Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 10, 2011 in
Input,
Novels,
Output This week I started shopping Hands, Like Secrets around to some agents, and believe it or not, I’ve already had a request for a partial! I actually heard from this agent the day after I queried them. In case you aren’t familiar with the publishing business, such a response is jaw-droppingly fast. Of course, I’ve also already received my first “form” rejection from a difference agency, so I guess it all balances out. But again, fast.
Interestingly, the agent who requested the partial was one who requires a writing sample with a query. The agency I got a rejection from only wanted the query itself. This means that the one who was interested saw some of the writing itself, and the one that wasn’t, didn’t. If this pattern keeps up, that will tell me that my writing is compelling and my query is not…meaning I’ll need to revise the query letter. But I’ll climb that ladder when I get there, I guess. I’m cautiously optimistic at this point.
Meanwhile, I’ve begun the process of revisiting the first draft of the second and third books. The first thing I noticed was that the writing isn’t as bad as I was afraid it was. Having said that, yeah…it needs a whole lot of work. Second realization was, man, how this story has evolved since I wrote this draft. Still using mage and cleric as terms, still third person, still working out kinks in Raphel’s character, for instance. Most of my scenes don’t have nearly enough conflict. Stakes don’t feel high enough. Motivation feel very contrived in places. Things work out too neatly.
Having said that, general pacing is okay. Secondary characters are believable and generally deep enough…no major tweaks needed. Scenes are more or less in the right order. My main tasks are going to be raising stakes, revising Naeth’s character, and revising the Keeper’s character. I will also need to weave bits of Caosgi in when my characters are on Dheu, and bits of Dheu in when they are on Caosgi…otherwise, it’s going to feel like two smaller books smashed together. I need to weave some flashbacks or dreams about Saeli’s Aschamon days in there, too, so the second book will connect back to the first. Tie Saeli’s feelings about Brendan to her feelings about Naeth.
It feels like a lot of work, but I think once I really get going, it won’t be so bad. Been working on this story long enough that I have a pretty good handle on where it needs to go.
I’m also going to start brainstorming and plotting The Waters, so I have something else in the works if the trilogy doesn’t get picked up right away. I chose that one because of the ones I’m really itching to do next, it’s the most straightforward. I love Raphel to death, but he makes me want to write an awesome “bad boy” who actually is the hero…not just masquerading as one. Alex Merrett is that character. Then I’ll do Windwaker, or maybe by that time I’ll be ready to work on Mask of Eldarmarch again. Dragon Singer is so complex and will require so much research that this is not the time to tackle it. Like Briar Rose, it needs to percolate for a while longer.
Again, apologies for the sparseness of posts. I’m going to make an effort to post something at least once a week, but I’m not promising anything. I’m not one for “check-in” posts…I only post when I have something to blather about.
Now…back to work. 
Tags: business of writing, editing and revisions, goals, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Jan 14, 2011 in
Novels,
Output,
Process Well, I finished the line edit a week or so ago, and have been (mostly) diligently working on copyediting. And realizing that there’s often a wide gulf between what I think I wrote and what the sentence actually says. And that I tend to read what I think I wrote. Blarg.
I’m also working on a synopsis, which is more blarg…but not as bad as it could be, since I had the foresight to sum up all the important events of Hands on index cards in preparation for editing. I think I’ll have everything ready for the conference.
Speaking of: Hey, the Space Coast Writers Guild conference is coming up! Jan. 28th and 29th (which is a Friday and a Saturday). It’s a great conference, and not too pricey, as far as writing conferences go. Click here for details and a registration form. You can also walk in and register the day of.
I did the conference booklet again this year (yeah…last weekend’s mad project), and I hope it looks as good printed as it does on a computer screen. The registration booklet I did was a little graphics-busy, IMO.
So…one might ask why I’m blogging when I probably should be copyediting or synopsising or somesuch. Well, I’m feeling a bit burnt out and I figured writing something is at least more productive than reading pages upon pages of Slacktivist comments. Not that those aren’t interesting, and un-productive…anyway. Read more…
Tags: business of writing, Shades, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Dec 10, 2010 in
Books,
Novels,
Output First, Shades. I’ve finished the bird edit, and am now about two chapters into the line edit. Line editing is hard, mostly because I’m realizing how much I skim when I’m reading. Now I’m forcing myself to actually read every sentence, and make a judgment on whether that sentence says what I want to say in as few words as possible. Slow work. One interesting thing I’ve discovered are…well, I’m calling them “remnants”. Little snippets of phrasing in certain places that are from two or three drafts back. Most of them no longer belong, because the wording and motivation and flow of the scene have evolved so much. Interesting how common they are, and how easy they are to miss on a casual read-through.
