Motivational Mondays: From one book to the next!

Happy Monday!  This is pretty much the summer of vacations for me.  I went on one at the end of June, came home for a week, and then left for the next.  The end result is, my house is desperately in need of cleaning and I am so not motivated to do it.  However, I've been really productive in the book department, so I'm happy about that!

What I’m working on: Now that Creators is finished and published, it's time for me to turn to Contributor.  I entered it in ABNA this year, so I'd already done several rounds of edits, but I'm going to put it on my Kindle and do another round of edits.  I've found that doing this is a really effective way at catching small errors (i.e. using "or" when I meant to use "of"), and it also lets me see how the book will look once it's finished.  I'll also give that one a spin through SmartEdit as that program was extremely helpful when I was doing the edits on Creators.

What I hope to achieve: This week, I'm scaling back my expectations because I did just publish another book.  The problem I find with writing is that I feel a sort of compulsion to work constantly.  If I'm not writing, I'm feeling guilty about not writing.  However, as with any job, it's also important to have some down time and to do other things like reading or exercising or cleaning my house.  If I don't take the time to relax, I start feeling really frazzled and stressed out and that really does nothing to improve my writing.  So, for this week, I'll maybe read a few chapters of Contributor.

What are my challenges: House cleaning.  Seriously.  It takes up so much time it's unreal.  Also, as I mentioned, I need to give myself permissions to just relax once in a while.

What freaks me out: I'm not sure if it's because The Eye of the Beholder has already been out there for a while, but I'm not quite as terrified of bad reviews this time around.  Granted, I know it'll be tough to get bad reviews, but I think publishing that first book was the point where I really stepped off the cliff.

My one big worry about writing a trilogy is maintaining consistency.  I never thought about how HUGE writing a series is until I start writing one.  Now I worry a lot about readers contacting me saying, "In book 1, character A says this but, in book 3, they do something that totally contradicts it."  I once read there was an editor whose sole function was to read all of J.K. Rowling's books to make sure the spells were consistent throughout the series.  It seemed kind of strange to me at the time, but now I totally get it.

What’s making me happy today: Having another book published, of course!  And the fact that I've already had my first sale.  I'm also very pleased that The Eye of the Beholder continues to sell a few more copies each month.  Progress is good!

Teaser for Tuesday: Tomorrow I'll offer a first peek at Contributor.  Though Creators is part of the universe, it's a standalone story, so Contributor will offer the first look into the meat of the trilogy.

It all makes sense now!

Well, at least I hope it all makes sense now.  At any rate, I'm finished with the first round of edits to the chapters I wrote during NaNoWriMo.  Some of them needed extensive rewriting, while others just need a little tweaking here and there.  I also wrote an entirely new chapter, so I boosted my total word count by around 5,000, now that the first round of work is over.  This means I can now continue working toward finishing the manuscript, at which point I'd like to try to do another round of edits before I consider it ready for exposure.

Last night, my husband and I sat around for a while as I worked out some thorny plot issues verbally with him.  I'm determined to do my best to make the plotting very tight, and to avoid those convenient little episodes that are oh-so-handy in terms of moving the plot along.  If some event happens, I want there to be a reason for it, and so I was using him as a sounding board, trying to figure out which of the options I was playing around with struck him as the most believable.  It was extraordinarily helpful.  Though he's always been supportive of me, reading my manuscripts and offering feedback, I think this was the first time I really used him in this capacity.  I guess this is because, while my novel is infinitely interesting to me, the last thing I want to do is bore other people to death talking about my work.

Really, what I'd like to do is to try to create a smaller, more focused group of fellow writers.  While going to the large group is extremely helpful, it's also a bit limiting because, naturally, we want to give everyone a chance to share some of their work, which means we only have time for small excerpts from each person.  I used to think writing was an entirely lonely exercise, and in some ways it is.  However, as I've worked on some collaborative projects and become involved in writers' groups, what I've found is that it can be really eye-opening to sit and toss ideas around with other writers.  I have a teaching background, so this doesn't entirely come as a surprise to me.  One of the things I liked doing as a teacher was attending conferences or team meetings where we'd share activities we'd done in class.  It inevitably resulted in surging creativity as the thoughts of one person were embellished by another person, and so on.

