Where I've Been

So it's been a while. Over two months in fact. My blogging hiatus was partly intentional—to give me more time to edit my book—but only partly, and I never meant the cutoff to be so sudden.

But sometimes a lot of “life” happens, and this fall has been one of those seasons.

I won't go into all the details (unless you're a vet and you happen to be interested in the specifics of cat UTIs, or you're an oral surgeon who wants to know all about my reaction to epinephrin in Novocaine). Soon enough the past few months will be little more than a blurry memory.

That being the case, I do want to hold on to a few good things that have happened this fall:

1. I've gotten to know some pretty incredible teens. Underneath all the “totes magotes” and finger hearts and “cool story, bro,” they have a lot of energy and character. I'm even more sure now than I've ever been that this is the age group I want to write for.

2. I've been editing Olympus Gate, which has gone more slowly than I hoped for the same reasons that the blog has been out of use lately, but I'm pleased with the results so far. My new critique partner is making me work hard! You think you know your character pretty well the first dozen times you get the comment “and what is she feeling in this moment?” Then you get to the thirteenth and all you can think is, “She's... um... sad? ...again? I DON'T KNOW!” So thank you, Jamie, for making me struggle through all the hard parts too.

3. I've made some more delectable edibles. Last night I had the pleasure of seeing several people's eyes bug out (in a good way) at the taste of my peppermint bonbons. And my husband got me a book of dessert recipes I've been wanting to try. (I'd have made the Boston Cream cupcakes already if last week hadn't turned out to be an insane mess of hectic days.)

So I'll leave you with a picture of the latest bonbons, a wish for the happiest of holidays to all of you, and my sincerest hopes to post more regularly in the coming months.

Crutch Words

Two great blog posts showed up in my google reader today, Scott Westerfeld's on Word Clouds and one on words that tell instead of show over at The Other Side of the Story. These both touch on a topic that has been casting its shadow over my mind lately: the overuse and abuse of crutch words.

I have them. I know I have them, both the kind that go completely unnoticed by me and the kind that even as I'm writing the word I think “I sure have been typing this a lot.” Some of the known crutches I'm trying to eradicate are:

Just. Everyone is always “just” doing something. “She just wondered...” “If he could just go...” “I should just ask...”

But note to self: unless there's some justice going on, this is a four-letter word I could probably forgo.

Gestures. Particularly those having to do with the eyes. Though eyes may be the windows to the soul, describing the windows doesn't always say enough about the building. My personal vices: “look,” “gaze,” “stare,” and “focus.”

But other common gestures crop up as well. My characters give out a lot of shrugs and smiles. But do I really want them to bounce between nonchalant and happy all the time? Surely human expression covers a far greater range of emotion.

Seemed. This one was recently pointed out to me in a critique of chapter one of the new novel. It's a guilt-laden word, and I knew I was using it, but I didn't realize how much. Oops!

Good thing the first draft doesn't have to be perfect. Three cheers for the power of revision!

Lessons from Groundhog Day

So Groundhog Day is long past and spring is (kind of) here now, BUT... as anyone who has a cat probably knows, sometimes the little rats keep you up for an hour in the middle of the night. The one upside is that occasionally while lying awake and wondering how you'll ever get back to sleep, you get a random idea for a blog post.

Or is that just me?

So the other night after turning on all the lights to clean up the little terror's mess (and really, why does she think she can inhale her food and then tear around the house without getting sick?) I suddenly recalled—for no apparent reason—the movie Groundhog Day. And, in what seemed like an obvious sequence of thoughts at the time, I began to realize the ways in which the plot is a little like writing.

If there aren't any consequences, you're free to experiment

In the movie, Bill Murray's character Phil lives the same day over and over and over. Once Phil gets over being completely unnerved by this development, he realizes that he can do whatever he wants. Some of the most entertaining moments of the movie are while he's doing completely outrageous things because there are no permanent consequences.

The same thing is true for us when writing first drafts. Now I've heard that in the time of type-writers, this wasn't so much the case. But I'm firmly part of the computer generation, and there's nothing to stop me from typing as many words that will never be used as I please. A new blank page is only a click away.

So don't be afraid to try something new! Experiment with a new voice, a risky plot line or a troublesome character. At best you'll add something exciting to your work; at worst you'll have practiced something different.

A string of facts do not make a character

Eventually Phil comes to realize that what he really wants is Andie MacDowell's character Rita. So he sets about memorizing every single fact about her that he possibly can. Then with each repeated day he comes closer and closer to winning her over by pretending to be everything she's looking for. But the plan never works. Why? Because Rita isn't just a long string of memorized facts. Really knowing her doesn't mean knowing a list of things about her.

We can run into the same problem with our characters. Sometimes we might have the temptation to jot down a bunch of character traits and “favorites” (favorite color, favorite food, favorite flower) and think they fully describe a character. But in order to understand our characters more fully we need to dive deep into their needs, their desires and the mindsets that inform the ways they see the world.

