Posted by nightphoenix on May 18, 2012 in
Novels,
Output,
Process So I’ve been struggling for…sheesh, years probably…trying to come up with a system to keep myself productive when it comes to writing. I will sometimes have entire weeks and occasionally months in which I get very little to nothing done, and that’s time I can’t get back. Well, I think I’ve come up with a solution, and it’s so ridiculously simple that I’m kicking myself.
The only way my brain is able to treat writing like a day job is if I actually “go to work” every day…meaning I get in my car, drive to my “workplace”, do work, and then go home when “time” is up. It’s not like I’ve never thought of doing my writing elsewhere; I’ve written in fast food places, coffee shops, bookstores, libraries. But I think in my mind I was still treating these excursions as get-aways or mini-vacations instead of a job, so it wasn’t something that I would think of doing every day. And the problem with choosing a restaurant or coffee shop as a writing office is that you’re morally (and sometimes actually) obligated to purchase something every couple of hours. That gets expensive real fast.
The other issue is hours. I’m free from 8 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon. Unfortunately, most places don’t open until 9 or 10, sometimes even 11. Technically I’d have more hours to work if I stayed home and started working at 8…but if I stay home, I often don’t get anything done at all. It’s a lot like abstinence-only sex education: looks great in theory, but in practice, I’d be better off trying a “less effective” method that actually works.
Last week I began experimenting with “going to work” at the library. I even give myself an official lunch break and everything. So far this has been working so well that I’m really, really annoyed at myself for not trying this before. If I work for 3 or 4 hours, with a break between, I can average about 2,000 words. (Mind, this is on days when the writing is actually a bit slow and difficult…I could probably do more on days when I can merrily plug along.) I’ve gone from hopefully being able to finish the rough draft of Promises, Like Tears by November to thinking I might be able to finish the draft by the end of next week. (This is my current goal, since my son’s last day of school is next Friday and after that my productivity will drop dramatically.)
My other nod to being more productive is on days when I just simply cannot work on the current story, I’m making myself outline other stuff in the queue. I have finished a fairly detailed outline for Dog Prince and Free (formerly Voiceless), and am working onputting Windwaker together. I’m discovering that a lot of my stories are much less “put together” on paper than they are in my head, but hey, that’s part of the fun…right?
Still agent hunting. Got another request for a partial, which was encouraging although they ultimately passed. I seem to vacillate between really hopeful and downright discouraged. Last night I finally broke down and did a little research on how to query the publishing houses themselves. Most don’t take un-agented stuff but I was surprised to discover that a few do, especially in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. However, that process is a lot slower: most houses require an exclusive look (which means you can’t send the manuscript to anyone else while they have it), and they can take anywhere from a few months to a year to make a decision. I’ve decided that if I haven’t found an agent for Seven Shades by the time I’ve finished This Chosen Fate, I’m going to dump Hands on the editor circuit and start hawking This Chosen Fate to the agents.
I’m going to try and do NaNoWriMo this year and hopefully finish This Chosen Fate, since it’s already started and I have a very good idea of where it’s going. It will be nice to have another finished story under my belt that isn’t part of a series.
Tags: agents and editors, business of writing, Shades, This Chosen Fate, Windwaker
Posted by nightphoenix on Feb 29, 2012 in
Output Slogging my way through Promises. There was a week where I was hitting around 1,000 words a day, but things have slowed down as I’ve been having to do a combination of rethinking, re-plotting, and worldbuilding.
The political situation on Caosgi, the world Saeli and Co. are currently on, has always been the most difficult and complex bit of the overall story. I’ve rethought it from the ground up at least three or four times, and in this last rewrite alone I’ve added and tweaked a number of things. Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, editing and revisions, Shades, worldbuilding
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 Sep 29, 2011 in
News,
Novels,
Output Hey look, a post!
Apparently one of my plugins was actually hiding all of my posts except the top one, but only if you weren’t logged in. So of course because I was logged in, I didn’t notice. Anywho, I have fixed that problem, and I’ve also gotten the audio player back up and running, so music should work now. Troubleshooting is a laborious process, involving a lot of logging in, turning features on and off, logging out, refreshing the page, checking the page, logging back in, and well, you get the idea. I posted two new posts since the Great Fatal Error and Two Week Shutdown, but because of the above problem, I don’t know if anyone has actually seen them. Was kind of wondering why they never showed up on Facebook. Read more…
Tags: agents and editors, Shades, the blog
Posted by Mistress of Feathers on Sep 17, 2011 in
Novels,
Process I am about to rewrite the knife battle between Avalgo and Othau, which is, in a sense, the climactic moment of my characters’ stay on Dheu.
