megwrites

Right now, if I had to give a progress report/state of the union address (don't worry, you're not gonna miss Flipper*) regarding my writing, I'd have to say that I'm in the Spring Slump.

The Spring Slump is a time honored tradition. It's where, for some reason, usually in March/April my brain gets so full of pollen and brand new sunshine and extended daylight hours that it sort of futzes out. It's seasonally induced apathy towards just about everything. It started in school because this is around the time when you're ready for the semester to end and you feel like nothing counts until finals. I thought it would end with graduation, but it hasn't.

During the Spring Slump, I just cannot be arsed to get interested in anything and for about two or three weeks.

So while I'm waiting to reboot, I might as well take stock.

The UF!2Girls story is finished, and I'm starting to gather my editing notes together, but it still needs to sit fallow for a few more weeks. Judging when I'm ready to work on a story for the next draft is about like judging when wine has fermented enough. Except, you know, winemakers have training and years of passed down knowledge. I might as well be using a magic 8-Ball. I'm still in a love/hate holding pattern.

The Tower!Guy story is screaming for better editing, and I think I've finally figured out what it is that's fundamentally wrong with the story. At the time I wrote it, I think my reach far exceeded my grasp. The themes and principles and ideas are good, but I wasn't ready for it yet. Also? I realize that having a fundamental plot point be "Character A teaches Character B compassion" is a ticket to ride the failboat. That's an arc, a theme, a character development. It is not a plot point. Plot points have to have things happening.

Not to mention that I'm finally learning to be comfortable with my characters maybe being less than compassionate, less than understanding. You can be a coldhearted bastard and still the good guy. Not to mention that it's all right to let a character leave the story with the same flaws they've always had. Not everyone has to be perfect by story's end. Sometimes, it's better if they're even worse.

The other hold up is that I'm still learning how to edit. I can write to schedule, I can set down a number and say "by hook or by crook, two thousand words get put down today" and achieve that. I'm not entirely sure how to parcel out editing tasks to myself, or how to measure progress. Right now, it helps to go in layers rather than by chapters. So I make one pass for spelling, grammar, and mechanical errors. Then another for continuity. Then another for plot. Then another for characterization and dialog. Then another for over all arc.

The Queenmaker story is out of order, still spread across two paper journals and four different versions of my outlines with random exerpts written as they come for me. I don't know if I've committed myself to it or not as a real project. There are monkeys, a wonderfully queer monkey who hits on priests, and the wise daughters of said monkey. There's also literal use of the phrase, "Jesus Christ, it's a lion!", because, well, there's a lion. There's also a heated debate about whether the queer monkey tried to sell the heroine of the story for a banana or a plantain, because those are two entirely separate crimes. There are dragons and old lady pirates. So, I like it, but I just don't know. I thought the same dazzling things of other stories and now realize that they're complete crap.

I feel like that scene in I, Robot where Will Smith tells the cat, "You're a cat, I'm black and I'm not going to be hurt again."

Except then the bulldozer tries to kill them and Will Smith has to save the cat and ends up with a wet, angry cat clinging to him after nearly getting bulldozed.

Maybe that wasn't the metaphor I was looking for after all.

As for Revenant Blues - that isn't even the title anymore. But it's the working description and the filename. It's now gone completely off the rails and characters are coming and going like it's Grand Central up in here. I'd love to put it to bed and say it's a failed but noble experiment in learning how to write. But this is the story that refuses to be shaken. I think I know how the bulls feel when the cowboy just won't fall off.

(*)Several internets to anyone who gets the reference.

Current Music: Richard Gere - We Both Reached For the Gun - Chicago Soundtrack

It's very good that I live in NYC and the Book Barn hasn't opened a branch in the city, because frankly, they'd have to ban me from that place. They'd have to tell the people there that I am addict and they should not enable my insane need to collect books, whether or not I'll ever have time read them.

I go to that place and suddenly feel like, yes, I could in fact develop an interest in something as obscure as civil war tractors or the habits of nocturnal bugs from Thailand - if only I had this book!

The Boy and I retired a few reads, and I returned a few books that I'd tried getting into but knew I wouldn't be able to finish. Because life is too short for books that give you headaches (and more shelf space for books I love or at least haven't read yet!).

