Your Patience Was Appreciated

Wow, I've been out of pocket far too long, folks. Sorry. I'm sorry not only because I haven't been writing my own blog posts, but because I haven't been as assiduous as I should have been about reading and commenting on all of yours. Sorry about that.

But the time I spent was well worth it from my viewpoint. Last week I was doing a great deal of overtime. At the same time, an opportunity to have a pitch for a book critiqued by an editor for a romance publisher turned into an opportunity to send that book to that publishing editor. Since it was still in early draft form, reworking (twice) the book took up most of the time I wasn't working (including some of the time I should have been sleeping). Fortunately (I think), this novel was one of the cleanest drafts of any book I've ever done, so, though I went through it twice, tightening language and clarifying information, the total # words didn't vary by even 50 words, so it stayed pretty tight. I was able to send it off as I'd hoped Friday morning. Since then, a friend who hadn't expected to enjoy it (she told me after the fact), read it and enjoyed it, caught up enough she could only find three errors. She was sorry to see it end. That's what I'm looking for.

So, why didn't I catch up this past weekend? Well because enforced sitting (due to tendonitis/tendinosis of my Achilles tendon) and an urge to make some inroads in the current novel I'm working on pushed me to make an attempt to "finish" it using the three day weekend and an additional vacation day (total four days off). Since I was an estimated 32500 words short of my expected goal, that didn't happen. However, I did manage to work through more than 20K words during that period of time, despite a toddler who sees me with a keyboard in my lap as an invitation to displace it with her own darling person. And maybe take a nap.

I'm really working my ensemble cast in this one (Tentatively titled "Cat's Paw"), with far more plot threads than I've ever done before. What fun! And, hey, a little science is even sneaking in!

So, though some of you might have felt neglected, I hope you will comfort yourselves that my time was well-spent. And, if I didn't get the draft completed, it isn't much longer now. So thanks for your patience.

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Holding Pattern

On the last post, many commented on the fact they also include a waiting period from the time they stop writing to the time they start revising.

I could not agree more.

Too many times, I've seen writers far more interested in "getting published" than in doing great work. They have their friends look it over, make changes on the fly, and send it out the following day. OK, you can do that if you've got someone looking for typos or a few poorly chosen words when it's otherwise "finished." But, if you're making major revisions and then hustling it out the door, you'd better be the Mozart of the spoken word or you're in for an ugly surprise.

Perhaps my attitude on this is influenced by the fact that I never read anything that sounded anywhere near finished and/or good that someone was in a hurry to send off to agents and/or publishers. I'd be slogging through an MS (back when I was in "writer's groups" on-line), thinking, "When she does the next revision, she so needs to fix the dialog," or "This makes no sense. I hope he fixes this during the next revision." I'd make comments, as encouragingly as I could, but they'd boil down to, "Seriously, read this dialog out loud because it's stilted and clumsy," and "What possible motivation would someone have to do this?" Why would I say that? Because, if you review something without being honest, it's worse than no review at all. But that's another post.

Sometimes, one of my talented friends will send me something where my reaction is, "Damn, send it!" But it's because they're sending me something that's effectively (if not already) finished.

The thing is, I feel strongly that one shouldn't rush writing. That doesn't always apply. Journalists have to get something in by a date. College students, perhaps some freelancers and, of course, people who have already agreed in advance to write book(s). Heck, I've got a paper for a conference I need to be kicking out yesterday.

But, when I'm trying to get my foot in the door, there's no advantage to becoming memorable because of the slipshod incoherent ramblings often found in early drafts. I want to put my best foot forward and it's better to send one thing late in the game but have it one's best work than to try to wear someone down by sending one piece of crap after another. In fact, that's a good way to get someone tossing one's stuff unread so that, if you ever do get to writing well, no one is willing to read it.

What does that have to do with a waiting period? It's a matter of perspective. When I'm writing furiously (because I tend to write furiously or not at all), I'm either in the white-hot phase of inspiration where everything comes out sounding like ambrosia to me or I'm slogging through something challenging that I'm sick to death of. Either way, if I turn around and start revising right then, my perspective will be skewed. If my baby's still beautiful, I'll be finding excuses on why an awkward phrasing is hilariously worth the confusion or wanting to add more flowing passages to areas that would do better to be made leaner rather than more eloquent. If, however, I've say been reading a master and therefore have decided I'm a lame hack who shouldn't be wasting her time writing, everything will sound terrible. I'll be tempted to chuck the whole thing.

I know. I've been there.

What I need is time, time to get excited about either other writing projects or life, time to forget why I did some things in this novel. That way, when I pick it back up, I can tell that I've glossed over some logical leaps or failed to explain something because it was obvious to me (since I already know all). I stand a much better chance of appreciating what actually works and becoming ruthless with what doesn't. It's still painful, of course, but I've gained enough distance that it's not like tearing myself apart.

And I'd tell anyone writing the same thing. Get some distance. How long? I say two weeks is the barest minimum. Two months is better. I take longer if I can manage.

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Learning Indirectly

So, most of last week, I spent devouring the examples of queries on Query Shark (which I learned about on Project Savior's blog. I learned a great deal, including that I had had absolutely no idea how to write a query. No wonder no one gave me a passing glance.

So, I feel better about my query for my "first" novel than I've ever felt before. Except, building an effective query brought something to light about my actual novel, the one I thought was "done." I was going to have to make some pretty drastic changes.

First of all, the novel weighs in at a hefty 130K words. Even though it's a fantasy in a world of its own, that's a pretty tough sell for a "first" novel. Since my rewrite had added some 30K+ words, it's hard for me to think of removing stuff.

Secondly, the plot, per se, doesn't kick in until chapter 6. Oh, it's not all description. The first two chapters are a very important rescue (the story of which, though changed, came from the original short story). Lots of action there. And then com description and time to get to know the main characters and then some of the side characters. But the story, the conflict doesn't really kick in until the kittens come in and force Tander to reexamine everything he thinks is true. Plus, the kittens make it hilarious.

In fact, once people get to the kittens, it's really hard to put the book down. Problem is, this doesn't happen until page 89, Chapter 7.

I've mentioned before that plots aren't my strong suit. I'm a character writer (and reader) and the delay is a direct result of the fact that I didn't have a way of putting it all together until I brought in the kittens and suddenly everything fell into place...89 pages in.

Writing the query was a wake up call that starting a novel when the real plot doesn't start until more than a quarter of the way through the book is a mistake. So, I decided to cull several whole chapters and condense the first two chapters into one. The rescue in the beginning is very important, but much of the expendable character dialog served no purpose (other than humor). The reminiscence about how the characters met was nice but could be as easily used in a later book (in fact, great to do so since we will need to reintroduce them in follow-up books). As for the character introductions, well, we'll have plenty of time to get to know everyone. It's a long book.

It was hard to do. This was material, leftover material from my first draft, the parts before I'd worked on it with Lee. It was hard to get rid of it (though Lee had never liked it). Worse was the realization that when I dropped 14K words in one fell swoop I had to do almost no corrections on the rest of it. The book doesn't miss it at all. I did all the revisions in one morning.

Now, it's a much more marketable 116K words and the kittens wander in on page 36 and the plot beginning even before that. Everything's tidier and moves much faster.

All because the query reminded me where the story really was.

Cool, isn't it?

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