Yay, I don't have to spam to get an agent!

I got a huge boost out of the meeting, especially a fresh burst of enthusiasm (she said, using cliche's to describe her experience.)  My favorite was the caution about sending out too many queries at once, because you may get feedback from the rejections that will change your query.  Four or five a month makes so much more sense to me, not only because of the feedback thing but because frankly, I don't think I could put together a large number of queries without making them the equivalent of spam--generic, annoying advertising with the appropriate or sometimes inappropriate names pasted in.    

This put a certain self-published author's experience into crystalline perspective.  She said that she sent out 295 queries to agents and got back nothing.  Well, if she'd sent out that many in a very short time, they couldn't possibly all follow individual submission guidelines, or even have had anything but the right email address on them.  

I think I'm bad in the exact opposite way. I've been wrestling with my first query since December was in the single digit days.  It's now December 17th and I still don't have it put together.  Total length?  Probably around 200 words, maybe less, including a bio.  I should be faster than this, but I'm cutting myself a little slack because it's my first one.  Hopefully each one will be easier to write, and I'll have things to cut and paste as I progress--teasers, full length synopses (thank you internet for finally providing me with a plural of synopsis, assuming it's correct,) bios of various lengths, a website that's professional enough in appearance that I won't be embarrassed to include a link, etc.  

Agent queries aside, I got a huge amount of help for my ailing website (thank you Steve, you're a god!) and great support from my fellow INKers and a sense that yes, this is possible.  I can become a published author.  And Jay, you're beautiful.  Thanks for everything.  See you at Radcon!

INK Meeting Report

What an encouraging meeting we had last night. Jay Lake was kind enough to share his time with us and we plied him with many questions about writing and publishing. Carole did a wonderful job working up a list of question beforehand and keeping us on track since we had a time constraint. I believe we covered all the questions we had put together before settling in for picture-taking and book-signing.

The other INKers can chime in on what they found the most helpful among Jay's many useful comments and observations on the craft. For my part, I was heartened by his adapting his writing methods as he evolves as a writer so that he continues to grow as a writer, because he has already achieved what all of us in the group aspire towards: publication. It was just another reminder that publication is not a finish line. I was also encouraged to finish my works-in-progress before I start new projects, having now limited how many I'm working on at a time. Much of what Jay said reinforced the hard-won knowledge I'm taking out of this year's attempts at learning my writing habits.

Jay, Kami, Steve, and Carissa (photo by C.S.)

Kami and Jay discuss books while Carissa looks on (photo by C.S.)

After Jay's departure, we gathered in the library (our usual meeting hang out) to continue the discussion of writing, specifically what we learned during the past year, which Carole so aptly described as a the year of growing pains. We are coming out of this year of growth with fresh perspectives and a new dedication not only to INK but to our individual careers. And I believe every one of us is now focused on the idea that writing is our career.

Close to midnight, we all made the choice to submit a short story to each quarterly contest held by Writers of the Future. It started with our goading Carole to submit one of her pieces and somehow turned into a "hey, we should all do that" sort of decision that is typically for us. So for the next two weeks we will all be in the stages of completing, revising, and polishing a short story. It will be fun to see what story each of us submits.

We also have updated our pictures for the blog (re: side bar), added some new material, and are all now accounted for here (welcome at last, Steve!).

In all, it was a motivating, encouraging, and energizing meeting even beyond what our normal get togethers produce. Jay's contribution to the successful meeting cannot be emphasized enough and we are so thankful he spent the time with us.

*Agenda items completed from the previous meeting: updates on the blog, group e-mail created, business cards ordered and distributed, meeting reminder e-mails engaged, yearly goals spelled out.

*Up next on our meeting agenda: the group submissions to WotF, submissions for the next meeting, building a FAQ for the group, and an invitation to a possible new member.

Absolution

The wonderful Kelly McCullough over at Wyrdsmiths has given a blanket absolution to anyone gnawing the fingernails of guilt over unfinished projects. I really needed to read that today, since I have been struggling with my decision to shelve the newer projects that weren't working for me.

Now that the guilt is behind me, I can channel all that energy into completing my newest short story. "The Wrong Side" is going very well. I have 11 pages on it now and I know where it's going to end up, which is a good feeling. I'm leaving the ending open in my head, so if any more surprises come up, I can let the story follow them without wrecking the mystery of it. It's rather fun not knowing myself who exactly 'did it.'

