A Mid-Summer Check-In

I can't believe it's mid-summer already! Ack!!

Vacation is soooo close I can feel it. Just 4 working days left and then one week away to (hopefully) sunny Prince Edward Island. We rent a cottage there for one week in the summer and I am taking with me a stack of book as well as WIPs. One is just an idea and needs fleshing out, the other (Fractured Sight) needs work before I can continue. So while the Boy and J build sand castles on the beach, I plan on putting a dent in my TBR pile and working out the kinks in FS and/or outlining the new idea.

I'm continuing to work away at ITS, and the more I write it, the more excited I get about book two which bumps two of my secondary characters, Spence and Caelie into the starring roles. Spence has a disturbing phobia towards marriage, so much so he has just declared he would rather be sacrificed to the lava gods (he's recently back from a brief sojourn on the islands). Of course that comment now has my brain in overdrive while his backstory begins to form in my mind. I already know Caelie's backstory, which is rather heartbreaking at best. It will be fun piecing together how these two will get together and figure things out.

But first I need to finish ITS and get that fired off to agents. My goal for completing it has been pushed back. I'm giving myself until the end of September. I'm making good headway and things are falling into place, so hopefully that will be a doable deadline.

In the meantime, tonight I am meeting my critique partner, Pam Callow, for coffee so we can do a little catch up. She's been flitting about to one conference after another promoting her latest release DAMAGED and January's upcoming release INDEFENSIBLE which picks up a few months after Damaged ended.

What are everyone else's plans for the summer?

Rewriting the Novel

Ah, there is nothing like the smell of wet dog permeating the writing room to get my creative juices flowing. Okay, maybe it isn't so much that it gets my creative juices flowing as it is that I want to finish this scene so I can escape the stench.

Either way, I am making steady progress on ITS and quite happy about what is landing on the page. Even more than that, I am excited about getting back to Fractured Sight when I'm finished my revisions on ITS. I've figured out part of the problem I was having with the story, and I'm anxious to dive back in and muck around to bring the rest of it to light. And I'm already playing around with ideas for the trailer. For some reason doing the trailer has really helped me solidify things about the stories that I hadn't realized initially. It seems to make the stories more concrete for me, so I will continue doing them.

But first I have to finish my revisions on ITS. On the weekend I bought, The Weekend Novelist Rewrites the Novel by Robert J. Ray. So far it is really making me think about how I structure my book and giving me a fair bit of insight into ways to make it better.

Yesterday I took off from actual writing and developed a plan for the second half of 2010. It's rather ambitious (I seem unable to come up with plans that aren't...) but if I put the nose to the grindstone I think I can pull it off. And if not, it certainly won't be for lack of trying.

Meanwhile, my stinky dog has decided to prance around the room with his toy box held tightly in the jaws of death. If you'll excuse me, I must go inform him that the actual purpose of the box is to hold the toys, not be one.

Upcoming New Release - DAMAGED by Pam Callow

My own writing has hit the skids a bit of late. I floundered around for the first four months of the year working on my YA and hitting a brick wall. Apparently that’s what happens when all the other elements are working with the one fatal exception of your protagonist’s motivation. After a somewhat disastrous week of trying to figure it out I finally threw in the towel and called a cease fire. Time to shelve the book for now before I blow torch it and dance on its ashes.

In the meantime, I decided I should finish Invitation to Scandal since I’m thisclose to having it completed anyway. I’ve revised the beginning, dropping the horrendous cliché of my heroine twisting her ankle and requiring the hero’s assistance. I opted to throw her into the Serpentine instead. I’m looking at a few contests as well for both ITS and Salvation Falls, which Harlequin have had in their slush pile since last October.

But none of the above has to do with the title of this blog post. The title refers to my oh-so awesome critique partner, Pam Callow’s new release, Damaged, due out the first week in June. This is Pam’s first book, and the first book in the series and already the buzz is hot. Being her CP, I know why. I’ve had the pleasure of reading this book from its early stages to the end and let me tell you, it is amazing. Trust me, you won't be disappointed.

Here’s the blurbage on it:

Haunted by the death of her sister and wounded by her ex-fiancé’s accusations, Kate Lange throws herself into her new career at a high-powered law firm.

When the grandmother of a lonely private school student seeks her counsel, Kate thinks it’s just another custody case. But then the teen is brutally murdered. And it isn’t only Kate who wonders if her legal advice led to the girl’s death.