This visit netted me a surprising few books, but the following finds are:

Not Flesh Nor Feathers - Cherie Priest
The Borders of Life - G.A. Kathryns
The Orchid Thief - Susan Orlean
Kimono - Motoko Ito & Aiko Inoue
A Separate Peace - John Knowles
The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime - Miles Harvey
The Raspberry Tree - Stoddard King

I think the reason for this was that I was still feeling blech because I'm battling the last remnants of the Sinus Infection from Hell which hit me like a heavyweight boxer. If I'd been in my usual ebullient mood when visiting, I'd have come back with a larger selection.

The only bad thing about having a bunch of sick days is that you're too sick to use them to write or do anything useful.

Although, hopefully, in a few weeks, I'll have some spare time in which to really dig into the Tower!Guy novel which badly needs my attention.

Current Mood: awake
Current Music: The Ten Commandments on TV

Dear Brain,

You are killing me. Seriously.

First you throw random, uncalled for, soul-crunching anxiety attacks at me out of nowhere, so that was a huge can of WTFBBQ right in the face. And not in the amusing cat-macro sense. In the "dear God, what fresh hell is *this*???" sense.

And if that had been all, then maybe that would be okay and I'd be willing to work around you, because you've done some good things for me. I would be willing to wait it out and grit my teeth until I can get access to a doctor.

But you're starting to screw with the creative process. Uncool, man, uncool.

You refuse to let me make critical decisions on the editing of the Tower!Guy story, thus stalling a process that's been halted more times than the L-Train at rush hour.

Then just to be difficult, you start throwing out a whirlwind of ideas and telling me that each and every one of them needs to be written right the frell now. Except you refuse to stay interested in one long enough for me to jot down an outline.

In short, lately you've been about as efficient and attentive as a monkey on methamphetamines.

Less Love Than Usual,
The Management

PS - An inflated desire for cookies is NOT. HELPING.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Maximo Park - The Night I Lost My Head

I'm currently in the throes of post-novel ennui and moved quickly from the "wow, I'm done!" euphoria to the "what idiot let me become literate enough to write this drivel?!?!" stage. The one where you can't stand to look at your own work and you wonder why you thought it was ever a good idea. The one where you despair of your ability to be worth anything.

Which is par for the writer course. At least for me.

It's good that parents don't go through that same stage with their children. Or maybe they do. I'm not a parent (and god willing never will be!), so I can't say what you go through with kids. I hear it involves not sleeping and a lot of poo for the first few years.

ANYWAY.

I need stuff to fill the huge sink hole left in my brain by this novel.

I need links. I need recommendations. I need new sparkly material.

So, if there's a book I should be reading, a blog I should be visiting, a thing I should know about, now would be a fan-damn-tastic time to tell me. Especially since my dance card will be mostly free for at least a couple of weeks while I rest and keep editing the Tower!Guy story.

Although, good luck telling my brain this. Today was Let's Think of Very Good Half-Ideas Day. My brain spit out lots of good pieces, but nothing that was remotely complete or worth exploring.

Current Music: Matchbox Twenty - Disease

The problem with writing very educated, learned characters is that you actually need to be very educated and learned yourself or at least go out and get a mini-education via wikipedia and a few smart friends. Especially if you need said characters to talk about very high brow things, even if it's in the back ground.

The current novel I'm working on is going at, like, lightspeed. This is because my job goes in boom and bust. Sometimes I'm so busy I can't breathe, sometimes I have nothing to do for days. During slow periods, I no longer go looking for work (they want me, they damn well know where my desk is), instead, I write.

And you'd be surprised how much writing you do when you have nothing else around you that's even remotely appealing to do. I can't even piddle on LiveJournal at work. So, it's just me and Google Docs and my intense desire to not be there.

Want to write a lot very fast? Go sit in a room with nothing in it but you, some paper, and a pen. You'll write like a frickin' jackrabbit. It might be crap, but it'll be the Speedy Gonzalez of crap.

This time around, I'm making my life easier. I'm doing a bit of editing as I go. I'm making notes in places that I know can but cut for length or places that I know, as I'm writing, that they're crap and need to be fixed but I'm not at all sure how to fix them right now and they just need to get *done*.

Hopefully it will make revision less painful and slow than it is with the Tower!Guy story, which is nearly stalled because I need a big block of uninterrupted free time to sit down with the story and I just don't have that right now.

I should do some more book reports soon. I've finished another batch of books and, well: My opinions. Let me show you them.

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: The Black Keys - Keep Your Hands Off Her

Now that it's December, and I have my life back from NaNoWriMo, I'm still wondering if I should finish up the project I was writing or start on a new one that's gathered in my head and demands to be written.

