For the first time, eyes other than mine are looking over the words I have been poring over for well over a year. I guess it should be a scary time, but it is not. Could this be due to the story already having been released in audio format – and the very positive response I have received from many listeners?

Making a better book

When I gave it a little more thought, I realised something very important about this proofing process: whatever comments I receive, they can only result in a better novel.

There is no room for egos and sensitivities at this stage. If the work fails to provide its first, amateur readers with a positive experience, it stands virtually no chance of passing the infinitely more discerning eyes of a professional publisher’s reader.

Real edits

The first reader to return edits was one I trusted would not tip-toe around my sensibilities, and tell me exactly what she thought. She did not fail me. Thankfully, she enjoyed the reading, wanting to continue with the rest to learn how the story unfolds. 

Minor typos, misspellings, and glitches aside, I found most of her more significant comments matched quite closely to those areas I have either struggled with or have had a gut feeling myself that something was not  quite right. Now someone else had spotted them, there was no denying the need for a little repair.

This is not tedious (yet)

I’m enjoying this editing process. Again, I think it comes down to an underlying realisation that the book is being improved, polished, and made more complete. 

I have spotted some issues myself while going through someone else’s comments. Focusing merely on how to fix issues they have highlighted, have detached me a little from the emotion of the words, and enabled me to spot – and fix – a couple of quite significant continuity errors, plus a chronological discrepancy.

I suspect, once the editing gets down to nothing more than individual word tweaking, I will get sick of the sight of the book. But I think I’ll retain my optimism, because at that stage, it is very close to being complete.

Avoiding disappointment

First criteria is to select something I will spend real money on that will not leave me feeling I should have spent that money on a couple of good cappuccinos. I think I have read more words of reader reviews than are contained within the books themselves!

I wrote recently about my continuing disappointment when searching for new writers to taste. Who can you listen to for advice? Thankfully, I am lucky enough to have someone close at hand who has intimate knowledge of many of the currently available best selling novels. It helped narrow the field.

Reading around what I write

I have written before about the trappings of reading works that are too similar in style to my own writing. My mind instinctively tries to emulate any other style I enjoy reading myself. Not a good prospect, of course, but less so now that I am over 100,000 words into my own novel.

However, as I do so little reading, each selection to some extent falls into the realms of research. Whether it be research around subject matter, or simply looking at how another author might have tackled particular situation, reading for me has to be more than pure pleasure.

I don’t want a real book

This one proved to be a rather inhibiting criteria. I am taking my new Sony PRS-505 ebook reader on vacation. This immediately limits my selection to what is available in ebook format, and the publishing industry, though accelerating, is still some way off having an adequately broad selection. Add to that sometimes poor implementations of the ebook sections of online bookstores – even Waterstones do not have the ability to search through just the ebooks! – and the search for a chosen title grinds to a sluggish shuffle.

Thanks to bloggers and Amazon

My selection is: Banquet for the Damned by Adam L.G. Nevill – get the ebook version from Waterstones
Few believed Professor Coldwell was in touch with an unseen world – that he could commune with spirits. But in Scotland’s oldest university town something has passed from darkness into light. And now the young are being haunted by night terrors. And those who are visited, disappear. This is certainly not a place for outsiders, especially at night. So what chance do a rootless musician and burnt-out explorer have of surviving their entanglement with an ageless supernatural evil and the ruthless cult that worships it? This chilling occult thriller is both an homage to the great age of British ghost stories and a pacy modern tale of diabolism and witchcraft.

I’ll report back what I think of this book, but with all eight Amazon reviews giving it full five stars, I think I am in safe hands. What could be better than sitting in the Spanish sun reading of ghostly happenings in dark, damp Scotland!

I’m not going to let out exactly who mugged me of a couple of hours of reading, suffice to say it is an author with a widespread online presence, a very “geeky” following, and this particular short story was in the sci-fi genre (no horror involved).

It all started so well

I was enthusiastic after the first few pages. A balanced dose of exposition but with the correct amount of colour and no need to take notes to keep up with information overload.

Then something went “eh?”

The main character changed personality. Or at least, reacted to a situation in stark contrast to what one might expect based on the information of him gleaned during the opening of the story.

Then it all fell apart

All it took was one of those “stuff happens that would actually be plausible if I could be bothered to go back and tweak some earlier stuff, but hey, what’s the point” moments.

I did not finish reading the story.
Having been mugged for enough of my time, I almost threw my Sony reader across the room in disgusted frustration, feeling the urge to email everyone I knew who liked this author’s work for some compensation. This is why I stopped reading science fiction so many years ago, and why my reading in general decreased as I found so little that satisfied.

Where to go next?

I have a vacation coming up and require the necessary reading matter to accompany what has been pre-defined as two weeks of total relaxation. In light of the above experience I am once again in the realm of mistrust that deepens with every – far too frequent – disappointment. Am I fussy? Do I simply have too high an expectation? I have no idea, but choosing a book for the holiday is a tricky affair.

Thankfully, the new Sony Reader will be an enormous help as it currently contains over 130 books, of varying lengths, genre, and author. If the chosen vacation read proves another disappointment, I can always switch to some classics from Wells, Conan Doyle, or Algernon Blackwood (my current favourite).