long time, no ramble

Hello all, I'm back and going to be trying to update this blog more frequently. For anyone who was wondering, yes, I've got my agent. Matt Bialer at SJGA. His wonderful assistant Lindsay scooped me out of the slush pile, which just goes to show it's all true: you don't need to know anyone to get an agent, you just need a book that can get their attention.

My book (which duh, I've never actually named on this blog), The Spirit Thief, is an adventure fantasy about a wizard thief who can sweet talk anything, the wizard cop on his trail, and the kingdom teetering on the edge of destruction because he can't keep his hands to himself. Right now it's sitting in an ever growing number of editor inboxes, and I'm trying to write a new book (trying is the operative word in that sentence).

I was moping over my foibles with book 3 when my husband quoted me something interesting off his blog-reader, "Story is the study of relationships over time." This goes along with the realization Sarah Monette gave me years ago, that story is different from plot.

I've always been an exceedingly plot driven writer. Plot and world always come first, then characters. How interesting, then, that the novel that actually won my agent started with the characters, or, more specifically, one character, Eli.

Eli is the main character of the Spirit Thief. There are many other characters in the book, some of whom I love so dearly, but it was always Eli's show (I only actually made up the title during the second draft, before that it was just "the Eli Novel.")

I don't have an Eli for my next novel, and it shows. In the Spirit Thief, I barely scratched the surface of real story telling, where the characters stop being plot devices and stand up to speak for themselves. If I'm going to make this happen again, I have to start with characters, because the characters are the story, not the world, not the plot. Plot without story is a hollow shell, and story is characters reacting with themselves and each other.

This is my discovery. Like so many other truths of writing, millions of writers have discovered it before me, but that means nothing. True understanding could only be gained by discovering it for myself.

Maybe now I can really start writing.

Can't say too much yet, BUT...

Today I got the call. THE CALL.

I am now agented, and I could NOT be happier!

Hard work, it pays off!

:D

-Rachel

Only I could turn good news into writer's block :P

So I've got a very good thing going for Novel 2, yay!! However, the prospect of maybe MAYBE actually getting an agent and selling the book is deep sixing my work on my current project. Because who knows? Maybe I'll have to drop it and work on edits/the sequel for book 2?!?!

Hahahaha.... right.

But the nagging thought it making it very hard to focus on the 2 novels I'm writing right now (yes, 2, because I suck and can't focus on one for whatever reason). Writing two novels has had unexpected benefits, however. Even on my worst writing days (like today) I can still find at least 200 words I want to say for one of them, and 200 words are better than no words at all.

Gotta get my pigs in a pile and keep going. I'm bogging down!

Things that drag me away

Novel 2 Update: No word on fulls, siiigh.

Gentle reader, please forgive this self-absorbed, rambling entry.

I've always had jobs that didn't require much from me, stuff where I could chill at work, not think too much, and then come home early or on time and get to writing. That's worked pretty well for the first 4 years out of college, but now I've gotten this new job, a kickass job in an area I really like, but hey, what's all this work I have to do? Now, for the first time, I have to work late to get things done. Real life has been steadily encroaching on writing time for years now (and it's so sad, by the time I get old enough to handle my free time in a disciplined fashion, all my copious free time vanishes!), but with this new job, it's become an all out trench war to protect my few precious hours in the morning when I actually get things done.

It doesn't help that I've been jumping between projects again. Or that I'm actually interested in the work I do, which makes me think about it when I'm NOT at work, hence not supposed to be thinking about it. Even worse, I have to type all day at work, and that's giving me wrist cramps, which hurt the most in the morning when I actually WANT to type! Curse you, traitorous wrists!

I'm really hoping this is just the entry blitz, and that once I get through the massive backlog and learn the enormous mountain of shit I don't know, things will settle down and time will clear up again.

But, in the mean time, argh.

DONE HAHAHAHA

Done with the rewrite for Novel 2! I'm still not 100% happy, but I'm happy enough to print this sucker and give to my readers for one last go over. Then I'll fix any problems they point out, give it one last (VERY QUICK) look, and send it out.

It's a lot better now. Honestly, even if it never sells, I'm so proud of this book. So proud of all the work I've done. Moments like this make it all worth it!

typity-typity-typity-TYPITY-TYPITY-typity-typity

Despite the lack of updates, the rewrite is going. Very slowly, very badly, but going. The edits have forced me to face some of the major shortfalls of the book, and MAN, was I hoping no one would notice those.

Note to future rewriters: Don't dodge the hard stuff because you think you can cover it with a glossy sheen. If people do like your book, they will make you fix it. You can't shove it in your closet and hope Mom doesn't notice.

Ugh, back to the grind.

