GWENDA BOND

Ten Reasons To Keep Your Eyes On Your Own Paper (or, Go Team Writers)

This post wasn't brought on by anything in particular, but I'm about to leave on vacation (Portugal!) and it's something that's been rattling around in my head for a while and also I didn't want to leave the heat death of an imprint post* at the top of the blog in the event I don't post anything from the road.

1. It's hard, I know it's hard, no matter what stage of the writing game you're at, not to feel like everyone is getting more money or attention or acclaim or invites to fancy events than you are. To not feel that you're stuck in neutral or first or something like that (I can't drive a stick). Writers three books in side-eye announcements about projects that sold for a bazillion dollars and sound terrible to them or maybe writers who haven't sold yet feel a sting of ire when someone further along tweets about how hard they're finding it to write that day or maybe a bestselling author longs for the ability to write something just because they want to, with no outside pressure again. Here's the key thing to remember. The main questions worrying most writers, by career stage:

• Beginning writer, not yet agented/sold/published: Is this any good? Will anyone buy this? Am I terrible hack with no future?
• Most published writers: Is this any good? Will anyone buy this? Am I terrible hack with no future?
• Writer who has a legion of fans and great success: Is this any good? Will anyone buy this? Am I terrible hack with no future?

The who is at the end of 'will anyone buy this?' might change depending -- a publisher or readers, or both, ultimately it's always about the readers -- upon certain variables and some (lucky) people may have a touch less imposter syndrome, but the core concerns are more or less the same. No one ever really feels comfortable or assured of their place and always always confident in their work and whether it will succeed in the market. The more failure, the more pressure. The more success, the more pressure.

2. The only answer to all these questions is to keep writing and see. Keep trying to get better. Keep your eyes on your own paper. All writing careers are icebergs--there's more happening than what you see above the surface--but I can guarantee you that any news that would make you envious or sad or disappointed is probably the result of the person doing one key thing: Writing. It's much easier to focus on what you're putting on the page when you're not letting yourself be distracted by things that do not matter to your career and have no direct relation to it. And you will also have to learn to focus when you're being distracted by things that do matter to your career and directly relate to it. Learning to focus and work no matter what our circumstances (unless you're trapped in a cage with a tiger or similar, obvs) stands us all well.

3. All of this is also why it's important to remember that writers are not competing against each other in some sort of book sales Hunger Games, especially not in districts of self-published/indie authors vs. traditionally published authors, with hybrids as jabberjays or something. We're just not. If there are sides, writers are on the same one. But I don't think that there are sides. Last I checked, we aren't in a war (in my opinion, though some heated rhetoric wants it that way). I think there are just a whole lot of people trying to tell the stories they have to tell and find an audience, and as a backdrop to that you have a business that is in flux. I was at a festival several months ago, and a reader stopped by to chat and buy a book -- she held up her tote bag and told me and my neighbor author that she was an author too, but "not really, just self-pubbed." She then went on to tell us that she was feeling very low because one of her all-time heroes who was at the festival and who she'd come to see had said really negative things about self-publishers during a panel, and how no one who was serious would ever do it. And, friends, that is just wrong. I make to you a solemn vow -- the same I made to this author after telling her that her idol came up during different times in the business and that she should never give anyone the power to make her feel like less than an author -- and that is that I will never disparage another writer because of how they are publishing. I know this sometimes goes the other way too, and that's also wrong. There are plenty of reasons to trad pub, plenty of reasons to go indie and plenty of reasons to do both. Telling people they made bad career choices because you firmly believe you made the right ones is not the way to go about things because...

4. Your experience is your experience. Generalizing from it is dangerous, and so is not understanding what it is that makes you and your work and the place where you stand on the road -- beginning, midlist, bestseller list, or end and how you got there -- uniquely yours. All advice, all decisions, should take this into account. This is why there is no blanket "this way is better" or "that way is better"; it's going to vary based on the writer, based on the project, based on all sorts of other things. Every writing career is a fingerprint, the author's mark on the world. And they are all, by necessity, different.

5. None of this is meant to advocate not being part of the community or conversation or being inspired by other people. I suppose if I had to boil it down, what I'm saying is: Boost each other, celebrate each other's successes because this is a tough business and we need that. Celebrate. Cheer people on. Mean it, instead of being mean. It makes for a lot more fun than being Merriam-Webster's definition 3 of petty: "marked by or reflective of narrow interests and sympathies." Be broad and enthusiastic. Be a supporter, not a detractor. For things you believe in supporting. Don't be afraid to speak up with things you disagree with, but it still may wear you down. I know it sometimes does me. But giving a boost to someone else always raises my spirits. Seeing good things happen to other people is, well, a good thing in and of itself. A reminder that yes, this is hard, but there are good things about it too. Really good ones.

