David Weller Author Blogspot

It's true! Time really does fly when you are enjoying yourself. I can hardly believe that more than two months have passed since I last blogged. All I can say is that I'm still hard at work and will try to post more regularly in the future.

I haven't posted anything for over a month so I suppose that some of you may have been wondering where I'd got to. Or perhaps not. The simple truth is that I've been taking a break from blogging. And writing. There isn't much I can say about Truthseeker except that the literary agent who'd asked to read it appears to have closed down. Given her track record (see my previous post for details) this isn't much of a surprise.

This time last year, I was still in the process of sending out queries when I came across a reference on Wikipedia for a new literary agency in the UK. Without looking into their credentials, I sent off a query letter together with sample chapters. When I actually looked at their website in more detail, I couldn't find any reference to their names, postal address or phone number. Anyway, they didn't get back to me within the stated time frame of four weeks so I assumed that would be the end of the matter. About a month go, I received a request for the full manuscript. The email provided me with a name, and so I started looking into this person's background. In the process I discovered that she'd previously advertised herself as a literary agent under this name but given up. I also found out that she'd set up as a publisher back in 2010/11, but went out of business in 2012. Some of the authors whose work she published during this period are shown on Amazon as havin...

I'm currently in the process of editing Chapter One for what seems like the ten thousandth time. Despite my relative satisfaction with the final 75,000 words I'm still not sure that I've nailed the first 3K. Something seems to be missing and I really don't know what it is. One day, I suppose, I'll have a eureka moment and everything will fall into place.

One of the biggest problems when self editing is that eventually you see only what you want to see. In other words you become blind to all those glaringly obvious little errors on the pages of your manuscript. One way to overcome this is to have several copies to work from. However, they mustn't be merely clones of the original or this system won't work. In addition to my master copy (Times New Roman, size 12 font, double spaced, 3rd person past tense) I have a copy in book format using a CreateSpace 5x8 template. I also have a third copy, also in book format using a Createspace template, but this time it is written in first person past tense. Each version is sufficiently different from the others that issues not immediately obvious on one version become so when I switch to a copy written in a different format. There is however, a downside in that changes made to one version also need to be transferred onto the others. Last month I worked through my MS using my master cop...

I completed the latest round of editing on Truthseeker a few days ago. Today I revisited the revisions I'd made during the month and still thought that most were changes for the better. One or two, I decided on reflection, were not and so changed them back to the original form. This method of concentrating on just one chapter a day over a period of about a month certainly works for me. It's one I'll use again over the next few months as I seek to bring this particular work to a final conclusion. All too often I read samples of other author's work on Amazon only to find errors in spelling, punctuation and grammar. It's a real shame as it spoils what are, for the most part, excellent pieces of work.  It makes me wonder just how much (or little) editorial input the publishing imprint is providing the author with. It also makes me doubly cautious about going to print with my own work until I can read through it without being able to find anything to change. ...

I'm about half way through my current round of editing on Truthseeker and determined to keep the momentum going. Tackling one chapter each day is certainly proving less onerous than trying to read through the whole manuscript over a couple of sittings. Mind you, it's still a bit of a chore as I've read through this manuscript so many times that it hurts. On a brighter note I've managed to add another thousand words to Secret of Heathcote Manor. According to the stats, this blog is read mainly by viewers in Russia, France and the United States, with the United Kingdom just out of the medal places in 4th. Still no movement on Wattpad so I don't think I'll be posting any more free content there for a while.

Doesn't time go by fast when you're enjoying yourself? Seems I blinked and another eleven days have rolled by since my previous post. So what have I been up to? Not a lot really. The final draft of Truthseeker has come under the spotlight again and I've set myself the task of reviewing one chapter each day starting on the 1st February. I'll post a piece about any issues I found after the 24th. The first draft of Secret of Heathcote Manor was due for completion at the end of last year, but I fell well short of achieving my target. Hopefully I'll get it done during 2017. The audience for this blog continues to rise with readers spread across 40 countries. I wish I could say the same about views of my material on Wattpad which haven't shown any improvement at all. Visibility seems to be the issue with only the most recently posted content standing any chance of getting noticed.

It's been a while since I posted anything so I thought it might be a good idea to write a few lines. Truthseeker is almost ready to go to print, but I still harbour a few niggling doubts about it. What I really need are a few Beta readers to offer their opinions. No recent views of my book trailer which can be found as the pinned tweet on my twitter page @DavidWeller06. Please take a look and let me know what you think. I tried posting  the first couple of chapters on Wattpad as a series of short daily extracts. Despite getting 133 views I wasn't that impressed with the exposure it was getting and stopped posting after 13 days. Low and behold  so did the views. You can find my material by searching for either TRUTHSEEKER or davidweller06 on the Wattpad search engine. If I see the view counter start to climb I'll post some more material.

I started this blog on 22 October 2014 to chart the progress of a novel from first draft through to publication. In the beginning my focus was firmly on the editorial process and highlighted things I'd learned along the way. More recently it has been about showcasing my work in the hope of eliciting some useful feedback. Sadly, I failed in this particular endeavour and so I have withdrawn the content. I'm able to see from my dashboard that each and every new post is read by a small number of readers living in the USA, UK, Germany, France, Portugal and Russia. I don't know who any of you are, but I'm grateful for your continued support. As 2017 gets under way I'm at a loss as to what to focus my attention on now, but I'm sure I will come up with something.