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.
I’m not sure if anyone else experiences this, but for me the best time to start new projects isn’t January 1st, but the start of September. Maybe it’s a throwback to my school days, the crispness in the air, the new clothes… but every September once Labour Day passes, I feel rejuvenated and raring to go.
Which would be fine, except for one thing – I wasn’t sure what to get raring on. I have finally completed both The Outlaw Bride and Brimstone. They are in final form and sent to the editors/agents that requested them (save for one partial that is going out this week). So what do I work on now? It feels like forever since I've had the chance to start something new. But do I jump right into Book 2 of the series? Or should I take a break and see what happens with Brimstone first? I know I need to start querying agents – maybe I should do that? Or perhaps I could flesh out the new idea I came up with yesterday, or one of the other new ideas I came up with over the summer…
So many choices and all that rejuvenated energy and I’m not sure where to direct it. My brain is jumping from one to the next to the other and not landing anywhere for long enough to dig in and get busy.
I needed to sit myself down and say, “Self, time to focus'. Part of me really wants to delve into doing something brand spankin’ new. I came up with an idea during our Chapter workshop on Sunday. The more I looked at the idea, the more I realized there was the potential for a 4 book series in there. And with that came the tinglely excitement one gets when the opportunity to create a whole new world presents itself.
Another part of me wants to jump in and tell Quinn and Grace’s story (Book 2 of the Brimstone series). I came up with a great opening page and it made me hungry to get going on that and see what my creative brain has in store for these two crazy kids.
But then there is the business side of things. I need to start querying agents. It isn’t going to help further my hope to be able to write full time within the next 5 years if I don’t actually get an agent and/or sell to an editor.
So here’s what I decided to spend the next week on:
1) Research agents
2) Flesh out new series premise while the idea is still fresh
Then, once October hits, I will start my detailed outline of Saving Grace (Book 2) and sending out queries to agents.
Now that I have that all figured out – for those of you interested I will be doing a blog on my trip to Paris (which was fabulous) and posting some pixs probably in the next week or two. I’m still playing catch up at home and at work, so I and haven’t had time to download and sort my 600+ pictures as yet. But soon…soon…
I'm just hours away from flying what I hope will be the friendly skies. Looks like I'll be able to beat it the hell out of Dodge before the butt end of Tropical Storm Hanna hits landfall in my area. I have a long stretch of flying before me. First I have to fly down to Boston (1.5 hrs), then back up to Rekyjavik, Iceland (5 hrs), then from Rekyjavik to Paris (3 hrs). My ears still haven't popped since returning from San Fran, but I have remedies from the pharmacist that I hope will help.
I'll be sure and post pixs and let you all know how the trip to gay Paris went.
Meanwhile, before heading out, I finished the final clean up on The Outlaw Bride and sent it off to the editor that requested it just moments ago. So that is done. All that remains now is to send off a partial of Brimstone for another request, but that will have to wait until I come back. I need to install my new printer for that one and I am running out of time before I leave.
Once that is done, I'll be querying agents and starting the outline for Book 2 of the Brimstone series: Saving Grace.
Hope everyone is doing well and I'll be sure and check in with everyone once I return!
I had an extra long weekend with Canada Day falling on a Tuesday. Four glorious days off. Granted the weather didn’t cooperate until yesterday, but that was fine. Yesterday definitely made up for it with heat and sunshine and no fog in the harbour so we could sit on Citadel Hill, watch the sunset and then be electrified by the fireworks extravaganza. It was a great end to a fabulous weekend.
But now that the little mini-vacation is over, I need to buckle down and get back to work. I am hoping to finish writing the new scenes and typing in the majority of the revisions for Brimstone into my manuscript by Sunday. I’d like to start the final read through by next week. Then off it goes to the editor no later than July 16th (ish). Somewhere in there I have to pull together a dreaded synopsis but I’m hoping the one I already have roughed out will cut down on the time it takes to write the new one.
Another thing I did this weekend was browse Chapters. Granted, I do this almost every weekend but this time they had restocked their Writing/Publishing section with some great books (finally!) and I picked up Revisions & Self-Editing by James Scott Bell. Its part of the Write Great Fiction series. This book is great. I’m only ⅓ of the way through it but I really wish I’d had it before I started my revisions. If I wasn’t in such a time crunch to get Brimstone out to the editor I’d be tempted to go through it one more time with the tips learned in this book.
On the plus side, while the book is focused on Revisions and Self-Editing, the tips in it will help me make a much stronger first draft of Saving Grace, Book 2 in the Brimstone series, not to mention make cleaning up Outlaw Bride that much easier. And hopefully quicker. Oh dear God, please make it quicker…
So for my fellow compatriots – what did your Canada Day weekend involve? And for those of you below the border – any big plans for the July 4th holiday?
