Still working fairly steadily, getting a working draft of the area around pp. 150-200. Once I get the ms all laid out, I'll have to go back and make it really work, and then I'll have go through again and tend to all the threads I'm dropping as I pick up the ones that are foremost in whatever scene I'm working on.

I have pretty much given up most of my financial expectations for this book, because it's taken me so long to get it done, and also it's pushing the line between adult and YA, sex and violence-wise. That's not to say it isn't YA, just that sex and violence tend cut out a sizable portion of the "YA" audience. Too bad for me, but the story is what it is. 

No time to work on my own stuff. However, it seems that the back of my head has been working busily, unbeknownst to me, because suddenly a whole rash of tied-together ideas came out while I had Tyson out on a nice four-mile walk/sniff-fest. Basically the whole line of thought just involves one new not-very-exciting scene and an unrelated old scene that still serves the same purpose it did before. However, multiple layers and depth are suddenly piling on both of them.

When I got home I jotted down everything I thought I'd need to remember (squirrel! flour! composite bow! head-on-a-pike!) when I pick up the ms again. That could be tomorrow. If I get to work right now and put in some long hard hours today to get other obligations completed.

In other news, the w-f-h ms I did last year or whenever it was--the one that taught me so much about fight scenes and writing from action/plot--is not going to be published, because the series was canceled before it began. It's too bad, because I ended up liking the character a lot, and would have liked to see how the book read in print. However, I got paid up front, I learned a ton, and it was somebody else's idea, so it's not on the list of things I'm losing sleep over.

And now, back to work.

Considering the dystopian some more.

I'm looking at the place where I left off yesterday--just after the writing problem I may or may not have solved--and feeling zero inclination to dig into that particular writing bog today. A bog is what's what it'll be, if I keep writing in a straight line. If I write from beginning to end, what comes next is in between the parts that are important to me. It's the explanation for the stuff I know happens. A lot of it is where the reader needs to follow the character's reasoning and internal struggle as he switches from doing/feeling ___ to doing/feeling ___.

My natural inclination is to skip the in-between till later, when more of the ms is put together. By then I tend to know everybody better, and often will already automatically understand how earlier events play out. By the time I've done that, these earlier sections will sometimes even write themselves.

Since I haven't figured out more specifics of what's going on later in this ms (I just have a general idea in my head) I'm looking at today's in-between part, and suddenly I feel that I'm also looking at a choice, here. I can start rewriting this in-between right now, and go over and over it it a hundred times, shifting tiny little things to see what works to lead into the next part, whatever that may be. Or I can skip it and come back later. Then I can rewrite it maybe two or three times to fit a framework that's already laid out and is clearer in my head.

The second way is more fun, more productive, and better for the ms. The first way is better for my mortgage and health insurance payments.

I need to let go of the idea of finishing this first part to get it turned in to agent--of thinking of this as one stand-alone piece that will hook up with the rest of the ms later as I continue on. From a technical standpoint it makes sense that I could work this way. From a technical standpoint I should be able to do it. Actually--from a technical writing standpoint--I probably can. I've got the writing chops to do it. It just wouldn't be any good.*

There are a lot of good things about doing w-f-h, but there are a lot of bad things, too, and maybe one of the bad things is having to force a ms when it's not ready. You don't have a choice with w-f-h; you have to make yourself sit down and get the ms working.** It's easy to get in the habit of doing that. And sometimes it is a good thing to force one's way through a sticky part. Other times, it's not.

I need to keep a grip on the fact that I have a choice. I don't have to get this part right now. I want to get it, my blood pressure wants me to get it, my agent wants me to get it***, and for once some of the people around me have actually read part of my ms, and they want me to get it, too. It doesn't matter what we all want. The only thing that matters is what the ms needs.

What it needs is for me to lay the f*ck off and go back to the characters and their interactions.



*You may ask yourself, can something be technically well-written and yet not any good? The answer is yes. Yes, it can.


**Business-wise, it seems to me that the industry is growing less able to perceive the differences between writing something somebody tells you to write, and writing something you love and connect with. Some editors, agents, readers assume it's just about figuring a book out, then sitting down and getting it done. Sometimes a writer buys into that, too--if you're talented enough, you should be able to crank out your novels on demand, right? And if you can't, that means something's wrong with you as a writer?

