WIP Wednesday

A fellow author I follow, Tami Veldura, started holding herself accountable for her writing progress by posting a "WIP Wednesday." In that spirit, here is an update on my writing projects:

BLOODSISTERS
I have slowed down the query process on BLOODSISTERS, for various reasons. It's not in a drawer yet, but I will probably not send out any new queries at this point.


THE HEALER
Out for submission to an anthology.

KNIGHTLY TALES FOR A RAINY DAY
Out for submission to a contest.

ATHEISTS IN THE CEMETERY
Out for submission to a contest.

THE STONE AGE GAP
Out for submission to a pro market.

THEN AND NOW
Searching for a submission market.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
Searching for a submission market.


THE HOLLOW QUEEN
My biggest work to date is now at 107K words. My original goal was 120K, which -- using the Stephen King-approved method of paring down 10% of your wc in revisions -- I intended to revise to between 105 and 110K before querying it next year. That goal, unfortunately, had to be adjusted to 110K, with a revised draft goal of between 95 and 100K.

The reason for this was pacing. For most of the novel, I feel the pacing is fine. I have good lead-ups, plenty of foreshadowing, and lots of character and setting development. After I hit the 100K mark, though, I felt the action needed to be sped up -- but I ran out of smaller plot points that would lead up to my big, climactic finale. At some point while writing yesterday I realized I was stalling. I had to get to the point. My characters were where they needed to be; what needed to be revealed had been revealed; all that was left was the big showdown. And so, rather than keeping myself chained to a word count that no longer felt realistic, I cut it down to 110K, and with that, I should have a complete first draft by the end of tomorrow.

I'll take a one week break before jumping right into revisions: I've already made notes as I've gone along so I know the major changes I need to do, and I've promised my critique partners they'll have a draft by Labor Day. My goal is to have a query-worthy draft by spring 2015.


How about you? How are your writing projects coming along?

How I Became a Plotter

In his book, "On Writing," Stephen King poo-poos the idea of writers creating and using outlines before writing their novels. He considers it anathema to the creative process, stifling the natural unfolding of the story in the writer's mind.

Which is great if that works for you.

I used to be that way, too. I thought outlines and any kind of prep work other than historical research meant my story wouldn't flow right out of me, like a river of poetry onto the page.

The result was twelve years to write my first novel, including a nearly five-year period in which I wrote nothing at all.

From 2001 to 2006 I worked as a data processor for a major auction house. This meant I spent eight hours a day sitting in front of a computer typing. The last thing I wanted to do in my spare time was...sit in front of a computer and type. Well-meaning individuals suggested I dictate my novel to a tape recorder (back when those were still things) or write long-hand. The problem with the latter was that I am a slow hand-writer, and, at over 75 words per minute, my typing skills are only just fast enough to keep up with my brain. The problem with the former was that I had no idea what I was going to say until it came out of me.

In both cases, an outline with a well-thought-out plot and fully-fleshed characters would have helped me. Since I didn't already know each major story point, I couldn't possibly tell the story out loud to a machine, or write it by hand. At least when I type into a word processor I can go back and delete entire chunks at a time. Or, as was the case with BLOODSISTERS, go back and start over from scratch.

When I finally did write BLOODSISTERS after my first child was born, it was, again, without an outline. I just let the story flow, feeling very writerly and creative about it.

When even my good friends read it and responded with, "Um...OK..." I knew it was bad.

I had to become a plotter. If I wanted to take myself seriously as a writer, if I wanted to get my stories under control and make them readable, I had to learn to outline. It took several tries and several methods, but I managed to do it. The resulting version of BLOODSISTERS is something I'm actually quite proud of, even if it never sees the publishing light of day.

And, because I learned the hard way with BLOODSISTERS, I knew how to avoid the same mistakes with my current work in progress, THE HOLLOW QUEEN. I outlined first and keep making notes as I go along. This time around, rather than scrapping the entire first draft and starting from page 1, again, when I get to revisions, the process will go a lot smoother (I hope).


Are you a plotter or a "pantser" (fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants)? If you plot, how much do you do? How do you know when to stop plotting and start writing?

