About 24 hours ago I typed the last sentence of the first draft of my second novel. That makes sense, right? It took about 8 months for me to finish this one, which is a vast improvement over my first one, which took three years. This new one is also 10,000 words longer, which I'm not sure is a good thing, but since it's the first draft, it may not stay quite that long.
Of course, I was excited. I am pretty passionate about this book, moreso than I ever was about my first one. Not that I didn't enjoy my first novel, there was just a lot less excitement in that one. It was more reflective, and probably what my first novel needed to be. It will probably remain shelved forever, as most first attempts do. But I digress.
The ending was as ridiculous as I knew it would be. I am reading a book called "How Not to Write a Novel," by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman, and tonight I opened it to see that I was on a chapter called "Endings." As much as I enjoy reading the book and realizing that I avoided many of the common mistakes novice novelists make, I also recognized myself in some of the descriptions, especially in the section on backstory overpowering what is currently going on. I need to cut my ending by half. I know that already. More about that later though.
I am forcing myself to take a short break before I begin my first round of revisions. See, for me, the easy part is the writing. I can do what I want the first time around. It just spills out. I hate revisions. With a passion. Now, every time I read through, which I have done several times already just to make sure things are making sense, I change things. Phrasing here, a character there. But usually small changes. This first round of revisions will be major surgery. Cutting my baby apart to make a better baby. Okay. Ew. Perhaps I should try a different analogy next time.
I know that making Frankenbook is necessary, but ugh. I also know I should be taking time to celebrate the accomplishment of writing another book, but it's hard when I know the road ahead of me. It's like I'm Dorothy, and I'm following the yellow brick road, and I've just finished this part of my journey and I look up to find I've only barely reached the edge of Munchkinland. There's a whole lotta yellow brick road ahead of me, and many obstacles before I can reach the Wizard, who will, of course, grant me whatever I wish as long as I kill the witch. Or something like that. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It's kind of late to be writing an entry, but I wanted to write before I head out of town for the weekend.
So really, I am excited to be finished, but the road is long, and my journey is just beginning. First comes revisions, then beta readers and critique partners, then more revisions, and some revisions, then querying and rejection and crying and eating my feelings and maybe, just maybe, something amazing will happen after all of that. I have hope. Regardless, I will continue to write. It's what I do ;)
Friday, May 24, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Let's end this!
I don't pretend to be an expert writer. Okay, maybe sometimes I pretend, but I do realize that blog posts, Facebook statuses, and 1.75 novels does not an expert make. But, in my (not so) vast experience, I decided that figuring out the perfect ending is almost the most difficult part of writing. Which is why I tend to stall out right before those last climactic pages.
The perfect ending is essential to making writing really work. This is where you tie everything up in a big bow, give explanations for any foreshadowing you gleefully injected into earlier chapters, and try to really give your story meaning. If you write an entire crime novel and there is little to no explanation, no reasoning, too many unanswered questions...the reader will close the book feeling unsatisfied and kind of icky. (I think "kind of icky" is actually the technical term.) I don't want people feeling icky about my books. A bad ending can overshadow even a fabulous first 3/4. There are books I have read that I wished I had closed before I reached that last crucial point, because it would have remained more pleasant in my mind.
That's a lot of pressure.
I am at that point once again in my second novel. Trying to pull the pieces together in a way that makes sense...it's insane. Now, perhaps if I were a *better* writer, I would have been taking notes and making sure to keep track of what I needed to answer. But...I'm not that kind of writer. I'm a word vomiter. So hopefully if there are issues, I can clear them up in revisions, with help from a few trusted beta readers.
Still, I have been agonizing over how to end this thing. How to close things up in a way that makes sense, that is "realistic." If things are too pretty, it can throw a reader out of the story too. "You mean...they were involved in a major firefight, half of the bad guys died, and none of the main characters were even injured? What are they, superheroes?" (To those who write about superheroes, my apologies, that's totally realistic.) How "nice" do I make my ending? How many casualties? How angry will readers get if this happens, and have I hooked them enough to keep them reading if I make it to a sequel?
Thankfully, I have a great friend reading and giving me a chance to bounce ideas off of her...although I believe she may be even more emotionally invested in my characters than I am at times, which might taint her opinion just a bit ;)
I have also been dealing with that "I suck-itis" lately. Keeping up with agents and other blog posts and articles about writing is a good idea, but, as I've mentioned, it can also contribute to that hopeless feeling that I'll be stuck in the slush pile trenches forever. Lately I have been dealing with the fact that my YA novel is already much longer than it is *supposed* to be, but I still have story to tell, and don't want to sacrifice it yet. I know the cutting will come, but I need to tell the story first.
So, hopefully I will finish this week. I said that two weeks ago. One of these weeks it's bound to happen. I am so close. I just need a bigger bow...
In the meantime, watch this video of a recently signed author talking about her journey to finding an agent. She compares querying to dating, and it's really pretty entertaining. It can happen!
