throwing the baby out with the bathwater

Sorry for the long silence, no new information has surfaced, and a writing blog is kind of dull during the actual writing part of things.

If you really want to know what you missed, here's the abridged version:

1) Worked on Novel 3 for about five minutes.
2) Checked email for news of Novel 2’s queries.

Just highlight those two lines and hit ctrl+v, then open a new word document and hit ctrl+c until you get carpel tunnel. There you go! Minute by minute updates!

So, no new news. Work on the next novel goes slowly, mostly because this novel takes RESEARCH. I've never done a novel that needs research, so this is a new experience (yay for libraries and wikipedia!). But as I write, I keep running into walls, and this is where the title of this post comes in.

Writing Novel 1 was this crazy rollercoaster time where I was sure that all I had to do was tell a cool story and people would read it. After I finished my first edit, I read every how-to-get-an-agent blog/post/FAQ on the internet. Then, when I had my chapters ready and my query letter in top shape, I gleefully stuck everything in the mail with the absolute certainty that there was NO WAY IN HELL anyone could reject my wonderful, wonderful novel.

Apparently hell has many ways I was unaware of, because the rejections rolled in at a brisk clip. I had quite a few partial requests and one full, but that was mostly because I had a really killer query. Once people got the actual book, they were less enthusiastic. Looking back when the dust had settled, I could see the novel’s problems (it was way too long, too slow, and the beginning was terrible). I tried to fix them for a while, but by this point I'd been working on this novel in one form or another for a year and a half. I was bored with the story, and, anyway, I had tons of new ideas! After a few false starts (actually, right in the middle of one particularly long false start that had cleverly disguised itself as an amazing idea), I hit upon the core of the story that grew into Novel 2.

That's when I started this blog. Novel 2 was going to be completely different than Novel 1. It was going to be quick! Exciting! And, most of all, I was going to get it done fast. No pussy footing around. Only serious footing, like jackrabbit feet, would be allowed. I stuck to my guns and cranked out Novel 2 in just under 6 months, and it was not only eons ahead of Novel 1, it was the best thing I'd ever written. It was funny! Exciting! I’d let other people read it before sending it out.

This time, I KNEW, there was NO WAY IN HELL it could be rejected…

Damn hell and its endless invention of ways! But, despite the rejections, I've gotten farther with this story than I ever got with Novel 1, and I still don't know how it will end up. But the specter of rejection looms over me while I work on Novel 3, and it's leading to some perhaps unwise second guessing.

See, when I wrote my other books, it was all about the story. Sure I was thinking about how I'd sell it (I'm a goal driven person. I can't write just to write, I have to have an audience in mind), but that took back seat to the writing. Novel 3 is different. This time I can't get the publisher in my brain to shut up and sit down long enough for me to write two sentences together. After every paragraph I write, I find myself pausing. Is this idea good enough to sell? Why am I bothering? Has someone already done this? Did they do it better? Why did you write that? You're fucking it up, aren't you? REAL writers don't write like that. God, they'll never buy that. Then I look over at the publisher in my mind, and she flicks her cigarette and tells me to do it again, but try to suck less this time.

Sometimes I tell her to go soak her head, but other times, too many times, I toss out the paragraph and try again. Every time I give in, I get the creeping spider feeling that, when I let my hopes for publication make decisions about my writing, I'm losing the real story.

It's times like this when I feel like those months at the beginning when I didn't know what I was doing were the only months where I actually had it right.

the good news and the bad news

First, good news! I've got 3 partials out, and today the agent who requested the first of those three emailed back and said she wanted to see more!

(Intermission for Snoopy dancing!)

But (and you knew there was a but, right?) before I send her more, she wants some changes. She said she really liked a lot of stuff, but had some plot issues. Everything she brought up was well reasoned and appropriate. I have no doubts the changes will improve the novel, and I can't express how awesome it was to have someone who is a big agent in Fantasy talking to me about MY novel with the words "there's a lot I like"... I mean, that's going on my wall, right there! But, I'm so nervous about the changes. She was pretty specific about what she wanted, and I think I know how I could do it, but what if I fuck it up? What if I do all this work and she's like "on second thought, no thanks."

Of course, that could happen, but if I don't make the changes, she won't request it at all. She obviously sees something there, or she wouldn't be putting time into asking for changes. Time seems to be an agent's most valuable resource, and if she's willing to invest it in my book, then the least I can do is go at her changes whole heartedly.

Mostly, I'm afraid that I'm going to shoot myself in the foot. I've wanted this for so long, my confidence in my own abilities is shaken, and that won't do at all. After all, it's my story! If anyone can fix it, I can.

All this author nonsense is turning me into an obsessive twitch-case. Believe it or not, I'm NORMALLY very laid back.

who knew I had it in me?

And while the queries for Novel 2 languish under piles of their brethren in lit agent inboxes, I start a new story.