Our Characters and Their Subconsciouses

One of the things I struggle with most -- and which I see my critique partners and other writing friends struggle with most -- is characterization.

Broadly defined, characterization is what we show our readers about our characters, from how they walk and speak, to how they react to the human spectrum of experiences. Does your character have a certain physical tick that shows up when he's disappointed or frustrated? Does she have a special turn of phrase that she mutters when she's coping with an emergency? What does he do when a loved one is in danger? How does she react to being rained on?

At its worst, characterization can fall flat; we create characters who do little except react to events as they happen. Though I love Sansa Stark in HBO's Game of Thrones, as I posted on FB the other day, life just keeps happening to her. Over the course of the seasons she's had very little agency in her own life. Most of the time her character is on display is as a victim or pawn of the other characters, and her storylines mostly exist in order to give everyone else a rallying point or scapegoat.

Sansa's default facial expression: "Oh, shit, what fresh hell is this?"

A character like Sansa is fine as a secondary or supporting character. Even in real life I suspect we all know at least one person for whom life just sort of happens to them; they're a magnet for bad luck, bad timing, or too many other dominant personalities in his or her life. Maybe one tiny bad decision, a careless mistake most of us are able to overcome, snowballs into a lifetime of consequences for someone else.

As a main character, though, this sort of life-victim isn't very interesting, unless the plan is to show him or her somehow growing and taking charge. I haven't read the books the show is based on, but I have a strong feeling Sansa is headed that way.

The other way characterization can fall flat is by having otherwise well-rounded characters react to situations in ways our readers find unbelievable. One of the biggest problems I had with the show Weeds -- and the main reason I stopped watching it -- is because I just could not suspend my disbelief enough to cope with the premise of the show: Nancy Botwin, an upper-middle class mother of two teenagers, whose husband has died suddenly, has no other way of supporting her children and living the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed than to sell weed to her neighbors. Somehow, the show wanted us to buy the idea that a family like the Botwins did not have life insurance up to their eyeballs, that they did not have enough savings to get through at least six months without her husband's income, and that Nancy Botwin could not downgrade her home and lifestyle enough to get by without selling illegal drugs. As the show progressed, every decision Nancy made seemed set up to drive her further and further into a life of crime and put her family into danger; unlike Breaking Bad, there was never a feeling of her wanting to separate her life of crime from her family life, and there wasn't the sense of fatalism with Nancy as we get with Walter White in Breaking Bad.

One of the tools I use to create well-rounded characters who behave in ways my readers will believe (I hope!) is psychology. Once you understand human nature and the reasons why people do what they do or believe what they believe, it's much easier to create characters that pop off the page and grab readers.

Villains, especially, are better off with a well-thought out psychological profile. Why does your antag do what he does? Is he just plain evil, or is there something deeper? Does he think he's the good guy? Has he been wronged in some way? Is he somewhere in the psychopathy spectrum? Does he lack empathy? Is he a high-functioning sociopath, or a narcissist? All those traits might seem interchangeable, but once you learn the subtleties of psychopathy vs narcissism, or how a sociopath lacking in empathy might manipulate others around her, you know how to make your bad guy act and react.

I could -- and do -- spend hours browsing the Psychology Today blog index. It's a great resource for articles on nearly every aspect of human psychology, from addiction to trauma recovery to the concepts of good and evil. This article, for example, gives great insight into the mind of a high-functioning sociopath, a real one, and how she moves around in her day-to-day life.

Another great resource, of course, are books. For a while my brother thought he might pursue a career in forensic psychology, possibly as a criminal profiler. Upon further reflection he realized that a career like that probably isn't good for someone diagnosed with pretty severe obsessive-compulsive disorder, but by then he'd already taken a few classes in the psychology and pathology of serial killers.

"Hello, Clarice."