The perfect ending is essential to making writing really work. This is where you tie everything up in a big bow, give explanations for any foreshadowing you gleefully injected into earlier chapters, and try to really give your story meaning. If you write an entire crime novel and there is little to no explanation, no reasoning, too many unanswered questions...the reader will close the book feeling unsatisfied and kind of icky. (I think "kind of icky" is actually the technical term.) I don't want people feeling icky about my books. A bad ending can overshadow even a fabulous first 3/4. There are books I have read that I wished I had closed before I reached that last crucial point, because it would have remained more pleasant in my mind.
That's a lot of pressure.
I am at that point once again in my second novel. Trying to pull the pieces together in a way that makes sense...it's insane. Now, perhaps if I were a *better* writer, I would have been taking notes and making sure to keep track of what I needed to answer. But...I'm not that kind of writer. I'm a word vomiter. So hopefully if there are issues, I can clear them up in revisions, with help from a few trusted beta readers.
Still, I have been agonizing over how to end this thing. How to close things up in a way that makes sense, that is "realistic." If things are too pretty, it can throw a reader out of the story too. "You mean...they were involved in a major firefight, half of the bad guys died, and none of the main characters were even injured? What are they, superheroes?" (To those who write about superheroes, my apologies, that's totally realistic.) How "nice" do I make my ending? How many casualties? How angry will readers get if this happens, and have I hooked them enough to keep them reading if I make it to a sequel?
Thankfully, I have a great friend reading and giving me a chance to bounce ideas off of her...although I believe she may be even more emotionally invested in my characters than I am at times, which might taint her opinion just a bit ;)
I have also been dealing with that "I suck-itis" lately. Keeping up with agents and other blog posts and articles about writing is a good idea, but, as I've mentioned, it can also contribute to that hopeless feeling that I'll be stuck in the slush pile trenches forever. Lately I have been dealing with the fact that my YA novel is already much longer than it is *supposed* to be, but I still have story to tell, and don't want to sacrifice it yet. I know the cutting will come, but I need to tell the story first.
So, hopefully I will finish this week. I said that two weeks ago. One of these weeks it's bound to happen. I am so close. I just need a bigger bow...
In the meantime, watch this video of a recently signed author talking about her journey to finding an agent. She compares querying to dating, and it's really pretty entertaining. It can happen!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Dear Publishers
Dear publishers, agents, reviewers, etc,
I think we need to talk. I had hoped that this wasn't a conversation that we would ever need to have, but I'm not sure it can wait anymore. It's the elephant in the room, publishing industry. Something that must be addressed before another day passes.
I have yet to see my name on those book shelves. I go to Barnes and Noble. Nothing. Amazon search? Turns up zero results. Not even the public library has any record of me.
I thought it was pretty simple, publishing industry. I write something brilliant, you publish it. We both win. Where is this disconnect happening? How can we fix this?
Don't you remember how I won that contest in the third grade? I won best story in the entire state of Iowa. For third graders, anyway. There are a lot of people in Iowa. More corn, but still a respectable number of people. I just looked up the population of Iowa, and there are over three million of us. And lots of those are third graders. I mean, it's a pretty big deal. The story was about an anthropomorphic tooth named Jenny that fell out of her host's mouth and went on an epic adventure. That's what the cartoon tagline would be: Small tooth, epic adventure. I don't think I knew the word epic when I was in third grade, but that's beside the point.
The point is that twenty years ago, the public was introduced to a promising young author, and they are still waiting. Waiting for ME, publishing industry. I think that together we can put together a story that will outshine even the planned (and never completed) sequel to Jenny the Tooth, where Jenny ends up in a museum. It was to be called Jenny the Tooth in the Museum. Third graders are not very creative in titling things.
So let's work together and make this happen. Querying will start again in the next few months, and I'll need you all on your best game. We can do it. Go team!
Love, Rena
I think we need to talk. I had hoped that this wasn't a conversation that we would ever need to have, but I'm not sure it can wait anymore. It's the elephant in the room, publishing industry. Something that must be addressed before another day passes.
I have yet to see my name on those book shelves. I go to Barnes and Noble. Nothing. Amazon search? Turns up zero results. Not even the public library has any record of me.
I thought it was pretty simple, publishing industry. I write something brilliant, you publish it. We both win. Where is this disconnect happening? How can we fix this?
Don't you remember how I won that contest in the third grade? I won best story in the entire state of Iowa. For third graders, anyway. There are a lot of people in Iowa. More corn, but still a respectable number of people. I just looked up the population of Iowa, and there are over three million of us. And lots of those are third graders. I mean, it's a pretty big deal. The story was about an anthropomorphic tooth named Jenny that fell out of her host's mouth and went on an epic adventure. That's what the cartoon tagline would be: Small tooth, epic adventure. I don't think I knew the word epic when I was in third grade, but that's beside the point.
The point is that twenty years ago, the public was introduced to a promising young author, and they are still waiting. Waiting for ME, publishing industry. I think that together we can put together a story that will outshine even the planned (and never completed) sequel to Jenny the Tooth, where Jenny ends up in a museum. It was to be called Jenny the Tooth in the Museum. Third graders are not very creative in titling things.
So let's work together and make this happen. Querying will start again in the next few months, and I'll need you all on your best game. We can do it. Go team!
