Creative Aging: How to Polish and Publish Your Writing

It is perfectly okay to write garbage, as long as you edit brilliantly." —C. J. Cherryh, American writer

Photo by Ahmad Mohammadnejad on Unsplash

The third article in a three-part newsletter series about writing your memories

See first article

See second article

In the last column, when we looked at how to start writing your memories, space limits did not allow for one final tip: form a writing group. There are different kinds of writing groups. The group I belong to has four to six members. We meet every two weeks. Then, on the alternate week we email our submissions to the other members of the group. Group accountability is a great way to motivate writing and to improve it.

Useful feedback to give each other is “movies of your mind.” Tell the writer what happens inside of you at different points in the writing:

-“I was sad here.”

-“I was confused here.”

-“I could/couldn’t picture this scene.”

-“I wanted to know more here.”

-etc.

The readers do not tell the writer how to fix the writing; they simply tell the writer what their responses are and the writer then makes decisions about how to improve the writing.

In editing your work, it is good to move from the big picture to the details. Questions to ask yourself are: Is this in the order I want it? Does it have an interesting beginning? Are there places I need to add more information? Are there places where it gets bogged down in the details? Did I use vivid and specific words? Are there words that are not needed? Does it have a sense of ending or just trail off?

The last part of editing (and the one people often make the mistake of starting with) is to check the grammar and punctuation. If you understand grammar and punctuation, read your work aloud slowly to check for errors. You can also use the spelling and grammar check functions of your word processing program, or find an online program to help you with this. If your grammar and punctuation skills are weak, ask someone with these skills to proofread it for you.

Note: the above description of editing is short, but editing is time consuming. Editing often takes me more than twice the amount of time required to create a first draft.

Once you have polished your writing you are ready to publish—but that doesn’t necessarily mean publishing it as an actual book.

Even if you never polish your rough drafts, your notebooks of those drafts will still have value for your descendants. After my mother died, we found some of her notebooks in which she had handwritten her thoughts and memories, and we appreciated the insights these records provided for us.

If you have edited and polished your drafts, you can assemble your pages in a three-ring binder. If you want more than one copy, you can photocopy the pages and make as many binders as you wish.

As an alternative, you can have your pages photocopied and spiral bound by a local printer for a very modest fee. I did this with a book of my poems that I wanted to make available for descendants.

If you have your heart set on a bound book, you have several choices. The least expensive choice is to go online to Kindle Direct Publishing and do the technical work of laying it out in book format, creating a cover, and uploading it—at no cost. You can then purchase copies of the book from Amazon at a reasonable cost. Although this is free, it takes a fair amount of labor and learning. Kindle Direct Publishing provides step-by-step instructions for creating the book and cover, but some technical skills are required to follow the instructions. My husband and I both followed this route when we published our memoirs, “Child of the Plains” and “Looking Back,” both available on Amazon.

You can also take your electronic files to a printer for cover design, layout, and printing and ask for a price quote for creating the number of copies you would like. A student from one of my memoir writing classes chose this route, and it cost her $1000 for thirty or so paperback copies of her book.

Finally, you can take your electronic files to a company that helps people self-publish their books and ask for a price quote for the range of services you want, such as editing, proofreading, cover design, layout, and printing. (Beware of companies who lure customers by promising them the riches of launching a best seller. Best sellers are almost impossible to achieve.) One Pella-based company that provides these services without promising a best seller is The Write Place. Using this kind of service will cost several thousand dollars, and is dependent on the size of your book and the range of services you request.

There are lots of choices about the form in which you share your manuscript. The choice is, of course, yours.

Adapted from Creative Aging by Carol Van Klompenburg, published 2023, available from Amazon and for Pella-area residents at Pella Books, the Curiosity Shop, or directly from Carol. Carol has an MA in theater arts and is available for reading performances of her writing on aging, moments in her gardens, memories, and other topics.