This came in handy when I created the antagonist for my first novel, BLOODSISTERS, Hatchi. I love very charismatic bad guys, ones who draw others to them and manipulate them to their own selfish ends. I love villains with charm and energy. Think The Master from Doctor Who; Moriarty from the modern Sherlock; and my all-time favorite, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. For my purposes, I knew I had to study serial killers, those monsters who manage to draw their victims to them, like Ted Bundy. Hatchi, my villain, was going to be a total psychopath, a killer, a rapist, and a sadist; but he also had to be attractive enough to others to create an army of followers who would stay loyal to him no matter what insanity he provoked. My brother loaned me two of his class text books for this, The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality; and Serial Murderers and Their Victims. (I do not recommend either book if you have a weak stomach!) I also read up on some of the 20th century's most infamous cult and cult-like leaders, such as Adolf Hitler. By combining aspects of a true psychopathic, homicidal personality with the traits of leaders who have drawn thousands of followers, I created Hatchi, a megalomaniac rebel determined to control the entire supernatural world I created, with an army of devoted followers at his beck and call. He is focused, he is driven, he is delusional, and he is completely full of himself. He is also able to offer his followers tremendous power and status, and he has a bright sense of humor fueled by cunning and high intelligence. In other words, he's irresistible to most people around him, attracting followers while leaving utter destruction and death in his wake.

(Don't you dare judge me.)

What do you do to bring your characters to life? How do you know how to make your characters behave in ways your readers will believe?

Writing From the Guts

I used to think Stephen King was some sort of psychopath for all the terrible things that happen to children in his books.

Then I had kids of my own and I realized: Like most of us, he's probably just writing his fears.

Back in 2001 I wrote a short horror story called "Obedient Child." The inspiration behind the story was simple: I thought back to my worst childhood fears, abandonment and the dark, and went from there. The writing itself is rough, but you can still read the story at Morbid Outlook here.

My first novel, BLOODSISTERS, is inspired partly by my obsession with Arthuriana and the entire "child of destiny" trope. It's also partly inspired by my own real-life female friendships. Over the years I've had too many women friends to count. Some are still around, most aren't. Some went away and came back via the magic of Facebook; some are gone for good. Some relationships ended with a whimper as we drifted further and further away from one another until one day we just...weren't, anymore; others ended with a bang, in tears and slammed phones and angry, emotionally charged emails. (One ended over matzoh ball soup at the original Second Avenue Deli location.) BLOODSISTERS is, first and foremost, about two women friends and what happens to their friendship as their circumstances change over hundreds of years. When you live forever, how does that affect your relationships? BLOODSISTERS is one way in which I ask myself the questions that have plagued me for decades as my friends come and go, and my way of wrestling with the answers.

I bring this up because my current WIP, THE HOLLOW QUEEN delves into my new(ish) role as a mother. All the major story conflicts are there: man vs himself, man vs nature, man vs man, man vs society. But the biggie conflict of THQ is man vs the supernatural, sometimes referred to as man vs the paranormal or man vs the Divine. However you phrase it, it boils down to Us versus Things Beyond Our Control.

The supernatural force in THQ kills children, kills them in a lingering and terrible way. The force, nicknamed The Hollow Queen because of the method of killing (based on this mythology), represents all my worst fears for my children: an incurable disease, a fatal accident, a school shooting, a kiddie perv. As the parents and other grown-ups on board my novel's ship race to find out what's killing the children and how to stop it, I inject all my deepest, darkest, most terrible nightmares into my writing. When I write them, I face them, I control them.

This was all brought back to me in stark relief just two days ago. The weather finally picked up, and so I let my kids play at the nearby playground after school. In one of those accidents that just happens at playgrounds, my 2-year old ran down an incline just as a much older kid of about 8 or 9 came running from the side. They collided so hard that my 2-year old was thrown off his feet into the air and landed on his head with a crunching noise. I scooped him up, gathered my 5-year old, and rushed to the nearby pediatric ER. Three hours, two nurses and two doctors later, we were discharged. The little one, thankfully, had no concussion or skull fracture and was, by then, running around the pediatric ward happily chasing a toy truck.