6. You're a writer, not anyone's battle troop or talking point or shrub to groom. The only person you're in a business relationship with who is always and forever looking out for you is your agent. (Assuming you have one. And, if so, I sure hope they are.) Don't jump to conclusions, positive or negative, without all the facts. Beware experts or, worse, visionaries and gurus. Put what they say in a heap and mix it together and what's left in the middle is probably closer to the truth of any given situation you find yourself in, or article about The Industry or trends, or startling developments, et cetera, than the outliers would like you to believe. Never forget the first rule of the internet: Drama means clicks. Well, the second rule. The first rule is: Cute animals will one day rule us and we will not care because OMG SO CUTE. (Also, publishing people tend to be slightly panicked and doomsaying. It's just our way. And it has to be adjusted for. I call it the standard "the sky is not actually falling" adjustment. YMMV.)

KNEEL BEFORE SEAL PUP (from zooborns)

7. Again, to be clear, this does not mean to tune out all industry news or not learn from your peers and observe and discuss their experiences and careers. This is how we stay sane. It just means, put it in a context that isn't comparative. That isn't diminishing. That doesn't require obsessing over. Knowing about the business is good, as long as it helps you see more clearly. Or understand the bigger picture (please explain it to the rest of us, if you do). If you can't follow it without obsessing about how X doesn't deserve Y, or thinking there's some angle you should be working and then everything would be perfect, then you'll always be better off keeping your eyes on your own paper instead and writing the next thing in oblivious bliss.

8. If there is something you really want to happen for your career, and you feel like it just isn't, and you're having a why-oh-why case of the green envies, well, I would suggest stopping for a second and asking if you actually have been working toward that thing. An example: it doesn't make sense to obsess about not ever winning or almost winning a certain award, if the books you write are not the kind of books that ever do. (Also: never do anything just to win an award. Or hit a list or etc. It will almost always be a waste of your time. Writing books is too hard.) But if you find what you want to do is write that kind of book, the kind of book that would get you that dream, then you can adjust what you're doing. Always ask: Is what I think I want what I really want? Is it something in the realm of possibility? Then what can I do to get closer to that? This is hard, because I think most of us writers are very organized about writing and willing to have any conversation and make any decision about the story we're telling, but often find it harder to buckle down and do it where the career path is concerned. At least, it is for me. And being busy and in the middle of other things makes it even harder. But our careers are stories too, and we should give them the same attention.

9. Sometimes terrible things will happen. Or it will feel like they might happen. Medium-terrible things will happen (not involving an Arquette). Or you may just be in a period of uncertainty. This can happen at any stage of anyone's career or seemingly every Wednesday, and it may manifest in different ways. So be kind to other writers. Be kind to yourself. Remember that all this started with you sitting in front of a blank page and filling it up, and if the worst happens, that's all you need since...

10. If something good happens, you write your way through it. If something bad happens, you write your way out of it. Rules to writer's life by.

Just as you celebrate other people's achievements, celebrate your own. The ones you can control are no less meaningful than the ones you don't. Maybe they're more.

The TL/DR:

Keep your eyes on your own paper and tell your story, don't judge other people's career choices but do cheer them on when you can, rinse, repeat. Go Team Writers.

And now I am going to look at this beautiful view (well, I arrive Friday and tomorrow is all travel and I still have to put out the stuff for the house and Hem sitter, but):

*Thanks again to everyone for all the supportive messages and emails about Strange Chemistry. I'll share any additional news when I have it.

This Crazy Biz We Call Pub

So, the news broke this morning that Angry Robot is shuttering the Strange Chemistry and Exhibit A imprints, effective immediately.

Questions I'm getting:

What does this mean for Blackwood and The Woken Gods?

I suspect little in the short term, although if you've been procrastinating on buying them, now would be a good time. It also means I can finally answer all the people who ask if there will be a sequel to The Woken Gods. In some ways, this might make it more likely at some distant point down the road (Angry Robot/SC had an option). But I hope it will make plain why I didn't rush to try and do that project just now. Not that I knew this was coming, but I have been around the business a long time and I can’t say it came as a surprise either (the abruptness, yes). Ultimately, what I want is to write many, many books for you guys, and so I make career decisions based on that. Which brings me to the other question...

Are you okay?

I really and truly am. I hope that Blackwood and The Woken Gods either stay in print and easily available, whether from Angry Robot or some eventual buyer of their list or parent company, or that the rights revert to me so that I can make sure they are.

But the book I'm most proud of that I've written to date is Girl on a Wire, and it'll be out this October. If you want to show me your support, put it on your radar, talk about it if you like it, preorder. And I have another project (Secret Project) that is close to being announced, I think. And there are several other things in the works I'm very excited about.

