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Into the Breach
Good afternoon, gentle viewers, and a Happy Halloween to you! Or a joyous Samhain, if that’s how you roll. Or you know, Dia de los Muertos is tomorrow, I reckon. Holiday season is in full swing! And I have the tea to prove it. Nom nom nom.
Twelve short hours before NaNo begins. I looked around for a midnight write-in, but the closest one to me was downtown D.C. (snore), and I’m not driving over an hour to hang out in a Starbucks at midnight. It does look like there are some serious NaNo events throughout the month in Maryland, though, so I should be able to find something. In fact, I am going to a write-in on Thursday because it’s close and my day off. Woohoo!
Apart from my NaNoRebels challenge goals (1,500 words a day, an hour or more a week refueling), I’ve set a few goals for myself for the month. Here they are!
1. Finish the first draft of book two (almost there!). This is so that when I pitch to agents in January, I will not only have one bright and shiny work to show them, but two! That’s right, people. For the low price of ink on paper, you get two — count ‘em — two finished works! If this woman can write two, she can probably write more.
Salesman Jesus wants you to publish my books.
2. Get a start on book three for the same reasons as Goal #1, if you change “two” to “three.”
3. Behind Goal #3, we have one last little thing to say on my goals! While in general the idea for NaNoWriMo is quantity and not so much quality, my personal goal is to write lucid and cohesive work this month. I don’t want to have to spend another month making it readable when I go back and edit.
Anyhoo. I wrote almost 3,000 words yesterday, finally pushing book two forward in plot and action. That’s a huzzah moment. I also went back and read it and liked what I had, even though I wrote it with my pink earbuds glued to my ears rocking Daft Punk at 3 a.m.
Right now I’m at about 87,000 words, which should be right on track for the end to be at around 120,000 for the first draft. It’s long, but I wanted hefty books. They’re supposed to be chronicles, for FSM’s sake, so it makes sense that they wouldn’t be 250-pagers.
The fun thing about this trilogy is writing different characters who are also different species. The first protagonist was a seer and a shapeshifter (she’s still around), and the second is a witch who was forcibly turned into a vampire against her will. That gives me some fun things to work with and to explore the magic of the world a lot more in the second book rather than having to look at it solely from an observer’s point of view. Anna gets to be actively involved in the magic aspects of things.
My chunk from last night also introduced a new character who will be awesome. He is going to be tricky to write for a lot of different reasons (not the least of which that he is completely batshit insane), but he’s got a lot to offer the story and the other characters. Plus, I got to hear him say, “Here, kitty, kitty, kitty” to Sarah. Ha. She deserved that.
It’s Halloween time, gentle viewers! Get your spook on!
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Roadwork
In Montana, people joke that there are four seasons: Almost Winter, Winter, Still Winter, and Construction. In the summers, those dreaded bright orange cones make their appearances all over the state. Everyone learns to keep an anxious lookout for the color orange when they drive, because they know the color signifies delays, bumps, and possibly a few hours of banging your head against the steering wheel until your horn honks in time with the music on your radio.
My novel right now is surrounded by the color orange. Parts of it have more than others. For instance, the beginning is mostly smooth sailing. Maybe one lane is closed, but traffic manages to move along right around the posted speed limit. In other parts, it’s down to one lane with a flagger who has to direct you through.
Most of that is taking care of itself with the rewrite, and at the end of all of it, I’ll set up the final cones to re-tar and pave the way until it’s smooth and an easy drive from beginning to end. Before that can happen though, I have some plot holes to fill. There aren’t too many, and some of the few I’ve spotted don’t even have relevance to the first book in the trilogy, but one I noticed yesterday was deeper than the others. Luckily, it proved to be a quick fix that actually served to both further the story and develop three different characters — two protagonists and one antagonist — a wee bit better. Goody!
I’m of a mind with several prominent authors who are in the camp against plotting. I have never plotted a story in the sense of saying “this is going to happen, and then my character is going to do this, and then something will happen to her that will make her do this, which will bring the book to a climax and then I’ll resolve it with this.” If that’s how you write, kudos to you, because you probably feel more in control of the situation.
