The Winner and Champion is… the Story!

I should be posting something else, but I know my friend will understand the delay and entirely forgive me, since we would both agree that this is more important.  Amazingly, it’s done.  The edit of the second draft of Dark Mirror is complete. In just a day over a month, I wrote an entire draft, then edited said draft.  Why don’t I feel more tired from this feat?  Oh, right, adrenaline and hot chocolate.  I rewrote the last two chapters almost completely, working in a fresh file and only copying over those bits that could be used with the new ideas, but even that is done.  It’s also a bit longer.  And by a bit, I mean about 8k longer, now weighing in at a not-mind-blowing 81,773 words. Trust me, that’s still pretty short by Fantasy standards.

Yes, I did end up incorporating those tugs and whispers I mentioned before.  It felt like pure laziness not to at least mentally explore the implications of doing so, and when I did, I found that it made the chapter far better, the story as a whole smoother and set up something I’m going to need later, when I go to write Possession and The Nine.  It didn’t take as much extra work as I had feared either, though it did forced the above mentioned rewrites, but even that turned out better, though I’m not entirely happy with the final chapter yet, I think.  I guess I just don’t have a lot of practice at endings.  We’ll see.  It goes in a virtual drawer now for however long I can leave it or a few days, whichever comes first (long time readers of this blog are probably sniggering at that, knowing which is more likely), after which I will read it again all the way through with no editing (though I might stop just long enough to fix actual typos if there are any left) and see what I think, and if I think the new title I’m contemplating for it fits.  I already know it fits better than DM, but that’s like saying a size 10 shoe fits better than a size 12 when your feet are an 8.  It’s an improvement but it still won’t stay on.  That said, I’m at the point where any title would make me happier than DM.

I’m amazed to have made it through again.  And I still like it.  Do I think I can do better?  Sure.  Do I think that there’s still room for me to grow as a writer, both in expression and how I grow my story and characters? Absolutely.  But I think back to the first draft of this, and then even further back to the last novel idea I tried to write,  and I can see the progression, the growth and improvement I’ve undergone and it makes me unbelievably happy to see it, because it means I’m on the right track.  I’m fairly confident that, after reading it through in (probably not) a few days, I’ll be ready to send it out for the opinions of others.  Those people will be warned that it’s on the way once their copies are in the mail though (when it’s too late for me to chicken out).  And then it will be time for another project to thoroughly distract myself and keep me busy while I try desperately not to pester them for word on their opinions.  I really try not to make a nuisance of myself to people who like me and are doing me a huge favour with the gift of their time, but remember what I’ve said before.  I’m not patient.  Never have been, and there’s no point in me trying to pretend.  The involved parties know better already anyhow.

So, new project.  Part of me deeply feels that I should work on Possession, especially since I already have several fairly detailed entries in the outline for that one and I’m getting to have a pretty good idea of where I need to go with it, though the ending still isn’t entirely in focus.  The only problem is that I’m a bit concerned regarding doing that and then having something seriously change once I get comments back on DM and having to redo all that work.  I’d do it (after me throwing out the first draft of DM, you know I will), but if I can avoid it…  And then Helix and his girlfriend start shouting, and I have to tell you, a guy in a leather jacket with a street bike who can do magic is pretty hard to resist. It’s mostly between the two of them, because I’m not sure if I’m ready to face The Ailing Tree, as much as I really want to take a crack at Lorah and Arcalyus.  I really do want to write that one, don’t get me wrong, but it’s a slightly ambitious project for me (long story, not going into it here), and I’m not sure I’m ready for it.  Funny thing is, I have a way more ambitious project that I’m frankly scared of, which currently goes, as a whole, under the code name Generational.  Em and SJ might remember me talking VERY briefly about it and the 5 books it’ll take to write it.  Like I said, highly ambitious, but not really on my radar yet.  Need better skills first and a lot more thought.  Worse, another old idea is knocking on my head, my Tuatha project, but that one will probably take some actual research (agh).  Too many choices for this writer.   Generational entirely aside, any suggestions?

Oh, and I haven’t forgotten that I promised a pic with my next post (which didn’t happen because the next one was an award post). As I really should have gotten off my lazy ass and done one last time, no matter how tired I was, I shall make up to you all by posting two today.  And on that note, I bid you adieu and good night.  This writer needs to rest her brains (what she has left of them).

The Biggest and the Smallest

I’m sitting here after a long day that followed too little sleep and trying to think of something entertaining to say.  I think we’re all out of luck there.  I’m never at my best when I’m this tired, but I wanted to post something today, since I didn’t yesterday.  It’s not just the fact that I haven’t been sleeping much either.  If only it was so simple. No, some of it is me adjusting to begin back at work, some of it is that there seems to be nothing new to say right now.  Some of it, I suspect, is that I haven’t been eating enough lately.  No, it’s nothing stupid like me refusing to eat.  I just get wrapped up in things and forget to eat until about 10 or 11 and then it’s too late for food.  Sadly, this is a regular occurrence when I’m writing.