Of course, there are still many revisions of Tower!Guy novel that needs to be done, and as

lagringa said, the story needs shaping. And now that I'm a few projects removed from it, I think I can finally go back and look at it with some objectivity.

You know how they say that you need to leave a finished project in a drawer for about a month or so to give yourself fresh eyes? I don't need time, just something to distract me long enough for me to forget. The thing is, when you're writing, you make all these internal notes and have all these ideas that become "canon" for the story, and you read using that lens.

When the lens goes away, you see the story in a truer way.

So I've had time now to wipe off the whiteboard and make new notes on a different project.

Not to mention that some of my latest genre reads have been really fantastic, both from a writing and reading stand point, especially now that I'm making an effort to seek out and read some works that are recent and have garnered a lot of praise from sources I respect. I'm paying close attention to some of the things I enjoy most about those works, and thinking about how they were done, and how I can incorporate the principles of those things into my writing.

I think maybe revisions this time. Frankly, I'm a bit burned out. My final wordcount for November - the one on the file, not on the Nano site - turned out to be 90k. That's a 3000 a day word pace for a month. Whew.

Plus, I wanted to have revisions done or at least very much underway by the new year. Because 2008's resolution (amongst the others of lose weight, etc, etc) is this: submit something. Actually, it's: submit something and have a box of kleenex nearby for the inevitable rejection that will cause you great heartache, but then have a good cry and keep going.

Current Music: Ella Fitzgerald - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

Once again, I come back from the Book Barn (in Niantic, CT) bearing goodies, and they are:

Endymion Spring - Matthew Skelton
Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman
The Voyage of the Space Beagle - A.E. Van Vogt
Disappearing Nightly - Laura Resnick
The Awakeners - Sheri S. Tepper
Archangel - Sharon Shinn
Old Man's War - John Scalzi

I also got a couple of replacement copies for books that I either wanted in hardcover or books that were falling apart. I think I might need to weed through my shelves and give some of these away.

Time to get back to revising the tower!guy story. I hate having to do it in fits and starts like this, especially since the idea was to expedite the process of revisions. But, that's what having a new job will get you.

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Explosions in the Sky - What Do You Go Home To?

The new job still has me in a bit of a tailspin, as far as my time and schedule goes. Although I have begun to understand where I have bits of time.

I also have two new ideas that are kicking around in my brain. One better developed and more fascinating than the other, and I think I might give it a go for Nanowrimo this year.

As far as the Tower!Guy novel goes, I'm still waiting to hear from one reader, and I'm moving forward on the revisions with the suggestions from

lagringa in mind. Also? I sort of have had a craving for chicken souvlaki. I'm probably always going to associate her with really awesome Greek food. I hope she doesn't mind.

I'm using Holly Lisle's One Pass Manuscript Revision, although I've had to do it in starts and fits because of time issues. It's a pretty effective, ruthless method if I do say so myself. It also is very good at forcing me to really solidify what themes and ideas I want, and forcing me to make sure the manuscript accurately reflects and shows that in a clear, interesting, intelligible way. Because hey, the reader can't see inside of my head. My forehead is NOT transparent.

Thus sometimes, you *do* have to explain.

There's an age old argument about whether if a reader misses something in a manuscript, if it's the writer's fault for not being clear or the reader's for not reading carefully enough.

I say, when in doubt, blame yourself. You being the writer, of course.

The fact is? No reader is obligated to give your manuscript even a moment's attention, nor are they obligated to read it as though it's the most important piece of writing on the face of God's green Earth. You're the one imposing on *their* time and they have plenty of other writers who are willing to invest in clarity as well as style and plot and interesting window dressings.

Also? Two weeks of proofreading at my day job has taught me this:

Brevity may be the soul of wit, but clarity is the soul of communication.

Imagine what you could do if you're very brief and very clear.

Current Mood: blah
Current Music: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina - Stabat Mater a 8

I need *another* reader for the Tower!Guy story. I need someone who is willing to be a) nitpicky and b) honest in the kind of way that leaves teethmarks. The novel is 120,000 words, fantasy, and I'm willing to put it into any kind of electronic format you need.

Why do I ask this favor of you, my f-list?

I had lunch today with

lagringa, and we talked about the Tower!Guy story. She had some really, really important things to say about it, and pointed out a lot of the places where the novel, was, well, *broken*.

She was abso-freakin'-lutely right about all of it, too.

