Q&A with Writer and Editor, Erin Lale
Please welcome Erin Lale to our Featured Author Q&A series at Writer’s Fun Zone. Enjoy!
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If you’d like to be considered for an interview, check out our guidelines here.
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About Erin Lale
Erin Lale has over 40 years’ experience in the publishing industry. She owned The Science Fiction Store in Las Vegas, published Berserkrgangr Magazine, has been a pro guest at WorldCon, and was contributing editor to the anthologies No Horns On These Helmets, Cassandra’s Time Yarns, Anarchy Zone Time Yarns, and Cat’s Cradle Time Yarns. She was a frequent contributor to Perihelion Science Fiction, published the sf novel Planet of the Magi, and the Punch series, which are currently out of print, and wrote and directed the Time Yarns Universe trailer and the art film Rain Dance. Her most famous book is the out of print nonfiction book Asatru For Beginners and its new, updated version Asatru: A Beginner’s Guide to the Heathen Path. She lives in Henderson, Nevada with her sweet kitty Sweetheart.
On to Our Interview!
Q. Tell us who you are and what inspires you to write.
A. I’ve always loved sf&f and I specialize in that in both my own fiction writing and in editing. I love helping other authors bring their stories to life. I also write and edit nonfiction relating to heathenry and paganism.
Q. How did you get to this place in your life? Share your story!
A. I’m also a writer in addition to an editor. I published fiction, poetry, and nonfiction as a child and through college. After college, my degree became suddenly useless; it was in Soviet Political Analysis. So I started freelance copyediting. I published my own writing, published a magazine, owned a bookstore, edited anthologies, reviewed books, and became acquisitions editor at a genre novel publisher, which I loved. That’s where I started doing developmental fiction editing, which I now do freelance.
Q. What are you most passionate about?
A. Cats! lol. One of the short fiction anthologies of which I was contributing editor had a cat theme, and I published the nonfiction essay Cats in Science Fiction in the magazine Perihelion Science Fiction. I’ve reviewed several sf&f books with cat characters, too.
But I also love words, and the writing and editing processes. My inner self-image is of a poet. Perhaps full of the mead of inspiration? Or coffee. Pretty sure that’s actually coffee.
I really enjoy seeing writers I’ve worked with achieve success. I’m still proud that a writer I worked with at Eternal / Damnation, Rudy Garcia, won an award from the International Latino Book Awards for his speculative fiction novel, The Closet of Discarded Dreams. Another author I worked with there, Declan Finn, won a Dragon Award for his vampire novel Honor at Stake. An author I worked with as a freelancer is in the process of working out an option to film his novel that I edited; when the deal is complete I’ll be sharing his announcement on my social media. I love having a part in their success.
Q. Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process, routine, and/or rituals around your writing?
A. My fiction and poetry writing is often inspired and driven, but editing and nonfiction writing are usually things I just do. When I have a block of relatively uninterrupted time, if I have an editing project to work on, I set a water or coffee at my desk and I just sit down at the computer and go. I say relatively uninterrupted because if I can I’ll pause for the paws. When the kitty wants attention he usually gets it.
Q. What are a few challenges you faced in creating, marketing, or publishing your creative work? And your solutions to them.
A. Just talking about the freelance editing, it’s sometimes a challenge to get the word out to new potential customers. I post on social media when I have editing slots available. I joined the I Need a Book Editor group on Facebook to see posts from writers seeking book editors, but it hasn’t brought me much. There are usually dozens of editors responding to each writer post, and most of the projects available there are not in my specialty area. So far most of my freelance editing customers are writers I worked with when I was corporate. I would really like to expand my client list beyond writers who published with Eternal / Damnation, and I’m hoping that doing this interview here on Writer’s Fun Zone might bring me to a new group of writers.