My poor baby

By the next day he seemed to have forgotten all about the massive boo-boo on his head. But I didn't. I couldn't, and I doubt I ever will. The sight of my little one being thrown off his feet, the sound of his tiny skull hitting the pavement, the pounding of my heart and churning of my stomach as I rushed to the hospital, will stay with me as long as I live. Two days later I still tremble just writing about what happened, how much worse it could have been.

Same playground the next day, clearly all better.

Some day, when you read a scene in one of my novels or short stories of a 2-year old being hit with such force that he's thrown off his feet and lands on his head, you'll know I'm finally wrestling with that particular demon.

Where does your writing come from? How do you write the things that scare you? Where do your own demons factor into your writing?

The "History" in Historical Fantasy

What is "historical fantasy?"

According to Wikipedia:

"Historical fantasy is a sub-genre of historical fiction that incorporates fantastic elements (such as magic) into the narrative. It is used as an umbrella term for the sword and sorcery genre and sometimes, if fantasy is involved, the sword-and-sandal genre too. Stories fitting this classification generally take place prior to the 20th century."

Ever since I read Leon Uris's "Exodus" when I was 14 years old, I've been a fan of historical fiction. I think fictional stories are a wonderful way to express historical facts in a way that's relatable, fun, and easier to understand than reading non-fiction. And, since I've always loved fantasy and all its subgenres -- horror, fairy tales, sword & sorcery, paranormal, etc. -- it seemed only natural for me to combine history and fantasy in my own writing.

Shiksa-bait
(This isn't just gratuitous. He's in the
movie version of "Exodus.")

BLOODSISTERS takes place in Meiji-era Japan, which lasted from the late 19th century to the early 20th. Why set my novel then and there? I set it in Japan because my original idea for the story comes from a college friendship with someone who was half-Swiss and half-Japanese. We both loved the same dark fantasy books. We'd talk, at great length and in excruciating detail, about which paranormal creatures we loved, which ones we'd be if we could, and what it would be like to live forever. How would that affect our friendship? From there I got the idea for BLOODSISTERS. The original idea was to start the book with my two main characters, Atya, a Lithuanian witch, and Ochira, a Japanese vampire princess, meeting and traveling together. Eventually they'd end up back at Ochira's home in Japan, where Atya would shack up with Ochira's twin brother.

When I finally sat down to write BLOODSISTERS I realized the real story lay in what happened after the two women arrived in Japan. What would Atya's outsider status mean among a royal family of vampires? The Meiji-era in Japan is rich with possibilities for historical fantasy writers: Japan had only recently opened its shores to the West and was coming to terms with some fallout from that. This had an enormous impact on Japanese culture, society, and government. Therefore, it seemed a natural fit to set my novel about a foreigner coming to Japan during a historical period when Japan was dealing with this very issue.

Purely by coincidence, my work-in-progress THE HOLLOW QUEEN takes place during the same era. I've always been obsessed with my own ancestry and the stories of my family coming to America. Like so many other Ashkenazi American Jews, my family came here through Ellis Island. Our new apartment overlooks New York harbor with a view of the Statue of Liberty. The idea for a story that takes place on a ship bound for Ellis Island just sort of happened one day last summer. But what would happen on that ship? Ghost stories are always fun, and I'm fascinated by the idea of people being stuck in a crisis together. A ghost ship full of immigrants, who all come from different countries, speak different languages, and carry a multitude of traditions and beliefs with them, trapped on a ship mid-Atlantic, haunted by a ghost.

My imagination went into overdrive with this one, and I'm pleased to say that after starting work on the first draft of THE HOLLOW QUEEN less than a week ago I'm already 8,000 words in.

And then, of course, something like this happens:

Can you believe I took this with my iPhone?

That's the view of New York harbor from my living room balcony this morning. You can't see the harbor, of course, because it's buried under all that fog. If this doesn't stir the imagination, I'm not sure what will.

What are your favorite sub-genres? Do you prefer your history straight-up, fictional, or magical?

Hail to the King

No, seriously, am I the last writer on earth to finally read Stephen King's "On Writing," aka "the writing bible" (as some call it)?