I already miss having all day to just write, and think about writing, to be immersed in it.  I think I need to win the lottery so I can go back to that.  I’ve been keeping at it though, now up to 5 chapters of Dark Mirror  done in both passes of editing.  I’m reasonably happy with what I’ve written too.  Oh, I have some things I need to work back into it, and other things that will need some filling in to complete them, but I think I’m striking at least some of the right notes.  And it may be better than I either know or would ever be willing to say.  My friends know that I’m my harshest critic, never giving myself enough credit and always willing to pick at any flaw without acknowledging the things I’ve done right.  The upside of all that is that I don’t really fear or worry about the criticism of others, at least not in my writing, because the chances are slim that they’ll say anything worse than what I’ve already told myself.  I sometimes worry that I’ll have that problem even if I were to become a best-selling or award-winning author.

But the work is progressing, and I managed to untangle a knot in my outline for Possession a couple of days ago, so that’s moving forward again at last, though slowly as I’m making the edit of DM my priority right now.  If I could just get some sleep, I’ll probably be able to get more done, if only because my brain will then be firing on all cylinders and it definitely isn’t now (adding to my lack of faith in my own perception of DM).  I’m hoping that I can get a jump on some of this over the weekend, though, when I can sleep in and stay up late if I want, when I have all day for writing and don’t have to think about work.

Speaking of work, I did have an interesting discussion a couple of days ago with one of the Project Managers on my team that touched on the philosophical, and it made me think about story and character construction a bit.  He was telling me about an old Chinese philosopher who talked about the smallest thing being something with no inside, and the largest having no outside.  It’s an interesting idea, one I rather like for it’s elegant simplicity of expression.  As it would apply to character and story construction, though, it seemed to me that we need to know both ends of that spectrum, the largest and smallest things, even if they don’t make it into the book, partly because those are the things that can lead us into the most interesting places in our tales.  I’ve done a little of this, taking elements of several of my characters and opening them up to see what’s inside, then opening that inside up, to see what lives within that, until I can’t drill down into that character any further.  I learned some things about almost every major character I have in my Mirrors trilogy that way, things that shocked me, that electrified my brain and turned my previously very linear thoughts on the story for the whole trilogy into total pretzels.  In fact, I think a yoga master would be impressed with the twists my brain tied itself into with some of this stuff.  Wow.  But it’s all a result of looking inside things to see what lurked there.

For going the other way, to the biggest that has no outside, I think that it’s a matter of finding out what the big picture of the story is at any given point, so that you know what goes on in places that the narrative isn’t happening at, with characters that aren’t seen at that moment.  And you have to know some of those things, because they will very likely affect the narrative focus at some point down the road.  The more I have thought about this idea of the biggest and smallest things and it’s relationship to my writing, the more I realize what an essential tool it is for creating depth, in both the world and characters that I’m building, and in the story I’m telling.  I’m enjoying the places it’s taking me, and, if I can get any of this finished enough that I’m ready to put it out there, I hope some of you will too.

Now to go read for a bit and see if I can get some decent sleep tonight.  Otherwise, I’ll have to fall back on my mother’s old threat when I wouldn’t sleep as a child:  The Rubber Mallet.  I think I may have one somewhere in the apartment (don’t ask).  If not, I’ll find an alternative, don’t you worry.  :)

And no, I haven’t forgotten it.  Today’s picture, taken in Northern Ontario where my family gathers every year in the Fall:

Doing The Double-Pass

I was sitting at work today, trying (and failing) to concentrate on work stuff.  The first day back from vacation is always like this for me.  I think the problem is that my brain is refusing to come back from vacationland.  I think it’ll show up tomorrow though.  All that said, I ended up thinking about writing for some of the day, like any other moment in my life that’s not filled by something that isn’t writing.  Particularly, I was thinking about Dark Mirror and editing.

As I said yesterday, I’m now editing Dark Mirror.  The book is 20 chapters long, I’m doing one chapter at a time for this.  Not like going nuts and insisting the chapter has to be perfect, nothing crazy like that, if I even believed that “perfect” has ever existed in reality.  No, I’m just trying to avoid racing through this, so that I can take the time to do this right, to really think about what I’m trying to say and how I say it.  Writing first draft is about speed for me, if for no other reason than to stay ahead of my inner editor (nya nya, you can’t catch me!).  Editing should be more leisurely and thoughtful, in my only somewhat humble opinion.

Normally I edit by printing out a copy of the manuscript, grabbing a red pen or two and turning into a mark-up fiend.  I then enter my changes from the now messy, crossed out, chewed up dead-tree version into the electronic version.  All this while, I’m praying that I can read my own handwriting (not ever guaranteed, I have one of the world’s worst scribbles, really).

This time, I’m doing something a little different.  Among other things, I don’t really want to print up 300 pages just so I can essentially crayon all over it and then either box it up or shred and recycle it.  I really don’t.  Also, I thought I’d try to be a little green.  Hug the planet, all that stuff.  So I made a pdf of my manuscript, tossed it on my iPad and grabbed a neat little pdf mark-up app called pdf-notes.  So far, it’s been going well.  I’ve gone through 4 chapters with it and, after a little bit of learning, I like it.  I like being able to undo my marks, change my mind, etc, things I can’t do on dead tree.  Once pen hits paper, you’re stuck with that mark.  It’s got a bunch of different tools for mark-up, but I’m sticking with the traditional red pen, with sticky notes for adding text/changing words.  When I’m done, I follow the rest of the usual path, entering changes in the electronic file.  I’ll probably keep the final marked-up pdf for archival purposes, since that’s easier than keeping 300 pages on hand.

