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Archive for the ‘Rant’ Category

If Stories Were Wishes

The other night I had the coolest dream. It ended up that I was wide awake at 5am with a desperate need to write this stuff down. At first it seemed like this new idea would just be nice sci/fi short story. The premise is simple: a group of biologists on a new planet studying predatory fauna. It was going to be around 3500 words which makes it easy to write it up and give it to my friends who love to give me feedback on this stuff. Do a quick rewrite, then submit somewhere. Boom, done. Maybe a month or two.

If only it were that easy. Instead this story has expanded into a novel. I could probably keep it novella length, but those are especially hard to market. It’s sad really. Over 10,000 words and a story is too long for a short story. Under 60-70k words, and too short for a novel. And 60k words is still an awfully short novel. There is a gray zone, which my first novel currently occupies at 55k, between 10k and 70k. Now, mind you, I realize different genres have different typical lengths. A young adult novel doesn’t need to be more than 170-220 pages generally (about 45k-65k words). Likewise, a stock romance novel is often around that length as well. For mainstream fiction or genre fiction like sci/fi or fantasy, however, most books are 250 to 350 pages these days. Longer if it isn’t the first book from an author. Which is why with my novel projects I’m aiming for 75k-110k words.

So Novel Project 2 is apparently starting at the same time as Novel Project 1. That’s the fun of writing, I suppose. Can’t really plan anything. My brain is teeming with ideas for both novels, therefor it isn’t as though I can just ignore one and work on the other merely because one idea was first. With some of my ideas, I can do this. I have three other novel ideas, for example, that aren’t pressing themselves into my head as needing to be written right now. I know the basic plots of each of these, but the chars are staying quiet enough I can ignore them and write the others.  The sci/fi novel isn’t staying quiet.  This is a story that is demanding to be written.

I think the only way to possibly have hope of completing these projects is to break it up a little. Fortunately the projects are different enough that there won’t be crossover. One is somewhat hard Sci/Fi, the other very much Fantasy with some fairytale/historical elements.  One is third person omniscient, the other is in first person.  I’m going to handwrite the fantasy novel, which means it will take longer. That isn’t such a bad thing, however, because it will make the editing process easier and it will be something I can do on a longer time-line than the Sci/Fi novel. As much as it might make editing quicker to write both by hand, I’m not that much of a masochist. Handwriting stories is fun and I prefer it, but something that long is an exercise in endurance. I type about 70-90 words per minute when I’m on a real roll, which means I can do a page of story in about 3-5 mins if I know where I’m going with it. When I write by hand it takes longer to do the same amount of text unless I want my hand to cramp. (oh the memories of college lit exams where I had to write three essays by hand in 40 mins.)

So, to sum up:

By end of March: have Nano novel (working title Dangerous) edited and ready for second round of readers.

By end of June: have both novels (working titles are Chwedl for the fantasy and Predators for the Sci/fi) done in the first draft form and ready for first round of readers.

By end of September: have at least Chwedl ready for second round of readers and edits.

By end of December: submit Chwedl, have Predators ready for second round of readers and edits.

Of course, if I get into grad school, it could put a serious constraint on my writing times and needs. However, I don’t see this ten years ten novels project as being counter to getting my MA. At the least I can turn in parts of my novels for classes and hopefully turn one of my yearly novel projects into my thesis project. I doubt whatever adviser I end up with would mind the idea of the project, hopefully they will think it is interesting and worth helping me out with.

I know, too many ideas is probably the least of my problems. I read so many complaints from amateur writers about how they can’t find the ideas or they have writer’s block or something along those lines. This is never my problem. The problem for me with writing is that once you’ve written the story/novel, the work has just begun. Editing takes ten times the energy and time of actually writing. I’ll get the hang of it one of these days. I hope.

Decisions and Revisions

I’ve decided against busting my ass to apply to Clarion this year. My computer is hosed, which means most of my writing is currently unavailable on the hard drive at the moment. I’d be terrified of losing it all if I had less confidence in my friends to pull a magic computer trick and get my data back. Hopefully this weekend we can do some techno rituals and retrieve my novel (and my music collection, please?). One of these days I’ll learn not to name my computer after volatile entities. Last computer that died on me was called Venus. This one is called Gir. Oh well. (I guess it ran out of cupcakes).