Nope. It's the system that's wrong. But the system also pays you and gets your books out there, so everybody's got to find their own comfort level working within (or without) it.


***To be clear, my agent is not pressuring me. Said agent would likely be happy if I could get it done, but also knows how writers work. And that, in a nutshell, is why I'm with said agent rather than somebody else.

Looks like I need to abandon my skipping-ahead idea for the dystopian ms and try to muscle my way through the saggy part.* I printed out the first five or whatever chapters and looked at them, but they're still pretty much etched on the inside of my eyeballs. So I guess what I'll have to do is reason my way into a faster-paced arrangement of the many scenes and pieces I have on hand (any of which could go in that part), then ask around for readers who can tell me what I'm not seeing. I already know everything that's going on in the story, so I don't have a clue what the reader wants or is most curious about at this point.



*Why? E-mail from agent, that's why.

Still zero time for my own writing.

Had to help son #3 study for a final on The Book Thief, which I haven't been reading like I was supposed to in case he needed help. So I read over the last 3/4 of a inch quickly, which added to the first chapter I read at the beginning of the semester and made me able to get the job done.

I had been terribly impressed, at the beginning of the semester, when I read this line about survivors:

"They have punctured hearts. They have beaten lungs."

There's some really strong stuff in the book. I don't know why I'm thinking that if an American female midlist author had written it, instead of a young Australian male, it might never have seen the light of day in this country.

I have to give my copy back to the teacher, but now I'm curious as to how Zusak decided what order to put everything in, and what to put in and what to leave out. I like the way he didn't mind breaking things up.

I'm thinking about the former GN, and what I want to do is get back to it, and look at each section and think how to make it a punch in and of itself. How to make the reader be feeling something strongly so that every time they turn over to the next title page, they hit that white space and they've still got a lingering sense of ka-WHAM! from what they just read. With every section, I want to try thinking not about the general scene and what the point is, but what about it can hit the bone--and how to do that. Is there a way to tie up each scene in the same way, to deliberately use the same pattern over and over that would help? Or would that be too much? It'd be like a picture book rhythm where you know what's coming because you know the pattern. But you don't know the exact form it's going to take this time.

However, I won't be looking at that ms any time soon. Too many things to do. And I'm probably going to take on another project that will last all summer and take many focused hours.

Probably what I'll need to do is create a daily schedule and stick to it. However, "need to" and "will do" are two different things.

Worked on chapter two today. It's funny how when you slow down to consider where everyone is and what's really going on in the scene--if you stop to set it, thinking about what's around the characters, how they're moving, what they're wearing, etc.--little bits develop in and of themselves to flesh the whole thing out.

Ah. E-mail just in--more w-f-h up for grabs. Must take it. So, back to juggling like mad. Oh well, at least I got some good solid work done on my own stuff.

Worked on other writing-related stuff this morning, then pulled up dystopian work and tried to put a synopsis together. Didn't get very far. It takes me forever to try to write something like that. I am putting it aside and asking fellow writers for advice to keep me focused next time I pick it up.

It has taken me years to be able to even answer the question "So, what's your book about?" for any of my novels. Now I can usually answer with a one-liner--but only because I figure nobody really cares what it's about anyway. It doesn't matter if the answer is accurate or not, or whether it gets across any of the things I think the book is really about. The stuff that interests me is usually not what interests anybody else.

So when I try to tell what this dystopian ms is about, I immediately get off into backstory and world-building, because to me the story doesn't make sense without it. But I guess what I need to do is think of it more as catalog or flap copy, because otherwise I'll go on for pages and all the conflicts that drive the story will be buried in piles of boring blah-blah-blah.

Okay, I'm finally down to one w-f-h story left to write and one to revise (deadline in maybe five days or so?), so I worked on my dystopia WIP today, and will continue working on it this weekend, I hope. I'll write better on the w-f-h after my brain has been cleared of it for a while. In other words, I need to wash all that stuff out of my mind for a day or two with other kinds of writing (my own!), so I can start fresh when I pick it up again.