Like parenting manuals, I don't generally read books on how to write. Of course, sometimes I need help -- in either area. When it came time to potty train the Juban Princeling, I picked up "Stress-Free Potty Training," and when we learned he was going to be a big brother I got "Siblings Without Rivalry." I'm not a total Neanderthal, I just don't like wasting time reading books on things I already do everyday.

But sometimes even I have to admit that it's time to call in the Big Guns and see what The Pros have to say. To give you a clue where I am in my parenting life these days, I'm currently reading "Setting Limits With Your Strong-Willed Child." And in my writing life I'm just over halfway through "On Writing."

It started like this.

It took me three years to get to a draft of BLOODSISTERS I was truly happy with. With the first draft I just dove in and wrote it. Then I realized how much it sucked. Like, sucked hard, and with commitment, and on a level that made me embarrassed to show it to people. I know first drafts almost always suck, but from what I understand from other writers, first drafts should at least have a story, even if it needs to be reworked. The draft I had was not a damn thing like the story I saw in my mind. Not even a tiny bit. I didn't know what it was, but it certainly wasn't anything I recognized as the story I wanted to tell. I scrapped about 90% of my first draft, went back, and rewrote BLOODSISTERS until the story itself was something I could live with.

Going into BLOODSISTERS'S sequel, WANDERLUST, was daunting. I didn't want to have to scrap three months of hard work again. I didn't want to have to write the book twice, again. I psyched myself out so badly that after only a few thousand words I just sort of gave up. I took some time off to write a few short stories, revise BLOODSISTERS yet again, and then take a month off from writing entirely. (That last was not 100% voluntary: we moved apartments, and that sucked up a lot of my time.)

Meanwhile, I thought of a story for another book, one not related at all to THE PROPHESIES TRILOGY. The idea happened when the Juban Princeling misheard something his father or I said, and repeated back, "What's a hollow queen?" I decided to come up with an answer. The more I thought about it, the more I decided THE HOLLOW QUEEN would be a horror story. Not a short story this time, which is where my default spontaneous ideas go, but a novel. A historical novel. A ghost story.

Funny, how that little nugget of an idea then opened the creative floodgates. Shortly after figuring out (or "discovering," as King might put it) the setting for THE HOLLOW QUEEN (a passenger ship bringing immigrants to America in the late 1800s), I also discovered the real story for WANDERLUST. I came up with a five-point plot summary (sorry, King) so that I wouldn't get lost in my own story again and my first draft would, at the very least, turn into something I could actually revise and work with. I know the major beats for WANDERLUST; now I just have to let the story itself flow out of my fingers and onto the page. It's not an outline, it's not a plot: it's just beats, five of them. A compass, not a map.

With that, I decided it was time to pick up "On Writing" and finally, you know, read it. It's certainly motivating; look at me, up at 5:30 this morning to get stuff done. Reading other blogs, looking up new markets, anthologies and contests for my short stories, updating my blog, Twittering -- all the writing "work" that isn't actual writing. During the Duke of Juban's, daily 2-hour nap I like to focus on writing, including critiquing for my partners. In 2 hours I can write 1,000 words and critique two chapters for other people.

I'm happy to admit I'm not too proud to know when I need some guidance. If there are parenting professionals out there who can help me minimize my older kid's meltdowns, I'm happy to at least hear what they have to say. I don't need a perfect Stepford child, I just need more good days than bad ones. And if Stephen King himself has some advice on being a professional writer, then I think I need to sit up and pay attention. I don't need to be as successful as he is, I don't need to sell a gajillionty books like he has. I just need to write good stories I can be proud of.

Major Revisions. MAJOR.

With the fam gone last weekend I got a lot done on my novel, BLOODSISTERS: THE PROPHESIES, BOOK 1. Most of what I did was a near-total revision of the first chapter and query letter.

For a very long time I had no idea how to "fix" the first chapter; I only knew I wasn't getting any traction with it. I found three new critique partners and asked them to give it a look with fresh eyes. They had some very good advice, but I still didn't know what exactly to do.

Then something occurred to me, I got started, and several hours later my first chapter was about 70% revised. I also made some of the smaller changes my critique partners suggested throughout the rest of the novel, and changed the entire opening paragraph of my query letter.