Love, Rena
Friday, May 3, 2013
Pushing through
So the problem with creativity is that it doesn't work on a schedule. Certainly not any sort of schedule a normal human being should be keeping, anyway. For example, my creative impulses hit around 10pm. Not when it's light out. Not even in those twilight hours of half darkness. If I'm lucky, I might get the juices flowing between 9 and 9:30pm. But before that, pretty much anything I write is drivel, and unusable. This week I have been exceptionally creative, logging in total over 11.5K words in the course of a few nights. This translates into around 36 Word document pages, which would be almost 100 book pages. And remember, I don't start until after 10pm.
Now you can imagine that this has put a bit of a strain on my day job. My sleep self has been playing tricks on me, turning off or resetting my primary alarm. Thank goodness for the backup! Still, I have walked into work later than planned, which means staying later than planned, which means paperwork and a quiet(ish) building, which is not always helpful when tired.
As always, the self-doubt plagues. I was doing some research tonight, and on a whim I looked up the typical length for a YA novel. Most places are saying 50K-65K or 75K tops. Mine is already 81.5K, and I have a little ways to go. What does that mean for my chances of scoring an agent? Hopefully nothing. The sites were also saying that in the end, it's the content that matters. And right now, longer YA is hot. Of course, a couple years down the road, who knows? And that's the most optimistic outlook for when my book might end up being published, IF I get an agent this year and IF it is sold to a publisher. And those are huge IFs. Those are dreaming IFs.
So as I was reading this, and thinking about other blogs I read about what not to write and what not to do and the difficulty of breaking into the publishing industry in any real way, I came across the website of author Alyson Noel. Now, I actually have never heard of her, but I was reading her advice on writing/publishing, and it's actually really awesome. This was my favorite part:
What is "I-suck-itis" and how do I make sure I don't get infected?
I-suck-itis is that feeling you get when you're happily engrossed in your writing, everything's going great, and then, smack out of nowhere, that horrible, annoying, little voice in your head pipes in with all sorts of judging, and snarking, and horrible little comments—determined to convince you that you'll never be as good as so and so.
When that happens, the only cure is to tell that little voice to mind it's own business, thankyouverymuch. That you are just trying to get the first draft written and have every intention to go back and revise later. Because the truth is, writing is all about re-writing, and to paraphrase Nora Roberts: You can't fix a blank page!
Why do I love this? Because it's normal. It's completely NORMAL to have days when you decide you suck. It's completely NORMAL to compare yourself to others. I read it time and again, and I just thought this was a fabulous way of explaining it, and then swatting it away. If you're interested in her other advice, check out the page on her website here.
So, in the end, I really am excited with where my book is heading. At this point, I need to finish, and worry about revisions later. I don't want to think about slashing my baby to cut the word count back, but I refuse to worry about it now. For now, Eden and Kalon have an adventure to finish. The sooner the better, so I can start getting some sleep!
Now you can imagine that this has put a bit of a strain on my day job. My sleep self has been playing tricks on me, turning off or resetting my primary alarm. Thank goodness for the backup! Still, I have walked into work later than planned, which means staying later than planned, which means paperwork and a quiet(ish) building, which is not always helpful when tired.
As always, the self-doubt plagues. I was doing some research tonight, and on a whim I looked up the typical length for a YA novel. Most places are saying 50K-65K or 75K tops. Mine is already 81.5K, and I have a little ways to go. What does that mean for my chances of scoring an agent? Hopefully nothing. The sites were also saying that in the end, it's the content that matters. And right now, longer YA is hot. Of course, a couple years down the road, who knows? And that's the most optimistic outlook for when my book might end up being published, IF I get an agent this year and IF it is sold to a publisher. And those are huge IFs. Those are dreaming IFs.
So as I was reading this, and thinking about other blogs I read about what not to write and what not to do and the difficulty of breaking into the publishing industry in any real way, I came across the website of author Alyson Noel. Now, I actually have never heard of her, but I was reading her advice on writing/publishing, and it's actually really awesome. This was my favorite part:
What is "I-suck-itis" and how do I make sure I don't get infected?
I-suck-itis is that feeling you get when you're happily engrossed in your writing, everything's going great, and then, smack out of nowhere, that horrible, annoying, little voice in your head pipes in with all sorts of judging, and snarking, and horrible little comments—determined to convince you that you'll never be as good as so and so.
When that happens, the only cure is to tell that little voice to mind it's own business, thankyouverymuch. That you are just trying to get the first draft written and have every intention to go back and revise later. Because the truth is, writing is all about re-writing, and to paraphrase Nora Roberts: You can't fix a blank page!
Why do I love this? Because it's normal. It's completely NORMAL to have days when you decide you suck. It's completely NORMAL to compare yourself to others. I read it time and again, and I just thought this was a fabulous way of explaining it, and then swatting it away. If you're interested in her other advice, check out the page on her website here.
So, in the end, I really am excited with where my book is heading. At this point, I need to finish, and worry about revisions later. I don't want to think about slashing my baby to cut the word count back, but I refuse to worry about it now. For now, Eden and Kalon have an adventure to finish. The sooner the better, so I can start getting some sleep!
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