Generally, as I enter my changes from the dead-tree/electronic mark-up, I end up changing a lot more.  It’s like I’ve had more time to think and digest by the time I get to the entering stage. It’s always seemed like my method turns it from a single edit to a double-pass.  Two edits for the price of one, such a deal.   By now, I’m used to this approach and I rather like it.  But it feels like I’d doing much more of the extra changes than usual this time.  I don’t think it’s that I’m marking up less with the pdf than I would with the dead-tree either.  I’m not even sure if this is anything more than a correlation, a coincidence of circumstance and timing.  The thing is that a lot of things have changed for me since the last time I edited any of my own fiction.  We can start with the fact that it’s been a while.  It’s been many months since I even tried, in fact.  Then we can move our tour of Julie’s Editing Mind (no sniggering at the back) to the fact that it’s the first time I’ve edited a finished novel.  Ever.  Remember, I had never finished a novel before DM, and I didn’t so much edit the first draft as completely toss it out and start fresh again (not without good reason, but that’s not the point).  I’m in somewhat uncharted waters here, and it’s making me think more about how I’m shaping this piece.  The next stop on this tour is the amount that I’ve learned about the craft and myself as a writer/storyteller in the many moons since I last did try to edit my own work.  I think a lot of that is going into the greater volume of edits, come to think of it.

Also, and I definitely don’t want to skip over this, but I think it deserves it’s own paragraph, I wrote this draft in fifteen days.  That’s it, start to finish.  There’s no polish at all when you work that quickly, none.  And now I get to do all that polishing I didn’t do while writing before I can even think about sending it to test readers, because polish can change a lot, including plot elements on occasion, and there’s no point in wasting your test readers’ time with something you’re already changing before they even finish reading it.  No, I’ll polish it now and then put it aside while the test readers have their say.

My plan is to work on something else (like maybe first draft of Possession) while I wait for DM to come back from the test readers, just so I won’t be tempted to go back and tweak some more while they have it.  Most writers I’ve ever known will tweak a piece forever, never quite happy with it, if nothing intervenes to force them out of that pattern.  I’m actually planning on not doing that.  There will almost certainly be edits, massages, work to be done when it comes back, but I refuse to be one of those writers who never submits or publishes because they’re waiting for it to be perfect.  You can try that forever and never reach it.  I think I’d rather publish something, even if it’s the more normal state of imperfect than nothing at all.  You have to publish, after all, to get it in front of the audience’s eyes.

And, on that note, I’m including another picture for you.  Perhaps I’ll make a habit of doing this, just to make me get some of that work out there too.  After all, new year, time to push myself out there a bit more, right?

Those Things You Learn To Live With

After a couple of posts about something other than writing, I guess that it’s time to let you know that I have actually been doing something other than blogging about the awards some very nice people have given me.  Thank you again, though, guys.  Really, you made my weekend with those.

I’ve been steadily editing Dark Mirror, getting through a chapter a day, which puts me at 3 done, plus the one I’m going to be doing today.  I think today I’ll also enter the changes from the ones I’ve done, rather than waiting until I’ve finished editing them.  You never know what you might end up finding/changing when you go to actually work on the manuscript, as opposed to just scribbling notes and crossing stuff out.  I could do more, but I have a lot on my plate and I don’t want to rush through this and miss the obvious or important as a result.  That said, I am relatively happy with it, happy with the story certainly.  It’s still early in the manuscript, but I don’t think there are going to be any major changes, though maybe some additions to some parts, to flesh them out, further develop things I’m becoming aware of for other reasons.

And that brings me to the other things I’ve been doing in the last few days of my nearly-over vacation.  The outline for Possession is going well, though I’m still groping around for the details of the ending.  I know certain things that have to be in place beforehand though, and some things that occur as part of the ending, but the specifics, the where and how are still out there in the murk.  It’s a start, and I’m sure the exact details will come if I can just stop thinking about it for a bit.  I know it will, because that’s how it always works.  I’m doing something else and my story smacks me upside the head with absolutely no subtlety.  Every time, same thing.  One day, my muse is going to give me a concussion and then where will it be?

Further to that, The Nine, which will be Book 3 and the close of the trilogy, is advancing nicely in the notes stage.  Mostly general story stuff.  The beginning and the end of this are as yet proving elusive, but that really doesn’t worry me, for a number of reasons.  For one thing, the beginning will flow out of the ending of Possession, once I have that.  As for the ending, I have time to get there. It’s going to be significant, I know that, and I’m getting some hints regarding it, so I know it’s somewhere in my brain.  That said, so are a lot of things.  I feel like a prospector panning a river for gold some days.  Wait, what’s a toad doing in my pan?