My lovely Great Dane of a muse is the one who normally takes care of where the story goes. He bursts into a gallop off toward that new smell or the Pomeranian down the block and I just hang on for dear life. My switchboard operator hooks me up with the characters and they tell me what they’re like as the Great Dane drags me through the story. The old granny with her butter cookies and tea? She adds the texture, the grit. She coughs in her gravelly voice and wipes crumbs from her jean jacket as she shows me which details form the picture best.
The road through the story gets laid wherever the Great Dane decides to go, and it evolves from gravel into asphalt into expressway because of the others. During the revision process, I think I expected that goofy shapeshifting muse of mine to be more silent than during the gravel road stage, but instead she’s been all over the place, sniffing about or blinking owlishly through those Mason jar spectacles.
The muse is there just as much through the revision as through the birthing stage — and as crazy as he is (or she, depending), I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Gotta go now, gentle viewers. The Great Dane is tugging me toward that mountain pass, and he sees something exciting up ahead.
Character Torture
To branch off from the topic of the Big Bads that infest our stories, “character torture” is a phrase I’ve heard many times to describe the misfortunes that befall our characters. Writing them feels like torture sometimes. It’s a fine line to walk — while conflict is central to a good story, if you over do it, readers will detach from the story and refuse to connect with the characters. You have to make the conflict painful enough to evoke a reaction both in your characters and in readers without crossing that line of the suspension of disbelief or alienating readers to the point that they can no longer trust you as a narrator.
I stopped reading a prominent series of historical fiction for that very reason. The main character went through so much in the six books — torture, rape, broken bones, sheer terror over and over again — that finally after one more capture, I snapped. I couldn’t do it anymore. I loved that character and her husband, and it was just too much for me to keep seeing her get beaten into a pulp. I was invested in the character and the series, but I put it down four years ago and haven’t picked it up again. The same thing happened with a fantasy series I was reading — after they killed off half the point of view characters in by the third book, I couldn’t make myself keep reading because I couldn’t let myself get attached to characters I thought were going to arbitrarily get the axe within a few chapters.
If you write fiction that involves bloodsucking vampires (as opposed to the fluffy kitten sort of vampires), or shapeshifters that have to eat internal organs to survive, or witches who can’t be killed except for burning, beheading or dismembering — there’s going to be some violence. Your main character will probably not escape that violence, and mine certainly doesn’t. However, that doesn’t mean I’m going to have her captured, hog tied, and tortured every chapter. I try not to make my character torture gratuitous; it has to serve a purpose for her development and the furthering of the plot. Not one or the other. Both. I think the pitfall the aforementioned historical fiction series fell into was that the series had gotten so long (each book is around a thousand pages, and at the time there were six of them) that the author ran out of other ways to steer the plot. And after six thousand pages, her character had been to hell, chopped into handbasket sized chunks, and sent back in the basket. If you have to torture your character to squeeze another book out of a series that could be wrapped up, you should probably find a new idea to write a book about. A new character to torture who isn’t already covered in scars from your writing.
Like I said, it’s a fine line to walk. Especially in the supernatural genres where the bad guys want your characters dead. But it can be done masterfully so that you love the characters and know they’ll pick themselves back up and come back with more fortitude the next time they’re tested. That’s the tightrope I’m walking with this second draft. Let’s see if I make it to the other side.
Less than 100 pages left to polish up. I also fixed my prologue issue and closed a couple plot holes. Not a bad week’s work so far. Bring it on, gorse bush.
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Late Night Rewrite
At long last, a rewarding post appears. Due to an ill-timed evening nap of three hours in duration, I found myself wide awake around the witching hour. After watching Face/Off and walking the dog we are sitting, I settled down at my trusty iBook dinosaur to work on revising the first draft of my novel. I got a solid twenty pages or so done. What that accomplished is more than just rewriting — I recently rewrote the beginning in its entirety, and today I got the new bit woven into the original, ironing out that seam a bit. It flows the way I wanted it to. I might need some cutting done, because it’s a little exposition-heavy, but that can wait. Because you know what?
HUZZAH!
I got something done!
Do you have any idea how good that feels, gentle viewers? I’ll give you a clue. AWESOME.
My character is getting where I want her. The tone is closer to what I was trying to achieve. There’s some quirk and some wit, and some grit. I smoothed out a few bumps. Filled in a few holes. All in all, I am tremendously happy with what transpired this evening. It may be almost 4:30 a.m., but by golly, I feel accomplished. If I can keep this up (When! When, Emmie!), I should be on track to start officially agent fishing this fall. Trundling right along. Thank you, gorse bush in the bum.
