thoughts on writing (!!!)

What I'm Listening To: Beastly OST; specifically "Today is the Day" by Tim Myers.
What I'm Doing: Working on an outline for my nano novel "Incandescence" because the thoughts of revision have entirely taken over the actual writing of the first draft.

I was thinking about motivation (because of a lovely book I found in the library, "The Nighttime Novelist" by Joseph Bates) and it occurred to me that a major happening in "Incandescence" is Ayden's search for his father.

Then I realised that "Boy Next Door" starts the same way - with a search for Daddy. Then it occurred to me that in "Butterfly Gate" there is no father. In "Eden's Gate" there is no mother - she died before the story began. In "Eversong" both parents are there, but she runs away from them. In "Dormouse, Inc" the parents are missing, and the search for them plays a major part in the main character's motivation. In "Moonlight" - the parents are killed. "Snow Queen" has no parents, only a grandmother. "Pearl of Eden" the parents are dead. In .... wait, that's all of them.

All of my stories involve missing or dead parents. Sometimes the missing or deadness has direct relevance, and sometimes the parents are just... not there. This was a horrible revelation for me, because I had no idea I was doing it.

In my personal life, my mother is dead. October 25th of this year marked the thirteenth year since she died; more than half my life. My birth father has never been part of the picture, and he may as well be on the moon for all I know - though I'd like, one day, to find him. (!!!)

I don't know if this means something specific, or if it's just... well. I had no idea (until last night, when I was thinking "Major motivation for Ayden has to be his father, because it has to be personal, and he needs a reason for doing what he does, beyond just "because he wants to. Hm, this all sounds vaguely familiar, didn't I do the same thing in "Boy Next Door? And in Eden's Gate, the mother is dead. ... ... OH MY GOD, I HAVE A TYPE!!!") that I was doing this! It was a revelation. Am I alone in this? I must find other writer-types to discuss with.

we dreamt in heist

What I'm Listening To: Anberlin - We Dreamt in Heist

What I'm Doing: Updating my blogs instead of writing. 8D

Just realised that while I'm doing pretty good updating the other blog I just started (and then they made me their queen, right here on blogger, if you're interested in my disjointed, mostly non-authorly thoughts) I haven't updated this in a while.

So a quick writerly update for the writerly blog: I'm writing!

I had the idea about two years ago, when my computer was blown out by el nino, and I wrote the first three chapters out by hand.

I looked at all the stories I've got on my computer and just HATED. EVERYTHING. so I started typing up the "Untitled Wizard Story (That Has Nothing To Do With Harry Potter)" - which was the working title at the time - and then kept going.

I'm finishing it up for Camp Nano, and I'm considering doing the same thing for Nano in November - I realise that according to the rules, we're not supposed to write any of the prose before the first, but if I write it out by hand at first, and then type it up on the computer, it gives me a running start on actually writing, and helps with the flow.

That's how, in about three days, I've gotten up past twenty thousand words. I'm aiming for 30k by midnight tonight, so I've got to get off the internet, and keep going.

(Oh, the new title is "Boy Next Door" for the record. XD Much shorter than "Untitled Wizard Story (That Has Nothing To Do With Harry Potter)" right?)

Been a LONG Time

What I'm Listening To: Alanis Morisette - I Remain (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time OST)

What I'm Doing: Updating my blog for the first time in over a year!

Its not really that I forget that I have this - its mostly caused by the fact that my internet access is sporadic, and I forget to *update* this when I get the chance. But I'm really, really trying to become more active as an author on the web, so that when I finally get something done, I have people who will support me. XD

Although, if I dug out all my friends from all my favoured websites, I'm sure my book would sell out, even if everyone who bought a copy just tossed it in the trash afterwards. Its not that I'm without friends, its that I'm without a respectable online presence. That and I can never think of what to post about, which is why - although I'm trying hard to talk about relevant things - I just end up blathering on like this.

On the homefront, I'm trying - really trying, and not just blog-trying XD - to write. I really am. I really like the idea, and I have good places for it to go, but I'm beginning to suspect myself of ADD. I sit down to write - I WANT to write - I HAVE TO WRITE RIGHT NOW OMFGOOH SHINY WASSAT?

And I don't write. So it's slow going. And I'm very pleased to have completed Eversong to the first draft, but looking back on it - it's SO BAD. I can't bring myself to start revising it.