I will be fine. I'm among the least screwed in this situation.

Bottomline:

I will be forever grateful to Strange Chemistry and Angry Robot for giving my career its start, and for the wonderful friends I met because I published there. I hope everyone lands on their feet -- staff at the publisher, but most especially the amazing writers who were notified yesterday that their books are canceled, debut authors and people writing sequels or who had already written them, and those who were mid-series. Please support them, now and in the future. We can't afford to lose their voices.

 

Thanks to everyone for your good thoughts and concern today. All the love for that.

Edited to add: As expected, The Woken Gods and Blackwood will continue to be available for now from Angry Robot--there are apparently some potential buyers of the list in the mix, so we'll see how it all plays out and this is also when we read reversion clauses just in case. Thanks again for all the kind words and well wishes. Sign up for my quarterly or irregular for *big* newsletter, and you won't miss anything. <3

Writing Process Tag

I'm doing something I hardly ever do here, a blog tour post--but it's an interesting twist on the concept. It's not a blog tour, per se, it's a tour of the same questions to the blogs of various writers.

So, when my former VCFA classmate Anindita Basu Sempere ("We Survived Tim Wynne-Jones"--our T-shirts would read, since we shared him as an advisor the same semester; Tim is an amazing teacher and mentor, and a tough one!) asked if I was game to be tagged, I said yes. Anindita is a wonderful writer--I think back to her graduate reading and have chills. I can't wait until we can all read her books. You can read her process post and see what delicious things she's working on here.

And now I will answer the questions, with apologies for caginess, because I can't say toooo much about the projects I'm actively working on at the moment (I don't want to spook them). But I do so love process talk, so here goes.

1.     What am I working on?

Usually I'm only working on one thing actively, with some other things either in stages that are further along and which I might be waiting to get edits or copyedits or notes on, because I've always found it difficult to shift focus from one book to another on a daily basis. When I'm working on a book, I tend to be working on it pretty much whenever my brain has downtime, even if I'm not sitting at my keyboard. I try as best I can to hold the entire book in my mind, turning it this way and that, until new things come into view--usually for the next scene(s) or chapters, but sometimes further ahead. The ability to be IN whatever project I need to be in has always been relatively easy for me, but it has also tended to be one at a time.

But at the moment I'm attempting to work on two things at once, which is going okay so far, probably because they're at different stages. One is a collaborative middle grade fantasy novel I'm writing with my husband, which features all sorts of intricate setting details and unique characters and a chef's kid with a secret even he doesn't know. We wrote the first draft last year and are now revising and rethinking and generally embiggening and embettering it, and so that's taking the most time and attention. It's also different because this is our first collaboration, and learning how to revise together is the same kind of new endeavor that learning to write together was. But we're figuring it out and it's fun even when it's hard and we're stuck on something. We surprise each other, live the "two heads are better than one" principle for thorny plot or character or worldbuilding issues, and are constantly brainstorming and talking things out. We change our larger outline as we go, shifting as it needs to be, and discuss in depth each coming chapter, then alternate who writes, with both of us adding to the revision each day. (For the real nerds: while we wrote the first draft in Google Drive, now we're using Scrivener, with Dropbox syncing--the only hassle is just one of us can have the file open at a time; my kingdom for the functionality of Scrivener with the collab-syncing capacity of Drive).

The other project I'm working on is a YA twisted take on a fairy tale (of sorts), about which I can't say much, because it's just being born and I haven't even told my agent anything much except that yet (*waves to agent*), but also because it's a big twisty dark mystery too. I'm waiting until I have enough pages to show her. Of things I can say about it--hmm, there will be a strange city, and teens who live beneath it, rumors of magic, a glimpse of the contemporary art scene, and some thievery. Best to keep its secrets for now. Process-wise, I'm refining my outline and adding words to first few chapters when I have time. Drafting is always the hardest stage for me. I much prefer revising. But you can't do one without the other.

(I am so sorry that is SO long with so little description of the what. Annoying fact of writing life is that sometimes you can't say much.)

2.     How does my work differ from others of its genre?

 This one's even tougher to answer, I think. But, if pressed, I'd say the revision of the middle grade is pushing it even more into our own personal tandem weird zone, while also trying to keep it inviting. And likewise for the new solo book of mine; it's maybe a little different because while I love *some* fairy tale retellings, I'm super-picky about them. And this one is as much an inversion or subversion as a retelling. So. And it's as much realistic as fantasy. Like my book that comes out this fall, I find myself more inclined lately to treat magic in my YA stuff in a slightly less traditional fantasy way, more as a question that may or may not exist until the characters know if it does or not.