It's a murder mystery, btw. Guess I should have mentioned that.

I also spent some time this morning editing "Purgatory," an older short story in desperate need of a new title. I have several title ideas.

It's an odd story because I feel like it works just like I want it to, but I have the feeling that my fellow INKers will pick it apart. I'm curious to see how it will hold up under a critique and if my opinion about the story will change, but right now, I rather feel like I'm almost ready to send it out. I just need to know if the ending works like I want it too. Might be too vague. It will most likely be my first submission of the new year for INK to critique.

And I might just start research a market for it. I have no idea exactly where I might send it, because it isn't a genre piece. That will involve more research, but also a couple trips to the bookstores to check out some of the literary journals. Might be right for one of those. I honestly can't say at this point, but I'm curious to find out.

It would be a riot if this was the first short story I managed to publish in a professional market. My one non-genre piece. Not that I'd be disappointed. Oh goodness me no!

The Dreaded Bio

I've been struggling with my bio.  Part of the issue is that some of the things that have influenced my writing are things I did only for a short time--five years or less--and haven't kept up with, and none of them are formally recognized by orgs or institutions that I can point at and say see, they know me.

Paragliding--This is an expensive hobby that I played with for several glorious months with Rory.  I think I went on only one class/play day without him, and that was one of the high altitude flights I took to deepen my certification.  Any time I talk about a character or creature flying, I draw from my experiences in paragliding.  Sometimes it gets in my way, like when I mention rotors and experience frustration that hardly anyone in my audience will know what I'm talking about.  The sensations of flight as well as learning how to read something invisible by a combination of touch and indirect observation and educated guesswork has opened the world of flight to me.  The stories I heard from our instructor also influence my writing.  The failures, the humor, the commentary about early paragliding and the hazards of other types of unpowered flight molded my opinions about what flight is and should be.

Caving aka Spelunking--I hardly ever go, though this is one of the things I do end up doing once a year, usually.  The smells, sights (and darkness,) feel and sounds of underground, the emotional sense of earth--I wouldn't have a good grasp of it without my caving experience.  My particular experience deviates a lot from folks who tour caves because there's so much climbing and also crawling in very tight spaces as opposed to walking around on metal walkways with handrails and do not touch signs.  I learned to not touch by example and the obvious respect that my instructing spelunkers showed to the cave environment.  And to get back to the dark part--cave darkness is just so palpable, and I'm not sure anyone can identify with false sight (where your brain makes up things it thinks it sees in perfect darkness) unless they've experienced it for themselves.

Rock climbing--man I love this sport, but I haven't gone since we've moved.  What makes it even more annoying to include in a bio is that I've only gone rappelling in the big outdoors.  All my most meaningful rock climbing has been indoors.  There's something primal and kewl about holding your entire weight by your fingertips and toes, sometimes just the tips of toes.  And I love the challenge provided by overhangs.  Oh, hey, I'm ten pounds lighter now!  Maybe I can get my ass over that four foot overhang--but I digress.  When I write about climbing and exposure (height and danger) I'm remembering all my climbing happy places and also my appalling failures (I'm terrible at regular outdoor rock climbing.)  And yet, I can't call myself a rock climber.  I just did it for fun when we had that gym membership where they had a fun wall, a stretch of a mere two or three years.  We've had memberships at other places with walls, but their walls sucked (small, uncreative, too easy.)  The biggest difficulty with a small wall is that there's no place to traverse (go sideways) and so if you're alone, and you actually obey the rule where your feet can't go three feet above the floor unless you're on ropes, there's nothing to do.  In my favorite room, on the other hand, I used to do laps.  Wee!

Well, I guess I'd better go back to working on the bio.  Bleh.

Emotional 180

Inquiring minds want to know what an emotional 180 is.  I think we've mentioned this before, and Mark may remember as soon as I mention scene arch, but it bears repeating.

There are lots of ways to approach story writing.  Although I'm one of those touchy-feelie 'let the story unfold as it will' types that shrinks away from outlining, I do prefer to use technical devices as much as possible, especially when I'm doing something that's not my favorite thing, like editing.  One of my faves, and I do it mostly when editing although like Ris when I'm stuck I try to do it while writing too, is to make a 180 degree change in the scene.  

