Stephanie's Studio

Today you get the double whammy. It is the first day of the A to Z Challenge and the day for our monthly IWSG (Insecure Writer's Support Group) post. My focus is on editorial opinions. On and off I work with editors. Most often they are from within the publishing house publishing my books. Sometimes, I work with freelance editors. My last editor and I worked together on and off for about 9 years. With many projects on my plate (grants, submissions, and so forth) I decided four eyes would be better than my two subjective ones. I set about looking for a new editor. I'd found my last editor on one of the now defunct online freelancer boards. I looked at Reedsy.com, urged on by unsolicited emails I've been receiving from this new startup. Then thought oDesk would be more suitable for my needs. I write about all this for IWSG Wednesday because hiring an editor means you have to release some of your insecurities. It forces you to show your work to strangers and receive o...

Where have I been? What have I been doing the past two weeks? Making decisions, sorting things out, and as my last post suggests, moving forward. While sometimes I imagine I've gone down the ubiquitous rabbit hole, what I've been doing is necessary. To grow is to change and changing takes place on a convoluted path in its own time. As a writer and member of the Insecure Writer's Support Group , I gained some much needed courage. It may sound counterproductive but I quit a year long writing class that wasn't serving my needs. I'd been tortured about quitting it since the beginning. You have to apply for the class. Twice I was rejected but last year I was finally admitted. It's a small class that promises a lot. In the end I could see it was never going to deliver. Our teacher was disengaged all month and seemingly only thought about the class a few days before we were to meet (our meetings were once a month). The week I quit she asked us to...

Last year I finished the manuscript for my first novel. Through the process of writing it  I had several readers and hired an editor. Things didn't work out with the editor so I trudged onward on my own. I also workshopped the book several times in professional writer's groups. I read the manuscript and re-read it, editing all the while. Finally, I was ready to send out queries. I had read that if you don't query at least 100 places, whether that is agents or publishers that allow queries from authors, that you haven't really tried hard enough. So, query and query some more, is what I did. I had highs and lows. I had a very prestigious literary agent in New York immediately request to see the whole manuscript, after receiving the first chapter. I had several niche small publishers ask to read the whole manuscript. Two of which, took months to reply back after receiving it, raising my hopes. I got some nice rejections from that effort. Saying they loved the bo...