In any case, I haven’t been totally idle on the writing front either.  One of the blogs I follow offers writing prompts periodically.  I’ll be clear, I don’t do them often, partly because I really don’t need MORE ideas floating around in my head.  Really, I don’t.  It’s already crowded and I will never have time to get to them all, even if they stop now, which doesn’t seem terribly likely.  But this one tweaked on one that’s been floating around in there for about a year.  Dawnstriders is an interesting idea, and I love the FMC (Female Main Character, for the uninitiated.  Congrats, you’ve just been initiated, don’t you feel special?), but I only have a general storyline for it, and a beginning that I wrote a while ago that has always seemed awkward, not quite right.  Then I saw this prompt, which had a picture of someone backlit by the dawning sun, and the real opening fell into my brain.  I wrote it, I like it.  I typed it up, so it’s all nice and saved now, backed up even.  I think I figured out part of the problem I was having.  You see, I typically write in a POV (Point of View) called limited 3rd person.  Think of it a bit like sitting on the character’s shoulder.  It’s not first person (I), but you still don’t know more than that POV character does.  There is, however, a small amount of narrative distance.  Dawnstriders, however, seems to fit and flow better as first person.  I’m willing to try it, and I had toyed with making DM first person, but when I started working on draft 2, I kind of forgot that plan and slipped straight into my usual POV.  I think it ended up working for the story, but different stories require different things, and part of me still wonders a bit about how DM would have turned out in first person.  Oh well, roads not taken and all that.  You still have to choose and live with the choice you made.

On that subject, I’m having some fun *does her evil author look* with the outline and story-spinning for Possession.  You see, there are some rampant misconceptions from some characters about others.  It stems from emotional entanglement, forgotten memories and incomplete knowledge (aka the same reasons the rest of us do that), but some of that incomplete knowledge gets cleared up in book two.  It’s going to be fun to write those parts, to see the changes, the regrets for choices that can’t be undone, the words spoken that can’t be retrieved.  That’s the thing with life, and therefor with stories.  Once a choice is made, you have to live with it and all the consequences that flow out of it.  Oh, sure, the author can change their mind about choices, but I tend to believe it should only be when the story calls for it (like when I had to rewrite all of DM because I changed something fundamental.  I couldn’t avoid that change, and the story is infinitely better for the change).  Yes, I know I’m being cryptic.  I don’t want to spoil the story for people, but I wanted to share my thoughts on consequences of choices.  That should be part of telling the story, not just the choices the characters make but also the consequences and them trying to live with those consequences and any regrets they may have as a result.

Oh, and before I go, I thought I’d share a picture from my somewhat vast collection of my own work.  I should start getting it out there at some point, and now is as good a time as any.  I hope you enjoy it.  :)

I Think I Found My Brevity

So, this is the official announcement.  I did it, the second draft of Dark Mirror is finished.  It’s a lot shorter than I expected.  And by a lot, I mean it’s 73,264 words, while I had thought it would be at least 100k.  I didn’t know I could write a whole story in less than 100k.

For years I’ve known that I tend to, shall we say, over-write a bit on my stories, which tends to bloat word counts beyond what they should be.  This time I tried something different.  I didn’t describe everything down to the last fold of cloth or breath.  It finally occurred to me that it might be unnecessary.  The average reader has a fairly vivid imagination and so I can leave some of the basic stuff to that imagination.  Describing just what was significant or different from normal is a new thing for me, but somewhat liberating.  We’ll have to see what my test readers say when I get this to them.  That said, it gave me more room to write the story.  As much as I’d like to just let a story run as many words as it needs, I never stop being aware that I would like to sell my stories at some point, that this is a business and with that comes certain expectations.

I’m still pondering how I want to go about publishing this, when it’s ready at least, and I’m very torn.  Part of me very much wants to go with traditional publishing, for the support system you’re supposed to get, for the physical object you eventually get, the broader distribution, all that.  And (this is going to sound perhaps really bad) for that stamp of approval that is implied with traditional publishing, that unspoken message to potential readers that it can’t be that bad because an agent and editor(s) have read through it already and were willing to spend money to bring it to you.  And then there’s the costs I don’t have to spend money for up front (money I don’t really have at the moment, to be honest).  But it’s a very uphill battle for someone entirely unpublished for me, and I’m not long on confidence generally.  In fact, I rarely give myself the credit that some of my friends argue I deserve.

There is a definite historical stigma to self-publishing.  I find it in my own attitude, even.  In my opinion, it’s lessening now in this the age of e-publication, but I think it’s still there to at least some extent.  Perhaps it is because you do find plenty of books out there among the self-published that were written by someone clearly delusional about the level of their own talents.  You know the ones I’m talking about, the ones that come across as someone’s first draft, with spelling and grammar errors and confused narrative.  And I don’t want to be mistaken for one of those, but I’m aware that there’s a growing tide of those who write very well jumping on this train.