Requested rewrites

First, good news! An agent with a full liked it! YAY!

Semi-bad news: She's the agent's assistant, the agent in question hasn't actually seen it, and she wants a full rewrite.

She was nice nice nice as could be, and she really seems to get my novel. Also, she read all the way to the end, which makes me happy beyond belief. Her suggestions are all very good and would certainly make the book better, really fantastic even, but I'm still struggling, and here's why.

I love novel 2. Love love love. This is not why I'm skittish about a rewrite, rather, I'm afraid that, after almost a year spent on this novel, I'll never move on. I'm afraid to put more time into something that may never sell. I'm afraid I'll lose my current novels in the malaise of constant rewrites.

But, then again, part of being a writer is writing every word with the absolute knowledge that it may well never sell, that no one but you may ever see it. You can think something is amazing and wonderful and have no one share that opinion, it's all part and parcel of playing the letters game. But that's ok. That's how it has to be. I'm happy I got this far.

That said, I'm going to do the rewrite. I'm going to throw myself back into novel 2 like it's brand new, and I'm going to rip it apart to make it stronger. I love that book so much, it deserves nothing but the best I can give.

So, heads up, here we go.

talking to people who don't exsist, it's not just for crazies anymore!

Obligatory Query Update:
Getting many nibbles on Novel 2 - no bites yet, but still some exciting things! Gotta keep on keeping on! I swear I shall join you in agent land, Cyn, in this life or the next!

As you see, Novel 3’s word counter has been steadily counting up. Writing’s been going well, but I'm treading a bit more carefully as I get into uncharted waters. Not plot-wise, mind, I've got that covered up until the very end, but person-wise. Every writer gets a freebie at the beginning, mine was the ability to pull an awesome cast out of thin air (main characters, on the other hand, are a bit more trouble). Still, traditionally my characters come to me complete. They know who they are and what they want and my only job is to built the course they're chomping at the bit to run.

This time, however, things are different. See, the problem with these fully made people is that it's very hard to get them to change. They just sort of are who they are through the whole story, with no real development. I've always felt this was my weakest link as a writer. I write strong characters, but not fluid ones. They're pretty much the same people at the end of the book as they are at the beginning, and while those people were and are awesome, I always feel like I'm cheating myself out of a depth of story I know I can reach.

That’s why, when I chose my story for Novel 3, I made character change an integral part of the plot. I’m not talking about how the plot can’t move forward without the character’s action, every book worth the name has that. What I mean is that the events slated to happen at the end CAN NOT occur if the two main characters have not changed from their starting personalities. Or, rather, I’ve set it up so that what's going to happen will happen whether the cast is ready or not, so it's up to the characters to change enough to survive the ending. Overly dramatic? Probably, but by doing things this way I'm holding a gun to their little fictional heads (and, thusly, to my own swollen one):

“Change or get chunked,” I whisper as I flip the safety, “the choice is yours.”

I just hope I know how to fire the damn thing.

Wha?

Haha, this is actually one of my favorite things. So being all caught up in novel 3, I kind of forgot I'd sent some more queries off a few weeks back. Well, today I check my email like usual and boom, two partial requests from agents I'd actually forgotten about querying...

This was just what I needed today. Thank you, fate-type god-people!

back in the saddle again!

Finally found my third novel after all the false starts and it's going to be awesome.

Everyone's favorite fun time, new novel math!

Goal: 5000 words/week (what I know I can get even when things are bad), 100k total.
Timeline: 100,000/5000 = first draft done in 20 weeks, or the beginning of August (I'm cheating here a little, I actually already have 10k from a previous false start on this novel, but since I'll probably have to rewrite it anyway, I'm going to act like I'm starting from scratch.)

There's a lot going on plotwise in this novel, a lot of information to be packed into a relatively small amount of space. Looking at my notes, I could easily ramble on for 200k. However, 200k is unacceptable, so I'm going to do my best while writing to think "how is this important to the story? Could I do this better elsewhere?" Experience has shown that I am a piss poor editor, so doing more of this thinking during the writing phase of things might just make things easier. ANYTHING to avoid chopping a 200k novel down to 100k. That's just cruel and awful.

My end goal is to really take my time with this one, to get it written, then let it sit and cook while I do other things. Then, when I've forgotten how much I hate it (I hate every book I write for weeks after I finish it, and as soon as I type "The End" my fingers get physically itchy with the urge to go and fix all my mistakes right away. It's like I'm worried they'll become permanent if I let them sit, kind of like wine stains.) Well, not this time! This time I will restrain myself for AT LEAST a month.

I'm not even going to write out a time line for my edit. It'll just get done when it gets done.

Ah, it feels good to be back in the game. Watch the wordmeter, here we go again!