I suffer from Clear Forehead Syndrome. It's where a writer believes, mistakenly, that their forehead is clear so that readers can just peek in and see what their thought processes are and know everything about a story that they do.

The main symptom of which is: I don't recognize that you, the viewer, have not lived in my head with this story for months, pouring over every single detail. Thus, you don't know all the information I do. So sometimes I have to explain things.

Also, I need to take a clarity stick to my novel and beat it like a redheaded stepchild.

She also suggested, in the middle of my first, best, and only experience with Greek food (I gotta try it more often, it was delicious), that I get another reader. So, I'm asking.

What she said has given me a lot of things to chew on, and has renewed my determination to get this thing *right*. I want to submit it somewhere, I want to really give this thing a proper go.

I thought I was going to do that a year ago, when Revenant Blues had been revised to death - but I chickened out. I refuse to turn back this time.

Current Music: Regina Spektor - Apres Moi

It's done, it's done, it's done!

122,585 words, in total (which, after revisions will probably go down to >110k, thank you monkey!god.)

424 pages in Open Office

34 chapters, plus epilogue and prologue

So now, I get to sink into what

matociquala has referred to as "post-novel ennui", go out of town to see my sister get married, come back, let it sit in a drawer for a bit, and then revise it and hopefully carve off 10,000-15,000 words.

I LOVE BEING A WRITER.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: The Strangelings - Tanglewood Tree

I'm really glad that I have a fiancee who's so supportive of my writing. He shows his support, often, by sitting down at my computer when I've gotten up to go the restroom or get a glass of water and adding his own special magic to the mix.

So that when I sit down again, there are words that I didn't type waiting for me.

Since I'm near the ending, he's trying to finish the novel for me.

His ending is:

Then monkeys ate them all.

The end?

The question mark is his, because he feels it would be the cleverest, most original thing ever done if a writer were to leave a book open for a sequel, because no writer's ever done that before.

For those who don't know, my fiancee has a monkey obsession. I don't know why but monkeys, pirates, and zombies excite and tittilate him to no end. I think it might be because he possesses a Y-chromosome. Not sure.

But I probably need to go back and make sure that there aren't any hidden monkeys in my novel. It would be really embarassing to have to explain to an agent why, in chapter twenty five, the emotional climax of the novel is interrupted by a horde of flying zombie pirate monkeys who eat everything in sight and then disappear suddenly as they came.

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Sufjan Stevens - God'll Ne'er Let You Down

I just dumped 1500 more words into a private entry. *whew*

I can't believe I got 3121 words, finished one chapter and got through half of the next chapter accomplished today with all that's been going on.

This morning I was in a whole different state, and 1500 of those words were written in my notebook, in very sloppy script on a train. Although, in my defense the train was a little wobbly.

It's like I need steep odds just to put my hands on the keyboards. Today of all days, I should've gotten NOTHING done. Instead, I have one of my best days ever.

Current Mood: whew
Current Music: Shearwater - White Waves

It’s amazing how much writing you can get done when you have a very limited time and a singular determination.

In less than an hour I carved out 1600 more words on the Tower!Guy novel, and that’s including the time I took out to call people, check on the status of my passport, do dishes, and pack for Connecticut.

The grand total now comes to:

102,016 / 100,000
(102.0%)

I saw an interesting link to an article about why publishers miss good books. It’s over here.

( thoughts about the article and other facts of life concerning publishers )

Current Mood: chicken with head cut off
Current Music: Conjure One - Make A Wish

1) I am now going to be crossposting to the blog I set up in LJ's absence: Writeblog @ paper-hearted.org. It's been updated already, and I intend to keep updating it.

No, this journal isn't going anywhere, but it is kind of nice to have a blog that will remain up even if LJ collapses, and for people who aren't on LJ at all. Because there is a world outside El Jay Land.

2) The tower!guy story is coming along just fine. I actually have a title for it, but I’m keeping that close to the chest for now in case I decide to change it.

The end is trudging along, slowly. I’m hoping I’ll be able to get some of it worked on even though I’ve got a trip to Connecticut (wheee!) coming up and my sister’s wedding in August.

Right now, the wordcount is sitting at a nice neat 100,000 and minor change. I’m less than 15,000 from the end, and I already know that about that much (if not more) is going to have to come out in unnecessary scenes, dialog and descriptions, and getting down to the prose level and taking out completely stupid word choices.

