when I heard Van Halen's "Little Guitars."
Senorita, I'm in trouble again, and I can't get free.
I'd forgotten what a fun, amazing little tune that is. How technically proficient, how precise and, yet, how sprawling, how inventive.
And, of course, there's the intro that you never heard on the radio.
In fact, the entire "Diver Down" album consists of instrumentals with the boys showing off, interspersed with catchy sing-along tunes, many covers (5 of 12) from your parents' stack of LPs.
"Cathedral" and "Intruder," for example. Those would never get radio play. Yet, they show that technical brilliance that you can't mistake, whatever the instrument. We're talking a fundamental extrapolation of root notes and then an exploration into their relative proximity to familial notes through the various chord structures. I was forcing my teenage daughter to listen to me and my "you kids don't know from music listen to this" chat the other day and found myself preaching from the hilltop about how Van Halen took the concept of rhythm guitar and kicked it right in the nards, letting the bass carry the tune while the guitar solo danced around octaves above and below. I was completely ridiculous about it, though I didn't go off on some made-up nonsense about "familial notes" I just made up a second on. The thing is, what these guys were doing decades ago was just amazing. They were putting out albums with catchy songs and slipping in these little experimenty, weirdly technical riffs between radio songs.
The 31-minute album is by no means perfect. It can be uneven and, I think you could say, somewhat of a mess overall.
But brilliance doesn't come from a constant, bright light. You gotta have sparkle. Shine. You have to have dimensions for a work to be brilliant.
Scott Phillips does this. In Cottonwood and Ice Harvest, for example, you have stories that work so well for radio play, but then rise to a level of technical mastery that, as a writer, is amazing to watch.
Phillips, and other writers of brilliance, generally don't have the luxury of segmenting off the flourishes from the foundation, the sizzle from the steak, as salesfolks say. In Cottonwood especially, Phillips tells a beautiful, gritty, heartbreaking story with so much dimension that I'm amazed anything was left for more books. Each page of the writing, each minute of reading, has to have the technical brilliance mixed in with the solid underpinning of story telling. The best books always do.
And so it is that I am looking forward to Hop Alley, the sequel to Cottonwood.
Van Halen followed "Diver Down" with "1984," which not only had cool "Hot for Teacher" opening, but also sold a gabillion copies.