Put on notice by Randall Barrett, the firm’s charismatic managing partner, Kate must fight for her career, for her reputation-and for redemption.

Unwilling to live with the damage she may have caused, Kate pursues the case on her own and unearths some chilling facts.

Facts that lead straight to the heart of a legal conspiracy.

Facts that lead Kate directly into the surgically skilled hands of the Body Butcher.

Now here’s the visual (love the music on it!):

Busy Little Bee

I’ve had a very productive writing week and finally feel like I’m making some headway. Using Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet, I worked out the scene by scene outline for my YA novel, Fractured Sight. Then I moved on and did the same with one of my historicals awaiting revision, Invitation to Scandal (which turned out to be in pretty good shape) and the second book in the Brimstone series, Saving Grace (needs work).

Next week is when the hard work starts. I have to go in and using the tools I learned from Donald Maass’s Putting Fire In Your Fiction, start my scene by scene revisions for Fractured Sight.

Thankfully, doing the Beat Sheet allowed me to see where I had some issues, make a few scene changes and additions, juggle things around and realize the ending I had should be the ending in Book 3, not Book 1. I wondered why I couldn’t figure out where things went after Book1…well, that’s why. I need to do the story in increments, saving the big finish for Book 3. Book 1 and 2 will be the lead in to getting there, the build up. Each will have a stand alone story in it that builds up to the final book.

I’m hoping I can finish the revisions in eight weeks, but it will mean a lot of head down, nose to the grindstone, hard work.

By the way, just a heads up. I’ll have two guest bloggers next week: Sarah Taney Humphreys and Lisa Campbell so stay tuned for that.

Mired in the Muck

Revisions. The scourge that they are. To be honest, I have a love / hate relationship with revisions. I love taking the lump of words and reworking them into something coherent. But by the time the second run of revisions comes around, I just want to move on and do something new. I do not want to slog through the story all over again and fix all the things I missed in the first set of revisions. I want to put the story to bed so I can start sending it out into the big, bad world and then move on.

But alas, if I were to send it out too early I would be wasting my time and the editor or agent’s. And there in lies the crux of the problem. I get frustrated with my inability to pump out a pristine manuscript with only one set of revisions. I want to tear my hair out if it requires a third. Don’t even get me started on what happens when I know I am likely looking at a fourth. Possibly fifth.

I know its all part of the process. Every writer goes through it. Guaranteed we spend far more time revising than we do writing the initial first draft. That’s where the work comes in. The first draft is like play. New people, new places, new discoveries. The revision is when you take all that play and try to form it into something workable. Something someone wants to buy.

I’m in revision hell right now. It’s only the first revision and I see at least two more in my future. Right now I’m just re-piecing the story together after the frenzied writing of NaNo. Moving things around, taking out what isn’t needed, changing characters and arcs and motivations. I always feel disconnected from the characters during the first set of revisions. I’m looking more at the technical aspects – is the plot in the right order mostly. Later, in the read through (before the…sigh…next round) I’ll hopefully reconnect. But right now they have become strangers to me.

Turning Creativity Into Cash

I’ve decided to set up a blog to help promote my Etsy shop now that I’ve decided to get things rolling again and start adding items for sale. Feel free to check it out: it’s called Duly Knitted.

First I had to determine if I had the time to do this what with the writing, the day job, the new puppy, home life. Because I am completely insane, I decided that yes, I did have the time so why not try and bring in a little extra income to fund my habit.

However, much like writing, setting up shop isn’t just about what lands on the printed page – or slips off the ends of the needles. There’s promo involved, time needed to take photos of the product to its best possible advantage (something I’m still working with but I have some ideas…), different sites to network on, etc.

But what the heck. I’d be knitting anyway, and since I can’t possibly keep all the stuff I knit (I only have so much closet space), I might as well try to sell it. Besides, like my writing, I get way more done if I have a goal, and populating my shop with quality knit goods seems as good a goal as any.

To that end, I am enrolling in a two-day knitting course at a local yarn shop, The Loop, which runs over two Sundays to better get a handle on intarsia knitting. I’m also designing some of my own patterns which isn’t quite as difficult as I thought it would be, but I reserve the right to change my mind on that when I start getting into more intricate patterns.

Meanwhile, back in Revision Land, I am not sure whether or not the first third of my YA is working. I have a fair bit happening, but a lot of it is set up. Which is required but I’m concerned I might be dragging it out for too long. I’ve decided to keep going, tighten up where I can, and then go back and figure out if the pacing works when I do the read through. Hopefully I’m not as far off the mark as I feel right now.