So I've let myself off the hook with my deadline. Or rather my deadline (yet another one) approached at the speed of light and I realized I wasn't going to make it. Finally I threw my hands up in surrender (albeit with much cursing and swearing) and decided, screw it. I'm just going to hack away at this thing (thing being my manuscript and I believe the actual terminology used was 'piece of crap') until I was finished.
I've reached the point now where I'm sick of it. Actually I think I reached that point last month. But there's little choice but to finish with an editor request hanging in the balance. I don't actually hate the book. I love the book. I love the characters. I love the whole damn series to be honest. I'm just sick of writing this book over and over again until I get all the elements in place so the rest of the series, and this book in particular, flow they way the need to.
Whose idea was it to throw a mystery thread in there anyway? Sigh...
Anyway, I have 50 pages left to edit, then I need to sit down and read through it, make a final clean up and then off it goes. There will be no more edits after that. And when I sit down to write Saving Grace, I will have gone through such a detailed outlining process, that it will not take anywhere near as long as Brimstone. I will have figured out all the little ins and outs of the story and the mystery and the GMCs before I try to write it. Granted, there will always be surprises, but hopefully none as story-altering as what I ended up with in Brimstone.
Meanwhile, back at the weight loss ranch, I've decided to add in 3 days of strength training to my workout routine to build up some muscle tone for the summer in the hopes it will prevent me running in horror when I stand in front of the mirror in shorts. I picked up Kathy Smith's Matrix Workout at Chapters and did that yesterday. Now, I'm in pretty good shape, but damn if this thing didn't kick my ass. Literally. It's very sore today. If this workout doesn't build up muscle tone, then I probably don't have any, that's all I can say.
By the way, can anyone tell me the law on firing a rocket launcher across the street into your neighbor's driveway to take out the stupid motorcycle they insist on idling for nearly 15 minutes every freakin' morning? I'm pretty sure that would qualify as justifiable homicide, right (yes, he's sitting on the motorcyle while it idles, and no, I have no reticence about taking him out with it)? And, uh, should one be requiring a rocket launcher, where exactly would one get such an item...ebay?
First up, out on book shelves today and garnering great reviews is Heart of My Heart, a SuperRomance written by my chapter-mate, Stella MacLean. This is Stella's first book to hit the shelves (though not her last!) and definitely worth checking out. Pick up your copy soon, I have a feeling they'll sell fast!
Now, back to the weather: This has been the longest winter in memory. Usually, we don't get too much snow here on the coast until after the Christmas holidays, but this year it started in November and I swear it has been nothing else since. Right up to and including the weekend when we got a little mini snow storm on Friday night. Granted the snow was gone by the next day, but still! It's April for crying out loud!! Sigh...what I wouldn't give for a tropical climate right now.
But thankfully, the sun has been out for two days in a row, the snow is off the ground (I actually whispered that part because I don't want to tempt fate), and I'm sure any day now, Spring will actually start. Any day...
As for revisions: I have finally managed to get Brimstone to under 400 pages. I am closing in, hacking away at the last 100 pages and making steady progress. Although this next chapter needs a complete overhaul where I pull things from chapters up ahead and drag them back. Which will likely mean a nice little bit of reconstruction of later chapters. Oiy. Like the snow, it seems the revisions never end. I am sooooo looking forward to working on something new.
Granted, my something new will actually be something old while I whittle Outlaw Bride down and tighten it up so I can start sending it out again as well. That will give me two completed manuscripts going out into the big bad world this year. Once that's done, it's onto Saving Grace where we get to see what madness Quinn has involved himself in and whether or not he's sobered up since his appearance in Brimstone.
Meanwhile, on other artistic fronts - I went to see the movie Run, Fat Boy, Run starring Sean Pegg. It was by far one of the funniest movies I have seen in a long time. And not stupid funny, either. It was the characters. All of them, from the smallest secondary character to the lead roles were fantastic. I had a special fondness for the hero's best friend, Gordon, played by Dylan Moran. Hilarious. So if you're looking for a good, funny movie, check it out.
Well, it’s official. I did not final in the Historical category of the Golden Heart. I know…I know…it’s a travesty. An injustice. A horrid example of man’s inhumanity to man…oh, no wait…that’s something else. This was actually just a blip on the radar.
When I arrived home with no call waiting to breathlessly tell me I was awesome and had made the finals, I figured one wasn’t coming. I glared at the phone for a few seconds—okay, maybe more like 30—then I went and changed into my workout gear and went for a run. No sense watching a phone that didn’t seem inclined to ring.