I hope it doesn't sound like I know what I'm doing. ;-) I just try to follow what feels right for the story. And then revise, rinse, repeat.

3.     Why do I write what I do?

 I hope because these are stories that only I can tell, that come from the idiosyncratic nature of everything I  live and read and watch and listen to and am interested in and am. But also that other people can step into them too. (And for the collab, the same, but for both of us. Part of the fun of that project is trying to delight each other; the revision is mostly about doing the best we can to make sure it delights others too.) (Okay, so that probably applies to my solo stuff as well.)

4.     How does your writing process work?

Routine! If I'm not getting enough done, I fall right back on my routine. Which, for me, most days, means my best hours are right after I get up. The absolute best is if I can forgo looking at the Internet--no email, no twitter--until after I have done a couple of hours of morning writing or revising. Walks during the day are spent trying to solve story in my brain, and then dog walks at night are for talking out problems with Christopher (whether it's on our collaboration or our solo stuff). I also try to write at lunch, and more in the evening if necessary. I could revise round the clock, if it wasn't a) not workable at the moment with my schedule and b) probably unhealthy. I always try to take evenings off, but when it's my writing time, I'm writing, nothing else. So long as I'm meeting my daily goals, whatever they happen to be, I cut myself some slack.

This is probably the most important thing I've learned as a writer, and I know that endless or deadline crunch round-the-clock style works for some people (just not me). But I used to spend way too much time thinking I could and should be working even more, that there was always something else I could be doing to further a project, every second. Now, I do what I intend for that day, and then I feel no guilt for anything else. If I'm getting behind on email, I don't feel guilty, so long as I'm answering urgent things and getting my writing done. Etc. I have to have hours off to watch TV or read or just be lazy or I am not going to do good work or have a life that works. I need the time away, the outside stimulus--and I have a lot of other work I have to do too. So, I try to catch up on the other stuff in between projects, or once a week (or two) for email. But my operative philosophy is: following routine = check, then guilt = no. It's made all the difference.

I could talk about outlining and things, but I've already written, ahem, a book here, so I will instead tag the next victims! Who will post next Monday on their own sites. These just happen to be two authors I think you should be paying attention to. (Theirs are the only two books I've blurbed so far, actually. I did not do blurbs while I was still reviewing for Locus--it just didn't feel right.)

- Jackie Dolamore (well, Jaclyn, to be precise and fancy). Jackie's next book is Dark Metropolis, which I thought was a wonderfully executed dark fantasy where society itself is hiding a terrible secret. Months later, I still think about the characters and the world.

- Whitney Miller. Whitney's first novel The Violet Hour is a gripping supernatural thriller with some of my favorite things: a cult, a global conspiracy, creepiness galore, and a smart heroine. I am very much looking forward to the sequel.

I can't wait to see their answers.

Let's Get Mythical

I'm over at the SF Signal Mind Meld today talking about the appeal of mythology, gods, and goddesses in fiction, along with fancy types like Tessa Gratton and Jennifer Estep, and my Angry Robot compatriots Chuck Wendig, Adam Christopher, and Mike Underwood, to name a few. Go check it out. Thrilled to be included, as always.

*Also, please to excuse my typo. That "definitely literally" was supposed to be "definitely literarily." I was fresh off an edit pass, and thus experiencing deadline brain fritz.

Talking It Out

So, yesterday morning, I asked for twitter's help deciding what to blog about, because that's turned out well in the past, and Libba pitched in:

@gwenda The uvula. You're welcome. #BlogSuggestions

— libba bray (@libbabray) May 6, 2013

Well, why not?

I learned many things about uvulas yesterday (fun word to say, and it sounds a little...dirty, doesn't it?)--that some people pierce them, that it's possible to get a bee sting there, that a friend knew someone when she was a kid who had two and could make them dance, that someone had a college instructor who mixed up uvula with an entirely different word to unfortunate results. WHO KNEW that the uvula's power to fuel anecdotes was so mighty? Not me. In fact, if Straight Dope is right, we don't even know what uvulas are for. But we do know they help us make some sounds and so that's awfully close to talking and talking is a suitable blog post topic.

All writers get stuck. There are the little stucks, the flummoxed by a scene for a day, or an hour, or a week. There are the bigger stucks, where nothing feels right, and we stall out or stutter-step forward, only to end up deleting a few steps back. Everyone. Gets. Stuck. And so everyone has to get unstuck.

There are various methods to this, as with all things. Some people walk away. Some clean the house. Some bang their head against their desk repeatedly. Some despair. Some move to a new city and assume a different identity. I have done all of these things myself at one time or another. Well, except the last one. That one I've just fantasized about when truly stuck.

