Posted by nightphoenix on Jan 31, 2012 in
News,
Novels Well, yesterday I sent out a new batch of queries.
I think that both my query letter and story are much stronger than they were at this time last year, but I suppose I’ll have to wait and see what sort of response I get.
The issue that’s going to work against me the worst, I believe, is length. Hands, Like Secrets is bloody long, both for a debut and especially for the YA market. And there’s only so far I can knock it back without compromising the story. At best…at the very, very best I can do on my own…I might could knock it back to 118,000 or so. That’s how long Twilight is. Twilight was a debut, and a YA to boot. It’s not impossible.
It just makes an already difficult job harder.
I try to tell myself that Eragon was somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000 words, and it took off nonetheless. However, Eragon was originally self-published, and had something like a year to gain momentum before a publisher ever picked it up. I will self-publish Hands if I absolutely have to, but I want to exhaust all my other options first.
I’m about to get back to work on Promises, Like Tears, which has become a bit bogged down. I think there’s a lot in there that I need to go back and cut, or rearrange, and I can’t quite decide if I should do that first or just push on to the end and THEN come back. The latter is probably the better option.
Changed Shades to Seven Shades. I really have no reason other than it sounds more interesting. And the characters occasionally swear by it. The only fact I’ve established is that there are seven “shades” in shayol, and I haven’t really worked out why that’s important. Might become relevant in the last book, when Saeli is briefly taken to shayol by the Keeper of the Oath. I suppose I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.
I’ve also decided to attempt NaNoWriMo this year, and see if I can’t get This Chosen Fate written. It’s all plotted out; all I have to do is sit down and write it. That’s something I really need to practice: writing straight through something without going into editing mode. And this way I’ll have something besides Shades to shop around…something that isn’t as long 
Tags: agents and editors, business of writing, Shades, This Chosen Fate
Posted by nightphoenix on Dec 22, 2011 in
Novels,
Output,
Process I just looked at the date of the last post I made here, and I’m fairly embarrassed. I’d love to say I’ve been wonderfully busy and productive and just haven’t had the time to update… Read more…
Tags: business of writing, editing and revisions, GMC, goals, Saeli, Shades, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on May 10, 2011 in
Novels,
Output Yesterday I had the interesting and depressing experience of having two rejections land in my inbox on the same day. The second, naturally, appearing having gotten up from the brief nap I’d taken having been down about the first. Both were typical form letter rejections, the kind that give no insight whatsoever into why the agent passed up your work. What was especially depressing was that I’d mentally tagged one of those agents as a particularly good fit for Shades, given their online description for the sort of story they are looking for.
It’s so easy to take it personally. It’s easy to start thinking things like, “Man, my work must really suck if an agent who wants that exact kind of story doesn’t even want it.”
But I know that’s not true.
One’s taste in books is a highly subjective matter. I know this, because I know how picky I am about what I like to read. For example, I just finished the last book in Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series…and I found myself mildly disappointed.
***Spoilers below***
Read more…
Tags: agents and editors, business of writing
Posted by nightphoenix on May 5, 2011 in
Input,
Life,
News Yes, it has been too long. April was a month full of surprises and changes.
My car died. Like, permanently. Poor old Pontiac. The only thing worse than driving an overheating car across Melbourne was then having nightmares about driving said overheating car across Melbourne that night. Which, I now know, was not a wise thing to do…but alas. Thankfully, I have the most wonderful dad in the world, who funded the Hyundai Sonata I’m driving now.
We now have a cat. The hubby heard him crying outside one night after those two huge April storms we had. I, of course, had headphones on and didn’t have a clue. So we’re sitting there working on our computers, when the hubby suddenly gets up and walks out the front door with no explanation. He then calls my phone and asks if we have anything we could feed to a cat. I cut up some hot dogs and take them outside, where I find him with a very skittish orange kitty in the downstairs breezeway. We debated what to do with the cat, as it was raining and we didn’t want to just leave him outside. As it was around 11 in the evening, our options were limited. We ended up bringing the cat up to the apartment for the night and made plans to call animal control in the morning.
We got some basic supplies and discovered that the kitty was housebroken (litter trained and everything). Also, this cat really, really liked my husband. I mean, he couldn’t even leave the room without the cat trying to follow and put its paws up on his ankles. I stayed home with the cat the next day until animal control came, and that part was absolutely horrible. My son was home on spring break, which made it even worse (how do you explain to a five-year-old why someone is taking kitty to the pound, when every single child’s movie that features a pound portrays it as a BAD PLACE??)