Let's hope this draft works...

Productivity

Now, I love my kids, and I love being a stay-at-home mom so I can spend as much time with them during their formative years as I can.

But.

My husband took the kids to his mother's house in Florida this weekend, and I'd be lying if I said it's not affecting my creative productivity. I've rewritten about 80% of the first chapter of BLOODSISTERS, rewrote nearly my entire query letter, and am researching the hell out of every agent I want to query or re-query. And all this in just the first 36 hours they've been gone.

(I've also finally watched the first two episodes of "Sherlock," which my friend Michelle has been nagging me to watch for years. Since seeing "Into Darkness" last week I'm now a certified Cumberbitch.)

(Btw, "Star Trek: Into Darkness" is really, really good. Like, crazy good. Bananas good. I kind of want to go see it again while the fam's away. I want to live inside that movie.)

My adorable little enemy of productivity

I miss my kids, I do, and I definitely miss my husband, but it's nice to finally sit down and have all this uninterrupted work time. Before he started preschool my older child, the 4 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, went to daycare twice a week, giving me 16 hours a week of "work" time. I look back now and can't believe how much of it I wasted. Since we're trying to save money, my younger child, the 14-month old Duke of Juban, only goes to daycare 5 hours a week, during which I have a regular weekly doctor appointment, pick the Princeling up from school, and then take him to his weekly doctor appointment. But this summer the Princeling will be in camp from 9-5 every day, and I've told my husband that I absolutely need the Duke in daycare at least 2 full days a week. Maybe some people can write with two small children around, but I can't. The Princeling is old enough to give me space when I ask for it, but he also talks non-stop (no idea where he gets that from...) and doesn't yet get that I can't chat with him and write at the same time. The Duke, meanwhile, is jealous as hell of my laptop and just plain won't let me do anything on it if he's awake.

I have three days left of no kids and no husband. With all I've gotten done already, imagine what more I can do in the next three days!

Tied to Word Count

The other day I complained about not getting enough words written for my second chapter. My husband, ever practical and always supportive, suggested I not tie myself to word count.

"Just write the story," he said.

Problem is, that's what I did with "Bloodsisters," and wound up spending two years rewriting the book almost from scratch, including six months of adding 10,000 words to beef up the word count to an acceptable length.

Now that I'm a veteran of writing one book, I think I might be more of a planner than a pantser. For "Wanderlust" I came up with the story first, including the minor characters and their backstories and subplots. I used a template to sketch out my beginning, middle, and ending so I don't get off track. And it's working! Now that I know exactly where I need to go - not just with the novel as a whole, but what path I need to take to get there - it's much easier to write with confidence.

But it also means I'm tied to the word count. The WC is how I know how much time to spend in each scene, each chapter, each of the three sections of the plot. Word count helps me pace myself, something I found nearly impossible with "Bloodsisters."

My goal is 5K words per week, and so far I'm doing that. It's not easy, especially with one less daycare day for the baby per week, and I get most of those 5K done on weekends, but a 5K/week word count goal means forcing myself to write through the blocks and keep going, even when I don't fully feel it. Five thousand words a week means my first draft will take six months instead of over a year.

So, word count. Writing by WC means forcing myself to stick to the plot and flesh out details now rather than filling them in later just to bump up my numbers. And that means a better story from the very first draft.

Catching Up

Well, THAT was a longer break than I anticipated from my blog.

I wish I could blame NaNo, but alas, I have no claim to that excuse.

The truth is, October is just super-hectic for me. I have my older son's birthday, my husband's birthday, my brother's birthday, Halloween, school Halloween parties, other birthday parties, and this year I got the unpleasant surprise of Hurricane Sandy. Compared to all that, NaNo almost seems like it would be a vacation.

Thankfully, we didn't lose power because of the hurricane, but I used the forced downtime (husband working from home because of the lack of public transportation to his office, older kid at home from school closure) to catch up on editing one of my critique partner's manuscripts and on another writing project.