But my most usual method for getting unstuck--and even, at times, just for moving forward, pushing ahead, figuring out a story--is talking it through.

Now, I'm lucky in this regard, because I'm married to another writer. He may not always be a captivated audience for these burblings, but he is a captive one. (Mwahaha.) I'm also lucky to have a number of writer friends who are happy to indulge in long talks to clear the fog or overgrowth that's hiding the path forward. Call on your writer friends, if you don't have a captive loved one, or call upon any friend or loved one to indulge your talking it out.

Often, it's just the very act of articulating the problem out loud that provides the solution. I think this is for a couple of different reasons:

1) Forcing yourself to explain a story knot or roadblock to someone else makes you have to explain it to someone else. And often that entails stepping back just enough to be able to see it more clearly. It also engages a different part of the brain, a different kind of thinking. Talking through possible solutions, your reaction to them will often reveal what's important to you about the story, and that is always a good thing to know.

2) You have to set your ego aside. Look, everyone gets stuck. But admitting you're stuck, not caring who knows, not letting that make you feel like a failure (see this fabulous post by Marie Lu on imposter syndrome), and asking for help, even if it's just an ear--that's a useful thing. It reminds you that this is about the story, about making it work, and not about you. It's hard to move forward with the full weight of the ego pressing down on your shoulders.

Another bonus: It's often fun, which being stuck isn't. Kicking around various solutions, talking over story issues, you can sometimes cover a lot more ground than you could cover in six weeks or six months at the desk making words and deleting them. The act of admitting you're stuck can also lead to commisseration, which in turns leads to less misery and feeling of awful aloneness. Ultimately, the solution comes from your fingertips, and yours alone, but there's no reason you have to suffer everything by your lonesome. Make others suffer with you. And suffer with them. This is the beautiful symbiosis of writer friendships.

The uvula wants you to talk it out. And remember:

@gwenda You can't spell uvula without "u" Gwenda. Well, you could. But then it would "vla." #UvulaPostFTW

— libba bray (@libbabray) May 7, 2013

As you were.

Fast Vs. Slow

I've noticed a few posts here and there about writing speed lately, mostly from people who feel like they go slowly, but sometimes from quote-unquote fast writers too. And these kind of questions have come up at a few events I've done: How long does it take you to write a book? How can I write faster?

I don't know any writers who don't wish they could write faster, though I'm sure there must be some (but they're so zen, they can't be bothered to tell us). In general, everything ends up taking longer to finish than you believe it will. Or wish it would. And this is even after you have some experience and a general idea of how long it takes you to write and revise a book.

But here's what I'm also going to tell you: It doesn't matter.

From an interview with Junot Diaz:

"God, I know, the torment of it. You know, it's weird to be an artist who works really slow. I mean, we have a country that does not like people to take the time. We have a country that even its artists are on the punch-clock. So someone like me really stands out, you know. But you've got to do what you've got to do. And hopefully I can just finish it, forget how long it takes. As long as I can finish the darn thing, I'll be grateful.

...

"But, you know, that process gets lost. No one remembers it. No one - and that's what's the best part about being artist. There's all the sweat you break, all the dust you raise, all the sort of things, all the internal emotional timbre that goes in the work. No one will remember. That's the best part. All that's left is the actual work.

"And, you know, my books, I try to keep the sweat off the books. So people read it, and they're like wow, this feels like this was effortless. That's a great - for me, more than anything, that's the best part of this. My work, that what I put into it doesn't show on the page. That's, like, great."

This isn't news, but it feels like there is a lot of angst on all sides of this issue. No one feels like their process is just right. We are all Goldilocks, ready to experiment with some new method we've read about here or there, with outlining in legos or jumping up and down fifty times in the morning before we start, or using special highlighters. And any of those things might be useful. And, in fact, the amount of time writing any given book takes may well matter for other reasons, especially depending on how big a source of income writing is for the writer and other career-related concerns.

But it doesn't matter to the reader. And it doesn't really matter to anyone except you, the writer (or if you have a deadline and a publisher, you and the publisher).

Maud Newton writing at Tin House recently:

"Other than the slow pace, I’m not drawing comparisons between my writing and Tartt’s or Chee’s — certainly not in ultimate outcome. Nor do I believe that writers who work more quickly are necessarily any less brilliant or less deep than those two are. (Try listing, just for example, the works of Muriel Spark or Graham Greene on a single page.) But writing a novel is an inherently strange exercise. It’s surreal to work for years and years on a project very few people have seen. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the grips of an incredibly intricate and time-consuming delusion. So it’s comforting to know that some of the novelists who inspire me also, of necessity, take their time."

I actually know a fair number of writers who prefer to write manuscripts on spec for this reason, so they can take the time they need. Some of them are "fast" and some are "slow."