While I’m running, I get to thinking, why am I not more disappointed? I remember being way more upset when Outlaw Bride didn’t final in 2005. Maybe because that was my first shot at the GH and I had high hopes. I mulled that over but realized no, that wasn’t it. Brimstone was a superior manuscript to Outlaw Bride. With two more years under my belt my writing had improved immensely. I should have had higher hopes for Brimstone. And in truth, I did. I expected to final (Ah, ego…). So then, why wasn’t I more crushed when the call didn’t come?
As my feet beat the pavement and the frigid temperatures bit into my skin I had an epiphany. While making the finals would have been great, my intent was to use it as a marketing tool, an extra foot in the door to snag the attention of an editor and/or agent. But I already have the attention of an editor. And if I got the attention of one editor, could I not also get the attention of another editor or agent based on the merits of the book without the “GH Finalist” tagged onto the query letter? ‘Sure, why not,’ I shrugged. (Which made me trip a little, but what can you do?).
I’m glad I entered the contest. It meant I took a shot and that’s always a good thing. I’m not a big believer of living your life like an armchair quarterback. But not making the finalists doesn’t impact my goals for the year. I still have every intention of beating down the doors of agents and editors in an effort to sell this series. I still plan on revising Outlaw Bride once Brimstone is out the door. And Book Two of the series, Saving Grace, will be at least first drafted by the end of the year. And if I can swing it, I will once again do NaNoWriMo in November with a romantic suspense that has been picking away at my story brain.
Not being a GH finalist has not changed any of that. And it hasn’t changed the belief that someday soon I will get a call of my own saying, ‘Hell yes, we’d love to publish your book.’
If nothing else, not making it to the finals drove that reminder home.
And another plus: Big congratulations to my buddy (and San Fran roomie!) Julianne MacLean who was nominated for a RITA in the Historical category. Way to go Julianne!!
I feel like I've been gone forever. My holiday hiatus extended to the end of last week. My brain just wasn't in the game. Too many other distractions. But I'm buckling down and getting back to it starting today. Granted, I didn't make a whole lot of headway, but I did figure out a scene and managed to cut about 4 pages I no longer needed. I'll call that good progress for my first day back. My goal is to have Brimstone revised, cleaned up and out the door by mid-February.
Once that is done, it will be agent queries for me. Two weeks straight of targeting my list of preferred agents and sending Brimstone off for their perusal. Then, while I wait for responses, I am going to start storyboarding The Outlaw Bride. I have discovered pacing is a bit of a weak point for me. I like to take a little too long to get from Point A to Point B, hence my always bloated word count. But, by storyboarding my scenes I think I can get a better view of what needs to be tightened and where I can do some page cutting. I hate the idea that I spent all that time writing TOB and then left it sitting on a shelf. It's a good story, I love the characters and I think they deserve their shot at the prize. So once I get TOB storyboarded and revised I'll start sending that out as well.
Then it's on to my favorite drunken earl, Quinn, and Book 2 in the Brimstone series. I'm really excited to start writing this one, but I like the idea of taking the break between Book 1 and 2 with The Outlaw Bride. It will allow me to clear my head and start fresh with Quinn and Grace. My goal is to have their book completed by October. That should bring me up to NaNo time and I have a romantic suspense I think I will try for Nano next November. Then I'll spend December either outlining Book 3 or possibly fixing up Salvation Falls and leaving Book 3 for January 2009.
And while I'm busy listing goals for 2008, I might as well list the other things I want to accomplish this year. So here are some of the personal goals I came up with:
Learn basic Italian so when I go to Italy in September 2009 I can at least make a stab at understanding/speaking the language.
Learn to play 3 chords on the guitar with some sense of aptitude. This is a left over from 2007 that I didn't get to.
Reach my goal weight and maintain it. I want to do this by February. I'm close, just not there yet.
Save up for the conference in San Francisco.
Save up for the trip to Italy and figure out rough itinerary of where I want to spend my two weeks.
Get a new pup in the second half of the year.
Looks like another busy year. Has anyone else figured out what their plans/goals for 2008 are, or am I the only anal retentive list maker out there??
Two days to go until my vacation begins. I had originally booked this week off because this Friday I was going to pick up the beagle I planned to purchase. A fact which feels somewhat surreal to me now. But I still had vacation time to use up so even after deciding against the purchase of the beagle I kept the vacation booked. With our Thanksgiving long weekend happening on the following weekend, it allowed me an extra day tagged on to the end. And I feel the need for a nice loooooong break.
