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Ksenia Anske

August 21, 2017

The beta reading process: 10 critical steps

by Ksenia Anske


Illustration by Sara Herranz

Illustration by Sara Herranz

Illustration by Sara Herranz

Illustration by Sara Herranz

I'm starting to get beta feedback on the last draft of TUBE (just in time, before I plunge into final revisions in September), and since I shared some of it, many of you have asked about my beta reading process: how I do it, how many beta readers I have, what I send them, in what format, what I ask for in return, etc.

I dug around in my blog archives and found not one, not two, but four posts on the same topic. One from 2012, on luring beta readers with cookies. Two from 2013, on connecting with beta readers and on adapting their feedback. And one from 2015, on 10 things to know about beta readers.

I think it's time for an updated post, since it's 2017 and my process has improved. So here goes.

1. Finding beta readers.

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TAGS: beta reading, process, how to, okay I still suck at tags, gotta up my game, soon


October 21, 2016

The divine force for writers

by Ksenia Anske


Illustration by Todd Slater

Illustration by Todd Slater

Illustration by Todd Slater

Illustration by Todd Slater

There must be some kind of a divine force out there for writers. I have gotten to the point in my draft where the timing was wrong, and I didn’t know how to fix it. The train route my characters take requires an additional 12 hours of travel, and according to my scenes it’s too much, I must end the ride in order to continue the story according to the plot. And what do you know. I go research the route, and turns out I got it wrong! It’s too long. It’s the old route of the Moscow-Simferopol train that went around Ukraine back in the old Soviet times, and that was later replaced by a faster route that cut through Ukraine and took one day less to travel, but then at the end of Perestroika it was returned to the old route again, to avoid Ukraine and go around due to the conflict. TUBE is happening in 1989, and this smack in the time when the last Moscow-Simferopol trains were going through Ukraine (I’m not entirely sure, as the sources don’t say the exact year when the route was changed, but it’s close enough), and so guess what that does? Cuts my route my about a day, so 12 hours gone! Wow! I’ve got shivers here. Really, this is crazy. It’s like this book wants to happen. Like all those drafts I wrote and discarded before were just not the right story, and this is the right one. It’s so right, it’s telling itself. It’s helping me. I’m speechless.

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TAGS: The bear is my spirit animal, I think, though I'm not even sure, what a spirit animal is, but it's a bear, I am a bear, hear me roar, Fear me!, I'm taking over the universe, soon, you're invited to a party, of course, as always