Very Big News!

What I'm Listening To: Rufus Wainwright - Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk

What I'm Doing: Reading Piers Anthony's Heaven Cent and getting ready to go run some errands.

Well. This is a day I thought would be far, far in the future. Around twelve thirty last night, I finished the first draft of Eversong!

Now the hard part starts, I'm sure, but it's written. It's there. All that's left to do is tidy it up. I'm so excited.

Word Counts and Revising

What I'm Listening To: Buffy the Vampire Slayer OST, Once More, With Feeling! - Overture; Going Through the Motions

What I'm Doing: Reading A Spell for Chameleon and catching up on my internety things before I knuckle down to writing again.

It's been about three days since my last post. When I posted then, my wordcount had doubled from about 6k in words to about 12k. Three days later, it's doubled again. I'm currently sitting on about 22k in words, and am working towards 24k, for the next chapter of AftG.

This is amazing to me, the chronic unfinisher. I realise that the higher the words get, the harder this will be, but I've doubled my wordcount in three days. Imagine if I doubled the wordcount every three or four days? Can you imagine how quickly it will get written?

Janet Reid asked, How Do You Know When To Query?

And then she answered herself. It was not comforting, especially to me, (I have the attention span of a gnat, and the mentality of a magpie - OH, SHINY!).

She said before you query your first novel, write another one.

I said, '...what?'

She also said that the revision process should not be quick, and gave the example, "If it took you a year to write the novel, you should take six months to revise it," which left me in something of a quandary. It's going to take me... approximately a month, possibly as much as two months to complete the first draft of Eversong. By her 'half-time' rule of revision, this means I should only spend two weeks revising? I think not!

Before this rambles totally out of control, I'll get back to my previous points.

If I double my wordcount every three-four days, that means that by the seventh, I'd have 40k words. And by my brother's eleventh birthday, a complete novel at 80k words. Granted, it won't work that way. But can you imagine it? And by my own opinion, despite the quickness with which Eversong is flinging itself onto the pages, it's not bad.

I certainly won't try querying it immediately; the minute I finish it, I'm going to shunt it off to the side for a month or two, and either take a break from writing, or as Janet Reid suggested, start working on one of the other ones. It's a toss-up between M&M and Perfect; I'll figure out which one I want to write when I get there.
My first thought was that I'd immediately begin working on Return to Eversong, but I realised that that would be a Bad Idea. The point of leaving the novel alone for a set amount of time is to forget the characters, forget the story-line, and forget what you've written, and immediately launching into the sequel is not the way to do this.

But when my alloted revision time is up, I'm going to revise, and edit, and reread, and find a critique circle comprised of one or two friends and one or two strangers, so I can get both friendly advice and completely impartial opinions. And then I'm going to write my synopsis and my query, revise them both, and then begin building a list of agents to query who are outside my blogosphere.

People commented on Janet's post, saying that it's taken them anywhere from a year to fifteen years to write their first novel, and that it wasn't always their first novel that was accepted; often it was their third, fourth, fifth novel. If Eversong is not accepted immediately, I'll wait a year or two, find some new agents, and try again. I'm fond of all the ideas I've constructed, but Eversong is my baby, and I will not rest until it's published. I might be able to shelve M&M if it's never accepted, or Perfect (although my ego demands that I add, I doubt I will have many problems with Perfect. Granted, I haven't done extensive research into crime/suspense novels, but my gut tells me that it's a fairly original idea.) but Eversong will never be 'the book that never got published.'

Speaking of Eversong, if I want to think about querying it, I've first got to finish it, so I'll let you all be now, and get back to it.

Things to Remember

What I'm listening to: Nothing. :/ My itunes is on the fritz. It should be Going Through Changes by Army of Me.

What I'm reading: The Dragonbone Chair, by Tad Williams

I've got something Ally Carter said posted on my wall. (Not facebook. My literal bedroom wall, right above my computer.) "Don't get it right - get it written." The day I put it up, everyone in my house passed through my room* and asked me about it. Basically means it doesn't have to be perfect the first time, as long as it's done. Editing can come later.