An emotional 180, therefore, would be with the pov character or the emotional tone of the scene starting out, say, sad, but by the end of the scene (or story) the character or tone is happy.  Other 180's:  You can also begin with action, and end with reflection (or sleep,) start with dreary rain and end with sunshine, start with broad narration and end with tight, focused pov or dialogue, or all visa versa.

When push comes to shove, though, even if you're playing with setting or plot when you're turning these 180's, you're making emotional impact on the characters and therefore (hopefully) with the audience.  Without changing the emotions in scenes and stories, the work ends up reading like a monotone.  

The stronger the emotional changes, the more vibrant the work is, so it's worth your while to seek the opposite whenever you can.  

If you only make it partway toward a major change, that'll do.  It never works to force something.  But often that 180 comes about naturally because of the climactic cycle.  The climax in a scene or a story is also called the turning point, and that turning point has to have major emotional impact to be effective.

Virus Non Grata

I think I caught Carole's cold through the internet. Anyway, thanks! I was missing that sore throat. But the cold ease is helping. As are my vitamins and pain meds. And lots of cold water.

Funny thing, hot drinks never have helped sore throats for me so much. But cold, as cold as I can manage, does wonders! Bring on those shakes and smoothies!

Not much has happened in writing this week, what with the cold and putting together Kate's birthday party. Except I do know the next couple of scenes for my short story and I think I know how I want to end it. I got a little stuck trying not to let it turn into a novel, then remembered the trick I've been using in my Nano novel--that emotional 180 in the scenes. I decided to apply that to the whole short story and that got me out of my stuckness. I have a bit of a theme going now, I think. I'm hoping to get a few pages written on it tomorrow and then more on Sunday. Maybe not enough to make my quota for the week, but better than nothing.

I am looking forward to Kate's party. She is too.

In other news, INK business cards arrived today. I guess that means we can be all official!

Masks Lost and Found

Yesterday I had one of the best days ever, because the night before I had a bad, bad moment.  I couldn't find the last half of Masks anywhere.  I made this unpleasant discovery about 11:30 and I was up until after 2a.m. trying to locate it first in my transfer files hoping it was in an odd folder under an odd name, and then on Snape.  That's the danger of changing computers, and not having hard copy backups.  It felt like half of Mairi burned and sank.  I thought I put a pretty good game face on at the time, telling myself that I wrote it once, I could write it again and make it even better.  That it would only take until January if I really put my mind to it.  

All that pretense went away when I found it in the morning on Gypsy.  I whooped and danced about like a crazed fool.  The whole day turned into a joyful blur all because of 66,000 words.  My spirit felt like I'd been on a dozen rollercoaster rides and then drank the best milkshake ever.  I put my various Masks files (there are three altogether) into one mega file and emailed it to my fellow INKers immediately.  Tragedy averted.  Now, back to my tasks, which are to edit and send out the next section of Masks to the Lucky Labs and to INK, and then to work on more query letters.

Woot!

Masks on Fire

So I've been working on Masks in a way that gets me motivated to get those marketing letters in the mail and email.  So far I've fixed the opening (I hope) so that Bainswell is more of a threat.  Around the 5000 word mark, Mairi is on fire.  I hope that's soon enough.  Next, I realized that the scene in the snow will be far more interesting if he starts assessing on a very deep level the life he's tolerated so far, so that it makes more sense that he would never go back  In the new version he has a moment of wondering what kind of person his beloved Gutter really is if he can put a small boy's hand into the hand of a man like Lord Argenwain.  Also, I created something for Mark to lose when he ditches the horses.  Horses, you say?  He has two now, and two sets of saddlebags, and the weapons.  He's going to have a helluva lot to carry, and he's going to lose a bunch of it.

Once he's in the port city he's going to be so exhausted he'll let things happen that shouldn't, and in the morning he's going to try to cover up his trail.  This is much more fun for me.  I just hope it's more fun for the audience and doesn't start quite so slow.

BTW, it still opens with Mark in bed, but he's staring at the ceiling, avoiding the waking up trope, and I don't mention the mirror in the bathroom.

Can you tell I'm having fun editing?  Do you know why?  Because editing has changed work stations.  It's now no-longer in the Not Writing station, but right next to both the Not Writing Cover Letter and the Researching Agents stations.  By comparison, editing is a gas and I could do it all day.

Steampunk? Steampunk!

