a long, long silence

Well. It has been a while, hasn't it? Life has been full of work and freelancery and not very full of writing at all, but I did finally manage to make it through my last round of edits. Yes, that's right, Nor is finished! Now on to the query letter and synopsis. Wish me luck with that. I'll post some of my awful query letter drafts next week, so you all can have a good giggle at them.
Have a good weekend!

struggle

Hi all. Just a couple things to report for this week.
First, I am still struggling with my query letter. I'm still trying, too. For some reason it's difficult for me to condense my big rambly story into a few concise paragraphs. Hmmm. Any words of wisdom from out in the ether?
Second, I have begun my final tidy of my manuscript. Of course, there are constant interruptions and I never get as much done in a day as I would like to, but I am making forward progress, and that's the important part.
Third, I spent some time brainstorming for a series concept a few days ago. And I think I found it. I've scribbled some notes about how the world of my series works, and pondered where to have it take place, and made a list of things to research. What I have not done yet is character sketches and specific story arcs, since I'm still trying to get to know the world I'm creating. Maybe I'll say more here about specifics at some point. But for now, I thought I would ask if anyone has any great input/suggestions/links/etc. about world-building. So, anyone?
Off to start my weekend with some freelancing. Have a good one, everybody!

New Plots and Problems

So what I've been doing is starting Spies and Secretaries 2. Of course it won't be called that. Right now I'm just randomly calling it Faust in my computer files. This is both frightening and a lot of fun. I like to plan things (yes, Thistlewitch mentioned the index cards for every scene and that is me). So right now my days consist of sitting down in the morning and doodling in a notepad. Occasionally I make some notes. And somewhere around 10:30 or so my brain sweeps up and puts the chairs on the tables and says that is all the ideas for today, we will reopen tomorrow so you better show up.

After that is some residual creativity. So far there has been house cleaning, bread baking, calligraphy, and some sewing involved. I also do a lot of reading and taking walks. What I'm not doing much of is talking to other people, watching tv, or going out. I become a bit isolationist and obsessive. That sounds a bit sicker than it is. But it's like trying to catch at snatches of a dream you've forgotten and that takes quite a bit of listening and quiet. I resent all intrusions as I try to pull it together.

So if I seem quiet and distant right now, that is where I am. I'll be back soon. And perhaps this residual creativity will spark a few more blog posts from me along with lots of bread. One can always hope.

query letters

I am really, really struggling with this. I will try to post another one this weekend. Have a good one everybody!

Constructive Criticism

A friend of mine just had a disheartening experience when she asked several people for constructive criticism on a short story she'd written, and it got me thinking about the concept of criticism. When someone asks for a critique/analysis of their work, so often they just get torn down, ripped to shreds. This wouldn't make anyone comfortable with the idea of putting more work out there! And I wonder if people just don't understand how to be constructive in their criticism. While it is true that, in asking for critique, we as artists are asking to be told what is wrong with our art, what isn't working with it. But that doesn't mean we're giving people carte blanche to tell us how much we suck. Instead, I strongly feel that it is important to make mention of what people do accomplish well, while pointing out areas that need improvement. Instead of "I think your story is boring" say "I really like your idea, but . . ." or "I think your characters are really well-developed, but . . ." etc.
I'm certainly not saying that people should pussyfoot around the issues they see. I'm just saying that it's good to mention the positives along with the negatives for a more balanced opinion.
Anybody else have any thoughts on this one?

query letter #1

All right everyone, this is the first query letter I've ever done. I'm pretty sure it's crap. But, you have to start somewhere, right? Please do let me know your thoughts on this:

Nor is in trouble.
As a slave for her entire life, Nor is used to doing what she’s told. So when a revolt breaks out in the slave quarters and someone tells her to open the door and run, she does. With the help of a young man who Nor is secretly drawn to, she and the other runaways flee into the desert in a desperate attempt to find freedom.
Throughout their journey, Nor struggles with her desire to return to the only home she’s ever known. Her owner, Myrthe Severe, was the closest thing to family she’d ever had. A small but growing part of Nor relishes her newfound freedom even though she doesn’t know how to deal with it.
Things get more complicated when they plunge into the jungle to put more distance between themselves and the slavers who search the desert for them. The emperor of the jungle believes them to be the jungle deities returned to fleshly form, and holds them captive in his palace while drugging them into doing his bidding. Nor evades the emperor’s manipulation with the aid of Isha, a mysterious woman who she quickly becomes emotionally entangled with.
When the emperor makes a drastic move to keep Nor’s friends under his thumb permanently, Nor must make a choice: Will she obey orders, as she has always done? Or will she stand up for the freedom that she and her newfound family fought so hard to achieve?
A fantasy novel, XXX is complete at 89,000 words. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Hmm

I feel like I'm always apologizing when I get on here. Sorry it's been so long, sorry I've been so quiet, etc. And I feel like I ought to do it again. But I'm going to skip that and instead go straight to what I want to say.
Every writer has their own process that works for them. For some people, it's all about a serious, in-depth outline that plots out every scene of the book. Some people outline with index cards, one per scene, so it's easy to swap things around. Some people write by the seat of their pants, starting with just a character or scene or bit of dialogue in their head. Some people can only write at their desk, with a particular type of pen and a more particular type of paper, with the radio on so low that it's only a suggestion of noise. Etc.
I am a seat-of-my-pants writer. While I plan to experiment more with outlining, I do tend to just get a snippet of an idea in my head, jot that on paper, and see where it leads me. My story is as much a mystery to me as it is to my readers, the first time around! But. I saw this post on Deadline Dames and just had to share. So, click over there and enjoy!
Also. Soon to appear here: my attempts at a query letter. Yikes!

I'm here

But I'm exhausted. Riding roller coasters is hard work. I'd blog more but the wireless connection where I'm at is spotty. Instead I give you a picture. Doesn't that look like fun?

Monsters to Slay

Another rejection! Hurray! It's not even news anymore, but I give the agent credit for getting back to me. Pretty much if they haven't gotten back by now, I'm figuring the answer is no.

A lot of writers really fret the no response thing from agents. I don't. I have no need to hear back from absolutely everybody. Moving forward. After a month or so, I already know.

So a friend of mine turned me onto a game called "Braid" yesterday and it has some gorgeous art and sound. A bit like a Mario Bros. game with Impressionist art and beautiful violin. The only thing that bothers me about this video game is that it is obviously an about a girl. The intro talks about how the main character, Tim, is off to rescue the princess from the monster. But the princess actually left of her own accord because Tim made a lot of mistakes. It then goes on about the culture of causality and the miserliness of forgiveness and how wouldn't it be nice if we could learn from our mistakes and that we'd be rewarded for learning instead of punished for making them.

A girlfriend of mine was over when I was looking at this and we both had the same comment. This was written by a guy. And I don't know anything about Tim and the Princess's relationship, but how many mistakes did the guy make? Did he just keep making them and only 'learn' after it became clear he lost her? And did he really learn anything at all? Because by making it about the miserliness of forgiveness, he's essentially saying the relationship broke down, not because of his mistakes, but because she couldn't forgive. It's her fault. (I am totally over-analyzing a game here, I know.)

So here it is: Just because you are forgiven doesn't mean someone let's you back into his or her life. They're not the same thing. And chasing after saying, "Forgive me! Forgive me! Forgive me!" is essentially saying, "Give me! Give me! Give me!" It's a self-centered act.

If I were the Princess's friend I would look at the game and say, "Awesome game. Really talented guy. Don't go back there."

If Tim had really learned something it would say, "I'm sorry. I did it. I know it. And the next Princess I meet I will be more giving to her." How many monsters do you have to slay to get the girl? One. Yourself.

Obsessions and Submissions

I'll get better at this blogging thing. Part of it is I usually want to make my writing perfect, to be witty, erudite, etc., etc. And that isn't exactly the nature of blogging. Not that people don't come up with brilliant and wonderful things, but most times it is the day to day, the little thoughts, and the unexceptional.