I've never been one to shy from a deadline, and I suppose I am what would be considered a relatively fast writer. This does not mean deadlines make me any less nutso than anyone else. Not even a little. There is always that stress, that feeling that this time will be the time you can't manage to pull it off. And the adrenaline when you do. Like many (if not all) of the relatively fast writers I know, I'm something of a workaholic and also usually feel I could/should be working even more. This is something I'm trying my best to get over, because it seems like a terrible burden to never feel like the work you're doing is enough.

So while I may write relatively quickly, I've also gotten much more deliberate--even just in the last year--and that feels like progress. I don't push push push to get to the end and rush a manuscript out the door the way I used to. I wait until it feels ready (enough, anyway; it never feels fully ready). I may be wrong, but at least it's not because of rushing when rushing doesn't matter. (In deadline world, this is not always possible. Alas. Sometimes meeting a timeframe does matter, and so you just have to do it. By hook, crook, or lack of sleep.)

I guess the point of this post is to answer those questions with: Write at your own pace and try not to stress about what pace that is. Fast, slow, whatever works. You're not racing anyone. Unless someone has locked you in a room where it's just you, two typewriters, and a monkey. Then you're racing that monkey to come up with Shakespeare.

(Now, if you're not writing at all...that's a problem. That's not slow, that's stopped. But, even so, there's a time for that too. We all need rests. Burnout is real. So is RSI. But so are deadlines. Don't miss those unless you have a really, really good reason.)

From an interview with Joyce Carol Oates:

"Young writers need to know that writing is work. It’s not something that can be done in a few hours. It takes much longer than that. You have to stay with it. When I look at something I wrote, I remember the trouble I had writing it.

"I don’t write in any kind of fever. Not at all. A story that is 15 pages long is written paragraph by paragraph, scene by scene. I might start with the ending and work my way back to the beginning. It’s more like a mosaic, pieced together. When it’s working right, a story has a certain fluidity. That’s my ideal, to move it along like a stream.

"I always get questions about my schedule and how productive I am. People think I’m productive, but I work so hard and so slowly. Anybody who worked 10 to 12 hours could be as productive, any normal, sane person. I can concentrate for that long because I have to, because I want to get it done."

The important part is not losing sight of the end goal, which is producing the best book you can. It will always take time. It will always take effort. It will probably take all of both you have to give...until you can finally send it on its way for good, and it's time to work on the next one.

Gone Writing

Three days off to concentrate, and one last act to revise (aka mostly write) of the new novel. Can it be done?

Techniques to be employed:

Now--armed with my golden coffee mug of truth and invisible typewriter--off to work I go.

(But as I said elsewhere: So much I'm thankful for this year and so, so many people I'm thankful to. That includes all of you who stop by here. Love to you guys.)

p.s. So far so good. Also, thing too cool not to share: 

• Part one of Erin Keane's Gift Guide for Salon suggests Blackwood for the Suzy Bishops (from Moonrise Kingdom) in your life, featuring perhaps my favorite description of the book ever as "a weird book for weird girls." I adored Moonrise Kingdom and all Suzy's fake YA novels, so this is an especially happy-making thing. Lots of great suggestions, and I think the concept of theming the guide around some of the year's most iconic characters is what sets it apart from the usual and makes it so much fun.

Sometimes You Need To Hear It

Last night we went out to Libba Bray's kick-off event for her tour in support of The Diviners (out now in all fine locations) at Joseph-Beth Booksellers (*blows kisses*). (Rest of schedule here, and definitely catch her if you can. I'll be at the final event in December at Oblong Books with Libba and Maureen Johnson, filling the riff-raff position.;-)

Every time I go to a book event, I'm reminded why I always vow to go to more. Not just because it's nice for the author if there are people there -- though it is; I've been very lucky so far not to have a crickets event yet (I'm sure it will happen) and so grateful to every person there -- but because there's often a moment when something that's said is just what I need to hear at any given moment as a writer.

I'm not and never will be making any claims at being some kind of expert on writing or anything just because I have now published a book. I still feel just as terrified (if not more so) and flummoxed and full of questions when I'm writing as I ever did. At one point last night someone asked a question, I think about advice for writers (but it might have been a different one) and Libba said read everything (YES, completely agree) and also, "Be brave." Paraphrasing, she talked about how a writer she admired said once that during the first draft we protect ourselves, and it's only in revision that we can go deeper, risk more. And that every book you write should change you, when you come out the other side.

Yes, yes, yes.