Just when I think a particular project is out there all alone, I learn from a chance email that a setting that Ris and I have been working with falls on the outer fringe of an entire subgenre.  Rather than our technology rotating around steam power and difference engines, we toy with an age on a world that is definitely not Earth that might have resulted if the many inventions that a Tesla-like person may (or may not have) created had become the general tech upon which all technology rests.  

I think it's not accidental that we end up with nods to the Island of Dr. Moreau and a world of fine dresses and fancy hats with a monarchial/noble society being pressed by new ideas about the needs and rights of the common man.  

We're not quite steampunk, but were not *not* steampunk either.

This is kewl.  Nothing new under the sun ...

Kami's website goes live, sort of

Okay, there's no "sort of" about it.  If you go to kzmiller.com my website will be there.  I'm still having some issues with the iPower interface, including one that I'm trying to fix even as I'm typing this.  I'm on hold, and will be for a long, long time.  I think I spent four hours on hold, not all at once but on three different calls, yesterday.  The one I'm having now involves me not being able to edit some things, including prices on books that shouldn't have prices.  :-)  It's one of those things that Rory saw and I hadn't noticed when I went live, but when I tried to go back and fix and publish the fixes, I get an error message.  Grr.  I'm sure it's something super simple, but I can't figure it out.

Rory's site is up.  www.chirontraining.com  All the errors and weirdness are mine.  At about 1:30 am I called it quits and went live.  At 10:00am the next day I was reading it and realized it made absolutely no frickin' sense. Well, one page in particular.  But Rory can go in and fix it and edit at his leisure when he has time.  I think it looks okay for now.

Everything is backwards from how I'm used to feeling.  Normally I feel fairly computer savvy with no business presence.  Now I'm starting to feel things slide the other direction.  I'm starting to have a small business presence, but as if I have only so much 'stuff' to work with and I have to give up one for the other, I'm losing my ability to interface with the computer in the ways I need to.

It's all in good fun though.  I hope this generates some interest in my work!  That would be fabulous.

WS?

Where art thou, WS?

The Trinket Box
50,250 words
201 pages
29 days
The End!

Website Naming

I found out that kamilamiller.net and kamilamiller.us are both available.  Any votes?

Also, there's kzmiller.com and kamilazemanmiller.com, kamilazmiller.com ...

Decisions, decisions.

Narrative, Dialogue, Action and Description

One of the things that really helped me progress as a writer was the idea that much of writing is technique rather than inspiration.  Just about anyone can be inspired.  What they do with that inspiration is then a matter of technique.

One technique mentioned at OryCon was highlighting different types of prose in your work to see how much you use of one type or another.

  

Narrative is the author or pov character chit chatting, talking about what's happening.  In can be anything from internal dialogue, if the pov is close, to the hand-waving overview of events that don't need to be studied closely because they're not that important to the story.  Narrative is transitional.  It links pieces of the story together so that they make plot sense as well as emotional sense.  If we didn't have Benedicts's soliloquy in "Much Ado Without Nothing" to give us his internal thought process, what followed wouldn't make much sense.  It'd be OMG, Benedict, WTF are you doing man?!  This brings up the point that a character talking to themselves or their horse isn't real dialogue.  It's just a different style of narrative.  Sometimes dialogue as narrative works, and sometimes it's awkward and silly.

Dialogue is two or more people talking to each other.  I personally don't count the tag lines as dialogue.  Those are action, or narrative, or description.  Take for example the duel in Cyrano de Bergerac.  That's dialogue mixed with action (although his opponent barely gets a word in edgewise.  Get it? Edgewise?  Har har.)  Without dialogue, we don't get to see characters interacting directly with each other.  We just get told about how they are--argumentative, snippy, loving, chatty, etc.  They talked long into the night isn't nearly as interesting as hearing part of the conversation.

Action is characters doing stuff, in real time, right now on the page.  They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast.  Not all work has to have action in it, but you're walking a tough road without it.  Limiting or eliminating action is done more in literary work than in mainstream or genre fiction.  People who write with a distant narrative, talking about things that happened a long time ago when they were young and spry, tend to have the problem of interrupting action that is already distanced by the style choice with commentary from the 'present' pov character looking back on the situation.  If you don't have much action or very distanced action in your work, that means the dialogue, narrative and description has to really shine to keep your reader's interest.