I think the time away from "Bloodsisters" was good for both me and for my query letter and manuscript. I haven't spent this much time away from the story in over a year, and it was clearly long overdue. Tonight I caught the whiff of a way to really tighten up the query letter and make it shine, and once I got going I found myself on a roll. The result: what I hope is a can't-resist query letter. And, I've come up with new opening lines to the story itself, which I hope will also help in my quest for an agent. The current count as of today is: ten rejections, twelve still floating around out there, and a handful of un-queried agents on my Query Tracker list.

For the next few weeks at least -- maybe for the rest of 2012 -- I plan to focus on my critique partner's ms and other writing projects. Of course, I'll still be torturing myself by reading Query Shark and other query how-tos...just in case I get another whiff of inspiration.

Never Give Up! Never Surrender!

Since starting my query process to find an agent for "Bloodsisters" last week I've received five rejections.

But I don't let it bother me, and here's why.

Every "no" is one step closer to a "yes!"

OK, that's kind of cheesy. What I mean by that is, every agent that rejects me is not the agent for me. And that is fine. Not every agent needs to get excited about my query. The one that will, and the one that will love my full manuscript, is the one for me.

It's a lot like dating. I never dated much, because I was not one of these women who dated just for the sake of dating. My mother and friends told me I was too picky, but really I just didn't like wasting my time with someone who didn't blow me away right off the bat. I wasn't into the idea of searching for a "diamond in the rough," or "acquired tastes," or any of the other things all those relationship books told me I should do. I knew that when I met the right guy, I'd know it. I just would.

And I did!

When I met my husband I was immediately attracted to him. Things worked out for us fairly easily. The pieces all fell into place and here we are, ten years later, six years into our marriage and two kids. Over the years we developed a solid foundation of friendship based on trust, communication, humor and sex, which is how all these years later I still feel giddy as a schoolgirl when I see his number pop up on my phone or name show up in my email in-box.

So I'm not sweating the agent process, at least not yet. With every agent who turns me down I feel closer to "the one." I believe in my work. I knew going in that this wouldn't be easy, or quick. And, I know that my agent is out there...

"What Is Your Book About?"

I think every writer must get that question. It's the natural follow-up when you tell someone you're a writer. Right? There is "What do you write?" and then "Oh, what is your book about?"

My short answer: Vampires.

My long answer: Not vampires.

I hate saying "vampires" because that makes people think of the "Twilight Saga" and HBO's highly addictive series "True Blood." But, with that one word I can generally gauge who's interested in hearing more, and who tunes out: "Oh. You're hopping on that bandwagon. Sorry I asked."

The truth is I came up with the idea for "Bloodsisters" twelve years ago. The inspiration was a real-life friendship. I asked myself: What if we really did live forever? How would immortality affect personal relationships?

From there I created the story of two women, one a vampire and one a witch, from two very different cultures, who become travel companions over the course of five hundred years. My original idea was to start the story when they meet and chronicle some of their adventures - which I still may do in the form of prequels.

While this story developed I also became frustrated with how female friendships are portrayed in popular culture. We have this myth that women stay besties forever and ever and ever, without regard for different life experiences, personal growth, and circumstantial changes.

When I thought about it, the concept of immortality present two opposite challenges to personal relationships. On the one hand, if you live forever there is very little incentive to go out there and "carpe diem." This is why one of the recurring themes in my novel is a resistance to change and progress. But on the other hand, if you do live forever, you're probably more likely to take in stride all of life's ebbs and flows, because you know you have all the time in the world to go back and fix things, including broken relationships.

And so that, at its core, is what my book is about.

Also: vampires.

And: Lady ninja werefoxes.

Eeek!

Today's the day!

Sending my query for "Bloodsisters" out to agents.

This will be my first foray into agent-searching.

Wish me luck!

The End?

How do writers know when the revision process is over and it's time to submit their work to agents?

I know writers who spend years revising their manuscripts to within an inch of their lives. There's always something that needs tweaking, a subplot pulled or added, word counts chopped up or beefed up.

And I've also read books that seem poorly edited, like the author submitted a first draft and that first draft somehow made it through the agenting process, got sold to a publisher, and passed at least one editor's desk as-is.