At the end of the day, if this novel becomes successful, it will be the direct result of not just my own writing, but of all of the assistance I've received from various friends and family members.  Without their contributions, the novel would definitely not be what it is, nor would it continue to evolve as it has without their feedback.  This, for me, is the most rewarding part of writing.  For a long time, I kept my work to myself because I was afraid of criticism, but now that I've taken a leap, I find the feedback and the time others devote not only feeds my creativity, it makes me a better writer.

And now, a small tidbit.  This particular bit of conversation really speaks to me.

***

          “But what’s more despicable is that the system not only allows this, it actively encourages it.  How many times have you been told you should report any suspicious activity?”

             

            More times than she could count.  “We’ve always been told that it’s for our own security,” Dara said.

             
           “That’s always what people say, when they’re busy stripping away rights.  If you work everyone up into enough of a panic, they’ll be glad to hand you things they’d normally never even think of giving up,” Mal told her.  “Don’t believe me?  I can give you plenty of books on the topic—books you’ve likely never seen in your life.  Why do you think that is?”

I Want My NaNoWriMo Back!

Yes, folks, I do actually want it back, and I'll tell you why very succinctly: when I'm doing NaNoWriMo, there is no time for crippling self-doubt, there is only time for word count.  Once NaNoWriMo ends, however, and the fever wears off, it's once again possible to become neurotic about all manner of things.

I can't stop thinking about that The Economist article that sneered at NaNoWriMo, implying that all NaNo novels are trash that "true" writing demands that the author "bleed".  Well, folks at The Economist, let me tell you: I could use a transfusion right about now because there's a heady mix of blood, sweat, and tears dripping all over my manuscript.

Still, I guess I could look at this as a good thing, right?  After all, if I were entirely convinced of my own brilliance, I would think my novel was perfect as is.  The truth is, though, that I can always find something to change, no matter how "finished" my manuscript may be.  While there are those magical moments during which I am very happy with what I've typed, they are far outnumbered by those moments where I agonize over every word, where I keep returning to the same sentence over and over because It's.  Just.  Not.  Right.

Now, I'll come right out and admit that I am a perfectionist, which means I hold myself to a ridiculously high standard.  This is both a good thing and a bad thing.  While I'm glad that I always want to do my best, and that I strive to improve myself, I'm also terrible at cutting myself any sort of slack.

Tonight, my temptation was to just keep on going, even though I began to feel like I was beating my head against a brick wall repeatedly.  Instead, I made myself put it down and step away.  If I had nothing but time to write, maybe I would be easier on myself (that's a big, fat maybe, folks) but since I have to try to cram my writing in whenever I can, I get a bit stressed.  I'm sure many other would-be writers can relate.  You sit down, ready to put words on the screen or on paper, and then real life interrupts and you're forced to walk away.  Then, when you can finally return, you rack your brain, searching for that brilliant sentence you had composed in your head or that great plot twist you were about to use and...nothing.  Big, fat nothing.  Your carefully planned out, exquisite words are gone and lost forever.  It's maddening.

At any rate, the revisions are coming along rather well.  I've had to totally scrap some chapters and rework them and, tonight, I wrote an entirely new chapter 18.  Since I ended NaNoWriMo at the beginning of chapter 25, I'd say I'm making pretty good progress.  I've also beefed up my word count by several thousand.  I'm at a pivotal point now.  I still have quite a bit of story to tell, but I'll soon need to think about wrapping it up.  ABNA approaches, my friends, and I still want to allow myself at least a couple of weeks to go over the "finished" product, so I'm aiming to write my ending by the end of December.

I also just want to take a moment to recognize the friends and family members who are reading the manuscript and helping make it better.  I am more grateful for your contributions than I can say.

And now, a bit of an excerpt!

***

            “After a great deal of discussion, the Senior Engineers and I have come to a decision as to who is to accompany us to our meeting with Agricorp,” Andersen announced.  His hands behind his back in a rather military posture, he began to stroll slowly around the room.