Description is the red-headed stepchild for many authors.  Description is the establishment of setting.  Sometimes dialogue and narrative and even action can help establish setting--like in the song "Up on the Roof" where the singer is telling us about how much he loves being up on the roof.  He uses as much dialogue and narrative to paint a picture as he does visual images.  In action, if a character is climbing a ladder then we don't need description to let us know that a ladder is somewhere in the room.  Sometimes authors mistake description as 'expository lumps' and try to pare them down to nothing.  An expository lump is narrative, actually, although it can be argued that it's establishing setting and therefore description.  Pure, unadulterated description allows the readers to see, smell, feel, and hear where they are.  It's sensory and hopefully immediate, rather than being demoted to 'background.'  Too much description and you lose your reader in the field of flowers with every botanical name spelled out and the temperature of the air and the way the bison roam across the field munching so and such plants.  If you add that the bison have always done this and for centuries they have selectively cropped these plants, making them more and more scarce--you've just dropped into narrative and have left description behind.

A manuscript is not going to be balanced in these elements.  Trying to make it that way will make you crazy.  However, highlighting these elements can show you if you've been neglecting or omitting one of the four completely.  It would take an unusual short story and the very, very rare novel to short change one element and still pull off something that's enjoyable.  You can also determine if you have big chunks of one type of writing.  Sprinkling is a good technique, where you intersperse the various types of writing among each other so that you don't have big chunks.  Expository lumps aren't the only lumps to be wary of in a manuscript.  Dialogue lumps (council meetings, argh!) action lumps (on and on with the blood and guts, gack) and descriptive lumps (as previously noted) can be just as tedious as a long narrative lump.

Good luck out there and keep writing.

Writing like a madwoman

I'm  playing catch up with Nano this year, same as last year.  There's something about OryCon and Nano together that's kicked my butt very consistently during November these past couple of years.  But I like it, kinda, sorta.  I'm at 38,789 words today, so far.  I'll need about 5606 words each day for the next two days to win.  I'm not going to be able to do much if any writing on Thursday, so that's all for me.  Of course anything I can skim off of that count tonight will be a big bonus.  5600 words in a day is doable, but it's a lot.  That number hits especially hard because today I did about 4000ish, at least I think that's what I've done so far, and I'm pooped.  Man, I hope I miscounted that.  Yuck.  I hope I did more like 6000, yeah, let's say I did 6000 and the next two days will be a cinch.

Go Nano!

New Capacity

I'm typing this from Jasmine, my new, very white iMac.  I shouldn't be this thrilled.  I really shouldn't.  But being able to see options, forms, fields, to have frames stack correctly, to see things in their proper colors and sizes--to me it feels like I've been hearing voices from the depths of a toothy cave and then suddenly I've emerged to the surface world.  I like it here.  It's all sunshiny and beautiful.

Of course nothing comes without a price.  Even with the fabulous deal that allowed us to get two snazzy computers, we spent heapos of money and just in time for the holidays.  Also, I'll be spending a great deal of time tomorrow transferring files from Gypsy and Snape to Jasmine.  I bought a pretty nice thumb drive for a great price (select sizes are on sale at Office Max right now, btw, for those of you in need of a bigger one) to help facilitate but I don't believe Gypsy has a USB port, which means anything on Gypsy has to be moved over to Snape first.  Yee.  Ha.

In OryCon news, OryCon is over!  Yay!  I didn't sell any art, but that's all right.  I have never felt so lucky and blessed coming out of a convention as I have this one.  I met a writer friend's cousin who is raising an Asperger's child and we traded stories and wisdom.  I had moment of joyful hope when I learned from a great friend about a quiet insight given to someone else.  I had a highly respected writer tell me surreptitiously (he was clever about it too) in front of an audience how much he valued a certain woman's critiques (mine, though they didn't know unless they knew inside info on the Lucky Labs.)  I had praise coming at me from all sides right at the moments when I felt the most pressure from managing a hydra of a workshop.  I learned a huge amount.  I got to spend time with people I dearly love but seldom see, hour after hour.  I had some great meals.  I had yummy drinkies.  I was invited to be a guest panelist at Radcon (I am so going to that now.)  I managed to get autographs from Peter S. Beagle and Ursula LeGuin.  On and on.