For this week my projects are: Write review of Cooking Mama on the DS for gamer-girl.org. Finish outline for novel project 1 (come up with better name for novel project 1?). Start novel project number 1, my goal is at least 5 hand written pages per day. (At which rate it will only take about 12 weeks to finish the rough draft. Which seems short until you know that it took me 19 days to do the rough draft of my first novel. Which is on the harddrive of deadness.)

I also really need to get cracking on the whole novel rewrite thing. Editing my own work is probably my least favorite thing to do in the world. But, only way the thing has a shot of being published is if I fix it up all pretty like. I had someone recently find out about the whole “editors at major publishing company liked it and want a rewrite” thing and they really got on my case. It’s easy for someone whose work it ain’t to say “if that was my novel, I’d be doing nothing else but that rewrite for a chance like that”. And technically, they are right. I’d have thought the same thing before it WAS my novel.

Which brings me to admitting some hard things to myself about that novel. I don’t really like it. I’m not that much of a fan of the characters, I don’t see how the plot requires the setting in any way, and the setting feels weak and flat to me. I’m more excited about writing the sequel than I am about editing the first one. I know some of the major problems and thanks to a livejournal post by Jim Butcher that I stumbled across, I think I know how to fix some of the issues with the characters. I’m not a cerebral writer. I don’t do things on purpose, with the exception of stupid nerd references that probably no one will ever get. (B13 is the building my protagonists live in, for example). I don’t sit and think about “what’s the motivation for this scene?” or “what does my character like to eat?”. I just sort of go by feel. Which works most of the time and fails spectacularly on occasion when I don’t have a solid picture of what I’m doing. This novel was my first. Like most firsts, I had no idea what I was doing. I was foremost winning a bet. I never intended for the draft to be seen by anyone except maybe a friend or two. I was going to let it die a tiny, inconsequential “good to know” sort of death. But then an author friend submitted it to his editor and they liked it, said it had promise but needed to be longer and to be rewritten/cleaned up. And I told a tiny sort of lie. I said, “oh, well, I’m working on the next draft now, a total rewrite.” Which I wasn’t. But guess what? I am now. Sigh.

Because of this connection, this first novel has a better than random chance of seeing publication. The problem is, I don’t really think this novel is representative of what I want to write. It was written as a joke, a dare. I’ve already won my 20 dollars. But on the other hand, I can’t really let this pass me by just because I hate my baby. I gave birth to this thing, I guess it is up to me to whip it into something I won’t be ashamed to see my name on.

So for the first rewrite, I think I’m going to go through every scene with the main chars in it and see how I can make their lives suck more. The book is almost afraid of the setting, so it’s time to make the setting into something to truly fear instead of just a green screen random backdrop. Aspiring writers would kill for this opportunity, right? But it’s up to me to turn this novel into something worth dying for. Go me. Or something.

Application is Done

So grad school application goes in tomorrow.  Then I get to wait. And wait.  I have no idea when they’ll tell me if I’m in or not.  It could be months.  Sigh.

And in other fun time news, my computer fizzled.  I should know better than to ever shut down that ancient machine, because everytime I do it gives up the ghost and refuses to boot.  I’m never giving it a rest again.  It gets to run until the power goes out or the bloody thing implodes.  Also, I’m giving in and putting together a machine that hasn’t seen the rise and fall of sentient reptiles.   The only mildly scary part of this whole process is the fact that years of writing are stored on that damn computer.  I know, I know. One should save often.  And I keep meaning to get an external drive and back things up.  But we’re talking about a girl who buys new panties instead of doing laundry and has been pretending her car will work again if she just ignores the fact that its dead for a month or two.   Doing things the reasonable way isn’t very imaginative, now is it?

On the plus side, I do have copies of the things I need to work on for my other applications.  So there is grace in the small stuff (and in gmail which saves us all)

Nothing to see here, move along

I am Jack’s wilted inspiration.

Hopefully once the whole grad application process is over I’ll find the ability to sleep and maybe with that sleep will come a sweeping revival of the cognitive process.  It could happen.

I have a story to finish for the Clarion Writer’s West Workshop admission and less than a month now to finish that up and polish it.  And by polish it I mean force it down the proverbial throats of a few friends via email and nagging until I get feedback.

Hopefully by the end of this week I’ll have a more useful or insightful update.  Oh, and hi to my one reader, whoever you are.

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