Fellow Bloggers,
As I am new to your delightful community, I'll use my first blog to introduce myself, with great hopes of hearing back from some of you. I MUST begin by thanking those who first made me feel welcome here: Tara Maya, Blake Crouch and Joe Konrath (a.k.a. Jack Kilborn).
They gave me a chance to review Conmergence and DRACULAS, which helped bring me "into the fold" and gave me a sense of belonging. They also write incredible books and have thus given me the gift of hours of joyful reading, and I thank them sincerely. There will be much more about DRACULAS in my next blog. In fact, it will be entirely dedicated to my review of the book and all of the yummy extras they saw fit to fill it with, along with fellow authors F. Paul Wilson and Jeff Strand. And as for Mr. Konrath, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing, both the book and the blog, are nothing short of brilliant. When I leave J.A.Konrath's blog, I am always awash in the tingly type of energy one gets from touching an electric fence because I am vibrating with new information, ideas, and concepts: very fertile ground for me as a writer/editor/reviewer. And the more I get to know Tara Maya, I am finding the same is true.
This past week, I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with several authors for the first time, and I pray it continues. I am having a ball, doing what I love, and getting free books! Could it get any better? Well, maybe just one teensy thing: I learned from Konrath's Amazon experiment that I really enjoy taking my work with writers a step further and assisting with the promotion of the work. I realized that indie-pubbing has freed writers in so many ways, yet we are still in need of many types of support that we once relied on publishing firms to take care of, such as editing and promotion. And things like cover art and interior book design (see Tara Maya's blog, which is linked to mine).
As we worked on DRACULAS, Mr. Blake Crouch especially went out of his way to answer questions and help me get oriented, even as he was juggling deadlines, guest-hosting Joe's blog, and trying to live his life. Yet he never once gave the impression that he was too busy with his work to be available, and that's deeply meaningful, especially in today's rush-rush-hurry-scurry world. Mr. Crouch, I don't know if you're an officer, but you are definitely a gentleman, and I thank you. And Tara Maya did the same, taking time for marathon conversations that probably neither of us had time for but that both of us (hopefully) found so helpful.
I began the blog with the question, why editing?, so I should probably return to that. The short answer: Because it's what I love to do. To explain more deeply, I see it primarily as an opportunity to be of service. For me, the editor's job is a supportive role: Encouraging and guiding other writers, whether established, just starting out, or somewhere in between, in both their careers and/or in their projects. I meet people where they are in the process and work with them from there. It's incredibly satisfying, and it's also a bit selfish, because my personal idea of hell is a place where there is nothing to read. Thus, editing,reviewing and promotion help me to ensure we'll never have to suffer this fate. Forgive me as I continue to explain. I hope it isn't bad manners to use my blog to promote my profession. If it is, I'll ask your forgiveness up front, but the I must continue to explain.
To build on comments from Mr. Konrath's blog, I am especially excited about the endless opportunities now available to writers through independent, electronic publishing. It's a tale for another time, but I used the Kindle throughout my entire editing/review of DRACULAS, so I see some revolutionary uses for it in the realm of editing as well as publishing. Hold that thought: We'll come back to it in another blog.
Regarding editing and reviewing style, I use an organic, intuitive, and individualized approach to assist authors in every phase of the writing process. Every writer and project are unique, so in 15 years I have never found a formulaic approach useful. Yes, there are common tasks that an editor must attend to, but how they are approached must be tailored to both the writer's working style and the project at hand. The result is that I may have remained in my profession for some years, yet I have never done the same job twice, for no two are identical. That keeps things fresh, which keeps me jazzed about what I do. So if we ever work together, and I pray someday we do, you'll likely find I'm as excited about your project as you are!
I am one of those people who is interested in absolutely everything, and I'm a voracious reader. I love collaborating with people, and I'm a natural nurturer, whether it's people, animals, plants or books: I want to help things grow. I have a background in theater, which I find incredibly helpful when working through unwieldy material for a writer. I draw on skills I've used directing plays and found they also make scenes in a book come to life and make sense. I'm equally passionate about writing, and I'm never happier than when all of these things come together. That's why I get so much satisfaction from working with writers, regardless of the project or the venue.
If hell is a place where there is nothing to read, for the past 15 years I've been on a personal evangelical mission to avoid it. I've had the privilege to work with and provide support to hundreds of writers across a range of contexts,genres and media, be it fiction, prose, poetry, scripts, screenplays of academe. But there's one common thread: I always find myself completely immersed in the work and fascinated by human creative potential, regardless of the project. I bring a sense of urgency to my work, (seeing as I'm trying to save us all from hell!).
Because I place my work ideologically on a service plane, I feel it is my duty to adapt myself to the writer's needs, and since I'm not patient when it comes to awaiting feedback, I strive for quick turnarounds between exchanges with clients and striving to finish projects ASAP. I think those are good skills to have, since e-pubbing has exponentially accelerated the pace of publishing a book. I personalize my services to meet my clients' needs, styles, and goals in a timely fashion. I am a writer myself, so I strive to give the kind of help and service that I like to receive; immediate, focused, and responsive.
I began this blog with the question, why editing/reviewing/promoting? I will end it with what by now I hope has become clear: Because it is my passion, my dream job, and what I want to do for the rest of my life, just as assuredly as writing is the writer's. In my mind, editing, reviewing, and writing are cut of the same cloth. As proof I suggest that when the first writer wrote, rest assured, someone else (the first editor) was pointing at the cave wall, remarking that the antelope's place in the composition would be more effective elsewhere, or that perhaps it should be omitted altogether, or maybe introduced later in the story, just a bit further down the wall, to the right of the second kokopeli; no, make that to the left of the first . . . and thus evolved the editing profession.
In closing, I am going to let you in on a little secret. Me. Perhaps the best kept secret in writer support services because I've never been in a position to pursue my passion on a full time basis. But dreams do come true, and I find I'm there now, able to live my dream and do the work I truly love. Not only that, but I get to do it in a lovely Victorian home, at 7,000 feet, in the Great Rocky Mountains, by a stream, in a town with a population of 92 (in the summer). Now if that isn't a writer's dream come true, don't wake me up and tell me otherwise, because I'll never believe it. I do hope to hear from more of you in the near future, and I am building a website from which to conduct my fledgling business. I urge you to contact me sooner rather than later, because most of the work I am doing now is gratis, as I build my editing portfolio. But in all fairness, I must let you know, that won't last forever. You'll find my email address at the top of this blog, and I'd love to hear from you.
Carmen
