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.

Crikey!

Crikey, it's been a long time since my last update!

I say "crikey" because of my current Anglophile phase. It started when I saw STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS and said, "Who is that beautiful man playing super baddie Khan?" and went home to watch the entire first season of SHERLOCK by myself, and in doing so, gave my heart over to Benedict Cumberbatch.

Big Ben. Best name for a clock, ever. *giggle giggle*

It's continuing on with my completely bizarre and out-of-nowhere obsession with the Royal Baby. I left MSNBC on mute all day during Kate's labor, and I'm not entirely sure why. (My friend in London, Sir Brit, thinks its because Americans secretly want to be British subjects again. I laughed, but a disturbing amount of my friends seem to be OK with that idea.)

Anyway. England, and whatnot.

In the past few weeks we've moved a few blocks from our former home (or "flat") to a new one with gorgeous views of New York Harbor, my older son has finished with preschool and started summer camp, and my little one is finally in more daycare, which means after nearly a month of being forced away from my writing I am finally back. I'm not going to lie: it was hard, emotionally so, not getting to work on any of my short stories or novel for a month. Every day I felt like something was missing from my life, and the first day back when I opened my manuscript and jumped in was like a long, deep breath.

But I wasn't idle during that month. I still submitted my short stories to markets and queried agents. No rest for the writing!

The bad news is I've had no bites on either front yet, though every day I become more optimistic that my stories are that much closer to finding their homes and my manuscript is that much closer to finding its champion. The good news is that when I revise my novel now I really feel like I'm reading something I love. And isn't that the whole point of writing? To write the story you want to read?

Ah, the little one is eating Veggie Sticks off the floor. Must dash. Ta, then. Cheerio, loves.

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.

A Little Sunshine, A Little Rain

*cough hack cough cough cough*

That's me with bronchitis.

Parents should not be allowed to get sick. It should be one of those laws of nature, like getting hungry if you don't eat, or getting sunburn if you stay out in the sun too long. Once you have kids you should be immune from getting sick. Because what do doctors tell you when you're sick? Get some rest. And what's the one thing parents are involuntarily incapable of, ever? Resting. My rock star husband is doing his best to pick up the slack for me, but even he can't keep up with an bored, active 4-year old and a curious, crawling 9-month old.

*cough cough COUGH*

It feels like my lungs are trying to force their way out of my body via my head.

At least right now he's taken the older one to the YMCA nearby for some indoor basketball, and the baby's sleeping, so I can "rest" -- read: "get some writing work done." Thankfully, the physicality of writing requires little more than parking myself on the couch.

First up: I got my first request for a partial from an agent, yay! I sent it off this morning, so wish me luck!

Second: I've had this idea for a horror short story for a while now. It's been years since I've written straight-up horror, and I kind of miss it. This could be a good exercise for me before I dive into the second book in my "Prophesies" trilogy.

But before I write another word I think the codeine is kicking in. Time for a nap.

*cough cough zzzz.....*

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!