I missed out on spending time with my husband and kids, never got to the dance despite the fact that the music seemed really decent, I missed a lot of fabulous parties, and although I got to chat with a lot of neat people I didn't get to visit with as many as I would have liked to.  I needed at least three clones of me, preferably four.  But I don't regret how I spent my time.  I would have liked to have done more, but the few hours of sleep I managed to snatch were barely enough to get me through.  So there we have it, the limitations of a human being.  I guess it makes everything that I experienced that much more precious, knowing how little capacity I have.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Nano.  Well, except that I can't work on it yet.  But it's in my head, raring to go!

And Jasmine is all excited because I named my sexy new computer after him.  Except I was thinking more of the fragrant white flower.

Jas:  "You were not!"

Me:  "I was.  Your grace is just an undercurrent nuance."

Jas:  "Whatever you have to tell yourself to think you're in control of how much you want me."

On Critiquing

Orycon was a great success, for me anyway. I learned a great deal on several aspects of writing, but I thought over here I'd share my notes on critique groups, as I attended two or three sessions on the subject:

On Writer's Workshops and Critique Groups (one with David Levine, Rob Vagle, John Burridge, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman; a second with Irene Radford, Bruce Taylor, Jayel Gibson, David Goldman, and Stephen Stanley; a third with Richard Lovett, David Levine, Michele Avanti, and Kami Miller):
* Critiquing and hearing critiques can triangulate how you are reading a story. Does your interpretation match the other writers? What might you be getting that they aren't and why? What are you missing that they are seeing and why? (Thank you, David)
* Critique groups are great as producing mechanisms, setting external deadlines for the writers.
* "Ditto" is a useful tool when group commenting, so that the same issue isn't brought up again and again. As in "Ditto Kami about the tension in the first scene." Free to discuss new issues and benefits instead.
* Instead on manuscript format, either for electronic submission or hard-copy submission.
* Reading aloud can be beneficial to catching errors, but beware that a good reader can bring a problematic piece to life, while a bad reader could sink a good piece. Better: have someone not the writer read the piece aloud. Gives the writer a chance to judge body language and immediate response to the piece (gasps, chuckles, boredom).
* The audition process for incoming members if useful on both sides; gives the writer and the group a chance to feel each other out.
* The Clarion style of group critiques is tried and true, with the author remaining silent while the group takes turns with their own comments, but beware that the person who begins the critique sets the tone.
* Individual critiques avoid feeding off what others are saying, but limit the brainstorming possibilities that a group can offer.
* A writer writes in a vacuum; reader response is useful to judge how the story is going.
* There is a sharp difference between the 'I didn't like it' reaction and the 'I didn't like it because . . .' response.
* Knowing the predilections of the readers is useful: do they have biases against certain stories, are they more knowledgeable in a subject than an average reader would be, or less so.
* Writing to please the critique group will grind the edges off your story. Avoid using their foreseen reactions as your internal editor.
* There is such thing as overshooting a revision based on a critique that can wreck the heart of the story. Always keep in mind why you wrote the piece to begin with.
* Always deliver an honest critique with compassion, whether to an experience writer or to a novice. Honesty counts, and so does compassion.

There are notes on other subject on my personal blog. I also have several thoughts to throw at the INK group when we next meet for the Orycon Debriefing (nice phrase, Carole). And I have a new goal for myself based on not only the above notes, but my own critiquing experiences during the con. All of it will go a long way to improving not only how I write, but I how I critique, and I'm sure you will all thank me for that.

I can't wait for the debriefing! But now, I have to get back to our regularly schedule Nano. My novel is lonely after two days of sitting forgotten in a folder. Well, not completely forgotten.

I Suck So Bad

Going through my works to find a couple of somethings to print off for the open read and critiques (ORCs) at the con has turned into a session of ego-mutilation. I can't find anything that doesn't cry out "this Writer SUCKS and here's an example of how bad!"

My excerpt for the writers workshop, which I spent weeks editing and having it critiqued and editing it again until I thought it was the best thing I've ever written . . . now sucks so bad that I'm embarrassed to sit down with a couple pros to go over it. It took all my will not to grab a red pen and start slashing the piece into something less horrid.

This mindset is a familiar one. I experience it before any reading or presentation of my work. My work inevitably plunges and I want to make several changes before it reaches the light of day.

It seems to be getting worse, however, as I grow more proficient at editing. I see my mistakes much quicker and I desperately want to fix them. But with a workshop going over the piece as is, I can't really launch into it.

