Backstage Pass Part 2

Months ago, when I announced that my short story, “Monkey in the Middle,” was accepted for publication by Running Wild Press, I promised to give a behind the scenes reporting of the process. Since then, Running Wild Press also accepted my novella, Broken Soul to Broken Soul for publication in their novella anthology.

In the time between my first Backstage Pass post and now I worked with two separate editors (one for each accepted story). But I never reported it on this blog. Not a peep! What was up with that? Well, I was busy working through the above-mentioned edits, plus working at a technical high school in the Commercial and Graphic Arts program, plus working on a rewrite of a YA novel for my critiquing group, plus jogging for exercise, plus reading eBooks on Kindle and going to church on Sundays.

I hang my head for shirking my blogging duties. I’ll try to make up for it by getting verbose today. 🙂

Going “backstage” is also a look into my “process.” I have one for everything related to writing; rough drafts and polishing later drafts (a future blog topic), submission rejections (see my interview on Gemma Brook’s website), and the two topics I’ll cover today: Working With an Editor and Writing a Bio.

Working With an Editor:
This time around, for both manuscripts, there weren’t that many edits. I accepted almost all of the suggested changes. Most of them had to do with punctuation (who knew I was so enamored of the exclamation mark!!!) and the odd typo.

I’m a strong believer that the editor is usually right since she knows what sells and what looks good. With that said, of course, I received a few comments that gave me pause. One troubled me, the other seemed wrong.

The troubling comment was a problem with the italicized parts of my novella. While they made complete sense to me, they confused the editor. I didn’t argue. If something in my story could confuse one person it could confuse many. We all know a confused reader stops reading so I had to fix it. Except my first thought was I had no clue how to go about it.

When I can’t find an instant answer to a writing problem my default reaction is to go Biblical and rend my garments while pouring ashes on my head. Metaphorically of course. This is followed by shouting to the heavens, “I can’t fix it!” Complaining about a writing difficulty is part of my process. My husband usually gets the brunt of it. This time I also moaned to one of my critiquing partners who’d read the original version of the novella. NOTE: I never gripe to an editor. All the editor gets are the suggested changes. Once I get my insecurities out of my system I hunker down and figure it out. That’s what happened this time. Novella edits complete.

The other comment related to my short story and involved a suggested change that I believed was incorrect. I defended my view, respectfully of course, and my word choice stood. Short story edits complete.

I felt really good about the edits. Then came the dreaded email requesting a bio for the short story anthology. NOOOOO!!!

Writing a Bio:
My husband didn’t get it. As far as he was concerned that should have been the easiest thing to write. I’d written a few before, why couldn’t I simply tweak one of those? Why??? Because that’s not part of the process!

Yes, I went back to the rending of garments and the ashes and crying to the heavens. I also cried out to my fellow critiquer, who as fate would have it, had a short story accepted for the same anthology. She submitted her bio right away and calmly suggested that I take a look at the bios from the previous short story anthology by the same publisher. I did and discovered there was a wide range of word counts for bios, from a few paragraphs long to a page and a half of accolades. That was where I got stymied: if your bio is too short, you look like you’ve got no “street cred.” If it’s too long, you look like a braggart. Where was the happy medium?

So I did what the students from my Commercial and Graphic Arts class would have done in a similar situation. I Googled author bios. I not only saw bio samples but explanations on why the sample worked. That’s when I got the idea that I wanted my bio to be unique. I wanted it to stand out. I wanted it to have a little personality.

I slept on it. I challenged my brain to work on it while I jogged. Eventually something came to me that I liked. Is it unique? Does it have personality? I’ll let you be the judge. Running Wild Anthology of Stories, Volume 3 is coming out this September.

I’d barely finished reveling over my success when I got another email from the publisher, requesting a bio for my novella for their novella anthology. NOOOOO!!! I had to start the process all over again.

Eventually, I tweaked my short story bio, but it didn’t have as much personality as the first one, plus it was shorter. I might have just lost my writerly street cred. But hey, it’s done! Bios completed.