So what am I doing with the ten days off work you may ask? Sitting in front of my computer and wrestling what remains of my revisions to the ground. Or at least to the page. I am halfway there as of today, but I still have quite a few new scenes and revised scenes to go. There is barely a scene in the book that hasn’t been affected by the revisions, so I’ve really had my work cut out for me. Worst of all, I have no idea how these revisions are reading. I’m determined to finish everything first, then go back and do a read through so I can get the full impact.
The question is – can I do it all in just 10 days? I did up a schedule last weekend but I’m already behind. The new scenes took longer to write, four scenes have been combined into two and that took a fair bit of finagling to get right. I’m happy with how things are turning out, but frustrated that it is taking so long. One of my goals this year was to get more writing done, to manage two books per year. That hasn’t happened, and given that we are only days away from the last quarter of the year, I’m guessing it isn’t going to happen. Which adds to the frustration.
On the plus side, I have figured out what my problem is. Well, one of them at least. I have several problems but the rest will have to left to the professionals. As for my writing, the reason I have thus far only been able to pump out one book is that I get through the second draft thinking it is going to be my last and realize my plot is falling apart or has holes in it, my character arcs are all over the place and sundry other little things that add up to major revisions. Had I figured all this out in the plotting, or at least the majority of it, I could probably produce a much cleaner first draft and a much faster second final draft.
So that is my goal with Saving Grace, book two in the series. I have the plot roughed out into about a ten page document. But this time, I am going to plot with the story and character arcs in mind. I am going to pick apart each scene to ensure it does what it should and fits where it’s at. I will ensure the intensity of the emotion grows and builds in a natural manner and that everything feeds into the black moment the way it should. I will nail down my characters’ GMC before I write the first page.
The storyboarding course I took will definitely help in this regard. Having the board in front of me really gives a visual of the story. But I also devised a table in Word that maps out: (a) what happens in the scene; (b) what it reveals about the hero and/or heroine; (c) how it changes the story; (d) things I may want to consider changing.
This has helped immensely with my revisions for Brimstone and I keep thinking it would have been really beneficial if I had taken the time to do this before writing, or even after the initial draft since often things come out in the actual writing that you didn’t realize in the plotting stages.
But I guess this is all part of the writing process, finding the ways that work for you, improving the way you do things. I hope I don’t stop learning, but I also hope I learn a little faster so I can reach my goals and get this career off the ground!
I have one workday left until my vacation and I cannot tell you how hard I am chomping at the bit to get going. Saturday morning I am beating it the hell out of Dodge, a suitcase full of books, my alphie, a notebook and stash of pens. And then I’m off to the wilds of Pictou County to spend five glorious days holed up at my family’s camp with nothing to do but read and write.
I can’t tell you how badly I need this break. My brain feels fried, my emotions halfway frayed and my motor running on fumes. I just want to get away. I think there’s a song in that...wait...why is Love Shack by the B-52s going through my head now? Great.
Anyway, the plan was to have Brimstone completed before I left. I have the scene caps completed in some detail but I still have about 14 scenes left to write. And I need to do it in 50 pages. Yeah. Can you say ‘going over page count once again’ boys and girls? I can. But I’ll worry about cutting back in the read through. Either way, chances of me whipping off those 14 scenes in my 2 hours tomorrow morning is probably not going to happen. But I’ll work on it while I’m at the camp in between reading and plotting out Saving Grace.
Wednesday I come home and meet with my CP and then the rest of the week I’ll kick back and putter about the house, probably doing more reading and writing than actual puttering, although those two back bedrooms are in dire need of being cleaned out.
I’m still trying to get used to Coop not being in the house. Not actually being very successful at it. I guess 12 ½ years of habit is hard to break. I’ve been looking at breeders for golden retrievers and have found a few I feel comfortable with, but most of them having litters now and I can’t really afford to take on a new pup until later in the year after I get some bills paid off and some money stashed away. If I wasn’t in the mood to be fiscally responsible I’d be sitting on their doorstep now demanding one of their furry bundles. After nearly 30 years of always having a dog I’ve discovered I’m not very good without one. I feel aimless and pointless, like I used to have a purpose and structure and now it’s just all gone. And I think we all know how badly I do when I don’t have structure. It ain’t pretty.
But I’ve promised myself to wait until the end of the year and so that is what I will have to do. Unless of course I find a really good deal, or some gut feeling tells me this is the right puppy and you have to buy it now, the way it did with Coop. But unless I get that, I'm waiting.
I hate waiting. Not a good waiter...not a good waiter at all...Oh - and if I miss any of you conference goers before you leave: Have a great time in Dallas!!
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).