So here I am, endevoring to be unexceptional. So here are the updates:

Between May 13 and 15 I sent queries out to 21 agents. I got three requests for partials, all of whom rejected bringing the total to 15 rejections and 6 no responses. A number of the rejections were actually positive (if there is such a thing) and praised my story and my writing. So I consider that to be a kind of success. I'm wondering if the real difficulty is that nothing in my query mentions that I'm intending to be a little upscale. If you read my query you might be expecting it to start hard and fast and be tons of adventure. There is adventure and shootings and explosions. But the climax of the novel isn't when the bad guys are caught. It's more character driven. So if you are expecting high octane, you'll think it starts a little slowly. But I'm holding out hope. Some word nerd is going to look at this and connect immediately. It's out there.

In the meantime I've been working on another edit because did I mention the perfectionist in me? But I finally let go and am sending it to a few friends.

In the meantime, I've been to Iowa for a bit to be at my father-in-law's retirement party. And the husband and I reconnected to World of Warcraft. This is dangerous business.

We used to play Dark Age of Camelot together and then City of Heroes. We'd been on WoW but then gave up. I think we'd just burnt out after so many games. But we're back now and it's been full on obsession. Somewhere between helping with the massive church rummage sale and the trip to Iowa I lost my writing habit and it became harder and harder to get back into it, especially as the computer was enticing me with slaying beasties as my gnome warrior.

Yep, it's an obsession. And I went with it. Rather than trying to force myself and getting upset, I went with it. Obsessions can lead you into some interesting waters and as much as I'm a big believer in habit and putting my butt to the chair, I also know there is no point in forcing myself when all I'll do is drive myself crazy. So every morning I would make my tea as usual. I'd sit down with my journal and write some drivel. Maybe mess a little bit with the manuscript. And after a little time I'd go feed the obsession. It's feeding the fever and letting it burn itself out. It did. Not that I'm off WoW by any means. But it's taken its rightful place now as a hobby to be done after writing. And that is good.

About Trends

The other day, I was talking to someone about what to write next. He told me that I should consider putting my vampire idea on a backburner for now, because while vampire books have been pretty popular for the last couple years, the trend might be over by the time my book would come out. Which is a pretty valid point, on the one hand. Of course you should be aware of trends as you write and submit. On the other hand, however, I don't think that anyone should let trends dictate what they write, or when they write it. Writing a good, tight book with accessible characters and good pacing is way more important than what the trend is. If your book is amazing, it'll sell even if the trend is on the wane.
Any thoughts on this, anyone? Pro- or anti-trend?
An aside, specifically about the vampire trend: Vampires have been popular for a long time. Bram Stoker's Dracula, anyone? So I wouldn't worry too much about vamps ever becoming really unpopular. They've stood the test of time, I think!

Radio Silence

Well, sorry about that. I haven't been a very consistent blogger. I think it's just that I've been too busy working. And Internet at home doesn't happen often.
This week I've been dealing with author corrections for a particular book. The author wrote her corrections in with a pink highlighter pen. Now, really. It's often hard enough to decipher a stranger's handwriting as is. Did I really need the added difficulty of that? Sigh. Oh well. It's finished for now, that's the important part.
I'm behind on my writing. I really want to be done with my edits in about a week, but I'm a week or so behind. Still working on that work/writing/freelance/social life balance. It's quite the tightrope act! And I seem to be slipping . . . But that's really just the way it goes. Sometimes you're productive, sometimes not. Sometimes you're busy, sometimes not. I want to be less busy, so I can be more productive. But I do enjoy my job, and (usually) the freelance work as well. Anyway. Hopefully I'll be working on query letters in a couple weeks, and will put them up here for your perusal/entertainment.
I wish I had something more exciting to say, but my brain is mush at this point. (And it's only Tuesday. That, my friends, is a bad sign!) Have a good night. I'll try not to be such a quite coblogger.