I want to get a good first chapter (of dys.) to send to Agent, but in figuring out how to do that (get a good first chapter) I'm writing down a whole bunch of other stuff, spilling it all over the place. So I'll have to go back and figure out what needs to be in the first chapter to make it grabby, yet not confusing or unclear. What I don't like about writing a first chapter to show someone is that normally I might work over a 1st chapter a million times because as I go along in the ms I always decide I need info sooner, or later, or develop it in a different place, or hint at it where there were no hints before--all kinds of changes happen as I go. I don't know if Agent just wants to know how the WIP is progressing, or whether Agent is considering doing something with that first chapter. Sometimes Agent is wont to do things with first chapters. Sometimes Agent is not.

Started reading a bad nonfiction book that I probably won't finish. It's an adult book, and it's annoying because it could have been really good, but the author went for cutesy-clever style at the expense of accuracy, with the result that you can't believe anything on the page. Sorry, Author, your witty turn of phrase is not more important than the subject you're writing about--which is something I really wanted to get some good info on. If I'd wanted bon mot-type commentary, I could put it in myself. I am massively annoyed.

In happier news, I will soon have Conspiracy of Kings in my greedy little grip, as well as some other cool books. But mostly, CoK. I turned down a chance to read the ARC because I want the full unadulterated experience. Can't wait.

Back to thinking about WIP. Maybe I'll write out the first few chapters, and that will help me figure out the first chapter better. Will see.

On the other hand, I heard from a writer friend that an experimental project WF has been playing around with for a long time has gotten a good response after being brought out into the light of day. This is a project that WF has labored on for personal satisfaction, knowing there was a good chance it might all be for naught, business-wise. So that was cheery news.

Interesting discussions lately with writer friends re. altruistic vs. venal/mercenary outlooks. I think some writers believe you're either one or the other. I know you can be both, because I am. Violently so.

I always think spring break (or fall break or Christmas break or summer break or any school holiday, for that matter) is going to be a gloriously long expanse of computer time. And then every single year--every single holiday--I get behind with my writing work; I get behind schedule deadline-wise. Blah.

Blah, blah, blah.

I also decided that the former GN has no chance at all in this publishing climate, and it's not right anyway, it's got serious problems that aren't going to be worth sorting out to anyone else, so I shall clutch it to my chest and not show anyone but just keep working on it for myself, indefinitely. It will be my J.D. Salinger ms.

Blah, etc.

No time for my own writing at the moment, but I did sneak in a very wee tiny bit yesterday, anyway--probably not more than 50 words, but they were really good ones. Or at least the idea behind them was good. It needed to be written down.

I'm beginning to wonder if I only want to work on my own stuff because I'm not supposed to. I suspect that if unlimited time opened up to work on this latest ms, I suddenly wouldn't feel like it anymore and would have to force myself to get started every time.

Also, being away from the former GN ms is giving me a sinking feeling that it's just not "big" enough to be a book. I'm going to get it working anyway, and will see if anybody wants to publish it, but (as a writing buddy always says) it is what it is. Meaning, the ms is whatever it needs to be, and too bad about the rest--publication, money, career, writerly reputation. Just because the ms does what it needs to do doesn't mean it's worth a company laying out 60K* or whatever to get it into print and distribute it.

A sad idea, but oh well. I'll be d*mned if I give up on a ms just because it's technically not worth anything.

And now, must get my @ss back to work.



*No, I do not get 60K per book. I wish!

Two things seem pretty clear to me today.

One, I'd better be vigilant about keeping up with whatever writing tasks need to be done, whether they're mine or someone else's, or I'm going to be in deep sh*t very quickly--like, within a week. And once I get vigilant, I have to stay that way during the periods when I have multiple writing tasks pending. I can't afford to put things off, because there are going to be too many in the queue, all with people waiting to hear back from me.

Two, my WIP really is weird and probably doesn't have much of a future. It's a luxury, writing-wise. Just saying.

Will be out of town for two weeks, so no blogging till I get back.

No writing lately. I gave up and decided not to worry about it for a few days. Same with working out; I'm taking a few days off. The well needs to refill.

I started to get p.o.'d about this Dilbert strip:


http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-12-21


but then I thought maybe it was being ironic. Is it? I honestly don't know whether it's meant to be taken at face value or not. Either way, just seeing it stated so baldly makes me wince. Probably because I've heard versions of it all my writing life.

I think maybe the second you dare to call yourself a writer out loud, somebody outside the biz (family, friend, stranger) is going to let you know that you're not really a writer in the eyes of the world until you're J.K. Rowling or Stephenie Meyer. If you're not like them, then you're just not that good.

Come to think of it, maybe this is why some writers get so rabid about tearing down SM. She has the recognition and acceptance they should have had--and they feel that they write better than she does.* And maybe because she's so famous that she doesn't seem human or accessible, it feels okay to rake her over the coals. I can't get into that state of mind, because I met SM as the Twilight thing was really taking off (around the second book, I think? Or maybe between the second and the third? I forget.), and I was impressed by how unimpressed she was with herself. I mean like utterly unimpressed. Even my judgmental over-analytical raking-over-the-coals nose detected no scent of self-congratulation. No underlying oneupmanship. And no complacency. Not even a whiff. And when I think back to how I was with my first few books, even without being an instant raging success, I have to say that Stephenie Meyer's a better man than I am. So to speak.


*To me the question is always: What is the purpose of this ms? What does it want to be? A Stephenie Meyer book has a place and a purpose, and it needs to be well-written in the context of that place and purpose. Another writer's book will have a different place and purpose, and the standard that makes it a "good book" will be different. The money/fame part of it all seems to be randomly bestowed...unless you buy into what the Dilbert strip is saying...

Haven't worked on my own stuff at all. I've put some of the w-f-h thing together, and it looks like some more projects might be coming my way at some point, from another w-f-h editor I've worked with before, and therefore know to be reliable and professional. Hooray.

I've also got a bazillion pages of health insurance stuff to fill out because the company I've been with is pulling out of my state, so I have to find a new one. I mention this because it reminded me of something, no idea why. The "something" is that I got pretty annoyed with some commentary I heard about how writers should never make any changes requested by book fairs, because that's censoring, and writers who censor themselves for filthy lucre are basically sell-outs and money-grubbing wh*res. Obviously the people who say this have no idea that self-censoring is something we start considering the second we start revising, and continue all the way till the galleys leave our hands. And sometimes later. Book fair decisions are just more of the same. Usually the changes for book fairs aren't huge moral issues (that's a different ball of wax), but cutting a "d*mn" or "h*ll"--the same words we've been cutting out and putting back in and cutting out again all along during revisions, trying to weigh out whether the words distract the reader more than giving a sense of the character.*

The money an author makes from book fair sales is some ludicrously small amount, I can't remember what. A few cents per copy, maybe? Nobody's changing their text to get rich. They're doing it because they've looked at the changes asked for and decided that it won't mess up anything, and that it will put the book in the hands of thousands more readers. If they decide that it will mess up something about the book, they don't make the changes and usually you never hear about it. Most of the time authors don't get any kudos for standing by their beliefs. What usually happens is they get quietly downgraded in one way or another--the marketing department gets p.o.'d at them, for example, or they miss the word-of-mouth that would have come with those thousands of poorly paid book fair sales.

So anyway, not to get off on a tangent, but my mind went this direction because once again I hear an underlying assumption about authors raking it in. But authors don't get company benefits, and they have to take health insurance plus taxes plus social security plus agent off the top of whatever they get for a book. If you suppose a moderately successful midlist author gets 25K for one book, then take away all that out-of-pocket stuff, you've got somebody who can't afford food and shelter.

And I say all this not to excuse myself for making editorial changes to suit my finances--because I don't, not in my own writing--but to tell everybody who's not trying to make a living at it to climb down from their moral high horse and stop being so freakin' judgmental. For cripe's sake, I've seen people lining up to praise an author for basically not taking a moral stand--clearly without knowing that's what they're doing. All I can figure is that people don't really understand the full range of choices involved, the implications, or the consequences.

So, anyway. I'm working on other stuff besides my WIP, but in the back of my head I'm waiting for some epiphany that will help me bring it all together. Because at the moment it looks like a mess of disparate pieces that aren't going to be interesting to anyone except me.



*Full disclosure: I speak as the author of a YA book with a more-than-liberal sprinkling of the F-word throughout. I am not a priss when it comes to profanity. I also know that different readers can tolerate different levels of it (and therefore its resonance changes depending on the reader), and that "being true to the character" is already a lie when it comes to dialog. You can't transcribe what somebody would actually say in real life, word for word; it would be nearly unintelligible. So profanity is one of those things (same with sexual references) where there's not one easy answer to whether it goes or stays.

I've been working on several things that need to be done, like many pieces of paperwork for new teaching job, plus a lecture, plus the potential w-f-h thing. On the w-f-h thing, I decided to think out the whole book and sketch a sort of proposal that shows what I'm thinking, so the publisher and I can see if we're on the same page. This involves some hard core braiding of plot with character, so I feel that it's going to be very good for me. I also intend to make an outline, because I have to make sure the story has tension and hooks--those are the specs--and to demonstrate in the "proposal" that they will be there. Whether or not I can manage this, it's an excellent exercise for me, and definitely a stretch.

Haven't worked on my own ms in a few days. Today I watched reruns of America's Next Top Model and tried to think a little during commercials, because I feel a bit overwhelmed. I feel I need a stronger connecting thread that runs through the story from start to finish--something that pulls all the very different sections together, something that makes a point that's memorable. Right now I think each section makes a slightly different point, so they don't build to an ending where you want a certain thing to happen. You need to want something for the character, by the end. Not like a Perils of Pauline ending, though; you need to want the character to do a certain something. I need to get a clearer picture of what it is I'm supposed to make the reader want my MC to do. That's the connecting thread that's weak--so weak I keep losing sight of it. I need to find it and draw it out--strongly.

Okay, the bottom line is that the rest of the ms is in good enough shape that I have to start trying to figure out the holes that are left.* Namely, the connecting part in the middle, and the end.

(cue drastic doom-laden organ music)

Except I dunno what to do with them. It's another one of those cases where X, Y, and Z have to happen. Another one of those cases where I'm totally clueless about how to approach it. If I push too hard, I'll screw it up. If I get too wholeheartedly into that screwup before I realize it's wrong, I'll be even more clueless than I am now.

This happens to me over and over again. I've got to move through certain plot points, but they won't work unless they mean something in the overall arc of the story. I've got to learn how to conquer this beast, because lately it rears its head every effing time I write a book.

I think I'll make (another) list of the missing parts, just to put them all in my head again. When I try to go through the ms, I get overwhelmed by them because I look at one and think, "Wait, this can't happen till I establish that other part." Then I move to thinking about how to establish the other part, which I usually don't care about anyway, and by now I'm confused about what I was trying to accomplish, so I quit and go work on something unrelated.

Maybe the best thing would be to force myself to stick to character: what does this particular event mean to the MC? Then later worry about how it moves the story and what the reader needs to get from it. Except...they're all tied together. The parts, I mean. The way I tie the end together needs to answer the way I tie the missing events in the middle. In real life they'd be just random events, like one day you dent a fender in the parking lot and the next you find a dollar bill you'd forgotten about in your pocket. In the story they aren't random at all. They have to echo each other and make sense together. And the middle decides which scenes I'm going to keep in the end part, and which I'm going to chunk.

Okay, no. Stop. Clear head. Go back. I can make the list, then from that list I need to think in two directions at once: 1) what does each event mean to the MC, and 2) how does it relate to what I want the book to say?

It's really hard for me to think of two things at once, so I'm going to have to write this down and treat it as totally removed from the ms, like an outline. I don't know that it'll solve anything, but I've got to start digging in somehow. If I can't figure it out, then at least the back of my brain will have everything clearly set down and graspable, so it can start chewing on the problem if it wants to.

Whoa, momentary reality check. Incoming e-mail reminds me that various writer friends are going off this weekend for fun cool author stuff, while I'm sitting here scrubbling uselessly away at the same piece-of-cr*p ms I've been wasting my time on for so many years I'm not going to count them--a ms that's never going to sell so I'll never go anywhere cool or fun because I'm the only one who can't write and I'll be humiliated because I'll never publish another book because my writing sucks and my books suck and I suck and when anybody finally looks at this ms the jig will be up because they'll all see what a sucky piece of cr*p I wasted all that time on, and isn't it sad, really, that any writer could be that deluded.

Okay, reality check over. Back to work.


*I have to. I'm starting to overwrite some of the parts that are closer to being done. I've got to leave those and figure out the holes.