Well, we debated, and debated, and finally decided that we couldn’t bear the thought of this cat getting possibly euthanized if no one claimed him. After a week, we went back to the animal shelter and officially adopted him. His name is now Kansuke, and he is settling in very nicely (after he got rid of the cold he caught at the shelter).
I have been writing, despite all this; working on Promises, Like Tears and This Chosen Fate kind of in tandem. When I hit a block in one story, I switch to the other. By the time I hit a hard place in the other, I’m ready to continue the first one. I’ve also spent quite a bit of time on Amphiptere’s Vision, tweaking the skillsets. “Sandboxing” them, I call it; where instead of coming up with a straightforward list of abilities, I create a set of “tools”, skills that can be combined to create the individual abilities. It gives the player the opportunity to create their own “style” of fighting, hunting, building, etc. It also forces the player to think about what the various tools do, and to anticipate what might happen if one tool is combined with another. I want the player to “know” his skillsets nearly as well as the character does, and to be creative in how he employs them. Breaks the bash-bash-bash-loot monotony of grinding that most MMO’s seem to have.
I’ve heard back on a few submissions, mostly the standard not-right-for-us-at-this-time letters. The few more personal notes I’ve gotten have been encouraging, however (as is the fact that I’ve even gotten personal notes at this stage in the game). I’ve sent out a few more and hope to hear back in the next few weeks. The agent hunt continues.
That’s about it on the real life front. More to come later.
Tags: agents and editors, business of writing, the real world
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 Feb 2, 2011 in
Input My son turns 5 today. Long overdue, if you ask me. It’s interesting, watching one’s own child’s succession of birthdays. I’ve noticed that he starts acting the age he’s turning several months before February, and mentally I start thinking of him as being that age. Makes the actual day feel a little anti-climactic, at least for me. (Probably not to him. At least I hope not.)
I’ve been making an Excel list of agents to query. Today I will be sending out a query to the agent I met at the writer’s conference, and then picking out 10 or so others to send a first round of emails out to. Man, talk about a complicated process. Every agent wants something different. Some want just a letter. Some want a letter and a writing sample. Some want all that and a synopsis of the story.
Of the ones who want a sample, some want a chapter. Some want 3 chapters. Some want 5 pages. Some want 10 pages. At least one wants 50 pages (!). That means, for each one of these, I have to find a break somewhere in that neighborhood. Some want said pages attached. Most want the sample in the email body and will delete anything with attachments.
Of the ones who want a synopsis, most want a page or two. Some want 5 pages. One wants 3-5 paragraphs. *eyeroll* How many bloody synposises (synposi?) do I have to write?
Some want you to query just one agent at the agency. Some say that a query to one is a query to all. Some will let you submit to another agent at the agency if the first rejects you. Some stipulate that a rejection from one is a rejection from all. Most want an email. Some have a weird online form you have to use instead. Some respond to everyone. Most warn that prolonged silence is a no. Response time is anywhere between 1 week and 6 months.
Are you beginning to see the need for a spreadsheet to keep all this straight?? Now I figure if I can navigate all this excitement, I’ll be a step ahead of most people who go through this process.
I’m finally reading Towers of Midnight. I have to say, sometimes the library has good timing. I knew I had requested the book sometime back, and I was terrified it was going to come in during those couple of weeks before the conference. You know, when I was busy copyediting and preparing and most definitely not having time to start an 843 page beast. (That’s, er, overlooking the fact that I did read Fallen by Lauren Kate, and the final Vampire Academy book Last Sacrifice during that time. Um, yeah.)
I’ve also been reading the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. Those are fun, though the super-short chapters get annoying pretty fast. I mean, when every single chapter is a page or two long? It starts to feel like this breathless, chronological montage of…stuff happening. Or like watching a fan blade turn round and round. It becomes a gimmick for making the book seem fast paced, but here’s the thing. These books don’t need it. They’re face-paced enough. Choppy chapter breaks are unnecessary, especially when they don’t really…divide…anything.
And here it comes, the deep thought for the day. Read more…
Tags: business of writing, musings, the real world
Posted by nightphoenix on Jan 24, 2011 in
Input,
Output Well, there’s one week until the conference.
I’ve finished the copyedit…finally…so this thing is about as good as I can make it. I just need to do a run of business cards, and finish up the bags we’re going to hand out to the speakers. I’ve been slowly working on a synopsis, and I’ve been doing some digging around on AgentQuery.com’s articles about agents and query letters. Boy, that’s going to be a…process.
Started an Excel worksheet of all the agents I’m going to query. Slow work.