my writing

I write fantasy. I can't really be any more specific than that. The first manuscript I completed was a YA urban fantasy novel, sort of a Romeo and Juliet lite, only with fey folk. In New York. The one I'm working on now is definitely an adult novel. And there's no urban about it, it's just fantasy. Not epic fantasy, either. Just an alternate world, a different set of gods to worship, and a few different human-type species. No magic, or swords, or dragons. My short fiction is all over the place: I have written non-genre short stories. I wrote one about Lucifer returning in the form of a cat. One about a woman locked in an iron room and losing her child. One about a girl who went to a different world in her dreams and raced a stag and the moon to become high priestess of the land. There's one I can't even describe about a frustrated musician who goes to a bar that turns into a pirate ship. . . . See? I'm really all over the place. And that comes about, I think, because I'm not an outline-oriented writer. I start with a character. Or a scene. Or a line. And I just keep going after that, and see what happens. I always thought that that's the fun of writing: seeing where it goes. (I'm not trying to be negative about outlines, don't get me wrong. I've even considered trying to do one and writing a novel from it at some point, to see what it's like. But I do feel that there's a magic in just following where the words lead.)
I like a lot of things about my writing habit. I like that I am motivated and disciplined. I like that I write such a variety. But. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a slow writer. Which drives me nuts, but there's no other way to be. I wish I could churn out two or three books a year, like a certain young author I'm insanely jealous of whose blog I read. But the fact of the matter is that, around working full-time and then some, and having a couple of interests outside of writing, there's no way for me to burn through writing a manuscript. I just don't have the time. Maybe someday . . . So for now I content myself with being slower than I'd like. Slow and steady wins the race, eh?
I'm currently revising my manuscript for the second time. When I'm done, I hope to convince people to read it and give me feedback again, and then I'll polish it up one more time, and then submit. But I have to be honest: a small part of my brain is already churning away on a very important question. What do I write next? So many ideas, so little time!
Anyway. It's weekend time. Enjoy, everyone!

another brief one

I know, I know, I owe the blogosphere a nice long ramble either about my book or about the publishing industry. And it'll happen. Sometime next week. I would like to say I promise, but I think that I would just be setting myself up for disaster, so instead I'll just say that I'll really try.
Today, I want to talk about the importance of deadlines, in two ways. First, deadlines you set for yourself, and second, deadlines your publishing house sets for you.
So, first. I believe that it's really important to give yourself deadlines. If you find you can't respect them, have someone else give you deadlines. Something easy, even. For example, every two weeks you give your critique partner five new pages. Something. Anything to keep you moving as a writer, and also so that you learn to work under a deadline. Because once you have a contract for your book, you will have lots of deadlines from your publisher.
Which leads me to my second deadline point. Please, please keep to whatever deadlines you're given. A couple of days here or there may not seem like a big deal. But a couple of days in a tight schedule can mean that your book gets bumped to a later pub date because something didn't happen quickly enough. And bumping is not good because the sales and marketing teams, and the bookstores, are expecting things on a certain date. It's not just a problem for them, either. Late materials can affect the editor, the art department, the text designer, the copyeditor, proofreader, etc. The typesetter. The printer! Because it snowballs. So if your editor sends you your copyedited manuscript for review and asks you to return it in two weeks, please do just that.
And now, I'm off to enjoy the beautiful weather. Have a nice weekend, everyone!

query letter link

Hi all, I only have a sec but wanted to post about this great editorial blog entry I found on query letters, since that's been a major topic of conversation here lately. Go take a peek at it, and I'll try to be back later in the day or tomorrow!

Query Letter #6

And the final one. I realized that the problem with #5 was the order.  I had a nice lead off line.  But then I needed to show where Swan was coming from instead of doing it the other way around.  So here is what I hope is my final version.

***

The last thing Swan Shreve needs is a crazy old lady with a gun following her around.  She’s already been feeling like a loser standing small ever since she graduated with a Ph.D. in English and took a job as a secretary at a weapons company to make ends meet while all her friends got tenure tracks teaching Aphra Behn to sleeping freshmen.  Now, Mrs. Hamel turns up out of nowhere, announces she’s a spy and says she needs Swan’s help.  Swan thinks the old bat needs a retirement home and medication.  But Mrs. Hamel isn’t crazy.  The Strategic Secretarial Services (SSS) is real and when a coworker is murdered, Swan needs all Mrs. Hamel's guns and help to stay alive.