There are several advantages that are definitely starting to make the traditional publishing route look less attractive.  The biggest is control.  I would have control over my work, how long it’s available, where and at what price.  I decide how often I publish a new book.  I can have the cover I want.  It would happen sooner than trying to fight that uphill battle of traditional publishing.  And more of the money is mine (so is the financial risk, but nothing worth doing is without risk), with fewer people being paid a percentage of the book’s sales.  I have to agree with Dean Wesley Smith on this.  He’s talked about it in his blog before.  Actually, he talks about a lot of important business stuff in his blog.  But the salient point here is that I did the work of writing this, inventing it in the first place in fact, spent my time and effort to make it a reality.  They did their job once.  They don’t keep working on the book after it’s published in some cases.  Why should they get a percentage paid to them for however long the book is available?  If I’m willing to learn that business side and find people to do the work for a flat fee, to spend the time dealing with the business end of things, there’s no reason I shouldn’t do it that way.  Actually, the more I write this post, the more I think I’m going to end up going self-publish, e-publish.  I may or may not get rich that way, I may never realize the dream of writing full time, but at least I would get to do it my way.  Besides, even in traditional publishing, being able to afford to write full time is unlikely, as I understand it.  I think it’s time for me to get down to researching and learning when not actively writing.  I have a lot to learn before I get this in people’s hands (e-readers).  And I may change my mind on this.  It wouldn’t be the first time.

In the meantime, as I go through all of this and think about all of the above, what will I be doing?  Digging into another project.  I’m more than a little torn on that.  I want to work on The Ailing Tree, but I don’t think I’m ready.  There’s still a bunch of stuff I’m letting simmer with that one.  I want to work on the second book in the Mirrors trilogy, currently going under the working title Possession, while I’m still very much in the vein of that world, and I’m leaning toward that, working on and finishing the trilogy before moving on to another world.  I don’t expect major story or world reworking to come out of the feedback process for DM (though you never really know), so I could at least start ordering my notes and working on an outline.  I’m also throwing around possible new titles for DM, but not really sure about any of them yet, so I won’t be sharing them at this point.

I’d like to close this post by saying that I’m amazed how much better writing The End feels this time.  It might be because this time I didn’t do it knowing I’d have to do significant rewrites, so it really feels like The End.  There’s still work to do on it, and I don’t yet know how much, but this time it feels like so much more of an achievement.  I like that

2011 is dead, long live 2012

As I prepare to put 2011 into the book of Years I’m Done With, I really do want to pause to reflect. This one goes in as the year when I started doing things, instead of just dreaming and talking about doing them. It hasn’t been an easy year. On the contrary, it’s been a year of big, scary changes, but I am ending it in a much happier place. Not everything is quite where I want it, but many of the things I do want are in motion. I feel like a better version of myself than I started the year with, and that would be the most important part. The progress upward in life is really all you can ask, I think.

I’ll start on the downside of things, just because I find it’s better to get these things over with so I can end on a good note. The only really bad thing is, well, getting divorced. After trying to make the relationship work for 6 years and the marriage work for 4 of those years, my now-ex and I have called it quits. I am happy to note that we are doing it before we start hating each other and, after some initial pain, I’ve come to the conclusion that it may be the best thing for me. I will fully admit at this point that I married the wrong person. So did he. Now we can both go off and find the Right Person with each other’s blessings. It won’t be official until later in 2012, but it’s close enough for me.

Now, that said, the divorce and attendant reconsidering of everything in my life has led to pretty much every good thing I want to talk about, so I’m not too sad about even that bad thing. Yes, this means that the latter half of 2011 was better than the first half, but I can live with that. Go out with a bang, right?

For one thing, the biggest thing, this is going down as the year I committed to myself as a writer, to the writing itself really.  A lot of my accomplishments this year are, in fact, writing related.  I participated in National Novel Writing Month for the first time and won (winning is writing at least 50,000 words within the 30 days).  Winning NaNoWriMo comes with no prizes, really, except self-esteem, lessons learned and a major jump in my writing output.  Wait, those are all very real prizes, and ones I needed.  It also seems to have set me on a path where writing is not something I wait for.  I don’t wait for inspiration, or the right words, or the feeling that I can do this.  I go out and do it regardless, I sit down and write, I work on something writing related every day.  I no longer let my brain off with the excuse that it doesn’t feel like writing.  I sit in front of my netbook and start.  And keep going, usually carrying myself unintentionally well beyond any point I had hoped to get to.

I’ve learned so much this year as a writer that it would be hard to encapsulate them all in this post without it becoming excessively long.  Suffice it to say that I feel like I grew a lot and am on my way to at least becoming a publishable author.  Published is a question for another day.

I have, this year, completed now two drafts, beginning to end, for Dark Mirror.  This is a phenomenal achievement for me, as I had never managed to get beyond about 30,000 words on a novel draft before this year without losing the story or my drive or something else vital to getting through it all.  I will be editing the recent version in early January (maybe sooner) then printing it up and sending it out to my two test readers (you know who you are) for comments and then turning my brain over to one of the many other projects that have been trying to distract me from finishing Dark Mirror.  This will serve two purposes.  A) to keep me writing and B) so that I don’t pester my test readers.  They have lives of their own, I’m fully aware of that, but I’m not long on patience when I have enthusiasm instead, they know it and I know it.