The book I'm revising, I see this all over it -- the protecting myself in the first draft. Much of it comes from the fact that, as usual, I didn't know the character(s) well enough in the first draft to be true to them. For me, so much of the first draft is just beginning to figure out what the book is, and making many wrong turns along the way. This particular book, which I don't want to talk about too specifically yet (hopefully someday I'll be able too), is near and dear to my heart. It's a bit of a departure (first person, for one) and the main character is something of a daredevil. I've been kicking myself because while she was daring, even in the first draft, she was also not daring in places where she should be -- that's a lot of what I'm working on in this revision. Because true daring? Requires vulnerability. Dropping shields, being open to injury, to falling, to failure... It requires caring enough to risk everything.

Just as being the kind of writer I want to be requires being brave enough to risk all that, too. Every time.

A reminder I needed to hear just when I needed to hear it.

Weekend Update

This weekend was a catch-up weekend, coming off the first week without travel (or a book party) for a while.  The office got cleaned, I read the (brilliant) novel of an old friend in manuscript, mountains of laundry monsters were slain, and we went out for a little light bookstalking, as you do. (Honestly, restraint to have waited this long--only because things have been so busy was I able to.) So, instead of a true and proper update, I'm annotating the weekend's instagrams...

At the local Barnes and Noble:

 

 

(Blur due to furtiveness, as for some reason I was a little nervous about being caught Photographing The Book--though I have found as a general rule that pretending something is forbidden always makes it more fun.)

And then at our largest local independent, the venerable and amazing Joseph-Beth Booksellers flagship store. You'll see one of the reasons I love them so (*waves to excellent, fabulous booksellers*):

 

 

(Why, yes, those are Blackwood bookmarks in the books along the back. ♥♥♥ I'll be doing an event there at 6 p.m. on October 30; can't wait. I love Lexington and its literary community.)

There are SO many fabulous books coming out this week, keep my little paperback debut in mind when you're at the bookstore if you haven't picked it up yet? *bats eyelashes*

Yesterday I finally got down to business on making my real and true revision plan for the secretish new book I'm working on. I have a full first draft, got lots of feedback on it months ago, and am now 15K into making it a presentable book. So, time to make a chart, which is how I spent the non-reading part of yesterday:

 

 

And the result:

 

 

Now I just have to follow it for the next monthish or so.

A couple of people have asked for some elaboration on this chart-making process, so I'll try to do that soon. Basically, it encapsulates the major plot developments and character arc. It's something I've only adopted this year (after first encountering at the Bat Cave retreat), but I really am finding it crucial at helping me feel less flail-y during revision. And you can repeat it however many times you need to. More on that to come, in case anyone else finds it useful.

And that's it for now, I do believe. I'm digging into the aforementioned revision this week, catching up on other things, juggling the usual, hoping for good news on a front or two, and there are several friends coming to town for events of various varieties, all by way of saying I may be relatively thin on the ground this week. 

In the meantime, there are three open Blackwood giveaways still going:

• Stacked giveaway - Signed copy of Blackwood, US/Canada only, open until the end of September.
• Ink Scratchers - Copy of Blackwood, UK only, open until Sept. 21 (and not many entries yet, so get cracking UKians!). 
• Nova Ren Suma's Fall Debut Series - Signed copy of Blackwood and swag duct tape rose pen, US only, open until Sept. 18 at 8 p.m. EST.

Enter and/or spread the word. And there'll be one more super prize pack giveaway with the *last t-shirt* coming up soon. Also, the audiobook is now up on the AudioGo site as well, both US and UK, and it's a little cheaper there at the moment than at Audible/Amazon.

It's back to work with me. Have a good week, everybody.

Whirlwinded (AKA, The Official Research-A-Palooza And BEA Report)

We set out late-ish Friday on the open road, or at least the interstate, armed with more books than we'd need and a big bag of snacks from the coop (dried mango, sesame sticks, trail mixy stuff, granola bars--you never know when you might have to trade organic food for gas or your life, so we were well-prepared) and several sets of maquest directions for the Epic Road Trip, June Edition. Such an epic drive seems to demand an epic post filled with parenthetical asides.

The first leg of the trip, of course, was Washington, D.C. ::pause during which we all sing the Magnetic Fields song, yet again:: And that's well photo-documented, because I was taking lots of reference photos. The ones on Flickr mostly aren't those, because I'm thinking tile patterns and trim would be...boring. Although they were fun to take. For example, I kept getting trapped on elevators at the Library of Congress photographing the detail above the doors. Many strange looks were given, including several from Christopher, who had to stand waiting for me to make the return trips. But at least I wasn't being mocked by this guy:

Anyway, I can't go into specifics just yet, but all this relates to the book that's due next month, which is set in an alternate version of D.C. More details on that coming, including a title...as soon as we settle on a good one. (Non-breaking news: Titles are HARD.) And we managed to see writer friends who live in the area--Craig Gidney and Jess Leader--which is always an excellent thing.

