Nicole Murphy shares with us her experiences and insights while editing In Fabula-divino.
I love editing. I’d not edited for a number of years (since The Outcast and Issue 25 of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, which means I’ve actually edited FIVE of the RoRians) and I missed it.
This was the impetus behind In Fabula-divino (a very loose translation from Latin of The Tale-tellers – don’t tell my high school Latin teacher how bad it is).
I’d sold my trilogy to HarperCollins and was anticipating a bright, shining career as an author. However, I didn’t want that mean that I never edited again.
What I came up with was a bold plan – I’d take one story a month from an up-and-coming writer, work them like crazy through an approximation of the editing process at a major publishing house, then publish them: first online and at the end of the year, in an anthology. During the month they worked with me they’d also be able to use me as a mentoring resource, firing questions at me about the industry and how it worked in the hopes they’d avoid the mistakes I’ve made.
Oh – and I’d pay them a professional pay rate.
I had a dream of this being a project that continued for years, with the sales of the end-of-year anthologies funding the continuation. Unfortunately, life decided that wasn’t to be and the project ended with just eight stories published.
I’ve gone ahead and published the anthology anyway – for some of these writers, it will be the first time they ever see their words in print, and that’s something every writer should get to experience.
Even though it hasn’t turned out the way I wanted it to, I’ve loved the process and should ‘life’ change its mind, I want to do it again and here’s why:
- Working on story at this level sharpens your own understanding of story. My insights into things such as backstory and characterisation have deepened a great deal, and this has helped my own writing
- Authors are very cool people to work with. They come from such diverse backgrounds, and with differing interests and styles. In In Fabula-divino for example, the eight authors include a retiree from Alaska, a pastor from Sydney and a high school student from Wollongong. It broadens my own horizons and experience, which is always a good thing for a writer
- There’s so many myths out there about writing, and what’s required to be a successful writer. It’s great to have the one-on-one opportunity to debunk these. Every writer I save from ignorance is a good thing
- I get as much – if not more satisfaction – from the successes of others than I do my own. Publishing people, giving them their first story credit, seeing them get great reviews and feedback – that makes me very happy
- I get to create very pretty books. The In Fabula-divino anthology has just 12 stories in it (I convinced four fabulous friends to contribute as well) and the amazing Shauna O’Meara did the art, while Jodi Cleghorn from eMergent Publishing joined as publishing partner. The result is a lovely little book that I’m very proud of
In the meantime, I’ll try not to get too antsy about the fact I’m taking another break from editing…
Nicole Murphy is a writer and editor whose latest editing project was the mentoring/publishing scheme In Fabula-divino. The anthology has been released and is available at Amazon and Smashwords (print version coming soon). For more information visit http://thetaletellers.wordpress.com