There are also signs that this is the year I finally found the process that works for me as a writer (see last paragraph if you really need me to spell out what those signs are), and that is even better than the finished drafts, if you can believe it.  That’s something I have struggled with for years, so it’s welcome.  I’m sure that, in the next few years there will be tweaks, largely for changing technology, but having a functioning core in place is an awesome feeling.

Finally, this is the year that I have let go of my need to be perfect on first draft, to reread and edit as I write the story.  This is the year I gave myself permission to be a human being and understand that writing is very much an iterative process, but that I have to get to the end of a story in order to fix it.  Letting go of the need to be perfect and the fear of not being good enough that went hand in hand with it has done something amazing, it made the ideas and words flow in brain in a way I never expected.  I really do have more ideas simmering right now than I could possibly have time to write, and more show up every day.

I also found out this year that I did actually miss some elements of being single, and am adjusting to my new life better, faster than I expected.  That might be because my head is always stuck in a book lately, either one of mine or something by someone else.  I love living a life of words.

2012 will be the year of more writing.  It will be the year of querying, one way or another.  It may be the year of self-publishing, in electronic form at least, depending on how I feel when I come down off the high of finishing the new draft.  I will be doing NaNoWriMo again, and, if I have something ready at the time, I will probably also do one of the two summer WriMo camps.  I doubt I’ll have stuff ready enough to do both, but I won’t rule it out entirely.

I will, of course, continue posting here about how it goes through the year.  I find amazing the supportive community that exists here on WordPress.  Every comment, every like, every follower is a delight for me.  Thank you all for caring, sharing and for the laughs.  I will see you here in the new year.

This Is Where I Expected My Brain To Die

There was a plan for this post and a reason why I titled it this way, but that has been entirely derailed by a better use for this title.  Be forewarned:  Loopy, sleep deprived author at the keyboard today.

So, the last couple of days have been good, 6,484 yesterday and a best ever 1-day total today of 7,065 (which is a miracle given my present state) and the draft has reached grand total of 67,837 words.  I’m on the doorstep of the climax, and just finished a couple of major, difficult scenes.  I even think I did a good job on them, but we’ll see what I think on later reading.  As always, I reserve judgement. (and in case you’re wondering, the title originally centred around how bloody much I’ve been writing since I hit vacation)

Now, that said, I hear your question.  Why the loopy, sleep deprived comment?  Oh boy.  Where to begin.

You have to understand, I generally make sure that I stop writing early enough (say 10ish) to spin my brain down for sleep, but that didn’t happen last night.  I just couldn’t stop writing (Where is the Writers’ wing of the Betty Ford Clinic when I need it?) and so it was around midnight when I packed it in, only through force of will, and laid down to sleep.  And rolled over.  And tossed, definitely did some turning.  Got up, went back to laying down, rolled over some more.  See, there was no sleeping done by me until sometime after 3 AM!  Why?  My brain would not go quietly into the night and instead kept world-building and story-building away at books 2 and 3 in the Dark Mirror trilogy.  I was pleased by it’s output (all noted down, thank you iPad that lives within arm’s reach wherever possible) but very very displeased by it’s timing.  I mean, come on, midnight to 3 AM seemed like a good idea to who?  Not this writer, who actually likes sleeping.  As I finally did fall asleep, though, I was comforted by the notion that, as I am still on vacation, I could at least sleep in.  Really late.  That was the plan, I swear, right up until 8 AM when my brain woke up on all cylinders and insisted it was time to write.  That bitch.

I tried to argue with it, I really did, but after 15 minutes and only getting more awake by the second, I gave up and made coffee.  Ugh.  I am amazed I managed to write anything today, let alone have it go as well as it did.   I mean, very little sleep and 7k of what I think may actually be good prose?  Seems too much to ask.  I’m just hoping that it doesn’t seem like crap when I end up rereading at least part of it tomorrow in order to orient myself for tomorrow’s writing bender.

I’m also hoping for more sleep tonight.  If I end up staying up until 3 AM again, I might go postal on someone tomorrow, no matter why I end up awake that late.  After a while, some things cannot be borne without protest.

A Very Wordy Christmas

I hope you all had a good Christmas, and Boxing Day if you happen to be in a country that celebrates that one.

You know you have no life when you can spend all of Christmas day writing and no one complains.  Do you know what that means?  I officially have no life outside of my writing.  I mean, that said, it was a very productive time for me, and I’m happy about that, but there’s something slightly sad when you can ignore holidays without social repercussions.  Oh well.

Dark Mirror is progressing well.  I’ve gotten full swing into full-time-writing mode, with some spectacular totals lately.  5,449 on the 24th, 6,346 on the 25th (see what I meant?) and 6,038 today.  Some nice work, too, including some very key scenes, so I’m quite proud of myself.  Thanks to all that work, I now have a total of 54,288 words written of the new draft.  That means I shaved 6 days off of the time it takes me to get to 50k from my NaNo achievement of 18 days (it’s now day 12 of this write-a-thon).  Even I’m impressed by that, especially since the quality has also gone up this time around.

