megwrites

Wow, is Daylight Savings ever kicking my ass. The Boy told me a rather funny story about having to explain daylight savings to non-Americans who came to his theatre an hour early for their movie and were very curious as to why, apparently, Americans felt they had the authority to change time itself.

Which, given America, is not an illogical assumption to make about why we'd have such a thing.

I wish I could go back in time and assure them that time didn't change, Americans are just batshit insane and are all pretending, in concert, that time has changed. Because, see above, re: batshit insane.

Anyway, the thing I came here for:

madam_silvertip has a great list of writers of color in SF/F. And nhw has a list of books by POC he's read in proportion to non-PoC authored books he's read. I should probably get around to doing the same one of these days, if only in private because that's a good kind of self-auditing to do.

I'm always on a quest to build a Must Read list. And since my reward for finally finishing my @#$%ing impossible to finish Absolutely Last So Help Me Flying Spaghetti Monster Draft of the Tower!Guy novel is to treat myself to some new books, it means I'm practically licking my chops looking for delicious reads.

As always, I will take any recommendations under advisement, and anything that might help me in my quest for The Perfect Vampire Novel would also be really delicious.

I shall call this mode: "Person with one leg in a butt kicking contest". I was sick as a dog the night before, which means yesterday I got nothing done.

Ergo, today I'm scrambling to get back on schedule with the revisions of the Tower!Guy novel. I realize I set aside my deadline as being unimportant, given the givens, but part of me just needs to be done with revisions, needs to send this out, needs to have this over with.

I just want to work on a new project, on writing words that I haven't gone over with a fine tooth comb fifty times already.

Apropos of nothing: I think the Tor.com site could be a much better if they stopped letting a certain someone post reviews of TV shows that are not even remotely SF/F or SF/F related. I've tried to get into the site because there's some free short fiction there and things, but honestly? As long as they keep letting one of their contributors post reviews of a mainstream crime drama just because it's her favoritest show ever and apparently her thoughts on it are so deep and enlightening that they must be shared at every turn, whether they're relevant or not, I'm out. I can't take the site seriously, because nobody's ever explained to me why they think one person's opinion about a non-SF/F show should be on a site specifically dedicated to SF/F. I swear to god, next there'll be posts about rock climbing. [/bitchery].

I really should get back to work. When I start snarking like this, it means I'm not busy enough.

I'm working at the break neckingest pace I can on the last go of the Tower!Guy story. The revisions are about half done. They're taking longer than I thought because I'm having to really pay attention to detail and organization.

Also, I'm doing that thing where I go line by line and cut out the stylistic excesses I'm prone to. I ask myself "do I really need this word here?". My biggest problem is saying such things as "he started to walk away" or "he started to smile" when, in actuality, the character is walking and is smiling and I should just say that.

I don't know that I'll finish by the end of this month, but I realized I don't have to.

I gave myself such a tight deadline because I'm slowly getting tired of this project and want to do something else and I'm afraid if I don't get done with it very soon, I'll just throw my hands up and surrender.

But there really are instances when it's best to take your time. If I can work my way up to jogging three miles in the morning, in both excoriating heat and excruciating cold, I can do this. It just involves parking my butt in a chair and typing. A lot.

I feel there is only one thing that can really, truly, and accurately capture what I feel like, trying to completely finish off the revisions of the Tower!Guy novel in one month, among all the other obligations I have during December.

That thing is a clip from "Meet the Robinsons". Because sometimes you just have to say with computer animated dinosaurs.

So right now, just to recap: I HAVE A BIG HEAD AND LITTLE ARMS. I AM NOT SURE HOW WELL I THOUGHT THIS PLAN THROUGH.

Additionally, I might be covered in bees, too.

Carry on, that is all.

I actually made positive progress today on editing the Tower!Guy novel. I realized that it's not the big huge mess I thought it was yesterday.

What really helped was following fairmer's suggestion to use a chart to keep track of chapters and POV's. I hear there is software out there that can do that for you, but honestly? It was just as easy to make a chart on the back of one of the pages of the manuscript.

I'm one of those people who doesn't tend to believe in having a lot of bells and whistles in the physical writing process. Not that those who have special tools or software are wrong or lesser writers, but I'm kind of a naturalist. I basically just need a quiet place to think and a word processor. Or pen and paper, depending on the situation. Of course, I'm also a completely unpublished nobody, so the mileage on this may vary.

Another helpful step was to make a list of the bare bones of plot that happen in each chapter on the chart next to the POV column. This way I can see not only who's telling the story, but what's happening. It helped me see that there were some chapters where a lot of plot points happen, and some chapters where nothing happens. Having a character watch something for ten pages is not plot.

Not to mention that making the chart gave me a very visible understanding of why things were lopsided. I have three POV characters, but there's a huge six chapter streak of my novel that's only from one character's perspective. And most of it doesn't have to be, either.

What all of this means is that I won't have to go back and do another massive overhaul of the novel like I did this summer. That was like taking an old house, knocking out walls, putting a new roof on, and basically remaking the place.

This is more like fixing some leaky plumbing and maybe putting in hardwood instead of carpet. Nothing to despair over.

Guess it's time to cowboy up with the Red Pen of Death and get back to line editing for all my grammar mistakes. Seeing my own grammar errors gets a bit funny after a while. It's like a thousand English teachers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

So far I've gotten back critiques on the Tower!Guy novel from two of the four people that I sent it out to and I couldn't be more pleased with how thoroughly they read the novel and what a terrific job they did.

I really lucked out big time in that regard. I couldn't have gotten better folks to give this thing a read through.

First and foremost, both of them said they liked the novel overall, and that it was a good novel. I trust that they'd tell me if I wasn't or if it was a hopeless cause.