“Mr. LeTour,” he said, coming to a stop right next to Ryan.  He was so close that Dara was certain his posture was deliberate, calculated to intimidate.  It appeared to be working. Though Ryan kept his face straight, he blanched.  “I will state up front that I found your performance extremely disappointing.  Your ideas were mediocre, your research unsatisfactory.  I don’t know how to account for your lapse in performance but, let me assure you, this will be your last.  Any further misstep will result in your immediate termination from the program.  Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Ryan said, his voice strained.  Andersen smiled a slow, tight smile, and Dara felt her stomach turn.

He’s actually enjoying this! she realized.  He’s enjoying humiliating Ryan in front of the rest of us.

As Andersen turned his back and moved away from Ryan, Chen shot a look of such vile disgust at his apprentice that Dara had to look away.  Though Ryan was without redeeming qualities, as far as she could see, she still found it difficult to see him the subject of so public a flogging.

             I’m not sure anyone deserves to be treated that way.

I'm kind of loving editing

NaNoWriMo has now come and gone, and I'm left with a manuscript of which I'm rather proud.  However, it was also a very messy manuscript, thanks to its evolution over the course of the month, and the anti-editing philosophy of NaNoWriMo.  While it was a good thing to concentrate on getting words on the page, it's also a relief to me to now be able to go back and fix those parts of the novel that were so incongruous they were setting my teeth on edge.

I'm happy to say that I have now edited around half of the manuscript and am more pleased with it than ever.  Now that the first half all makes sense, I have an even better sense of the flow of the narrative, and I really like where it's going.  I feel like the pacing is good and that the character development is coming along nicely.  While everything I've ever written is special to me because it has all been the result of blood, sweat, tears, and passion, I have to say that there is something magical about this one.  It just feels so intensely right.  This may have something to do with the fact that I was stepping way outside of my comfort zone when I decided to shoot for YA dystopian fic for NaNoWriMo that there is immense satisfaction is seeing that things are working out far better than I'd hoped.  Though I have a tendency to freak out a little when I face a challenge, I find that the intrinsic rewards of succeeding at a challenge to be extremely gratifying.

I've also been flying high all day because, last night, I returned to the writing group I'd been participating in, but have missed for several months due to various and assorted reasons.  It felt so good to be back with a group of like-minded people, sharing our work and offering one another feedback.  For so many years, I was deathly afraid of showing my work to anyone.  The very thought of participating in something like a writing group was enough to make me break out in a cold sweat.  Now I find myself wondering why I waited so long.  Not only do the people in the group offer very good feedback, they are a wonderfully supportive bunch, and everyone is genuinely interested in helping everyone else succeed.  More than that, everyone truly believes in everyone else.  It's a fantastic environment, and I have learned so much from everyone there.

I brought a two-page excerpt of my novel and volunteered to go second.  This time, I didn't really even have that nervous flutter.  I was actually excited to hear what everyone had to say, whatever it was they had to say.  To my delight, they were very complimentary about the excerpt.  I've often heard that writers should write what they would like to read, and I have always adhered to this philosophy.  However, I think this also engenders insecurity about whether it's something anyone else might like to read, so I was very happy to find that the others seemed to enjoy it.  It's more than just validation (though the validation is very important and wonderful!), it's knowing that my work may actually have a chance of finding an audience.

As much as I've love writing, it is a very solitary experience for the most part, so to be able to find a group of people with whom I can share this passion is a wonderful thing.  It's an amazing feeling to be in a roomful of creative people who are bouncing ideas off of one another.  I'm extremely grateful to the members of the group for boosting my confidence and inspiring me to continue on with my work.

NaNoWriMo Day 13: The middle stinks

Writing the middle of a novel is not fun.  It is the place where self-doubts and second guessing live.  It is practically a guarantee that when you're writing your middle, you will at some point find yourself kind of snoozing over it, which means that, of course, your reader is likely to do the same thing.  This is what presses the play button on that recording in your head that sounds something like this: "This is terrible.  No one will want to read this.  It'll never be published.  You need to find yourself a new hobby."

The trick is to soldier on through the novel at this point, though that's easier said than done.  If I can say one thing about NaNoWriMo, it's that trying to write 50,000 words in one month really doesn't give me the leisure time required to indulge in my own angst.  Instead, I have to suck it up, leave the junky parts as they are, and keep on going with my novel--and this is a wonderful thing.  For the other eleven months of the year, when I am not engaged in NaNoWriMo, I often give up and walk away from my manuscript at this stage, sometimes for months or even years at a time.

See, really, all the fun in writing is in the beginning in the end.  When you first start, you're so flush with wonderful ideas and so convinced that you have such an exciting concept that you dive right in, sure you're going to produce something marvelous.  When you do slog your way past the middle part and make it to the end, you get the pleasure of writing your exciting conclusion and of tying all those plot threads together.

The middle is the real challenge, but NaNoWriMo has helped me to see that the middle is for the editing process.  If my scene is boring, I can take an axe to it later and spare my readers the unpleasant experience of having to bear with it.  In the past, I used to write as if the words that were coming from me needed to be the end result, but NaNoWriMo has shown me that writing is like any other art.  You start out with a rough form and then go back and polish and polish until it's shiny and beautiful.  So thank you, NaNoWriMo, for showing me that the sin isn't in writing something that's not good and then deleting it later, the sin is in writing nothing at all.

***

“Nice catch out there, LeTour,” Javier drawled once they were alone in the conference room.  He lounged in his chair as if he were at home enjoying his leisure time, rather than sitting in a room with a guy who would like slit his throat if it meant that he and not Javier got the assistant position.

            “I’m so flattered you noticed, Gutierrez,” Ryan replied.  “It could have happened to any one of us, really, I suppose.  We are under a lot of pressure here.”

            Dara smiled through gritted teeth.  She didn’t want to show Ryan how much he got to her, and she was angry with herself for her inability to hide her emotions from him.  If he saw that he was unnerving her, he’d just increase his efforts to undo her.

            “I guess that explains why you took such a simplistic approach to the problem,” Javier said, casually studying his perfectly groomed nails.

            “What?” Ryan asked, all pretense gone.  He was studying Javier with naked malice.  

            “You must have been so busy spying on our work that you didn’t have enough time to do even a halfway decent job with yours.”

            “Is that so?”  Ryan crossed his arms over his chest.  He had been leaning against the wall, but now he strolled a bit closer to Javier.  Every line of his body radiated aggression, and Dara found that she couldn’t tear her eyes away from what was happening between the two guys.  Surely Ryan didn’t intend to lose his temper here and now?  Then again, it wouldn’t entirely surprise her as he was nothing more than a petty bully.

            “I expect you’ll find out, once we go out there to get our scores.  Tough break, buddy.  You always managed to hold your own in class but, well, there was always a little something lacking when it came to you.  Looks like that’s really manifesting itself here and now.  It’s a lot tougher in the real world than it is in school, isn’t it?”

            “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”  Ryan wasn’t even pretending to be cordial now.  He leaned down, getting right in Javier’s face, but the other guy just smiled.

            “Temper, temper,” Javier sighed, shaking his head.

NaNoWriMo 2011, Day 10: The blues

Today was a pretty rough day.  I was feeling really down in general, and particularly about writing.  I think that it's so lonely to be a writer at times.  I'm always rather leery of telling people that I'm writing a novel because they react in one of two ways:

1) They think it's awesome and amazing that I'm writing a novel.  The people who say this often also express the wish that they could sit down and write a novel.  This is a good reaction, and I like it.  It makes me feel good to know that some people view my writing as an ambitious and admirable project.

2) They look at me kind of funny and are sort of patronizing about it.  You know, something like, "Oh, you're writing a novel?  How nice."  I always picture their inner monologue as being something like this, "She's writing a novel?  That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.  Like it'll ever be published.  Good luck with THAT pie-in-the-sky dream, sweetheart!"

I have to confess that I often feel like response number two is the one I'm getting.  It's like people do that smile and nod thing.  You know, the thing you do when someone says something and you have no idea how you can possibly respond to it because it's either outrageously stupid or outrageously offensive (or a combination of both), so you just smile and nod.

Well, today was a day when I felt like the whole world was smiling and nodding at me.  Not good.

However, I did come to a realization about my novel.  I'm trying to make a statement with it, and I realized that the first part of the novel isn't achieving what I want it to achieve.  This might sound like a bad thing and it would be if I hadn't realized what I could do to fix it so that it would achieve what I wanted it to. 

The problem is that it's going to require some extensive rewrites, which is something that's not in keeping with the spirit of NaNoWriMo.  So, in the interest of adhering to the NaNoWriMo idea, I resisted the urge to edit.  Instead, I added some things and then continued on with my story, promising myself that I will go back and rewrite when I've officially "completed" the manuscript.

Yes, this will be a pretty major change in the structure of my novel, but I know it's going to make it better, so I'm not bothered by that.  All in all, it was a pretty weird day, considering I had the icky feeling that no one is taking me seriously coupled with an epiphany about my book that I think will make it much better.

Also, I recently found out that the novels "Water for Elephants" and "The Night Circus" started out as NaNoWriMo drafts.  Considering how phenomenally successful those books are, I KNOW there's something to this NaNoWriMo idea.  Sometimes, you've just got to reach out and grab for the brass ring, even if everyone you know thinks you're crazy and/or foolish for doing it.

***

“Letizia, I’m going to turn the flashlight on.  I need to see how badly you’re wounded.”

“No...light,” Letizia whispered.

“I don’t have a choice.  I have to examine your head.  I’ll keep the light covered as much as possible.”

Before Letizia could protest any further, Dara pulled out the flashlight.  It was fairly small, so she was able to cup her palm around it.  Though the light was far from concealed, Dara figured it was better than nothing.  She shone it on Letizia’s head and was unable to keep herself from gasped.  Dark blood crusted Letizia’s hair and oozed from the wound at her temple.  It was a sizable gash, and Dara felt certain it needed to be patched, though that was far beyond her skill set.  The flying grit and dust had begun to accumulate in both the wound and the blood in Letizia’s hair, and Dara knew she had to get it cleaned and covered lest Letizia wind up with a terrible infection.

“I’ll try to be as gentle as possible, but this is going to hurt,” she warned Letizia softly as she shone the light on her bag, digging through its contents.  She found a sterile wipe, some gauze, and some tape.  It would have to do until Letizia could receive professional medical care.

As quickly as she could, Dara cleaned the wound.  Letizia sucked in a breath, and Dara bit her lip, knowing she was hurting the other woman.  If she’d had both hands free, she probably could have been a lot gentler about it, but she’d have been forced to put the light in her mouth which would mean she wouldn’t be able to do much to conceal its beam. They were both silent as Dara finished cleaning the wound.

When she finished, Dara was slick with sweat and she swiped her forearm over her eyes.  There was still a lot of blood crusted in Letizia’s hair, but now was not the time to worry about that.  Awkwardly, she covered the wound with gauze and taped it down as securely as she could.  She looked around for a second, trying to figure out what to do with the bloody wipe and the wrapper from the gauze.

What the hell, Dara?  This isn’t the dome.  You’re not going to find a conveniently located trash chute.  Just drop the garbage on the ground.

Letting out a shaky breath, Dara did so and then flicked the light off.  Groping in the bag, she felt the contours of one of the water bottles and she pulled it out, uncapping it and handing it to Letizia before she felt around for the second.

“Small sips,” Dara cautioned.  “I don’t know how long it’ll need to last.”

“Not sure...I can.  Stomach...” Letizia moaned softly.

“I know you’re feeling nauseated, but you have to take at least a few sips.  You can’t let yourself become dehydrated.  Here, I’ll help you,” Dara said, setting her bottle aside and taking Letizia’s.  She managed to coax Letizia to take two small sips before the other woman gagged, spilling the contents of her stomach over the dry, crusted earth.

Now Dara was very worried.  She was quite certain Letizia had a concussion on top of her head wound.  The adrenaline from their flight away from the transport was beginning to wear off, and Dara could feel panic setting in.

“Do you know how stupid it is to use a light out here?” a low voice growled.