Q. What do you wish you had known before you started writing fiction?
A. Oh… here I’m going to combine my life as a writer and my life as an editor and tell you that being an acquisitions editor changed the way I write fiction. When I was acquiring novels for publication, I had to think about what an editor could fix about a manuscript that needed work, especially at the stage of developmental editing. I realized that the one thing that is hardest to fix is a weak plot. When I write my own fiction, I used to start with characters talking in my head and I would just start writing their dialog and string the plot together later. After I worked as the acquisitions editor at Eternal Press and Damnation Books for 5 years, I started outlining a plot before starting to write a new story.
Q. What’s next for you in your creative work?
A. My next scheduled editing project is going to be book 3 in a series involving paranormal and urban fantasy elements and a mystery plot. I edited the first two books in the series.
After that, I hope I’ll be working on a new project from one of you.
Q. Some editors do sample edits. Do you do sample edits for prospective clients?
A. I could do a small amount of copyediting, but if someone is getting developmental editing there is really limited stuff I could do without reading the whole book. I don’t do free samples, but I would not mind doing a 1-page or 1-chapter copyedit if that’s what someone wants to buy first. I would apply the price of the sample to the full book if they decide to go ahead, so they don’t end up paying twice for the same thing.
If someone really wants to try a sample of developmental editing I could check the first chapter to see if it has Prologue Syndrome / First Chapter Syndrome. I could see if it has a story hook, if it introduces the main character sufficiently, if it starts with action or otherwise shows how exciting the rest of the book will be, and if it has any obvious problems out of the gate. But I would not be able to check any structural elements without reading the whole book.
Q. Who is your favorite author?
A, My favorite living author is Lois McMaster Bujold. I enjoy both her science fiction and her fantasy novels and short stories. There will always be a special place in my heart for Tolkien, but as far as influence goes, his biggest influence on my own writing and on the advice I give authors is about world-building. His actual writing style is too archaic to be applied to authors today, unless they’re trying to write in a deliberately old-fashioned manner.
Q. How do you work with clients, specifically do you meet with them over phone or video?
A. I could do phone or video calls but I usually don’t. I usually just use email. That’s pretty much an industry standard. When I was acquisitions editor of Eternal Press and Damnation Books I communicated with authors and potential authors by email and social media messenger. I communicated with my boss only by email. Since writing and editing are text-based activities, the publishing industry tends to attract people who are most comfortable writing rather than talking out loud.
Q. What are some things your past clients have said about working together?
A. I have a couple of examples on the editing page on my website. The quotes appear in the photo on the top of the screen, and they are part of the autographs in books authors spontaneously have mailed me as gifts. Those are both books I worked on as a freelance editor. One quote is, “With love and appreciation for all your support,” from Susannah MacDonald, on a copy of Echoes from a Time Passage, a science fiction novel. The other quote is “To my brilliant editor,” from Count S.A. Olson, on a copy of Demon for Hire, a supernatural detective novel.
There were several books in which I and other members of the Eternal / Damnation staff were mentioned on the dedication page, in books published while I was acquisitions editor. I didn’t keep a list of them at the time, and the company was sold and then closed years ago, so there are no longer published e-books from the company that I can link people to.
Back to talking about books I’ve edited freelance, I had a really exceptional experience with Kevin M. Smith’s boxing novel Human Chess. The author wanted my autograph on his book. He collected a bunch of autographs of various people that had something to do with his novel, including various famous boxing figures. It was pretty exciting to be asked to sign on the same page as them!
Q. Is there anything else you wished I’d asked? Please share!
A. Here’s a link to my previous appearance on this site, where I talked about my book How to Turn Your Fan Fiction into a Novel. This appeared when the Thor movie was in theaters and the article talks specifically about turning a Thor Marvel fanfic into a Thor mythology original story via changing the world-building to reflect mythology.
About Erin Lale’s Editing Services
My Full Editing services include both developmental editing and copyediting. My fee includes a second pass through the manuscript after the author has made changes suggested in the developmental editing.
Connect with Erin Lale
Site Link https://www.erinlaleauthor.com/editor.html
Twitter https://twitter.com/erinlale
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/erin.lale
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinlale
