Here I Am

Apologies for taking so long to introduce myself, but here I am. My name is Lauren, and I'm Leigh Anna's new coblogger. (Is that even a word?) I write fantastic fiction of various sorts, and also work in the production editorial department for a major publishing company, which leads to all sorts of interesting insights as an aspiring writer. I'll do my best to be here regularly, discussing the ins and outs of writing and publishing. I think for today, since it's my first post, I'm just going to say a couple of vague, pertinent things.
First, don't be afraid. Write what you want to write, how you want to write it. It takes time to develop both a good writing habit and a body of solid writing. Be patient with yourself. Don't be afraid of writing junk. Don't be afraid of the blank page before you. Don't be afraid that no one will like your story, or that it will never sell because there are tons of books in that genre already. If you let fear paralyze you, you won't get anywhere.
Second, keep reading. I firmly believe that you cannot be a good writer without being a good reader. You need to know what's out there and what's selling. And, even more importantly, reading books helps you grow as a writer. You'll learn about story arcs, about developing characters, about good descriptive passages, about how to write a hot sex scene, etc., etc., etc.
Third, do your research. I know that if you write genre fiction there's a temptation to just say "Well, I created the world my book takes place in, so I can just make it up however I want." But the truth of the matter is, consistency is important. If you're writing urban fantasy in eighteenth-century London, find a map of the city appropriate to the time period. Look into the slang people used then. Find out what people wore. If your fiction takes place in the now, and has some real people/places/things entwined with your fiction, make sure that whatever you say about those real things is accurate. (I know researching is often not as fun as writing. But trust me. Readers notice when things are askew.)
There we go. A solid trio of things for you to ponder. Have a good weekend, everyone!

Various Things

1. I'm now reading Steal Across the Sky by Nancy Kress. I love her. Also reading Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing by Arnie Bernstein. It came in the mail earlier this week. It's wonderful to see the real thing in print.
2. Yay Iowa!!! I got married there! Very proud of that part of my midwestern roots.
3. Bookends blog has an interesting post on what good things an author can do (from an agent's perspective). I skipped the agentfail thing since most of the writers seemed to be largely griping that a) the agents aren't reading their superb and wonderful queries/submissions fast enough b) they hate the no response means no thing and c) how dare agents publicly Twitter or otherwise admit to having a life and taking a break from work when they should be reading all the wonderful queries and submissions from all the commenters. There may have been something interesting further down, and perhaps if I were an agent, I'd find it all useful. As it is, I decided working on my writing was a better use of my time.
4. Finally, FINALLY finished chapter 11!!!!!! (I don't think I have enough exclamation marks there to convey my excitement at this.) It feels really good to feel like I'm moving forward again. Maybe I will finally finish and get to start sending out.

That's all. Want to get this up. There is a beautiful thunderstorm going right now. The mist has floated off the Hudson and the thunder rattles the apartment. So besides the worry that my electricity will go out before I post, I'm really enjoying the show.

the smell of desperation comes through this blog

I'm new to this blog thing. I've done a few other blogs. I clearly started this one awhile ago, but only recently have I kept up on it, and more importantly, started to read other people's blogs and comment sections. Among the blogs I read are pretty much everything by an agent, editor, or anyone on that end of the publishing business that I can find. Here's something that I've noticed. The desperation isn't just me. I can tell in the comments.

For every encouraging post are a bevy of comments in thanks. For every post mentioning things some idiot did/bad queries/showing up at the office/unreasonable demands on the editor/agent, there are a dozen comments on how the commenter is so much more aware and prepared than that. They know and would never, ever, ever do anything that stupid. Even the occasional comment on how to query the specific agent/editor or mentioning how the particular agent/editor had rejected them but that's okay, they like the blog anyway. I love all these people.

Some people may manage to not be angst ridden at finishing their first novel and trying to get it published. Some people also have perfect pitch, trust funds, and no trouble getting dates too. This has never been me. I'm not the girl who gets discovered by the big time modelling agency in a McDonald's. I'm the one with grease in my hair, standing behind the counter, working my butt off and thinking that I'd be prettier than her if I wasn't in my stupid uniform with grease in my hair, and I lost a little of the weight I've put on lately.

So I'm a little angst ridden. I've been dreaming of this ever since I stopped imagining myself as Meg Murray and started imagining myself as Madeleine L'Engle.

And now here I am, very close to finding out if I can make it in this business, devouring any bit of advice and commentary that anyone can hand out to me, and hoping that if I collect enough tips and tidbits it will slant the deck in my favor. I won't wind up among the 99% who never make it. And part of me, that irrational, optimistic part, is hoping that after the difficulties of learning to write well and writing a novel that the next part will be easy. That someone will come along and discover me. The right person will notice my blog, or perhaps my brilliant and erudite comments in someone else's blog, pop on by, read the bits I have up and decide he or she has clearly found a brilliant and publishable author, and I'll be discovered. Hey, it happened to John Scalzi. Can it happen to me? Please?

Reading other people's comments, I can't help but think that some of them are writing from the same place. Please notice my brilliant thank you to your advice. Please notice that I would not be a troublesome author, but instead, a fabulous one: I'll write only bestselling books; I'll be easy to work with; my manuscripts will always be in on time and require little work to get them ready for print; I will be the coolest, hottest, sexiest, snarkiest, best author you ever worked with. You will love me and I will make you lots of money and bring tons of critcal prestige. Please discover me.

Maybe I'm projecting my crazy thoughts on other people.

But just in case there are a few other people who know better but can't help hoping and then you read that two sentence comment you just spent three hours writing and realize just after you hit the button that you do sound a little more desperate than you intended. Yeah, for you, I'm right there with you.

Now back to work.

picture change

I didn't want to have the picture of me up anymore since I will no longer be the only author writing on here. (I'll let the new author introduce herself.)

And yes, I know, no one thinks your pet is as cute as you do. Sorry. But this picture just seemed so quintessentially writer-ish. Tea, manuscript, computer, cat.

and I want to add this

From the Wall Street Journal on Google and the rights settlement.

weekend roundup

This week:

• Guide to Literary Agents blog points out that the Writer's Digest Magazine has 101 Best Websites for Authors and in the very next post, rates the top five agent blogs.


• Jessica at BookEnds discusses what authors can do to sell their books. And if any of them work.


• Moonrat at Editorial Ass reminds us why our chances suck anyway.


• Janet Reid says a mistake in your query letter is ok. Just don't make the really stupid ones.


• ODE magazine discusses 7 ways to start writing. And they all work. I've tried.


• Kristin at Pub Rants discusses Google Settlement in ways the rest of us can understand and points to more resources.


• Colleen Lindsay on The Swivet announced the date of another Queryfail on Twitter.


• Just discovered Practicing Writing. Very cool. Check it out.


• My friend Arnie's book, Bath Massacre: America's First School Bombing is #11 on Amazon's True Crime Catagory!!! How awesome is that?

That's what sticks in my mind for this week. If I missed something or must start following something, leave it in the comments.

Cute picture of my cat time.

reading material

What I am reading right now.

The trashy: Die For Me by Karen Rose. I am 72 pages into the novel and I know who the mysterious killer is, and pretty much the rest of the plot of the book. In spite of this, the initial torture seens and the glimpses into the killer's life are chilling. [insert shudder here]

The pretentious: What Was Literature?:Class Culture and Mass Society by Leslie Fiedler. Of course, Fiedler isn't considered pretentious at all by many. He's more pop-crit, but for the average person, pretentious. And worth reading.

The political: The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas Barnett. You will never see the world the same again.

the truth comes out

The cat is the true author. I'm only the typist because I have opposable thumbs.

Working on Chapter 11 after the hiatus this week. It's coming along quite nicely. I think having to take a break actually made it come together better. All right. Back to work.

You must read this!!!

Right here. Go find it now. It will amaze you.

it went well

That's what the husband said. (I know this announcement will cause hundreds of people to sigh in relief.) And now I can finally sit down and start revising chapter 11 which I've been putting off for a few days. I had a nice track record of 2-3 chapter revisions a week going. Not sure if I'll manage that this week. Worth a shot, but no rushing. Rushing makes you do shoddy work that I'll just have to fix in the next draft.



In the meantime, as I have nothing else really to say today and need to get to chapter 11, here are some pictures of the show I did with the Irish Arts Center band.

We played at a nursing home here. The pictures were all taken by my husband. They are fabulous to work with and if you live in New York and always wanted to learn the language or any Irish instrument, you should look them up. They have classes. Including dance.






Not that I'm a good sales pitch person here, but they really are a delightful group to sing with.




The only thing was on the very first song, I completely forgot the verse. It was my first time singing with them on the first song and there I am, blanking out completely right in the middle. They played the verse and I remembered the words and came in on the next go around.

I sat back down, humiliated and convinced they'd never invite me again. But it was far too late to go running from the room in tears. So there I sat, feeling like the biggest moron ever.

The rest of the show was great. Later, talking to one of the fiddle players about how I'd screwed up the first song she said, "Oh, I thought you put the instrumental verse in there on purpose."

too nervous to think

My very nice husband is a scientist doing his postdoc. He's a nuclear engineer and essentially he builds the various ways to shoot radiation at cells and other small things so biologists can study cancer.

Anyway, where he works is up for a really big grant and the really big grant people are visiting today. I'm just glad it is almost over. Watching someone you love run themselves into the ground is painful. He's gone to work at nine in the morning and not come home until four in the morning at times. More usually he'd get home at ten or eleven pm, exhausted and hungry. He's been really good at trying not to take it out on me, but it's been a rough couple of months. Even the cat picked up on the general stress level and developed some neurotic tendencies having to do with litter and poo.

So either way the grant goes, at least I get him back after this. For a little while, anyway, until our mutual work-a-holics decide we've had enough time off and need to get back to work.

And speaking of work, I need to go do something. I'm not helping anyone by pacing the house and shoving any fast, easy, fat-laden edible I can find into my mouth. Fry a hen.

am I stupid?

I must be. Because all these agents are talking about how many more queries they are receiving this year and I'm intending to add one more to the flood. Fabulous. I'm finally in on a trend.

As I am in the middle of draft 3 and on track to have a novel done by late spring/early summer, I am now working on drafting my query letter and synopsis. It has nothing to do with the economy. It just happens to be when I completed my novel.

But still my initial inclination is to panic and worry that no matter how great a query letter and novel I write, it will never be good enough and all agents will pass it over, so overworked and harried from the extra deluge of queries that I am lost in the rivers of poor grammar and stupid mistakes made by others.

Ok. I'm over it now. Rationality returned.

The truth is, most of these people are not my competition. Probably 80% are so badly written, researched, unprofessional, etc. that they are no threat to me. As for the other 20%, there are a lot of agents out there. Someone will bite.

Or not, but I'll go on writing my next novel and the next. Because I believe in the law of averages. Look at it this way, you can't sink all your hopes and dreams into one book. If I wanted to be an actress would I sink all my fate into one audition and decide if I don't get it, I am done as an actress? Of course not. I'd audition for anything suitable I can find. It's the same with dating. You don't give up after one or three or half dozen or more bad relationships. You might take a hiatus, but most people, most times, get back in the game eventually.

If not this book, then another one. And if I do my research and query intelligently, it will probably happen sooner rather than later. Fry a hen. (Try again, in case you haven't figured that out.)

Of course, that is all very well and good to talk about right now that I haven't even begun querying yet. We'll see how I feel in five years when I have five unpublished/unwanted novels.

At least I have my health.

Chapter 1 Excerpt

The phone rang.

Swan Shreve ignored it, and continued to flip through files in the black, metal file cabinet until she reached the right tab. The phone had been ringing like a malfunctioning car alarm all morning. It was as though every idiot in the world had signed a pact to call her today to ensure she wouldn’t get the filing done. In all, she’d gotten two sales calls for magazines, one man selling siding, three irate and rude customers, and a woman who called to complain about a bill and when Swan explained she’d called the wrong department said, “Why don’t you know? Can’t you just call it up on your computer?” Swan said she couldn’t look it up and she’d transfer the woman to accounts receivable. The woman brightly explained that they never pick up there. That’s why she’d called this office instead. The phone rang again as Swan slid a piece of paper into the file. She hated filing.

“Are you going to get that?” Mr. Kowalchik yelled from his office.

She closed the drawer with her hip and reached for the phone. “Good morning. Mr. Kowalchik’s office. Swan speaking.” Mr. Kowalchik’s front office was predominately white with mass produced office furniture. The fake cherry veneer was chipping off a corner of the desk. Swan considered herself fairly lucky because Mr. Kowalchik, as head of a section in the engineering department, had a corner office with wide windows and this meant she too had a window, overlooking the vast green lawn of the Bova Technologies campus. No one was ever out on the lawn and it probably had more chemicals spread on it than it was healthy to think about, but Swan liked it just the same.

“Is Mr. Kowalchik there?” asked the caller. He had the harsh, impatient voice of someone who wanted to convince her he was very important.

Swan braced herself. “May I ask who’s calling, sir?”

“I asked you a question first,” the man said.

“I’m sorry?” She considered herself well schooled in caller rudeness by now, but this tactic was new. It was also not working.

“Don’t be sorry. Put Mr. Kowalchik on the damn phone,” said the man.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way,” she said, trying to keep her voice mostly pleasant. “You have to give me your name and an idea of what you want.”

“Well, if you aren’t going to put me through to Mr. Kowalchik, what good are you?” the man demanded.

Swan clutched the phone, largely because she couldn’t clutch the caller’s neck. “I’m good for screening out rude, idiot callers. I’m not going to give you Mr. Kowalchik, because I’d rather hang up on you.” She hung up on him.

“Miss Shreve,” Mr. Kowalchik said from behind her.

“Yes, Mr. Kowalchik?”

“Who was the caller?”

“He didn’t give a name. I’m guessing a sales call.” Swan turned back to the stack of filing.

Mr. Kowalchik continued to loom in the doorway between his office and hers. He was good at looming. He had the size for it, about six foot, and had been a right tackle in college. He never stopped eating like a football player and now at middle age had developed a belly that on top of his short legs made him resemble a substantial highboy. And being a serious man in a serious business, his face had permanently set itself into a displeased and superior expression, proof that mother was right, an expression kept for too long would stick that way. “Did you ask his name?” Mr. Kowalchik asked.

“No, Mr. Kowalchik, I don’t ask names anymore. I’ve decided to take up mind reading.” She opened a drawer in the black, metal filing cabinet and started thumbing through the files, hoping to finally finish and go to lunch.

“What if that was Magnus Wade?”

Swan turned to face him. He tended to get angrier when she continued to work while he wanted to talk at her. Seemed to think it meant she wasn’t listening. “It wasn’t,” she said.

“But it might have been. I did not hire you to slam down phones or be rude to callers. As my administrative assistant you are a representation of me.” He held both index fingers up and used them for emphasis like a conductor conducting his own performance. “If that was Wade, imagine the sort of image he has of me now.” Mr. Kowalchik’s fat face was slowly turning pink on its way to a hearty red. Swan figured she’d better stop this before his head blew off. Secretaries get blamed for everything and if he were to have an aneurysm now, she’d probably be accused of murdering him by answering the phone wrong.

“Why would Mr. Wade refuse to give his name when he has legitimate business and giving his name will get him through? People who refuse to give information are trying to pitch something and know as soon as they say they are trying to sell something I will get rid of them. This guy was a salesman. A rude salesman. Okay?”

Mr. Kowalchik stood there, his face still a nice shade of baby pink, but further coloration seemed to have been arrested. Still, this would not do. He had come out here with the express purpose of being angry at her and now she was being reasonable. She would at the very least have to sit through a lecture on being a lady. “You still had no call to be rude back to him,” Mr. Kowalchik blustered.

Swan tried to put the stack of filing out of her mind. There was no way she’d get it done before lunch now. It would have to take a little longer. She settled herself for the oncoming lecture. It is an old idea…

“It’s an old idea, and one which your generation has gotten rid of, but I’d like it if you would think of yourself as a lady when you are in my office. Well mannered, considerate, proper, listening to all comers and giving everyone their due. A lady would not slam the phone down, nor would she call someone rude and an idiot no matter how badly she had been treated. Do I make myself clear?”

Swan’s stomach gurgled loudly as if in answer.

Mr. Kowalchik looked at her midsection and frowned. A lady’s stomach should be quiet and decorous even if it is nearly an hour after the usual lunch time.

“Yes, Mr. Kowalchik. I understand.”

“Thank you, Miss Shreve.”

“Doctor,” she corrected.

“Hmm?”

“Doctor Shreve. The Ph.D.?” she reminded him.

Mr. Kowalchik frowned some more. A lady should not insist on her title, or even reference it, when she is better educated than her boss and she knows it bothers his ego. “Yes. Doctor,” he muttered and returned to his office.

“And I’m going to lunch,” she called after him. It was inviting another Mr. Kowalchik speech to leave all that mess on her desk, but she could no longer file on an empty stomach. He grunted, which she took as assent. She grabbed her purse and opened the door.

“Hey Dr. Shreve,” the mail guy swung his cart right into Swan’s path, nearly taking out her knees. “Couple of packages for you today.” He was a skinny kid named Garrett who’d been in her Intro to American Lit class last spring semester.

“Don’t call me that,” she said as she relieved him of a few packages addressed to Mr. Kowalchik. “I’m not your professor anymore. Just call me Swan.”

He grinned. “But that wouldn’t drive you crazy.”

“Thanks,” Swan said.

“Hey, I have to find some fun around here. See you Doctor Shreve.”

Swan slipped back into the office and set the boxes on her desk. Mr. Kowalchik came out of his office again.

“Ran into the mail guy,” she explained.

Mr. Kowalchik grunted. “Take these over to Brian’s office on your lunch break.” He shoved a file at her.

Swan grabbed it and cursed herself for coming back. No good deed goes unpunished. “Okay,” she said. At least she’d get to see Brenda.

***

“She’s late today,” Mrs. Strand remarked.

Mrs. Hamel and Mrs. Strand sat in a light blue Prius at the bottom of the parking ramp of Bova Technologies campus, watching the activity around the side door of the south building. A security guard nosed by their car and stopped to tap on the driver’s side window. He was in a gray uniform that said Bova Technologies on the left breast. He had a stick in his belt but no gun. The uniform was more fitted than the usual mass produced shirts most companies gave security. Bova was serious. But then technology companies needed to be these days. The guard looked about two days over the age of twenty-three and probably had a criminal justice degree and was working here while trying to become a real cop.

Mrs. Hamel rolled down her window and looked up expectantly at the guard.

“You ladies lost?”

“No. Just waiting to take my granddaughter to lunch,” Mrs. Hamel said.

The two ladies plastered mild, grandmotherly smiles on their faces. Mrs. Strand was the older of the two by twenty years. She sat, prim as a gray cat in the passenger seat, holding a pair of knitting needles and half a sweater in orange and brown acrylic. Mrs. Hamel was younger and thicker, her middle age spread had not yet given way to old age frailness. She was one of those grandmothers who always opens stuck pickle jars herself.

The security guard looked them over and seemed unsure. Finally he said, “Well, I’m not allowed to let you just sit here. Does she know you’re coming?”

Mrs. Hamel broadened her smile. “She’ll be out soon.”

“Can you call her?”

“Well, no,” Mrs. Strand said. “There’s no phone around.”

“Cell phone?” the guard asked.

“Oh I don’t like those things. I never understand them.” Mrs. Hamel waved her hand by her head. “My grandson always has to help me with these technological doodads.”

The guard smiled. “Yeah. My grandparents just got a computer second hand from the neighbors and their always calling me.”

“Oh, I bet your just a whiz at those things,” Mrs. Hamel said.

The guard shrugged. “I do okay. Not like some, but I get by.” He stared at the old ladies as if they’d just appeared out of nowhere and finally decided to break the rules. “I need to get back in the booth,” he said. “But I guess you’re okay as long as you aren’t blocking traffic.”

“Thank you,” Mrs. Hamel said. The guard went back to his booth and Mrs. Hamel closed the window.

“She should have been out by now,” Mrs. Strand said. She dug in her purse and for a moment two inches of gun barrel stuck out. Mrs. Strand tucked it back in and came out with a pack of Trident. “Gum?” she offered to Mrs. Hamel.

Mrs. Hamel took a piece. “I hate tailing people.”

whine, whine, whiny, whine

Finished chapter 10 and I'm quite certain it's the worst thing I've written since some angsty poetry I wrote as a freshman in high school. The real issue is I've spent most of my day balancing my finances and that is enough to make anyone pessismistic about life these days.

But the Husker guys won their game today, so nothing is all bad. And I found this blog by an agent with lots of information on query letters and insight into the business. Check along the side for her query letter workshop and the Agent 101 posts, which explain what agents are negotiating better than anything I've ever read.

Now I think I'm going to find a corner and shut myself off.

Agent Hunting

So I'm now working on chapter 10, and I think it's shaping up fairly well. I'm getting excited to be getting close to done. So I'm beginning to research agents. There are a bunch of ways to go about this. Probably the most popular are the various books published every year listing agents and publishers: Writer's Market and Jeff Herman's, though there may be others I don't know about.

They are good resources, but I find that pretty sparse. You get names and catagories they are interested in, but still, you are searching for the business partner for your career and doing it by essentially looking in the phone book. I like to go a bit more in depth.

I subscribed to Publisher's Lunch. They send you emails every day giving you bare bones run downs on the news and deals in the publishing world. You get to see what agents are selling what. Anytime they have a book deal for a book kind of like the one I'm writing (and I'm loose about that. After all, agents usually represent more than one genre/catagory and it is worth checking out) I make a note of the agent and the agency and do a Google search. I look for website, content, and what books they've represented. Even if I haven't heard of it, the titles and covers still give me an idea of what sort of books the agent represents. Also, some agents have their own blogs or other pages of biography, etc. I always read those. I'm trying to figure out if the personality would fit too.

I like this method because you know for certain that these agents are legitimate. They are already making deals, since the deals are being reported. There is also a section in Lunch where they discuss the various movements, promotions, etc, of agents and editors. I make a note of anyone who has left someplace to start an agency or has been promoted up to an agent. New agents and agents building a business are going to be more likely to take on a new writer. Again, I do a search and see what I come up with.

I also go hunting through books. I try to hunt up who is selling the books of my favorite authors, and they are usually thanked somewhere in the acknowledgements.

Right now all the agent names I've collected live on a notepad until I'm ready. I'm not quite ready yet, but I have a decent sized list of possibilities to query, all of whom I have a decent idea of who and what they represent and who they are selling to.

I don't know if in the end I'll wind up buying the big tomes listing agents. I'm just getting started. For right now I have a list of 12 possibilities and I know a lot more about them than a list of catagories. So we'll see what happens with that.

Spies and Secretaries Update--Chapter 5

I just couldn't leave it alone, so I went back. And it is better. It felt bogged down the first time because Swan (the main character) was entering an important new area for the first time and I'd included loads of detailed description.

The instinctive thing to do is to cut the description down to the bone, but I didn't want to be so minimalistic in this section, though I did do quite a bit of cutting. But I also did a lot of adding. What I realized had happened was the description sat all by itself with no particular pull in the story. So while I tightened the description, I also started adding in Swan's thoughts, feelings, hopes, etc, as she enters this new place for the first time and looks around. I also found ways to tighten the sentences through punctuation, white space, etc.

So it isn't perfect, but it's good enough I feel I can move on with the story. I don't feel it sitting behind me, sniffling with a bad case of the adjectives.

And I'm done for the week. Tomorrow I'm performing with a band in the afternoon and days I sing I have a case of the nerves and I know I won't be able to write. And then Sunday morning is church, so I'll get back to it all on Monday.

some days it's just no go

Yes, I did get Chapter 5 revised. It's done. Kind of. But I'm really sure it is terrible and isn't working at all and I'll need to cut most of it later. I'm going to content myself with the idea that it is better than I found it and that the next draft I'll take another pass at it.

And now I need to go buy groceries. I can't continue living on pasta and oil.

Spies and Secretaries Update--Chapter 4

I got some feedback from one of my readers and it is tremendously positive. Thanks, Loretta!

Today I was working on chapter 4, and it's been like bashing my brain out with soap. Why soap? Because I'm trying to clean up and fix things. The problem is the big bang just happened in chapter 3 and now there has to be explanations of things that were hinted at before and reactions to what just happened. The whole chapter is a transition into the next set of decisions the character make. It's all a lot of thinking and talking and reacting and too much of that gets boring. Very boring. Which means you need to be really careful with these bits.

On top of this, various parts of the story have to be moved forward. Relationships need to be poked at. And it has to be the right relationships at the right times. So one scene that I had happening with John (the love interest of sorts) and Swan (the heroine) wound up getting changed into something between Mrs. Hamel (antagonist and mentor) and Swan because I realized I had enough with the guy and needed to move the other relationship a bit. However, the styles of each character are radically different. So while some of the same things got done and said plotwise, it still required a lot of rewriting and making sure those relationships gel.

Some days it all just feels very fuzzy and I have no idea what I'm doing and usually those days fall on these sorts of chapters. There is probably a link. But I think I have ended the day with something better than I started with. Chapter 5 will unfortunately be more of the same before the story picks up again. But in the next couple of days I should be to the part where things are exploding again. Those bits always feel easier. And more fun. Car chases and explosions. What is more fun than that?

well, I'm back

I haven't done well with this blogging thing. This isn't the only time I've tried it, and I didn't do well then either. So why try again? Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, and I'm trying for certifiable.

But beyond that, I actually have something to write about. So here is the whole story:

A long time ago (ok, November 2005), I was working at an office while putting my husband through his Ph.D. I knew what I really wanted to do was write, but I had a full time job, friends, voluteer stuff, a husband who was perpetually nuts from the horrors of graduate work and scientific research. It wasn't a great time. So I started a blog (my first failed blog) and on it was a progressing story. Not anything I thought out. I had ideas for "serious" books, but this wasn't going to be a serious novel. It was just a way to keep writing here and there in the hopes that eventually I'd learn how to write a novel. I'd attempted 3 before and never gotten very far. This starting over and over at things I'm no good at is a trend. Eventually it sticks.

I had this crazy idea about a group of secretary spies. After all, secretaries know everything and they really do run the world, so there must be a group of secretaries out there saving the world from evil villians and such. I could just see my secretary from grade school, her gray curly helmet hair and a sweatshirt with teddybears on it, pulling out an Uzi or some such. She'd have made a great spy. No one crossed her. With no more ideas than that, I proceeded to write.

But after about 9 "episodes" (webisodes) I quit. However, some friends liked it and said I should resurrect it. So one day a few months later I was emailing a friend funny bits while goofing off at work and I continued the story. She mentioned there were a couple other friends who would also be interested so I emailed it to them as well. And soon other friends heard and wanted to be on the mailing list. I just wrote whenever I had time at work, with no set schedule. Friends forwarded it to their friends and soon I had people I didn't know asking to be on the mailing list and by the way, where was the beginning.

Pretty soon my list of people who wanted the updates was longer than my email at the time could handle and sending people the beginning meant having to forward 20 or more old emails to them. And that wasn't including the first 9 episodes that had been on the blog and I'd never kept a copy of.

Someone suggested I put up a website which would let people read the archives to their hearts content and I could put the new stuff up there. So I did. I learned some HTML. I got a domain name. Spies and Secretaries went up in March 2006 and ran until March 2007 when I finished the story and the website went down, since I couldn't afford to pay for it anymore. Things had changed. The husband had graduated with his degree and we'd moved to New York where things are much more expensive. But in that time I'd gotten a fair number of readers and I'd learned I could actually stick with and write a novel.