It doesn’t hurt that my day job (night job?) is slinging beers at a brewery, and it has been painfully slow lately. The money has not been seeking me out much. July and August are our slowest months of the year, and I’ve been feeling it. My bank is broke. As Louis C.K. says, “I’m so broke that if it’s free I can’t afford it.” Nothing like financial trouble to start pushing you in the right direction for your dreams. I will make writing my career, dang nab it.
Cheers to a night where I got some work done. Today was a progress-laden day. Hour and a half workout, finished reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and tackled my second draft with renewed vigor. I think this calls for a second HUZZAH!
Aaaaaaugh! End of Year Stress!
So much for that peaceful sail on the coast. More like plunging through a raging river of death. Okay, slightly melodramatic there, but a little melodrama never hurt anyone.
My poor WordPress bloggity. I’ve been neglecting you. My sincerest apologies. I’ve been rather sick. And busy with that whole raging river of death thing. The silver lining is that all of this junque is almost over, and I shall be free to flit about as I see fit.
This week has been not so good for actually producing anything, but I did go to my writing group on Monday and got some really helpful and awesome feedback on the chapter I submitted. I am going to use their suggestions for fixing my chapter. They also asked me to post more, which, as I’ve already discussed, is the highest compliment anyone can give to a writer. So much work to do…egad, Brain.
I’m hoping — possibly in vain — to get more done this weekend. However, my boyo’s dad is in town, so that may not happen. But who knows? We shall see…
Love and kisses.
When You Think You’re Done, You’re Just Getting Started
Oh, Rewrites. You are like that cat that kept coming back the very next day. Just when I think you’re gone and I’m done with you, I hear you meowing. Sure, you look cute and cuddly. You might even purr as you’re drooling on my shoulder and digging your little retractable razors into my flesh. But you see, you won’t go away.
It’s only after a very long time spent with you that I realize that you’re actually one of my most valuable friends. While my first draft may seem like a shining achievement — and don’t get me wrong; it is — it’s like a kid building her first tower of blocks. An accomplishment to be sure, but not quite the Empire State Building. To get to that level, it takes a lot more practice. And math classes. That too.
I’m getting to the end of my first draft of my second novel, and that means that I’m starting to hear little mewling sounds at my front door. The sounds of the Rewrite Cat come to tell me that it’s time to go back to Primeval and fix it. I used to approach rewriting with a huge sense of trepidation. Even a little anxiety. I thought that if I had to rewrite and revise, it meant that I wasn’t a good writer. Silly, silly, amateur me. No matter how good a first draft is, it can always get better, which is the point of revision.
In contemplation of this little kitty peering through my windows now, snaking her tail along the borders between window panes, it’s clear that she just wants the best for my story. She wants to make sure that everything is told the way it will resonate with readers best. I have said this before, but I’ll say it again: a vomit draft is when we tell our story to ourselves. In a vomit draft, we can spew out all the back story and little random details because it’s important that we know that when we move forward. When we polish it up, though, we choose the most economical route between points A and B. We want our readers to grab the rope, jump off the ledge, and swing right to the other side without getting hit in the face with tree branches. If they’re going to take a risk on our book, we need them to want to grab the rope.
I know my first draft of Primeval has its issues. There are a lot of things I want to tighten up, streamline. Some things I need to flesh out a bit more. So as soon as I finish my first draft of Elemental, I will let this scratching little kitty in, pet her a bit, and give her a bowl of cream that she can get in her whiskers. She’s going to be my constant companion until this story gleams like a stone straight out of the tumbler.
In Pursuit of Happiness
According to the preamble to the Constitution of the good old U.S. of A., this is one of those little inalienable rights that we are endowed with as human beens. And it’s this particular right that I am in the process of taking out for a spin.
I know that it doesn’t guarantee happiness, but if the right to pursue it is there, that’s good enough for me. (Random thought: how is it possible to guarantee this?)
What this means for me is that I am going to chase this little fledgling (actually full-fledged) dream of writing for a living. I don’t say “being a writer” because I am one of those — I just don’t get paid for it. Unless I am a horrible person and write at work when I should be doing other things…ahem.