The ORC is much more problematic. I could, theoretically, edit till my little heart burst, and I really want to, but I'm running very short on time. So do I put the time I have into edits that might not hold up once I get to the con, since I'll be rushing to do them? Or do I just go with what I have, try not to cringe too badly, and put my time into Nano and getting ready for the con?

It's a hard call. Right now, I'd like to skip the ORC altogether instead of going with a piece I feel is inferior to what I could actually produce. But that seems like a coward's way out.

So, back to the documents, and the head banging.

Broken

I just broke the halfway point in Nano. I'd do the Snoopy dance to celebrate, but I'm feeling kind guh today, so I'll just grin slightly in pleasure and down some more ibuprofen.

I've decided that my goal before Orycon is 30,000. That would be where I need to be by end of day Sunday, so even if I don't get any writing done at Orycon, I won't be going into next week behind.

That means another 17 pages before I head off on Friday morning. I'm hoping to get in a few more pages tonight (five more would be good, seven more would be ideal), but I still have a chunk of other things (like, um, a critique) to do today. And then there's the Powell's sf/f authorfest tonight, though if I'm feeling like I am at the moment, I may have to stay home. I'd love to go, really, but I'm also trying to be realistic about what I can and can't accomplish.

Bleh. Screw reality! I'm a writer! I can write myself doing it all!!

Ignoring cramps of epic proportion, Carissa not only completed all her laundry, lugging the linens up the back stairs to fold and store away, but vacuumed the house and cleared the overflowing counters of their several days worth of dishes. She wrote a stellar critique for the writers workshop on both the synopsis and the excerpt of her fellow attendee, typing it up in a readable format and filling out a short form to organize her thoughts for presentation before printing off several excerpts to choose between for the ORCs. And then she drew up the packing list for gathering her items the night of packing, wrote up instructions for taking care of the animals for the neighbors, and still managed to finished writing seven more pages before getting dressed to head out for an authorfest across town. She fed her daughter and herself, cooking a nice turkey chili meal before depositing her daughter with the neighbors to play until her husband was home, took the dog out one last time, and then she was off to an evening of discussing books and writings and little book shopping. All the shape of [Carissa the writer checks clock] a mere three hours!

You know, I'm tired just writing about all that stuff to do. Thankfully, I still have another full day in which to get ready.

Emotional Rescue

One of the scenes I wrote yesterday made me cry. I haven't done that to myself in a while, but I've felt myself getting close to doing so with several scenes in this book. Yesterday just happened to be the one that pushed me over the edge into actual tears.

I know when I go back to edit the story, I'll probably tone that scene back. It was a little over-the-top. Most of my writing that makes me cry ends up reading later as over-the-top, exaggerated emotionally, and needs to be taken back just a little. For subtle emotional responses rather than out and out heart-tugging. But if my early (and I mean early) stories and poems are any clue, I'm particularly good at the exaggerated, out and out heart-tugging.

I like writing them, and I've avoided writing them for a long while now. I tend to toe the line of emotional response, and its harder to work the emotional level up rather than to tone it back, at least I've noticed that I have a harder time with it. If it ain't there, I'm gonna have to struggle to put it there.

I need to let myself go over the top more often in the rough drafts, because then I know the emotion is there. All I have to do is tidying it up, play it down just enough so that it is more of a breath against a reader's cheek rather than a slap in the face.

Or maybe the slap is good, on occasion. I'll have to leave that up to my internal editor during the rereads. But the slap needs to be there to begin with.

I'm so glad I'm writing this story. It's opening doors for me in my head, and some of those doors lead to things I use to know about writing, but got 'learned' out of me. Those basics, like the way I was writing stories way back in the day, are good things to return to. They were, after all, the reason I started writing. That passion and over-the-topness that were my early pieces. I'm glad I'm returning to that. It feels right.

Happy about Hats

I'm so glad the whole hat thing came up at the Nano meeting last night. I'm having lots of fun with various hats, and my pov character who is so steadfastly against them. I think it's because in the Kilhells, where she's from, they only wear hats in winter. The rest of the time their hair is wild. Few bother with it, not even braiding, although men will sometimes braid their beards. I think it's a physical show of her own feelings of being an outsider, the ties of loyalty she still feels to her homeland and the regret and guilt she feels for not returning home.


