Indie author/self-editor

When we write, we edit. Everyone does it - put it down, re-read, change it. Whether it's a text message, email, the shopping list or a novel, we (hopefully) improve what we put down by editing.

I write novels, not long fantasy tomes of 175,000 words. Mine are considered novels because they exceed 60,000 words. I generally come in between 70,000 and 80,000 words, depending on how long it takes me to get the story down.

Even at that modest length there's a lot of editing in one of my novels and I have been painfully aware that there are a lot of skills a trained editor has that I do not. Solution? Do an editing course. Oh woe the day in February that I signed up for a year of long-distance torture. I live out of the city you see and going to daily classes just wasn't an option. I had done my first degree by distance education and thought what the heck, I can do it again. Idiot.

My course in editing and publishing is all online which I can cope with. You don't have face to face sessions with the lecturers or tutors which would be helpful but are not essential. What does get me on edge is that the course goes into the minutiae of both disciplines. The other day I had to read a section in one of my many texts on how to produce a CD-rom as part of the publishing process. I kid you not.

I've blanked the detail out now but it was horrifyingly technical. I don't need to know that stuff! I signed up to improve the technical side of my prose style, not be put through the wringer of understanding leading, signatures, em rules and kerning. Don't ask. The only thing I've used out of that set of horrors is the em rule, a long dash often used to separate clauses and phrases. It is now preferred in editorial circles to the semi colon, ;.

Of course there are also en rules and hyphens and in an online quiz I had to complete the other day, 25 questions in 30 minutes, I had to say which sentence correctly used the en (as opposed to em rule). An en rule is the width of a printed "n" character and slightly longer than a hyphen, often used to separate dates and spans of numbers. The question provided four options, two of which appeared to my stressed self as identical. They weren't. One had a hyphen where an en rule should have been. You know the result. A big cross and no tick for that question. Murderous thoughts came into my mind.

The benefits of the course are closer now - we're into how to edit fiction and how a good editor approaches the task of supporting and not interfering with the author's voice, tone and register. You see I have all the words now and will be a complete bore at dinner parties.

My tone throughout this course has been a little shrill but the end is nigh - early November and I'll be done. Hopefully I'll be a better writer and approach my own work with more skill. It's not easy though, as you know.