But that doesn't stop me from thinking about my current word-count versus chapters, and despairing. Especially when I happened to catch a glimpse of the first few paragraphs when I restarted my computer, and re-opened Eversong (if it's right in front of me, I'm less likely to forget that I need to be writing every day) and those paragraphs ... really kinda sucked. XDD Not ... oh, what am I trying to say here? *bashes head into desk at specially marked 'Bang Head Here' on mouse pad* Not that it's bad. I believe it's really well written. As a long-time fanfiction author, I continually tell myself "This sucks, it's terrible, no one's going to like it, why am I even posting this crap!?" as I'm writing, post it, receive good reviews, forget about it for several months (or years, in some cases) go back, reread it, and utterly amaze myself at how wonderful it is. Not to toot my own horn or anything, although I'm firmly of the belief that a certain amount of ego is required for artistry - even if no one else in the world likes your work, you'll always know that you did a good job of it.

No, the problem is not that what I've written is written badly (though it can definitely be better, which will come later, and therein lies the problem) it's that they're short. They can be better. They can be more engaging. I'm starting into chapter two, and I only have four thousand words. Granted, it's only the beginning of chapter two, and I know for a fact that there's no 'set word count', specifically, but my goal is at least 75,ooo words, and the first novel is only 25 chapters long. (Give or take one or two. The original outline was set for 26, but the first chapter proved so reclusive that I combined what had been chapters one and two on the outline into chapter one, so that it would have some depth to it, and so that the story wouldn't take nine chapters to get started.)

It's like the devilish NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, for the uninitiated) you have thirty days to write 50k in words. And not just "THIS SUCKS" over and over again, but an actual, coherent novel. The following instructions are then to shunt it to one side for at least three months and not even think about it until that three month time period is up, at which point you go back and edit, and revise, and polish, and generally drag it out of the slush pile before it has a chance to make it into said pile. I'm pretty sure there's an actual NaNoEdMo, or something similar (National Novel EDITING Month, in which those 50k word drafts get taken out of the milk crate, and get prettied up.)

Do not. Ever. Ever. Submit your unpolished manuscript from Nano to an agent or editor. I found an article about that (somewhere) and was absolutely horrified. It was talking about the massive increase in queries and MSS during December, particularly the first week, and that the majority of those queries and MSS were not only unpublishable, but almost unreadable. There were comments about said submissions that included things like "There were exactly fifty thousand words. EXACTLY. It stopped in the middle of a sentence." and "After every 1700 words or so there was a note reading "Done for the day."

I nearly cried reading that. Who in their right mind would submit something to professionals without proofreading it at the least? I left a comment on the post that said I was utterly ashamed to be among the Nano Writers, if they behaved like that after completion of their 'novel.'

Another thing that makes me weep. Miss Snark's First Victim holds a Secret Agent contest, in which people submit the first 250 words of their completed novel, and a real agent looks over, and comments as to whether they'd be hooked on the story or not. Other people comment, too, but it's a good way to get an agent to look at your work, as well as to get some constructive feedback on your story. It's a good excercise for the other aspiring writers out there too, when you're in a bookstore. Wander through, pick up random books, and read through the first page, and then think about whether you'd actually read the rest, and why, what worked for you, what was it about that first page that really caught your attention, and how the author made that work, and how you can apply it to your own writing.

But now on to the weepy part.

I could only get through five or six of the entries, and they were all horrible. I wouldn't read any of those books if you paid me to do it. Now I grant you, there were likely some gems hidden among the garbage, but wading through all that crap just to get to one good story seemed about as easy as dodging raindrops. It certainly gave me new respect for my future queried agents, and a new resolve to not allow my story to end up in the slush pile. There's a new Secret Agent contest starting soon, and I'm going to do my best to keep up with it, rather than have to read through fourty or fifty entries all at once. (250 words isn't a lot, but two hundred and fifty words in an unconvincing and uninteresting story makes it feel about as engaging as reading through the dictionary.)

*Note from above: My room isn't a bedroom in the normal sense. It's more of the downstairs den that happens to have a bed in it. My house is awesome, by the way. It's got three floors. The middle floor is where the front door is, and it opens into the living room, and directly off the living room is the kitchen. Upstairs is a bathroom, and three bedrooms, where my aunt, cousin, and brother sleep. Downstairs is the garage, back yard, another bathroom, and my step-parents room. Between my SP's room and the garage is an open space with a futon, computer, and television, and since I've moved back in with them, it's been filled to the brim with books. The garage is where the dryer, two chest freezers, and another stand up fridge/freezer are, so anyone needing anything out there passes through my room, hence the reason that everyone saw the sign.