To keep me honest:

100,350 / 100,000
(100.4%)

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Neko Case - At Last

I'm nearing the ~~tale~~ tail end of the Tower!Guy novel. As with all projects, I am both elated to be nearing the end and looking back going, "Oh god, I just wasted weeks and weeks of my life on utter crap!"

I had to eliminate a couple of thousand words because I realized I was rehashing old conflicts that had already been hashed out and besides, anything that shaves *down* the wordcount is a Good Thing. And another scene got completely cut out because I realized that it was detail that nobody needed.

I call it the Inigo Montoya Theory of Writing: "Let me explain...no, there is too much. Let me sum up."

This novel is going to get down to a nice svelte weight if I have to go page by page and start deleting articles and unnecessary uses of the word "that".

I'm not backing down this time. This story, in one form or another, will land on an agent's desk. So help me Great and Power Monkey!god. Maybe it gets attention, maybe it gets a form letter. That's their decision. I will write the best damn book I can and go from there.

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: Tan Dun - Gone With the Leaves

I don't know who said "the first steps are the hardest", but somebody's about to get a slap. Because that is completely wrong. The first steps are often the easiest, because they involve enthusiasm and a complete ignorance of how tough things will be.

I think that's why all heroes have to be a little stupid. Because nobody who actually knew what they were doing would do that kinda stuff.

Let me use a Venn Diagram to explain how the last four chapters of the Tower!Guy novel are going:

And on top of that I had to re-outline the last chapters because the outline I hammered out way back in March.

'cause outlines are like training bras. The more things develop, the less useful they become. But you need them, 'cause otherwise you're gonna be flappin' in the wind, and not in a wholesome dog-with-its-head-out-of-the-window kind of way, either.

And you know what? I still freaking love writing. It will probably be the death of me, but god help me I don't know that I can do anything else in life and love it this much.

Current Mood: straight liney mouth of DOOOM
Current Music: People In Planes - Falling By the Wayside

I've decided not to bitch about my current writing sitch. Instead, I'm just going to illustrate it with an LOLcat and leave it at that. Oh, and a wordcount to keep me honest.

Wordcount: Tower!Guy Novel

74,377 / 100,000
(74.4%)

Current Mood: not going fast enough
Current Music: Sufjan Stevens - A Good Man Is Hard To Find

My new goal, since I'm now going into the second half of the Tower!Guy ~~story~~ novel is to get at least 2000 words hammered out each and every day. I need to make more consistent progress and while being able to do a 5000 word burst is impressive, when you go three or four days of only getting a few hundred, those bursts mean much less.

So I decided to make myself my own kind of motivational poster.

You thought I was kidding about the macro thing didn't you? I wasn't.

WORDCOUNT: Tower!Guy Novel

59,860 / 100,000
(59.9%)

Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Kasier Chiefs - Angry Mob

I have tried like *THREE DAMN TIMES* to write this entry. Livejournal is failing in an epic kind of way.

I'm halfway to my 3000 word goal for today. Thought I'd check in and let you know. With, yanno, a macro (I told you'd I'd do it.)

WORDCOUNT: Tower!Guy ~~Story~~ Novel

56,553 / 100,000
(56.6%)

Current Mood: bitchy
Current Music: Jose Gonzales - Storm

All right, it's time to get this sucker back on track. I've been straggling along for about a week now and I've had some real life disruptions, but NO MORE.

3500 words or I leave crying. Deal? Deal. That means I better come back with at least 52115 words to my name or not come back at all. Well, I will, I'll just come back to get a big heaping spoonful of SHAME ON YOU.

Also, I think 3500 is the biggest challenge I've issued myself thus far. Time to see what I'm made of.

Wordcount: Tower!Guy Story

49,115 / 100,000
(49.1%)

Current Music: Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

an interesting monster

Entries tagged with story: tower!guy

What kind of writer would I be if I didn't use my journal to wank about process

Book Barn!

Brain like woe

Every Thing I Needed To Know, I Learned From the Interwebs

About as organized and consistent as a tossed salad

Post-November Blues

Books, books, books

Dead is still a few exits away

A lunch that couldn't be beat

NOVEL R. TEH. DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's good to have support

Is it possible to boggle your own mind?

Quick but lengthy posting.

Things they are a-changin'

Some writing angstification

I feel the need to say this visually.

When all else fails

Astronomers are wrong. The world actually revolves around cats and cheezburgerz.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Challenge time!

Expand Cut Tags