I am, however, starting to wonder when I will learn to stop worrying about length.  You might recall that in the last couple of posts, I had been worried, then not worried about the length of the book so far compared to my outline.  Specifically, I had been concerned that I was writing too much, progressing through the outline entries too slowly, and that this draft would be even longer than the first one, putting it in the territory of being a hard sell for an unknown writer to an agent/publisher (I think that starts at the 125k range, but don’t quote me on that).  I must now revise that statement and say that I’m not worried in the least. In fact, at this rate, it might be shorter.  It’s hard to say, which is why I’m going to try to learn in future to just let it be, but they’re getting ready to leave for the place where the climax happens.  There’s a major scene to go through before they even leave, but it’s not a long journey, not a lot will happen on the way there other than an important conversation, but still, I’m looking at being at almost 55k now and then at how much actual story is left and thinking I was worried about nothing.  Oh well.  If anything, shorter gives me room to add stuff that might need to go in and didn’t make it.

I have ended up reading a few previous scenes, stuff I wrote days ago, generally while looking for specific parts to see if I had mentioned something (I have a piss-poor memory when I write this much in a short time period) and I’m surprised how much I’m liking what I’ve written.  I haven’t read it from start to finish, of course, because this isn’t the time for that, but the parts I’ve read have been good.  I’m allowing myself to be encouraged by that while still remembering that it’s going to need editing, that I’m not done yet and have to keep performing to that same level.  It’s a balancing act, I’m telling you, but I’m working it.  :)

I’ve been so busy with DM that I haven’t given much thought to my other ideas beyond what comes that needs to be written down immediately.  However, today I did get a small glimpse into something major for a sequel to DM (or maybe it’s for the book after that, because this has long felt like it’s really a trilogy, I just don’t know all the stories for it yet), and it’s something major.  It actually made me sit back and say “Woah” and that’s pretty rare for me.  Don’t worry, it’s safely noted down.  I’m just not sure how much I want to hint at it in this book, or if I want to at all.  I think I have to leave it open enough to be a possibility, but we’ll see.  I don’t want the readers to guess it in this book, for a lot of reasons that I’m not prepared to discuss as yet in this blog, but they’re good ones.  I’m going to keep it barely-there kind of subtle, I think, and then see what my beta readers say.

Okay, I think that’s probably enough of me banging on about my writing for one night.  Sorry, no major inspirational lessons or insights to pass on this time.  Better luck next time on that.  My brain is locked into writing mode right now, I think.

Surprisingly on Schedule

I should have posted last night, and I did mean to, but I could barely keep my eyes open, so I went to bed and slept in. As it’s the first day of my vacation, so I felt entitled to do that. Given how late I slept in, I probably needed it more desperately than I was aware of.

The past couple of days have been good ones for writing, writing in the 3700 range each day, and I’m up to 36.5k on the second draft of Dark Mirror. As an aside, I can no longer even mention the working title of the novel without thinking how much I need to find a title that works better, because DM no longer even remotely fits. Oh well.

My ten days of vacation start today and I expect that my totals will go up as a result, since I can slip in and out of writing all day now. I’ve written a couple of key scenes in the last two days, and I have some more coming up, so it’s an interesting time. I’m very aware that these are important scenes and I’m trying to sculpt them a little, which is part of what’s slowing me down a bit. I want to come through this draft with something actually readable (not publishable yet, I know that’s too much to ask from even a second draft) plus I know I’m going to be building on these scenes as I work toward the end, do I need to make the right choices now where my outline has room for choices.

On the subject of my outline, I’m surprised to find myself right on schedule from a words versus length of outline perspective. There are 37 entries in my outline (the level of detail and length of storyline in each entry is highly variable, but it averages out mostly I think) and I just finished entry 13. Given I’m shooting for about 100k again for final word count and I’m a little over 36, that puts me at a third done on both scores. That shocked me, because I had felt that I wasn’t getting through my outline fast enough compared to words, that this was going to end up as an excessively long draft, but it hasn’t turned out that way, so far at least. I’m not really sure why it’s worked out this way either. Maybe it’s just a testament to my subconscious’ skill as a writer (yeah right, whatever).

What I currently find most interesting is that it feels like I’ve been writing this draft for a while, though when I sit down and add it up, it’s only been nine days, not including today. I don’t think it’s that I already wrote a draft of this either, because the story I wrote for NaNo had significant differences. To me, the feeling seems to stem from a combination of two things. The first is how much I’ve learned to this point as a writer, which is an immense amount during the outlining and writing thus far, and the second is the amount that has happened in the book, and that too has been a lot. I experience this sometimes when reading a book, even more so when I go racing through a series that spans years of in-book time. I finish, realize I’ve only been reading for a month or however long, and feel like it has to have been longer, because the in-story time was so much longer. It’s kind of fun to get that feeling from my own work, because it suggests that I’m on the right track with it, that it’s managing to engross me enough as I write it to mess with my sense of time like work from my favorite published authors. Highly encouraging to this fledgling author who wants to be published one day.