Revise, revise, revise

Finally Phil discovers that his greatest personal need is to make Groundhog Day the very best day that he is capable of making it. But he doesn't succeed right away! Perfecting that one day is a loooooong process. Even once he has the outline of the day right, he still has to refine the details.

And writing is the same way for us. First drafts aren't perfect. We can only achieve our best work with focused editing.

But if Phil could do it, so can we! And maybe that's the biggest lesson from the movie: if a stuck-in-a-rut weatherman can have one perfect day, what might we accomplish?

Almost There

Goooooooood evening, everyone! I hope you're having a good week. Mine has been crammed full of editing. I'm working on the final pre-querying draft of the book, and while I've already made a lot of progress, there's still much to do.

Right now I'm working on stylistic edits throughout the full manuscript. My eyes are starting to turn glossy. Haven't I already worked through the cadence of these passages once? twice? a half dozen times? Yet I keep finding new changes to make, new issues to consider. Gotta get all the perfectionism out now or I'll be editing ad aeternum.

Sometimes after multiple edits I start feeling like Sisyphus. (Yeah, that guy doomed to roll the boulder up the hill forever.) The drafts all start to look the same—one long string of words that refuse to become the story I want them to be.

But in those moments (like right now), I try to remember the feedback I've already gotten. The most recent draft was good—not great, but good. I've made progress. The edits I'm working on now will result in a better story.

And I'm almost done. You know that note in a song that tells you the song is just about to go into the next section of the music? I think I'm on that note with the editing. This moment in my story's life is almost complete, and soon I'll be ready for the transition to querying.

*

In other fabulous news, my interview with Lydia will be up on The Sharp Angle tomorrow! I'm excited. I'll make sure to link it as soon as it's up.

Have a good one, everybody!

Editing: Beginnings and Endings

Due to a killer cold last week, I was too loopy to get any good editing done. I've been hoping to have draft two done by Christmas, so I'm going to have to work a little harder now to make that happen. Still doable I think.

Right now I'm struggling through the two hardest parts of the book: the beginning and the end. Anything can happen in the middle of a book. That's where all the freedom lies. But the first and last chapters don't have that flexibility. The first chapter has to introduce characters and setting and enough back story to ground the reader (but not too much!), and above all it has to kick start the plot in an exciting enough way to make sure the reader won't put the book down. The ending has to tie up all the characters and plot points and come to a satisfying conclusion.

At the moment I have the second half of chapter one, but no first half. This morning I had two endings, neither of them quite right.

The rest of the draft is in relatively good shape. There are a few overall sorts of edits I need to take care of: once through to address a broad critique from ArmadilloCon, and once through to cut out as many unnecessary words as possible.

But today I wanted to focus on that pesky ending. It was time to write ending number three, and I was really hoping that the third time would be the charm.

I think it was. I spent all afternoon wrestling with it, but I think I've gotten the ending I want. At least for this draft!

Not bad for a Monday.

Editing: Structure

Warning: lots of writing process babble ahead.  Proceed with caution...

Well, I've taken the editing plunge.

The idea of editing is always a little overwhelming at first. I have a vague idea in my mind of all the things that need to be changed, but I start out not entirely sure where to begin. I have several little editor voices in my head all saying things like “This bit over here needs to be cut,” or “These lines don't belong here,” or “That's not the right way to present that plot line,” or “This scene just isn't working—figure out why!” or “Do you seriously think you can get away with that opening hook?”

And of course, being a perfectionist, I want to fix all of these things at once. But that can't be done. So eventually I come to the obvious conclusion that I should start with the structural issues first.

So that's how I spent yesterday. I went through the first section of the book and made a chronological list of all the scenes, chapter by chapter. (The process was complicated by the fact that I had three different versions of chapter 1.) That way I could piece together where all the scenes should be, and after writing out the new order I set to the task of copy and paste.

Scene reordering is a lot more nerve-wracking than it may sound. There's the constant fear that I'll delete something and forget to put it somewhere else and thus lose it entirely. Or that I'll lose my place and get so muddled in where I am that I'll end up creating twice as much work for myself. Maybe it's a control issue—I feel that if I'm not holding both the current order and the correct order in my head at all times I'll get swept away in a river of homeless scenes all looking for their place in the story.

But happily, the copy and paste is mostly done now. (I say mostly because there are a couple small bits that might still need reorganizing.) Now comes the fun part: making the new order of scenes flow together. Well, fun for me, but I like that sort of thing.

And then will come the other big-picture edits: fixing flawed scenes, making sure characters are behaving appropriately, cleaning up major dialog errors that take the story off track... things like that.

And then mid-sized edits: descriptions and character reactions... the typical weak points of my first draft.

And finally the nitpicks and the “how many unnecessary words can I find and cut” game.

Two bright sides to the structural work I've just done:

1) There are three distinct sections of this story, so the structural complexity isn't nearly as insane as it could be.

2) I only have one POV character. So much easier to figure out the order of things when I'm juggling just one time-line instead of two.

Now back to work for me!