I’ve begun re-reading my First Draft in 30 Days book, and thinking about how I’m going to approach re-writing the second installment in Shades. At the conference, I want to at least be able to say that I’m “working on” the second book. Hopefully if I start the re-write with a system, it will go faster than this first book has. Read more…
Tags: books, reviews, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 30, 2010 in
Novels,
Output This is something, thankfully, that I know nothing about firsthand. I don’t think I’ve ever spent a significant amount of time with anyone who would fall under that category (if I have, they hid it really well). But alas, that means everything I know is going to come from reading the experiences of others, and reading the sort of official literature on the subject. Which, on one hand, is by far the closest I want to get to dealing with an abuser…but on the other hand, there will always be that voice in the back of my head saying, “You aren’t qualified to write this…you don’t really know what it’s like to be taken in by someone like that.”
I say all this because Raphel has what I’d call an abusive personality. In this, the first book, he’s very, very subtle about it. But in a way, that means this is the book where I have to walk the finest line between dark hero and villain. I don’t want Saeli to know she’s dealing with an abuser, but I do want the reader to start wondering. One of the things I find myself pulling out of this edit is the tendency of abusers to blame their actions on the victim. “Look what you made me do.” “It’s your fault I had to do this.” Raphel does this to Saeli a lot in “justifying” his kills. “I wouldn’t have had to kill this person if you had done *this*…” I haven’t even had to bring it out except in one scene…I was putting it in there all along without realizing it. He doesn’t outright blame her; she wouldn’t stand for that, not yet. But the implication is clear.
Raphel does it for control. If Saeli is too busy blaming herself for all the bad stuff that happens, she won’t think to blame Raphel and she won’t question him. Late in the second book, things will probably get to a point where Raphel doesn’t even have to make excuses for himself anymore; Saeli will just automatically cast Raphel as the victim of her own incompetence. She’ll start seeing herself as directly responsible for Raphel’s morality; she’ll start thinking in terms of being good enough and pure enough to save him from his own dark side. Thus, when he “fails” and kills someone, or whatnot, Saeli fails. Bad mental place to be. Especially since Raphel is the one who orchestrated that mindset in the first place, and will actively use it to his advantage.
I have to plant the seeds in this first book, or no one will believe it when Raphel gets worse later on. I’m working to make those seeds as subtle as I can, because I know from hearing people’s stories that abusers are really difficult to spot early on in the relationship. Raphel has to be particularly careful with Saeli, because she could at any moment hide herself inside Aschamon and be out of his reach forever. (Which is why one of the first things he does is start undermining her faith in Aschamon’s defenses. Part of the reason she decides to hear him out at all is because she’s afraid the school can’t protect her if she refuses.) He can’t afford to scare her off, so he’s cautious and gentle with her. But if a guy slaps you across the face within five minutes of first meeting you, he is not a nice person. (If he later confirms that he’s not a nice person, you might want to listen.) If he starts making you responsible for the deaths he could cause, unless you do what he says, he is manipulating you. If he kills people and then tries to make it sound like he wouldn’t have had to if you had done something different, he is manipulating you. If I can get readers to recognize the signs in this story, I hope it will help them recognize those signs in real life.
I imagine there will still be readers who will be upset with me for not redeeming Raphel in the end, but I don’t want that to be because the clues weren’t in place for them to see his downfall coming. Part of the overall theme of Shades is the inherent tragedy one faces in cutting oneself loose from someone you love who is abusing you. (And recognizing the fact that they are, in fact, abusing you.) You cannot help a person who refuses to be helped, and staying with them does not help them. It enables them to keep abusing. You have to get yourself out, even if that means abandoning them to their own darkness. That’s what Saeli essentially has to do.
I’m a little more than halfway through this second pass of this edit. My word count is essentially unchanged…I guess I’ve been taking out more or less the same amount of words I’ve been adding. The next edit will be a line edit, which will be loads of unfun, I imagine.
Tags: editing and revisions, Raphel, Saeli, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 22, 2010 in
Novels,
Output Well, the editing has begun. The bird edit is going to take two passes, I realize. The first will involve going back and putting in the birds, lizards, ambiance, etc, and also marking passages that I think could be deleted or need to be changed. Some, I’m just going ahead and fixing. I’m already about 3/4 of the way through that first pass, as I’m mostly adding, and not reading every word.