Query Letter #5

So as bad as #4 was, there were a couple of new things in it that I thought were neat ideas. So I spliced 3 and 4 to create 5, which is why 4, as horrid as it is, was important to do, even it it was worse than where I started.

***

The last thing Swan Shreve needs is a crazy old lady with a gun.  It's been 15 years since the last time she saw Mrs. Hamel and now the old bat turns up out of nowhere, announces she's actually a spy for a top secret governmental secretarial pool, and says she needs Swan's help.  Even if it were real, Swan isn't interested.  She got her Ph.D. in English six months ago and has been feeling like a loser standing small ever since she got a job as a secretary to an upper level engineer at a weapons company and all her friends landed tenure tracks teaching Aphra Behn to sleeping freshmen.  But the Strategic Secretarial Services (SSS) is real and when a coworker is murdered, Swan needs all Mrs. Hamel's help and her guns to stay alive.

Query Letter #4

I thought I'd done really well with letter #3 and was thinking of skipping the other letters I promised I'd write. That was good enough right? But I made myself write another one, starting from scratch. Yeah. Um... all I can say is sometimes the way forward looks like the way back.

***

The last thing Swan Shreve needs is a senile old lady with a gun claiming to be a spy. Sure life has been a bit boring ever since she graduated with her Ph.D. in American Literature and went to work as a secretary at a high tech weapons company. She's watched all her friends move on to good jobs, relationships and success while she feels like a loser standing small, but that doesn't make her so desperate as to believe there is a top secret group of secretarial spies out saving the world. Then a coworker is killed and Swan finds out she's in danger. She's going to need all the little old ladies packing heat that she can muster to survive.

don't f*k with the system

That pretty much sums up the last couple of weeks. I should know better. I've been writing a long time. But still, every once in awhile I decide it would be fun to tinker and then my writing goes no where. Absolutely no where. I finally managed to put down 400 words today.

Ok, the system is this. I get up, make lunch for the guy, take him to the train, come home, feed the cat, make tea, turn on the computer, get cereal, play a game of free cell, and then write. In that order or the monster in charge of my creativity (he has floppy ears) decides to go pick daisies instead.

But my computer is old and its immune system is vulnerable to every sort of new virus that comes along. Most times I just keep it in the bubble of my apartment with no internet but it had to go out, so we put on a new virus scanner. A virus scanner that causes my poor, sluggish baby to take for-freaking-ever (which is even longer than forever, let me tell you) to load. Waiting for load time is not in the writing system. It's a sensitive system. I sit in front of the computer glaring at it, chomping on my cereal and wondering how many more million times I need to click the button to get free cell to come up.

So instead of waiting, I took to playing piano (ok, more like playing at piano, or playing with a piano--actually, it's a keyboard, I only wish I had a real piano, and my musicality is sort of limited anyway) while the computer loaded up. And the monster went to pick daisies. And it has only taken me TWO WHOLE WEEKS to figure out why I was suddenly and massively word constipated. Two weeks. I am a moron. In the meantime I have not been a joy to live with and have resolutely turned down everything and stayed in my little hidey hole hoping the monster would come and play with me.

And so I have tweaked the system in a way that just might work. Now I get up, turn on the computer, make lunch, etc, etc, and by the time I get home from the train station and the tea made and the cat fed, the computer is ready for me to play free cell and start putting words down. The creative monster has made enough daisy chains.

All Quiet on the Northern Front

Hello, everyone. Sorry things have been so quiet here; I've been quite busy at work and at home, and I'm not sure where my fellow contributor has gotten herself to these days. One can only hope that she is too busy with her revisions at this point to deal with such things as blogs and e-mail.
Anyway. I wanted to say a brief something from a production standpoint to all writers out there who may come across this.
Please, please, when you are marking changes on your copyedited manuscript or on your typeset pages, make sure they are logical and legible. It makes everybody's life easier.
Short and sweet, I know, but it's past time to go home already. I promise a longer ramble about my writing soon.