Today I was thinking about my story. And the stories of others. There is a quote that says a story is life with the dull parts taken out. I don’t know if that’s entirely true, seeing as how plenty of stories have dull bits in them — and the idea of what is dull is subjective. However, I will say that I think a story has to be told as though it’s unfolding in front of you. Some authors manage to make it work in other ways, like telling it through letters or through dialogue — I’ve seen that work effectively in the past — but most of the time it needs to just play.
Even though 99% of novels are written in past tense, when they’re written well, it’s like you’re in the same room with the characters. You can smell their sweat and feel the shivers. If it’s told like you would tell a friend what you did yesterday, it won’t keep my attention. It lacks the flow, the tide that sucks you in. Such a flow is not something that is easy to accomplish, especially in a vomit draft.
A lot of times, when we write, we have a concept in our head and we write it down the way it makes sense to us. It’s in the editing process where we go in with a scalpel and cut into it until it makes sense to others. The best writing makes readers forget they’re reading — and this holds true with non-fiction as well as fiction.
This post is really not cohesive. For that, gentle viewers, I apologize.
Here’s a brief update on my writing progress before I attempt to cajole my body into sleeping:
(Ooh! “Sleeping” put me at exactly 500 words so far! How exciting.)
Today one of my characters got blown up. I kind of think she deserved it. She’s been in a snit this entire book. Regardless, I feel bad for her. She has a lot going on in her noggin. I just wish she’d stop acting like a 12-year-old hormone bomb and more like the badass lion she is. Seriously.
I am making some good progress. Elemental looks like it will wind up being about 100,000-120,000 words, which is right where I want/expect it to be. Primeval will probably get trimmed a bit, but its successor might be able to get away with being a bit longer. Right now I’m at roughly 85,000. I did the math on Primeval yesterday and found that as is, it’s about 440 book pages if you count it out assuming around 250 per page. That’s the length I’m going for. I’m not Jo Rowling…yet.
To round out this meandering sort of post, I just stumbled across a rather perfect metaphor thanks to a friend who posted a picture of a little dark cloud against an overcast sky. It reminded me very much of Winnie-the-Pooh, who decided one day to disguise himself as a little black rain cloud in his pursuit of honey, which happened to be at the top of a tall tree. He did so by rolling in some very black mud and holding tight to a balloon, hoping that the bees would not think he was threatening their livelihood.
Whilst floating above the earth, Pooh sang, “Oh, I’m just a little black rain cloud!” (The full lyrics to which can be found here) Needless to say, the bees were not fooled by this endeavor, and Pooh swiftly found himself plunging rear-end first into a gorse bush.
The moral of this story is this: We have the freedom to pursue our honey by whatever means we see fit. It may be at the top of a very tall tree, but if we’re not afraid of falling a few times and getting some gorse in our bums, we just might get there one day.
*In case you’re wondering which books these are, they are, respectively: David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series, which are phenomenal; and Daughters of Darkness, by LJ Smith, who was the woman responsible for hooking me on vampires about 15 years ago. The characters to which I’m referring here are Ce’Nedra and Mary-Lynnette.
Write Until You Can’t See Land
I am feeling the burn.
It’s a good burn. It’s a marathon sort of burn, the kind where time begins to blur to the point that you feel you’re hurtling through the space-time continuum at warp speed and you lose track of entire hours.
I started writing at 8 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time. It’s now 5:06, and I have written 19 pages. 11,341 words. I’d say this makes up for my last few days of inactivity. And I’m not done yet — I’m going to hop into the shower at 6:15 to get ready for work, and I’m going to push through until then.
I’ve written about 10% of my novel tonight. And no, I’m not on speed, or methamphetamine, nor any other kind of drug (well, some caffeine, but only in the form of tea).
I don’t even know how to express the elation I feel right now. It’s effervescent. Or possibly scrubbing bubbles. Hm.
To put it in perspective a bit, I haven’t written like this since fall of 2008. That’s over a year and a half ago. In point of fact, I don’t think I have ever written over 11,000 words in one sitting. It’s therapeutic. It’s like a cleansing fire. I feel purified.