After the website went down a number of the readers urged me to try to get the thing published as a novel. I said ok. But I had no idea what that would entail. For one thing, I had a problem: it wasn't very good. At least I didn't think so. It had it's funny moments and some likable characters, but as a whole, it was sort of messy.

I had no idea what I was doing, however, so in May 2007 I attended a conference that had a whole round up of agents. You spent 3 minutes with an agent and then if they were interested they said to write them. Technically you were only supposed to do it if you had the novel ready to go. I didn't. I had a mess. But I did it anyway and the agents were interested. So I went back home and tried to revise. I realized I couldn't revise this and so let it go, deciding it was high time I got a real job anyway.

However the economy was starting its downturn and no one wanted to hire someone who'd been a low-level secretary for the last five years even if she did have graduate work. No experience beyond office work meant no one wanted to hire me for anything other than office work. The only real interview I got was for an unpaid internship at an agent's office and even she didn't want me (she was quite nice though). I couldn't even give away my work (unless it was answering phones and filing).

By spring 2008, I'd bottomed out. I attempted writing another novel, but couldn't get anywhere at all. I tried to get some other stuff published and no one wanted it. I went back to Spies and Secretaries. This time I was thinking webcomic.

Except I can't draw. But it made me look again at the stuff I had. And I liked it. It was a mess. It was completely unfixable. But it had some moments. I decided to start over from scratch. Previously I'd always written things by winging it. No plots, no plans, no idea of the ending. I'd write the first draft and then revise the mess. This worked fine for short stories. I'd even had a few of them published. I had done just that with Spies and Secretaries and it didn't seem to be working for me. Not on a longer work, anyway.

So when I decided to start over I sat down with a notebook and made a full outline of the story. I figured out subplots and characters and histories. It took about a month. And then I sat down to write. Some of it was easy. Some of it I had already written and could pull directly off the previous stuff. But most of it was all new. Same characters, same situation, but now with some structure and maybe a coherent plot.

I finished it last fall and am now working on the third draft. And that's why I decided to attempt a blog again. I've never tried to publish a book before (the previous ones being too awful and unfinished to bother with). I have no idea what I'm doing. And for some reason I think it would be useful to the world to write about this journey as I finish revising and try to get published. Who knows, maybe my mistakes and missteps will help someone else avoid the same problems.

This blog probably won't be all about writing and publishing, but that is what I am specifically setting out to talk about. I will still probably post pictures of my cat.

The big news of the day is I finally have the first three chapters in a form that I'm willing to let someone else look at them. And so I have passed them on to two of my friends, one who read the original stuff and one who didn't and now I just have to wait for their responses. I am attempting to practice patience. But I always pace nervously when waiting for feedback. And munch things. Tonight I intend to spend watching for email and eating cookies.

It's not just me

So recently I finished up a short story called "Incend" and start it on its way to amassing rejections. This story took my five years to write, largely because it terrifies me. It is about the friendship of two boys in a rural Nebraska town just as the Defense of Marriage Act (an act defining marriage as between a man and a woman) was voted in. Because it is a story of mine, there is also spontaneous combustion involved.

What scared me so much about writing it was that I didn't feel I had the right to. I'm not a man. I haven't been 15 years old in fifteen years. I'm a woman married to a man. I was terrified I was overstepping some bounds. How could I write this when the viewpoint is so very much not my own?

So today, on my usual looking at my favorite blogs, Nancy Kress wrote about the same thing, but her issue is a dwarf. I'd hug her, but I'd be too shy and if I could open my mouth I'd be fangirled out telling her I love her and asking if she'd sign my tattered copy of Beggars In Spain. As it is, she's a better writer than I am and has been writing a lot longer than I have, so that she worries over the same things is very comforting to me. Can't wait to read Dogs and Steal Across the Sky.

And hey! I have managed a nonpolitical post. Sort of.