The original fight was in my first draft of the whole trilogy (back before it was a trilogy), and it was one of those awesome, completely unplanned moments. The way the events had been progressing, I always assumed Raphel was going to be the one to take down Othau. He certainly wanted to. So I had this Raphel vs. Othau moment in my head literally right up until the moment Othau and Avalgo pulled knives on each other, and Raphel was occupied elsewhere. And I said, “Um, okay, apparently these two aren’t going anywhere until they have it out”. And it’s sort of appropriate that the fight should be between the two characters who are actually from Dheu…it highlights the fact that my four main characters are interlopers on a conflict that’s much bigger and much older than they are.
The theme of the fight is essentially the age-old question: Can an end justify the means taken to achieve it? If you have to become a monster to save the world, is it worth it?
And this is a theme that forms the backbone of the entire trilogy. Raphel’s goal is to save Verre from a war that is destroying both the Mantles and the Cowls…but he has to kill two gods in order to do it. Obviously he thinks it’s worth it. Of course, he’s got a major lifelong grudge against one of these gods, and the other god is actively trying to wipe out his people…so he’s not exactly the most unbiased judge of such things. Same with Mora and Kaladan. Only Saeli really has a shot at truly deciding whether the end is worth the cost. Right now, she’s on Raphel’s side…but the more time she spends around Naeth, the more she’s going to realize exactly what it would mean to kill a god.
Will she save her world? Or will she save her soul? Of course, her stake in this is all tangled up in her relationship with Raphel, and the choices he makes. Her tragedy is that she will be forced to destroy Raphel while believing in her heart that he wasn’t completely wrong. Ultimately she chooses principle over saving the world, but her circumstances will allow her to do the latter by sticking to the former. Lucky Saeli. Why am I playing it like this? Why am I giving Saeli an out?
Because I don’t know the answer to the question.
Othau believes that securing a future generation of Dheuans is worth the cost of derailing two girls’ lives. Avalgo disagrees, arguing that what good does it do to become monsters in order to survive? Each of them has a point, and I honestly do not know what I would choose, were I put in that position. On one hand, kidnapping, rape, and forced childbirth are monstrous things to inflict on anyone. On the other hand, not acting to save an entire world when you *could*, is also monstrous. It’s an unsettling place for me, not being able to decide within my own mind what a character “ought” to do. All I have to work with is what I know the character would do.
It means I can’t really resolve this fight between Othau and Avalgo. It means that Saeli can’t fully resolve it, even after Raphel betrays her so badly that she MUST stand against him. It means I have to kill off my main villain without knowing, for certain, that he deserved it.
But ultimately, I think maybe it’s a question that needs to be left up to the reader to decide. Each character will choose where they stand, and the reader gets to decide if they made the right decision or not.
Tags: GMC, musings, Shades
Posted by nightphoenix on Sep 17, 2011 in
Novels,
Output,
Process Seriously.
Here’s the situation. Saeli, Raphel, Mora, and Kaladan are on a world that is, due to a series of unfortunate events involving three jealous goddesses, one naive god, and a very angry angelic…well, doomed. Said goddesses created an extremely infectious disease that eventually rendered every single female on the planet unable to bear children. The last generation has reached their mid-50s or so, and they’ve essentially lost hope.
Enter Saeli and Mora, two young women of childbearing age who, due to their not being born on Dheu, are immune to this disease. You can see how this might interest certain parties. The two women get kidnapped, and are currently trapped in a cave surrounded by twenty or so men who are so desperate to not be the last generation that they’re willing to rape female strangers and force them to live out their lives on Dheu bearing children.
Saeli and Mora are both trained in the art of using their qi to do all sorts of extraordinary things, like fire and ice and wind and teleportation spells. None of the men who have captured them have any such power. (Although half of them are what they call “spirit walkers”. They can essentially thrust their spirits out of their bodies and travel about the “spirit realm”, where they receive guidance from the angelics who live there. This is, of course, of no practical use whatsoever against someone who can lob a fireball at them).
The first obvious question: how did a couple of magically inclined characters get captured by a bunch of non-magically inclined characters in the first place? Read more…
Tags: brainstorming, magic, Mora, Saeli, Shades, worldbuilding
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 20, 2010 in
Art,
Output They happen. Sometimes I go through stages where I just have to draw something before I can write again. Anyway, I’ve started something of a series. I’m (maybe) going to do a shot of every hero and heroine from each of my story ideas paired together. I finished Saeli and Raphel this morning, and have put together the guide for Caleb and Fayna (Briar Rose).
So here’s the one I finished. Keep in mind I did this really fast. For some reason, the skin color I used for the shadows in Saeli’s face came out really dark on the web…makes her look kinda dead or something. 
Oh well.
Saeli / Raphel
In other news, I’ve been line editing…slowly…and also creating a basic overarching plot for my Grimms concept. Oh, and wrapping presents. And making presents. Speaking of…I should probably get to that at some point today.
Tags: digital, Raphel, Saeli, Shades
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