I blame Michael Larsen. In case you don’t know who this is (which most of you probably don’t), he is an American literary agent who wrote a fabulous book, entitled How to Get a Literary Agent, which, after reading 2/3 of in the past 48 hours, I am convinced every aspiring writer must read. I was trucking along in the book tonight, thrilled beyond measure at the information therein, amused by the humor and anecdotes from his experience as a literary agent, and invigorated by the prospect of setting out on this journey when I had to put the book down and bust out my laptop. That was nine hours ago.
Will I survive teaching my class in the morning? Maybe. If all else fails, I can assign them freewrites all period (ha) while I sit comatose at my desk. I won’t do that. But I could.
Anyway. This is a hopeful day for me as a writer. I cannot wait to finish this draft of my novel and begin revision on the completed novel I already have, with the help of a good friend who is actually an editor. And I fully plan to implement every scrap of advice in Mr. Larsen’s book, so that when the rejections become pouring in, at least I’ll know each one is just a rung on the ladder to a yes.
Yep, that’s the optimistic spirit I need.
As my grandmother would say, “Oh, hordy.” It has been a long night, but a much needed one. I have been so drained this year due to a too-stressful job that makes me feel like a punching bag on a daily basis. Maybe this car accident will prove itself to be the best thing to happen to me all year. I have no doubt in my mind that I would not have typed the 11,000 words I’ve typed tonight if it hadn’t happened.
That alone might have made my busted neck worth it. Said busted neck may hurt right now, but…it’s a good burn.
Goal Fail
I haven’t been keeping up with my end of the bargain and writing 1000 words per day the last few days. Beginning Saturday, I think. So that puts me about 3,000 behind. Bugger.
I have been feeling a bit under the weather, partly due to my neck injury, but if I can manage to watch half a season of X-Files, surely I can manage to pitter-pat my fingers on a keyboard, no? I’ve been a wee bit blocked. Partly because I am overwhelmed with excitement of going back to Scotland at long last. Also because I was waiting for a couple more things with my plot to click into place, which as of now I think they have. One of my character’s motivations were a little fuzzy, but she ended up doing something that completely clears up that mess and provides a nice background for one of her future exploits — one, I might add, that I really wish she’d reconsider, even though I know she won’t.
Writing strong characters is an interesting thing. The best characters to me are the ones who bulldoze me into telling their stories, which is exactly what happened with many of the ones in this trilogy. It’s like I’m minding my own business, walking down the street one day, and suddenly I get a 2×4 to the head. I don’t really mind in all the concussion; they make my job a bit easier when I just feverishly jot down everything they say and do. They don’t even care if we get published. As long as I tell their stories, they’re more or less content.
I think every writer is just an eensy bit schizophrenic. Maybe that’s why I’m an introvert — I have enough people in my head trying to get me to write them down to deal with the rest of the world all the time.
Hush, don’t worry. I’m kidding.
Sort of.
But mostly kidding.
Friday, No Sleep for the Wicked
Or for anyone watching the nailbiter of an election they have going on in the UK, or for chronic insomniacs like myself. Then again, I’m also a wee bit wicked, so you can put me in whatever category you want.
I have written about 2.5 pages of Elemental today, which is rather pitiful. To my defense, I was on Twitter following the election. Looks like the Tories are gaining some serious ground, though they probably won’t end up with a proper majority and will be stuck with a hung parliament. I saw a lot of dismayed tweets on the subject, and I get it, but to be honest, I would trade the UK’s Tories for our Tea Party any day of the week. Trouble is, no one wants our Tea Party. I think even the moderate Republicans are disgusted with the Tea Party. Sigh. If Bush’s multitudinous mountains of fail (war, another war, economic disaster, gross incompetence, etc.) couldn’t enlighten the far right, nothing will. But I digress. This isn’t really a place for me to air my political woes. Especially not at 1 o’clock in the morning when I do actually have to show up at work tomorrow. More’s the pity.
I’m at a place in my writing where I really like the direction it’s taking, but it’s very slow going. I need to immerse myself in my world a bit and see what comes out of it.
On the up side, I have written about 3,000ish words today, keeping up my goal of at least 1,000 per day. Granted, finishing the book at that rate would take about 40 more days….wait. Actually, that doesn’t sound so bad. I would be pretty happy if I finished the first draft of Elemental by the time I go to Montana in June. Hm. Happy day.
Good night, cruel world. (Or good morning, if you are a bleary-eyed Brit dreading work after following the counters all night.) I shall attempt to sleep. Wish me luck.