It's something I haven't done before, a love story. Novel 1 had a side romance, but it got lost in THE END OF THE WORLD, which was slightly more pressing at the time. Novel 2 had no romance at all - not even so much as a weighted moment or longing glance. I've tried to write love stories before, but they always putter out. I thought it was because I'm not a romantic at heart, and I don't find love stories to be interesting in and of themselves. But then I look at my obsessive shipping of certain couples, and I realize that's bollocks. I just hadn't found the right story yet.

Around Christmas, the right story found me. Wonked me upside the head and broke open like a plot piñata, more accurately. All the candy scenes landed in more or less the right order, and I knew, I KNEW I had to write this. I knew it would take a lot longer than anything I'd done before, and I knew it would be a total bitch to write, yet I'm certain, if I can find that timbre I'm looking for, this will be the best thing I've ever done.

A week later and I'm 7000 words in, 5000 of which were written last weekend in a fit of joy I've never experienced in my writing before. I know it won't last. This novel, like every novel, will hit a rock, or a whole mountain range, and there will be issues, days when I loathe it, but, for this moment, I adore every the story with a passion I didn't think I had in me, and it's such a wonderful, strange, beautiful feeling.

At a time in my life when I spend 23 of my 24 hours obsessing over publication, a moment of writing just for the sheer joy of it is worth more than words could say. This is why I write. Sometimes it takes a sound thrashing to get me to remember of that.

I hate synopsisesessses

I also hate the word "synopsis," moving on.

By the end of December, I finally got a query I was pretty happy with, but, after days of trying, no synopsis worth a damn. So I queried agents that didn't require a synopsis (a temporary solution), and, lo and behold, I get 2 partial requests (YAY!), both of which wanted a synopsis (BOO!). So I sat down and wrote one in a night, and it's horrible as I knew it would be, but it works. I wrote a much funnier, wittier one, but it was seven pages long. My rule of thumb is that you can go on for as long as you're entertaining, but that no one is as entertaining as they think they are, so keep it short. Seven pages, while entertaining (to me, at least), was not short. So I chopped it and made a 3 page version, which is terrible, but might just get the job done.

This let me query a whole glut of new agents. Right now I've sent queries to about 1/2 the people on my agent list. If they all say no, I guess I'll just go find some publishers who take unagented submissions. This feels like horrible failure to me, but I really love this book. I love the characters so much, I couldn't stand sticking them in the drawer. So I'll keep trying, for their sake if not mine.

But we've only had 3 rejections to date, so there's still plenty more to go!

Right on schedule!

Queries are out!

UPDATE - 1/8
One more rejection, one more query out!

Queries sent: 14
Rejections: 4
Partials: 2

Moving along with Novel 3. Stop hovering, Rachel, and write your damn book.

I must never allow myself to become despondent

I must never allow myself to despair. I must never allow myself to quit. I must keep going, even when it seems not worth the effort. I must never give up.

Remember this feeling, the hand rising to wipe the dirt off your chin, sore muscles sliding under skin as you pick yourself up. This is the distilled essence of being human. Never shy away, never stay down. Never let it go.

Done with the second edit

I got Aaron's, Matt's, Andrea's, Krystina's, and Trav's back. You guys did an AWESOME job and I could not have done it without you. So thank you, if you're reading.

So we had the initial writing, which was about 55k, the edit, which clocked in at 70k, and this second edit, which hits at 75k. It could probably benefit from one more go through, but I worry I wouldn't survive, so I'm closing the book on this and moving on.

Now, all that's left is write a GOOD query letter (anything but that schlock I have now) and a good synopsis, and I'm ready to query. Finally.

Revision notes - Day 2

Or whatever. Re-did the Nico fight, think it's much better.

Next up, cutting Renaud's enslavement bit and moving straight to him with the water. Be sure anything important gets moved somewhere else. Over all much better flow. It will need one more read-through before send off, but you can do that at the end of the real third revision.

Onward!

Revision notes - Day 1

Well, actually day 2.5. I've written out my descriptions and started in on the ending. So far, I've fixed the scene where Karon knocks down the doors, smoothed out the Josef fight. This morning, I completely redid Renaud's speech explaining what the pillar was, and I think it's much better, much less info-dumpy. I also took out the blood magic thing, I can save that for another book or add it in a lesser capacity for this one later. I also had Renaud go into the pillar, which solves the whole "where is Renaud during all of this?" question AND is super creepy. This changes a lot of stuff down the road, but I think it'll all work out for the better. This climax has to flow properly, or there's no fun at all.

Next up: Battle of lava and sewage, then Nico. Don't forget to keep an eye on the ACTUAL text edits now that you're not writing new stuff.

My read through is done!

And MAN, do I have a lot to do:

1. Go setting by setting and character and write out general descriptions to use in the edit. That way, all my descriptions will be uniform. This is especially important for interior settings.
2. Edit the ending and make all noted changes. This is the most broken part, so do it first.
3. Start at the beginning and start making the edits. Do a chapter a day, each in its own document before adding it to the final file. Don't skimp on this, and don't forget to edit the ending again (this should be done mid December, DO NOT rush on this, you need the best book you can write).
4. Give fresh edit to Matt and Trav to go over.
5. Start querying!