I was reading a blog post decrying the lack of strong female MCs, and I realized that I've got to try to cover some more bases here. I know I have zero hope of getting some people to see the things I'm trying to explore, but I do have to be as clear as possible in order to maybe catch a few of them and maybe even get the ms published. Then I'll just have to sit still for abuse from the ones who don't get it, ugh. So be it.

Specifically, I have to spell out: This is what the MC's world is like. This is what she has to deal with. Like the majority of women throughout history, her choices are so limited as to be nil. She has no power whatsoever. Like the majority of women throughout history, she lives in a world controlled by men. The men are not all bad--it's the world view that's bad. The world view warps the men just as much as it stunts the women. Swords would not help this. There are too many swords already, and they're doing what swords are meant to do: butcher enemies and control the balance of power.

So that's the kind of thing I was tweaking today: clarifying the world view, driving home the lack of choices and power.

I really don't know how to keep the reader from expecting some kind of big confrontation or battle at the end. No idea how to keep this turned inward. And really no idea how to make the fact that the solution is brought by a knight on a white horse palatable to a reader. However, that's what happens. No getting around it.

When I think of some of the other writing-related stuff I'm having to consider right now--market-directed writing-related stuff--I'm pretty sure this ms is doomed, doomed, doomed. I'm willing to live with that. I don't like it--but I'll live with it if I have to. No regrets.

A writer friend sent a link to another one of those industry blogs where the editor/agent/assistant/marketing person/janitor gripes anonymously about whatever. This time it was a rant about wimpy girl MCs, and it appeared to be written by another twenty-something upper-middle-class suburbanite who hightailed it to NYC as soon as the ink on her college diploma was dry and is now passive-aggressively taking out her frustrations on anyone who looks like they can't do any damage back. The alarming thing about this is that I thought the wimpy girl MC rant train left the station several years ago. Is this person just not much of a reader, or has she not kept up with industry discussions--or, horror of horrors, has there been so much turnover in publishing that we've got a whole new crop of people to whom this is new, and who are going to back us all up so that we have to start all over with lame 2-D kickass grrls written by wimpy female writers who think picking up a sword is enough to make you Strong and A Role Model so that you don't have to any icky stuff that involves bad smells or unpleasant noises or intestines/arteries/lungs in general?

I thought we had hit that mark already and were starting to move on with something a little more three-dimensional. For g*d's sake, people, if you're going to push violence, PUSH IT!!!! I've got no problem with most violence in books/movies/video games, and I say Follow your thoughts through to their natural conclusion. Sh*t or get off the pot. That is all.

This actually did have to do with my writing today, but I'll move to a new post so this one gets at least a little buried. Or who knows, maybe I'll take it down. Or...not.

I seem to be making fairly steady forward progress and it seems like the ms is taking on a clearer shape. Unfortunately I'm now thinking that the whole thing sucks because a) it's not interesting to anybody but me, and b) it's not very marketable. In fact, it may not be marketable at all. To me it looks like it's not YA (too much sex, too low-key, too middle-aged outlookish), yet not adult (sex isn't titillating, too clear and straightforward, and again too low-key). So, I dunno. I wouldn't feel so bad about it ending up in a drawer if I knew it was right when I put it there. It'd be like, "Hey World, you're missing out on the best-ever sex-heavy boring middle-aged book--too bad for you!"

One thing that's really bugging me is that I need to crush all the self-indulgence out of it. I can't really do that until it's closer to the final version, though. You have to allow some self-indulgence while you're figuring the ms out.

Anyhow, I can't remember what I did yesterday, except that I worked for a long time. Today I know I worked on the middle, taking the pieces that I know need to be there--I already had them more or less together--and thinking about them and pulling them more into place. I've got maybe four or five ideas or plot points or whatever they're called. The brothers need to leave. The mother needs to die. The suitors need to come. The sister needs to leave. Inside these ideas I need to add in some smaller ideas/points: the maid is getting senile, the father is checking out, the brother-in-law is cousins with the murdering brute, plus family history of the murdering brute. The patches of all this are laid out now, which is more than I've ever had done on this part before.

I'd like to have a full working draft before I start focusing on other writerly related stuff that starts in January. However, I usually don't meet goals once they're stated, so I won't call that a goal. I'll just say it would be nice.