In other news, I have yet another idea tugging at me, and it’s starting to shape into something more than a character and ability sketch. Time Lord, as I will be referring to it, is starting to develop into a story! The main conflict is starting to shake itself out of the dust, as well as the main character’s more personal conflict. It’s an interesting idea too, and will make demands on me as a writer for growth and attention to detail. I’m not sure if I’m skilled enough yet to write it well, but we’ll see. I also have to keep in mind that the first draft is more about getting the story down than being good. I’m a long way from starting that first draft on it anyway, so I have time to grow. I think The Ailing Tree is more likely to be my next story anyway, as I’m continuing to work on the outline a little, when I need a break from DM. Too early to worry about that though, anymore than I’m thinking too much yet about whether to go traditional publishing or self-publishing for DM. Too much work to do yet for that question to really get on the radar. Hell, I probably wouldn’t think at all about it, but I keep reading in blogs here on WordPress about other writers having the debate with themselves, which inevitably leads my mind to the question for me. Oh well, a worry for another day. First, to finish second draft of DM.

Oh, I hear Fay and Tavis calling, so I have to go now. Take care, everyone.

Lessons Learned: Letting the Brain Ease

I’m sure many of you are impatiently waiting for me to post something.  I did mean to yesterday, but after wrestling all evening with the book, I was worn out.  I’m worn out tonight too, for some of the same reasons, but not as badly, so here I am, typing away at something other than the book.

Don’t get me wrong, things are going well on draft 2 of Dark Mirror.  Monday was fantastic, despite being ill most of the day, got 5,424 words in.  But I might have overdone it a little with that much on a weekday.  Yesterday, I had a lot of trouble concentrating and it really was a struggle to get anything done.  The numbers don’t really reflect that, with me adding 3,317 words to the draft, but believe me, it was somewhat painful and I was exhausted and drained when I finally called it a night.  Tonight, the same, tired and feeling like I wanted to take a break from the moment I sat down with the netbook.  After an hour and a half and only getting about 400 words down, I decided to do something I’ve done for a long time, I listened to my body and brain.  I usually do that when it’s sending a clear, strong signal, which it has been doing since yesterday.

You see, the problem is that I had finished the whole God of War series (the three main games at least) and I had previously been using that as a way to give my brain a break between writing spurts through most of NaNo and all of the current writing binge (until a few days ago).  But when I finished it, I didn’t grab any of my other games to take it’s place.  Between that lack of non-writing and non-thinking-about-writing time and the higher bar I set for myself as pace this time, I was focusing entirely on writing, feeling I had to Always Be Writing if I was at home with my netbook.  Too much for my brain, which was on the verge of shorting out I think.  So I popped one of the GoW series back in and let myself go back to alternately bashing the keyboard and bashing pixels.  And it worked.  At this point, I’ve written 2,729 words, and I’ll probably go back and get myself to 3k, if I can keep my brain going that long.  Even if I don’t, that’s not bad for spending almost the first third of my evening struggling and getting nowhere.  So I’m going to let that be a lesson to me.  Take breaks, stop writing for a bit, let the brain think about something else or not think at all, or I’m going to run into problems.

All this writing brings me to a current total of 28,548 words, which actually puts me about 4.5 days ahead of schedule, and I haven’t even gotten to my vacation yet.  I’m glad I’ve learned this lesson before the vacation though, or I might have either driven myself nuts or derailed myself entirely, either being a bad thing.

I’ve also had a few nice little insights in the last few days, one of which made it onto the wall with the other two that were already there.  Again, it’s one that seems basic, until you add the little asterisk, that is.  Every character in the story needs a motive*, whether you talk about it or not and as the writer you need to be aware of what it is and how it shapes their reactions.  What, you ask, does that asterisk mean?  Simple, that “just because it’s convenient for the writer that things happen this way” doesn’t count as a motive.  It’s easy to sit there and let that be enough.  ”Yes, the supporting character tells them to go seek so-and-so because that’s where I need them to go.”  Doesn’t it sound crappy as a motive when you put it that bluntly?  I think so.  It’s making me examine why my characters are doing things as I do this rewrite, and it’s shaping some of the things that happen a little differently than I planned.  But again, it’s in the service of a better story, so I’m fine with that.  The others are story-specific, so I won’t be getting into them, but they were things I needed to figure out.

At this point, I am starting to worry about the final length of the draft.  I’m almost to 30k words and while having my two main protagonists together much earlier this time is good, there’s more story to tell in many ways, and if I’m not careful, this might end up being too long for traditional publication, which would be my preferred path.  I’m still planning on letting it be as long as it needs to in this draft, since it’s essentially take 2 of the first draft, despite the numbering, don’t worry.  But when you’re on entry 9 of 37 in your outline at almost 30k, you start to wonder how long this is going to be.  That said, some entries are longer than others, some more detailed than others.  My outlines seem to become more detailed with every entry I add, so maybe it won’t be so bad.  I’m about to introduce the remaining two major support characters, so things are getting ready to jump off in a big way I think, which is a good place to be so close to a 10-day period with no work.  As it is, I suspect that Friday will be a half-day at work.  It was last year, and I see no reason they won’t do it again this year.  I will be posting in my usual semi-regular pattern during that period, in case you were wondering.

Okay, enough for now on the blog.  I need some sleep at some point, or I really will be totally dysfunctional.  As it is, you have no idea how many starts it took me to remember how to spell dysfunctional.  :p