[i] ©2000 Denise Van Patten - http://collectdolls.about.com
I love big, daring hats and it's fun to put my characters in them.[/i]

He hands me a brocade vest. Thankfully it has frogs, not laces and it goes on fast.
I look up and he has a big, lacy hat in his hands.
"A hat?" I move around him and make for the door.
"It completes the ensemble."
"Jasmine, you're not going to convince me to start dressing fashionably right before a fight."
"But look at it! I'd love to wear this hat, but it doesn't match my clothes. It's a beautiful hat, Billi. It'll look good on you."
"Let's just go." I'm ready to fight. I just pray that I'll fight on the right side.

Exclusivity

I love -ivity words. They're just silly.

I have noticed with the onset of Nano (which I'm rocking, btw) that all other projects have been tossed aside to gather dust, no matter how pressing they were at the time. Notably the Inkwell Cult edit and the Fool's Errand edit.

The Inkwell Cult edit isn't worrisome. I'll be able to pick it up in December without breaking too much of my stride on it. Perhaps I'll be even more jazzed about working on coming out the writers workshop critique during Orycon (where I intend to take many notes not only of the critique, but any plot/story ideas that strike me during the critique).

A Fool's Errand, however, I'd planned to have edited and ready for the open read and critique sessions at Orycon. I don't think that's going to happen now, alas. I'll have to go with my original draft (If I can dredge it up from somewhere), clean up the existing manuscript, and cross my fingers. On one hand, this seems a little unnecessary, considering the INK group has already gone over it and I'm loaded with ideas. On the other hand, it might be useful to hear from new sources on the existing manuscript.

Obviously, I have mixed feelings about it, but A Fool's Errand is my only complete short story. My only other option is to dredge up a lesser finished piece like Iceholm or Brimstone and try to whack them more into shape before the con. Which, since I don't have time to finish the edit on A Fool's Errand, seems unlikely.

Gah. What to do?

Maybe I'll just read a chunk from The 8th Day and call it good.

8509 words

This year it's a little easier to be on a work schedule and to write, at least so far. I couldn't write at all the first two days but I've caught up, thank goodness. I'm finding a huge advantage to revisiting Mayhem--I've missed these characters and writing with them is like visiting with best friends. Maybe that will make my draft even crappier than usual, but at least it's fun.

I'm writing it in a style waaaay different than normal. Not only is it in first person present, which I normally dislike, but I'm writing very short chapters, 3-10 pages. Writing this far outside my comfort zone for a Nano would probably fail, but with super-comfortable characters it's coming along okay. It's a great learning experience, and it keeps me on my toes without dragging me far out to sea in a riptide. If it stops working I'll probably revert to my normal third person, but I won't go editing back from the beginning to make it consistent until I've given it a chance to rest a couple of months. Then I can read it and decide if I want to keep the first person present or if I want to go back to normal view.
Normal View! NORMAL VIEW!!

That was for the MST3K fans out there.

The story so far--old friends reunite in grim circumstances, the pov character almost dies, and demons attack the fortress. I wonder what the next 42 pages will look like.

Eleven days and counting until my new computer. Just in time. The Finder crashed this morning. Time to back up Gypsy again before imminent catastrophic failure.

Then again, much like the Cascades, you never know what's going to be a full-blown top-exploding eruption and what's going to be another fluffy hiccup.

Going, Going . . .

Not only did I get all nine (yes, nine!) pages typed in that I'd written last night, but I wrote another nine on top of that, bringing me to 31 pages (around 7750 words). And the story is going so well! I have plot. I have characters. I have situations both profound and tragic. And hopefully, I have enough to keep me going through the dreaded week two, which is only four more days away.

I hope I do. I really think I do. But it's still so early in the draft to tell. In the very least, I've given myself lots of room (about two thousand years worth) to maneuver. And extra pages, which I'll keep adding to so that when I hit the typically unavoidable wall of plot breakdown that occurs in week two, I'll have some leeway to puzzle my way through it without losing too much ground.

Wow. This is actually working out!

Write-In

I wasn't sure how well I'd hold up at the library write-in tonight, given that I'd be handwriting, but I did great! Twelve hand written pages to add to the four and a half typed pages I finished early in the day and I'm ahead of the daily goal! And the story, for as much as I have a story, is rolling along. I have no idea where it will end up, but I'm having a lot of fun finding out where it's going each day.

I'm looking forward to next week's write-in. Now if only I can get those hand-written pages typed up in a timely manner . . .