The second pass will be in more detail. I’m actually going to go through and look at my verb and adjective choices, and see where those can be tweaked to suggest a culture where birds are so common that people actually think in terms of them. I’ll also be checking the consistency of all the idioms and phrases unique to that world, and making sure I haven’t used any cliches from this world. I’ll also fix and/or delete my highlighted spots, and do another word count to see where I’m at.
Then I’ll start the line edit as a new save.
This is not taking me as long as I feared. Of course this is a third draft, and I have this tendency to edit as I go, so a lot of what I’ve written is pretty polished already. I’m setting my completion goal for the end of December. I don’t know that it will take me that long, but with the holidays and everything I have to do for that, it very well might. Then I can take January and work on deciding who to submit to, and the dreaded query letter.
My blogging may be sparse for a while.
Tags: editing and revisions, goals, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 17, 2010 in
News,
Novels,
Output Today, November 17, 2010, at precisely 1:46PM, I wrote four spectacularly satisfying words:
“Here ends Book 1.”
The draft is done! I made it to the end before December. Final word count: 124,178. Okay, that’s about 20,000 words over my limit, but hey, it could’ve been worse. Woo hoo! Being me, the first thing I did was crank up some Hanson in the car. Georgia, Penny & Me, and Rock ‘n Roll Razorblade, in that order. Out of all the music I have, that’s what I needed just then.
Anyone feel like celebrating with me before I start the editing process?
I’m debating whether to print out a hard copy to edit. On one hand, it’d be easier for me to flip back and forth, decide where to add stuff, etc. However…that’s a lot of paper. I’d almost certainly have to take it somewhere to get it printed. Meh, we’ll see. Right now I’m just kind of giddy that it’s actually done.
Tags: Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Nov 10, 2010 in
News,
Novels,
Output Been a while since I’ve updated, and I apologize. But, but, but…believe it or not, that’s actually because I’ve been spending nearly every spare moment writing. I’ve been in a groove and have been reluctant to do anything to distract from that. (Which is why the apartment is a disaster.) Remember how I keep hoping I’ll hit a point in Shades where I can start doing more copying and pasting from the second draft instead of rewriting from scratch? Hey, well, I got there. I’ve actually reached the chapter I lost back in…March, was it? Currently I’m rewriting that, which has slowed me down a bit. But this means I am only two or three chapters away from the end.
I hope to be done writing and on to editing by the end of the month. Let us hope.
I have actually started a few blog entries over the last few weeks, and just never got them done. I may, in the next few days, finish and post those.
I may also blog about the Hanson concerts I just went to, because hey it’s Hanson and they’re awesome, but also because I always seem to have the most interesting thoughts coming off of a concert high.
So, I suppose this is an update post to say I’m going to be updating soon.
Tags: the blog, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Oct 16, 2010 in
Novels,
Output Both to Shades, and both of which I thought of while trying to sleep last night. You’ll notice this blog is a place where I take notes that probably aren’t very interesting to anyone but myself. I think better when I’m thinking at somebody else, even if it’s for a sometimes imaginary cyber audience.
One, I realized something about the first three paragraphs of Hands, Like Secrets. I was trying to decide, yet again, whether they were enough of a hook to get people into the story. I’ve never been sure about them, and I finally figured out why. They do not introduce the story at hand, but rather they kick off the entire trilogy. Thus, I am moving them into a prologue by themselves, and starting the actual first chapter with Saeli’s walk to the HP’s office.
Two, I was thinking about the scene where Saeli visits Raphel’s room after learning he’s going to sack her school. It was one of those discovery scenes where a character does something completely unexpected and unplanned. It’s a good partial scene, but I realized that it’s paired wrong. Her emotional state would be a better fit for after the attack on the school, after he’s made her an enemy of her own people, after she realizes how badly he manipulated her. I always said she went to his room knowing that he was either going to kill her or seduce her, and she’s at a point where she doesn’t care. Finding him sleeping dismantles that emotion, and now I find I’m not happy with that. It’s is THE darkest moment of the story, and thus it needs to happen right before Raphel convinces her, for the last time, that he needs her.
That will take some rearranging. If I move Saeli walking into Raphel’s room, she has to find him sleeping or gone some other way. He has to be out of it or elsewhere before Saeli can escape, because she won’t risk it otherwise. I decided that perhaps Mora could actually be the instigator here; she could be the one to take Saeli to where Raphel is sleeping. “You should see this, Gray Robe.” Main reason: because Raphel commanded her to nudge Saeli into escaping. She’s following orders. But Raphel doesn’t specify how Mora is to accomplish this. Second reason: Mora is still trying to warn Saeli away from Raphel, both because she’s jealous, and because she knows how treacherous Raphel can be. Having Mora be the one to reveal the sleeping Raphel also makes the whole thing feel a little more contrived…which it is. Foreshadowing, and maybe dropping a hint to the readers behind Saeli’s back.