I’ve also been taking a long look at my writing queue, and rethinking what I should work on next.
Obviously Shades has first priority. Now that I have the first book done, I really need to get the second and third books written. The overall story is incomplete. However, I’ve been poking around on some writing forums, and realizing that in the interest of furthering my writing career, dedicating myself to working exclusively on a series may not be the smartest thing for me to do.
Even if I get an agent for Shades, the first book may not sell. Then my agent is going to turn to me and say, “Well, what else have you got?” And if all I’ve got is the rest of that trilogy…yeah. Or, the book may sell but not do all that well once it’s published. The publisher may not want to put out the other two books, or at least not right away. Again, they’ll turn and ask “What else have you got?” Or heck, the book may do well enough, but the publisher wants to space out the trilogy and have me release something else in the meantime…and it’s back to that question.
What else have I got?
I’ve made the decision that I don’t want to work on Mask of Eldarmarch next, like I’d planned. I’m just…not all that enthused about it right now, and I’ve gotten a lot of other ideas over the past few years that I’d really like to tackle first. Right now Dragon Singer is at the top of the queue, but now I’m wondering if that’s a good idea. Dragon Singer is going to be a challenge…complicated plot with time travel, and a lot of research about stuff I don’t know a whole lot about. Maybe I should start with something simpler, you know?
I’d probably start with the Waters, if I was going to pick one. Straightforward romance. Fantasy setting. The research is on stuff I already know a lot about (sailing ships), and on stuff I can utilize my “artistic license” (what was Earhart’s personality like after X years in a place that doesn’t actually exist?). Then I’d tackle Windwaker, another relatively easy one. Then, then maybe I’d be ready for Dragon Singer.
What I think I’m going to do is try and work on Shades plus another project in tandem. (And yes, I know you aren’t supposed to do that.) Shades needs to get done, but I want to have another project in the works in case I need it.
Hopefully I won’t. Hopefully Shades will take off, and I’ll have people frothing at the mouth saying, “Where’s the rest of it???” At that point, yeah, I can focus my efforts.
Tags: business of writing, the queue
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 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 Sep 1, 2010 in
Process I’ve observed something about myself. I do my best writing when I write for myself, but I do my best art when it’s for other people.
Not that I don’t want other people to read my writing…I do. Eventually. And it’s not that I don’t have readers in mind while I write. I’m always thinking, “Okay, is this going to interest anyone other than me?” and “This is going to bore people” and things like that. But ultimately I write these stories because I want to see them on paper. I suppose I’m writing the sort of book I’d like to read. Even if everyone else thinks the book stinks, I’ll still want to read it. Bit narcissistic, I guess. My point is, I’m not really doing this FOR anyone else. I want people to be interested, but I’m not going to write stories just to please them.
Now art, on the other hand, is a whole different thing with me. And when I say “my art”, let me clarify that I’m talking about the art I do that doesn’t have anything to do with what I’m writing. If I’m drawing book stuff, I’m still technically in writer mode. Other than story-related pieces, I really don’t make art for myself. I’m not one to make stuff that I’d hang on the wall…unless I was creating the piece specifically TO hang on the wall. I think my wands even fall into this category. I like making them, but I’m not so much making them for me as I am making them for Someone Else.
And when I do make art for a specific purpose, or for a specific person, I work much faster. What would probably take me a week doing it for myself, I can create in a day for someone else. The whole process just becomes easier. I don’t know why that is…I’ve only recently observed THAT it is, for me. I don’t do art for its own sake. I don’t just draw because I “feel” like it. I have to have a purpose in mind.
And on the other hand, when I try to write something for someone else? The process bogs down. I hate writing essays, for instance, and how-to’s. Even if it’s a subject that interests me, it’s just never as satisfying as working on my novel. Have anyone else noticed that book and movie reviews on this blog are few and far between? I don’t enjoy writing them. Because it’s the sort of writing one does more for other people than for yourself (after all, you’ve read the book or seen the movie…you don’t have to tell yourself what you thought about it). It’s difficult, and the result is not satisfying. I have to write for its own sake; trying to squeeze an objective in there is hard.
So I have two creative outlets which I enjoy and am fairly skilled at: writing and visual art. My writing belongs to me. My art belongs to the world, I guess. I wonder if I was always like this, or if choosing to pursue writing over art caused my brain to wire itself this way. If I’d chosen to concentrate on art instead, would it be the other way around?
Has anyone else with multiple creative interests noticed something like this about themselves?
Tags: business of writing, the real world
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