So, how do I know when I'm done?

I'm almost through this round of revisions with Bloodsisters, and when I reach the end that will be it for me. It has to be. From this point forward there's nothing else I can do for the manuscript that won't either a)change the entire story around, or b)be so minor as to be unimportant -- a changed word here, a different sentence structure there.

Bloodsisters is, for me, the final product of over twelve years of work. Sure, some of those years were more dormant than anything else, but this novel really started back in 2000. The original idea was to open the story with Atya and Ochira's first meeting and chronicle their travels together before reaching this point in the story, but I figured that would get boring. Maybe some day I'll write prequels about their pre-Bloodsisters adventures together, but it took me a decade to realize the interesting story, the real story, opens with them already at Ochira's home of Dark Wind Palace. That's where the best action happens, and that's where the important storyline in the Prophesies trilogy is born.

The first version of the story was crap. I'm not too proud to say so. I wrote it in a hurry (...after ten years) mostly just to prove to myself that I could finally write this novel. And I did! Yay for me! But it was kinda terrible. Kinda really terrible. Out of that whole 72K-word draft I kept one chapter intact -- a conversation between Atya and my villain, Hatchi -- and ditched the rest. I made a mind map, reworked the plot in a way that made more sense from a storytelling perspective, invented a few new supporting characters (Michio and Masuko) and subplots, researched my brains out, and started over. It was painful, but I pushed through. On the way I found two excellent critique partners who kicked my ass with tough love and pushed me to make this puppy WORK.

And it does. It finally does!

This round of revisions will be the third round on the second version of a novel twelve years in the making. After countless false starts, starts and stops, and 72,000 words sent to the trash, this version is THE ONE. I feel in my heart it is. And after this round of revisions I will have weeded out about 99% of the problems, added some polish, and finally feel that this is the story I want to tell, in the way I want to tell it.

I don't know how other writers know, but this is how I know. I know I'm done. I know Bloodsisters is ready.

Coffee Shop Cliché

Today I decided to be a writing cliché and came to a neighborhood coffee shop to work on my novel. And now I am blogging at the coffee shop. Someone please call the stereotype police because I am clearly criminally cliché.

I have exactly one day a week to myself to work on my writing. One day a week when my older son, the 3 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, is at camp from 9-3 and my younger son, the 5-month old Duke of Juban, is at daycare from 9-5. One day a week of no appointments or errands. Just me and my laptop and my novel.

In my neighborhood there is a coffee shop called the Tea Lounge that is very famous, locally. Over the weekend I was inspired by who-knows-what and thought, "Hey! I should go there and write on Monday! There is absolutely nothing wrong with that idea!"

So today I packed up my MacBook Air and extension cord, a giant Ziploc full of snacks (because I'm cheap and cash poor), and after dropping off the Princeling at Camp and the Duke at daycare I hopped the B69 down to Union Street and here I am. I bought a $4 drink to justify the 4 hours I'm spending on the couch here, eating not their food but using up their (free) WiFi. A quick look around and I see at least half a dozen other glowing apples in font of squinting people, their glasses reflecting MacBook screens. Did I mention I also kicked off my sandals and have my legs crossed under me? The only way I could possibly be more cliché is if I had a pad of paper and pen, or a toddler gnawing a cookie next to me on the couch.

As nice as it is to get out of my writing routine and let my tired eyeballs look at things other than my living room while I write, I don't think I'll be doing this again. For one, the bus ride here and back could have been used for writing time. Second, they play not-quiet music that I find distracting, Billy Joel's greatest hits notwithstanding, and I don't mean that ironically. 

Third, I'm not sure what the bathroom protocol here is. Do I leave my laptop and bag and wallet here in this spot so no one takes it while I get up to relieve myself? Is that inviting thievery? I asked the woman next to me to watch my stuff, but how do I know I can trust her above everyone else at Tea Lounge? What if she's a laptop thief? But if I take my things with me I could lose my rather comfortable place on the couch, and the Tea Lounge is only getting more crowded by the minute. 

Oh, the woes of a would-be coffee shop writer!