Editing, Scrivener 3 and some podcasts
Once again, we return. (yes, I’m re-reading The Wicked + The Divine)
Housekeeping
First up: I’ve switched over from Mailchimp to Substack. It doesn’t have any practical differences for you and you don’t need to do anything, but I thought mentioning it up-front was probably a good idea. As always, you can unsubscribe at any time using a link down below. I’ll be continuing to send out a mix of writing tips, useful links and updates about my work.
Editing and Scrivener 3
It has been a busy month. In March I found out about a decent and unusual opportunity to pitch a story to a publisher, which required me diving into a rapid edit of No Adults Allowed. Fortunately it’s a short book at about 60k words, so editing it to such a tight deadline was possible. You can still read the original version on Wattpad for free, of course, but I’m hoping this revised version will end up being published in some form soon.
Meanwhile, I wrote a short piece on using Scrivener 3 for the editing process. If you’re about to embark on an edit, or haven’t yet made the switch to Scrivener, do give it a read.
UEA New Forms Awards
What else? I was on the judging panel for the UEA New Forms Award, part of the National Centre for Writing’s Early Career Awards. I’d never done anything like it before which made for a very exciting reading session and discussion with Henry Sutton and Yan Ge. The shortlist and winner of this award will be announced in June, alongside the Desmong Elliott Prize and Laura Kinsella Fellowship. Honoured to be a part of the process!
Free podcasts!
Talking of NCW, I’ve produced some AMAZING podcasts recently. I feel I can boast about that because it’s less to do with me and far more to do with the incredible calibre of writers we get on the show. Here’s a sample:
Neill Cameron talks MEGA ROBO BROS and writing comics for kids
Fascinating chat with Thomas McMullan about his excellent book THE LAST GOOD MAN
Writing HADES with Greg Kasavin (still can’t believe I got to do this)
Lots more to come, including an interview with a writer that has been a huge influence on my own writing over the years. Don’t want to mention it yet in case I jinx it. Stay tuned.
I’m also gearing up to launch my next serialised novel. It’ll go out on Wattpad for free, as usual, and I’m also looking into an optional pay-what-you-want early access model for newsletter subscribers. More on that soon.
Finally, let me know what you’ve been working on. I’d love to know more about who is on this list!
Thanks, as always.
Simon K Jones