Right now I’m sitting in a writing workshop…so I should probably stop tapping on my keyboard.
Tags: editing and revisions, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Oct 11, 2010 in
Novels,
Output Notice how I’ve been blogging more lately? This is Not Good, folks. Well, not entirely…I mean, it’s better than taking long pointless naps or browsing the Web, but still, it’s Not Working On Shades. Every moment I spend blogging is time spent Not Writing. But, <insert excuse here>. Today I had some dental work done, and the right side of my mouth is still kinda numb. I’d like to eat lunch soon, but still have to wait another hour or so before I can use my back teeth. No…this effects neither my fingers nor my brain, but it’s convenient and unusual and may illicit some cheap sympathy from the lazy parts of my mind. Or something like that.
So, what are throwaway stories and why am I thinking about them?
Apparently writers are not supposed to publish the first book they ever sit down and write. Well, maybe that’s a bit too strong. Not many writers DO publish the first book they ever write. Likely that new author’s debut book is actually the second or third or seventh or twentieth book they’ve completed. Now some authors go back and revise those first stories. They might go back, start from scratch, write a story that’s similar. But from what I understand, most authors don’t revisit those early “practice” works. Some of those characters, scenebits, locations, etc may get recycled and folded into later works, but the stories themselves are abandoned.
I have a problem. I write stories because they beg to be told. I can’t create a “practice” novel, one where I sit down and go, “hey, I’m going to try and improve this aspect of my writing…” I can do that with a short story, to an extent. (Even so, “The Smell of November” was basically created with the premise of “I need to write a short story”, and even that one is blossoming into something I can’t abandon.) Can’t do it with a novel. The characters and their lives simply get a little bit too real and dear to me.
Shades will be the first novel I’ve ever completed, and there’s no way in hell I could ever abandon it or chop it up for spare bits. It would never be a matter of “hey, quit trying to save that piece of crap and write something better”. The story becomes an objective creation, outside of me, and it’s my responsibility to tell it as best I can. If not now, then later, when I have the skill. Shades, Mask of Eldarmarch, Dragon Singer, the Waters, Windwaker…to me, all these stories already exist whether I write them or not. They’re not “practice”. Raphel might be one of the best villains I’ve ever created…it’s not HIS fault if I can’t portray him accurately, and to abandon his story would feel like abandoning a real person. Yes, I might write a better villain one day, and probably will, but they won’t be Raphel.
I don’t know that I’m skilled enough to do any of my characters justice…but the only way to acquire the skill is to write them. I just have this fear of wasting some really good characters on learning the craft. Once I work an idea to a point where I can say “this is a writable story now”, I’m also at a point where I can’t discard it, and recycle the elements. There comes a point where all the characters, the plot, the setting…they all belong to that story, and can no longer be used elsewhere. That’s why I have a queue, separate from my “idea pool”. If ideas are like organs, then my queued stories are bodies; you can’t just go ripping the organs out, and if you do, those organs aren’t going to work so well in a different body.
My point being, I can’t accept the notion that the stories I have in my queue right now are works that, when completed, no one is ever going to see. If that happens, then I feel I will have failed as a storyteller on that particular story. If no publisher ever wanted them, I would get them to a point where I’m happy with them, and self-publish.
Because…the stories in my head beg to be told.
Tags: business of writing
Posted by nightphoenix on Oct 6, 2010 in
News,
Novels,
Output Most often when I’m brushing my teeth. Maybe it’s the mint?
I will start thinking about a set of characters, and playing with bits of dialogue in my head. Often, what they will say to each other is surprising, revealing solutions to plot and story problems that I would have never thought of on my own. (Of course, given that this is all going on inside my head…eh, who says writers are sane?) And I will have “Oh. OH! Oh, hey, that’s perfect!” moments.
Well, last night I was thinking about Alex and Lauren from my Waters story. They were standing on the bow of the Kalianne, looking out over a contested Shallow. Our dear antagonist Meeley had brought in her airships and the fighting was pretty fierce. Alex was debating whether to take the Kalianne in, and decided he didn’t want to risk a confrontation with Meeley just yet. So they’re watching from a distance.
Lauren frowns and says, “Why do they fight like that? What do they really want?”
“They want what everyone who gets stuck in this desolate wasteland wants.” Alex sighs. “They want to go home.” Read more…
Tags: ideas, worldbuilding
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