Friday, March 25, 2011

The Lust of the Mohicans...and other scribblings on editing

First of all, a disclaimer that I mean no disrespect to James Fenimore Cooper’s classic. The Last of the Mohicans was one my favourite novels when I first read it more than 20 years ago, and even today, that same well worn copy occupies pride of place on my bookshelf. However, as I was drudging through editing my latest book, my mind wandered and I reminded myself to pay attention and thank God for what I have today- spell checks, auto-corrections and Find & Replace. Mr. Cooper had none of those, and a single substituted letter could have given a whole new dimension to his novel. To be honest, it may have made it even more likely for me as a fourteen year old boy to pick it up, but I doubt it would have enjoyed the stature it enjoys today (then again, you never know!).


Back to the point- editing.


When non-writers think of writing, they think it’s a lot of creative joy and then the glory of seeing books in print and on bookshelves. They totally miss a critical, and at least for me, not a very fun part of it- editing. That’s when you re-read every single word a few times over, discover all the places you screwed up, learn that you somehow changed a character’s name mid-way through the creative haze (am being charitable- I just couldn’t make head or tale of my handwritten notes), and realize that when you thought you were on a roll, your grammar was worse than a Grade 1 dropout. Okay, am being harsh, but for someone who loves the creative part of writing, and like any other writer, loves enjoying the end result, the editing process is a bit of drudge. Having worked in the corporate sector for over 15 years, I keep reminding myself that I don’t have to enjoy something to have to do it well. A poorly edited book, no matter how brilliant the idea is a bit like producing a shampoo bottle with a brilliant product inside but a cap that falls off the moment you touch it and the brand name spelt wrongly. If that’s a bizarre analogy, cut me some slack- I worked on Hair Care for 13 years! So it has to be done, and this is how I have learnt over the years to make peace with the editing process:


Make it real

The first thing I do when I finish a draft of a book is to print it out, staple the pages together and slap a cover on it. Usually a horrible hand drawn cover (and believe me, I can’t draw). What that does is that at one stroke it transforms a correction process on a laptop screen to the first time I hold `my book’ in my hand. That works wonders for motivation.


Get a trusted second opinion

I don’t know about other writers, but I love what I write. My reasoning is simple, if I don’t believe in and love what I do, why should even a single reader believe in me enough to pay good money to read my work? But what that means is that I may be blind to all the times I do screw up, and again, like all writers and their first drafts, those exist galore. So what I do when I finish my first draft is that I run it by my wife. She’s not a writer or an editor, but a voracious reader, and someone I can trust totally to be both brutally honest and amazingly supportive all at the same time. So that becomes not just an editing exercise, but a cross between editing and market research. It helps me uncover misses, and also sometimes points me in directions I may not have thought of. Most of all, it makes editing fun- since I am sharing my labour of love with the person I trust most.


Put some distance between us

I do get so immersed in my books sometimes that I dream of plot lines and twists and wake up itching to write it down. The downside of being so immersed in something is that you lose objectivity and find it hard to look at your work dispassionately. So after the first edit, I take a break of a couple of weeks. I read a lot of classics in the genre I’m writing, I start scribbling ideas for my next book, and only then do I get back to a second round of editing with a fresh mind.

I was about to press `Post’ and then I stopped myself and edited what I’d written once before posting it. You know what they say about old habits….


Keep reading, and I’ll keep writing.

Mainak

A post of firsts

Welcome to Scribbles! For the first ever post on this blog, thought it appropriate to start with a post about 'firsts' in my writing. But everyone writes about their first book. first review and all the cool stuff. This is a post about some of the `firsts' that may not be as glamorous but still make me who I am as a writer, and to some extent, a person.

My first 'publication'
Now I don't remember when I first felt that way, but as long as I can remember, one thought had somehow firmly entrenched itself in my mind- I was born to write. So in Grade 7, I solved that term's Maths textbook problems and stapled the solutions with my poems (figuring nobody would pay money for my poems alone!) and then sold them to my classmates at 50 cents a copy. Earned enough to splurge on ice cream and comics for many weeks to come. And most of all, for the first time ever, saw my name on the 'cover' of a 'book'.

The first thing my first publisher told me
"Are you serious?"
This was Mr. Khosla, a wonderful old man who ran Khosla Publishing, a pretty well known academic publisher in Delhi, when I went to his office as a 2nd year college student, telling him I had a book on Economics I wanted to publish. Am I grateful he took me seriously. Probably helped that my Mom had gone along with me!

The first thing I did with my first royalty cheque
Brought a huge box of pastries for Mr. Khosla and his family and then went out and partied with my Mom, gorging on junk food and laughing ourselves silly. Then spent a bit of it on cigarettes (which when I was in college, was a carefully hidden secret from my parents).

What I did with my first rejection letter
Can't even remember which publisher it was from, but I was young, and was trying to sell my first novel. Got what I now recognize as a `form' rejection letter, and was naive enough to write back to them thanking them for the reply and asking if they had any tips on how I could improve my chances. Needless to say, never got a reply.

Keep reading, and I'll keep writing.
Mainak