The pup starts obedience training next Tuesday. I’m looking forward to that. He’s a pretty smart dog. So far he’ll sit and stay and come. But the mouthing of limbs needs to get under control and walking him where he isn’t rushing ahead practically choking himself needs to be addressed. Ah, the joys of puppyhood. There’s a reason they’re so cute, you know…

Meet Cedar

I did plan on doing a longer post this week, but between puppy training, knitting, re-setting up my Etsy shop (might as well try and sell some of the knitted items to make money to buy more yarn...) and revising Fractured Sight I've been pretty busy. So I will leave you with some puppy pixs of the new addition for the time being...

Beat Sheets, Pot Holes & Puppies

I’m still working away on the revisions for Fractured Sight, my YA novel. Using Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet has proven to be a huge help in keeping my page count down, my pacing in forward motion with all its required highs and lows, my character arcs on track, and my plot holes plugged. It’s hard work trying to figure out where to put scenes for maximum benefit and sadly, saying good-bye to scenes that just don’t work to the benefit of the story, but I think in the end I will have a better book because of it.

So I continue to slog away and wrangle my story into submission. I had a great breakthrough on the plot this morning as well as the best way to work the whole structure so that it will feed into a series rather than a stand alone book.

Meanwhile, back in Every Day Land, my car is making a strange sound – somewhere between a clunking and a rattle. We’re pretty sure it’s the brakes, but I think the sound is coming from my back driver’s side and my significant other (hereto for referred to as the SO) is convinced it is from the driver’s side front end. I’ve decided to leave it up to the professionals, although explaining the sound to them over the phone made me feel like a bit of an idiot. I’m sure my podmates thought I had lost my mind. However I think my warranty on the brakes runs out next month, so regardless of how foolish I appear, I figured I better get that sucker in before the cash came out of my pocket.

And speaking of cash out of my pocket, mid-month is fast approaching which means the puppy comes home soon! We had a last minute change after visiting the breeder. We had originally picked out a female so pale she was almost white, but when we went to see the puppies first hand we fell in love with a big bundle of boy who melted in your arms when you picked him up.

It’s hard to believe I’m going to have a puppy again. I have some anxiety that I’ve forgotten everything Cooper taught me. It’s been 15 years since I’ve raised a puppy and I really had no clue what I was doing then. Granted I learned as I went, and Coop was a great teacher, but I still have a bit of a fear that I’ll screw it all up and make a mess of things. Which is foolish. All my dogs have been well trained and well behaved. I need to stop worrying.

And I can't remember if I mentioned in my last post but I became an aunt again for the 6th time. My newest nephew, Gabriel Xavier, was born December 17th but had to stay in the NICU for a little bit. My sister surprised everyone when he was released on Christmas Day and she showed up to Christmas dinner with three kids instead of two. Below is a pix of me and the other two, Maggie (wearing my hat) and Malcolm in front of tree, George. Yes... my sister names her Christmas Tree every year.

Saving Cats

Over the holidays I read Blake Snyder's, Saving the Cat. It was a bit of an eye opener as far as how to plot out a story. The part I liked the best was his use of the index cards. He breaks it down between three acts and each card indicates a scene. Within each scene there has to be a conflict and an emotional arc. Then the index cards get put up on a bulletin board. Ten cards for Act I; ten cards for part one of Act II which takes you to the midpoint; ten more for the second part of Act II; and then of course the final ten cards for Act III - 40 scenes in total. Granted, he is referring to screenplays in his book, but the method translates into any form of storytelling and has really helped me look at things differently.

Not only has it made me look at things differently, it also got the creative juices flowing again and the idea I originally toyed with of taking a leisurely year to just 'hone my craft' was tossed out the window and the need to really use this method and put a push on to revise previous manuscripts and write new ones quickly replaced it.

Right now I am back to revising the NaNoWriMo first draft of my young adult novel. I'm seeing holes already using this method. Not surprising given that it was a first draft and a NaNo book - which meant lots of writing through, around or over the holes.

My goals for 2010 are pretty ambitious. Revise three manuscripts, write the first draft of two more, agent hunt and get a publishing contract. I threw the last one in there as I was writing my goals realizing I had never actually put that one down before. Maybe having it there in writing will make a difference this year. Guess we'll find out.

Let the games begin.

FINISHED!!

Woo HOO!!!

50,292 words in 27 days. I am done. Stick a fork in me.

*falls forward into keyboard with a resounding 'thunk'*