Also, none of the things pointed out in their critiques are fatal flaws. With some rearranging and adjusting of things, I think it can be an even better novel, one that (*fingers crossed*) might be worthy of sending out somewhere. I know that right now, in this belt-tightened market and the market that is likely to ensue in 2009 and 2010, that more than ever, I need to have something really spectacular to hand to an agent and/or editor.

Of course, there are some mistakes that they pointed out that make me absolutely angry and frustrated with myself, because they seem like such obvious mistakes. Amateur mistakes, even. And I so desperately don't want to be a rank amateur anymore.

I want to be good that this. No, scratch that, I want to be fabulous. I'm not usually a terribly ambitious person in other aspects of my life. In day jobs, I don't tend to care about advancement up the ladder. I can't say that I give a damn about status symbols such as cars, clothes, and fancy things.

But in writing? I feel a kind of motivation and drive that I don't feel in any other aspect of my life.

Not that I aspire to either fame or fortune. I certainly have no illusions that writing books about such things as dragons and werewolves will garner me either. But neither of those things precludes me from being a spectacular writer if I work hard enough at it.

In the end, for me, this is about telling a truly incredible story in a truly incredible way - and I suppose I'm still a bit frustrated that my reach extends so far beyond my grasp. Not that it shouldn't always, but there's a difference between arms length and lightyears.

But that's the one advantage of my situation. There's a simple solution to this sort of frustration which involves the reapplication of one's nose to the grindstone.

When in doubt, get back to work, I guess.

Arghhh and avast me mateys!

Not only is it International Talk Like a Pirate Day, but guess what? I FINISHED MY FREAKIN' NOVEL! IT'S DONE! THE TOWER!GUY NOVEL IS DONE!

Oh, sorry, let me put that into a piratical poem for you:

Come 'n kick up yer peg legs
Grab a wench and some grog
For I've got wond'rous things
That I'll tell on this blog

Now ye know I been writin'
Aye, the rumours be true
Though the goin' were rough, lads
I'm all the way through!

Through the mornin' and evenin'
Oh, I wrote and I wrote
How I did it with a hook hand
Arghh, I'll say not a mote

I faced the blank pages
With one eye and a patch
The cursor was a-blinkin'
But she were no match

I wrote though them pages
Was blizzardy blank
And I felt a scallywag
Walkin' the plank

But the novel, she's done
And my tale is told
So, aye, pass the rum
And hope it gets sold!


Final word count: 87555 (in Open Office). 308 pages. Twenty-two chapters and an epilogue.

Happy ITLAPD to everyone, and I'm off to find something suitable to celebrate with. Because I'm under budget (word wise) and I came in before my deadline. Thus, I am awesome.

The Query Project, in which published authors show the actual query letters that got them published, along with their comments about query letters in general.

I would definitely recommend any of my fellow unpublished authors on the f-list to go check it out. It never hurts to learn from people's successes.

I definitely am bookmarking the hell out of this, and intend to study it in great detail. Because any and all help I can get with this sort of thing is a blessing.

Especially since I'm getting very close to the end of the Tower!Guy revisions/rewrite and come hell or high water, I'm submitting this thing to someone. After which, I expect I'll be able to wallpaper my apartment with rejection letters, but hey. At least it'll be because they book was bad, and not the query letter. That's something.

Some good advice on query letters from arcaedia. I definitely will be bookmarking this one, because when the time comes to start begging someone to publish the Tower!Guy novel or any other novel, I want to have a spellcheck for my stupidity.

I'm at a point in the novel where I realize I'm over the hump, and the home stretch is in sight and that my goal is not to write a lot of words per day, but just to get a certain amount of action/plot accomplished. And it's to my advantage to get that done in the fewest words possible.

I just have a Thing, Another Thing, and then the Big Climax (not as pr0ntastic as it sounds). And then it will be over. And this is absolutely the last draft of this story. If it doesn't work, then I'm done with it.

I've already promised myself that if I finish this novel by or before my deadline, I then I will has cheezburger cake pie ice cream diabeetus from the sugar a treat.

I have so many books in the review queue that I've read, loved, but need to think of coherent words to say about them.

Ah, progress notes. Proof that I'm not just piddling around in my jobless wonderdom. I've noticed that a lot of people on my f-list are going through financial and career woes right now.

The good news? It doesn't cost a damn thing to write a good story. Costs money to publish it, costs money to buy it - but when the lights get cut off and you're eating ramen, you still have your imagination.


Project: Tower!Guy

Wordcount: 61,622 (+ 3673)

Goal: < 100,000 words

Deadline: Sept 1st (or thereabouts)

Reason For Stopping: Lunchtime!

Exercise: Walking/jogging at 6:45am. I am currently still bewildered at how I've managed to do this for two weeks, because I am the anti-morning person.

Stimulants/Chemicals: None

Musical Inspiration: Iron & Wine - "Boy With A Coin"; Nina Simone - Summertime; Rais Khan and Sultan Khan - Bhairavi (Rough Guide To Indian Music); OneRepublic - All Fall Down

Other Creative Activities: Journaling

Reading Materials: The Queen's Bastard - C.E. Murphy

Darling du Jour:

"It's a fine horse you have," she commented, softly. "Did you name it?"

"Is 'damn you' a name?" Sephon asked.

Mean Things: Lying, abandonment, intense physical pain, finding out one of your parents is a mass murdering bitch, loveless marriages, planned regicide, husbands who might murder you in the night, slow motion suicides

Things Learned/Discovered: It is entirely possible to just nail your butt to the chair and write. And there's really no difference in quality in the finished product. Also? Trying to search for the perfect song is such a time suck. Occasionally, just turning off the music helps.