Then it was on to NYC--or, in reality, to New Jersey, where our hotel was--for BEA. We got in on Monday night, schlepped over to Penn Station and headed into town for the evening. Our first stop was meeting up with Genevieve Valentine, who we really can't ever see enough of, for drinks and dinner. Well, Christopher and Genevieve had dinner, and tempted me to eat bites of their delicious foodstuffs. Then we got The Best Cupcakes at Kyotofu, after Genevieve convinced me I could get mine in a container for later. Cupcake-for-Later = GENIUS when you have to take a train back out to New Jersey late at night. Super city-navigatrix Genevieve and Christopher then escorted me to my other dinner, and headed off to the Bookrageous party, followed by an exodus to a bar where they saw an actual fight. Literary fisticuffs were in the air, people. (Actually, the fighters weren't lit types. But still.)

Meanwhile I got to have the most fabulous dinner with Best Agent Ever Jennifer Laughran (alias: Literaticat) and a few of her other clients, Fiona Paul (aka Paula Stokes), Jo Whittemore, and Kate Messner. Here's a photo Jo had the waiter--who turned out to be a comic book fan, with good taste no less (Grant Morrison's run on Doom Patrol!)--take of us, in which it becomes apparent that I must have supernatural eye laser powers:

(Alas, I ditched the camera for the New York leg, so I have no pictures of my own.)

This was so much fun, I can't even. I'd have dinner with this group of ladies every night of the week. We closed the place down.

And then it was Tuesday, the first day of BEA.

Here's the thing about BEA: It can be soul--and feet--crushing if you let it...because it's a trade show. And trade shows are innately depressing. It is best looked at sideways and traversed quickly with an eye toward finding the people you want to see. I also pick up as little swag as possible (in fact, this time around nothing), because books are heavy and my bag already weighs a bazillion pounds. (Though I do wish Chronicle still gave away those great notepads from lo many BEAs ago, because I finally ran out.) (See also: Emily Gould's account for the Awl, which is both funny and accurate.) What saves BEA, of course, and makes it still fun is that while it's (yes) a trade show, it's a trade show for books. Which means there are lots of book people there--booksellers, publicists, editors, agents, sales reps, authors, bloggers, industry reporters--and book people really are the loveliest people. Plus, they understand that the grimness of a trade show is directly proportional to the amount of free booze (and parties) on offer.

And so while I understand the complaints about BEA and, oh boy, the terrible awfulness of the Javits Center, I also enjoy it. This year was my best time to date, although I missed seeing and meeting a bunch of people I'd have liked to because I was rarely on the floor and lower level cell service should be studied by black hole experts. But I did get to spend decent chunks of time with several people--Micol Ostow and Melissa Walker, Laura Miller (even better in person), and my PW editor Dick Donahue (who I'd never met, though we've been working together for years now). Sheila Ruth kindly invited me to grab post-show drinks with a group of bloggers; it was nice to hang out with people I've 'known' for so long online, like Sheila and Pam Coughlan.

Because I'd already bumped into my editor Amanda Rutter (who is ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL AND AMAZING--more on that in a moment), I knew that Osprey's most excellent product manager John Tintera had a Blackwood ARC for me...and so I was prepared and didn't burst into tears when he produced it at drinks.

You really can't see the beautiful shine to it in this photo, so I'll try to take a better shot later for proper admiration. (I hear the UK ARCs are matte, btw. I'm glad my book is getting the best of both ARC worlds.)

This was all followed by some of the best Korean bbq (or Korean/Japanese fusion bbq, actually) I've EVER ever had with Amanda and John, who I could go on and on about the sheer wonderfulness of. Just let me say, I can't imagine better folks to be working with. *happy sigh* (Christopher was off at a Liberty game, having his own fun.)

The next morning was meetings at Javits, and while "meetings at Javits" may sound like a circle of hell, in practice it was lovely, because aforementioned book people were involved in them. I was lucky enough to meet several of the sales team for Strange Chemistry here in the U.S.; a truly engaged, sharp, and delightful group. It was also the first time I've really gotten to talk about Blackwood with people who've read it (who I don't know, at least), and that was fun too. And I got to hear Amanda describe all the TERRIFIC-SOUNDING books on the list and the imprint's grand plans and bask in her savvy and clear passion for YA in general and Strange Chemistry in specific. *happy sigh dieux*

Also, the pirates from Bridge Publications randomly sat down at our table, mere moments after Olivia the Pig walked by. These two things would really only ever happen at BEA.

Christopher and I had a final lunch with Amanda and John, said our farewells, and returned to the open road, feeling a bit kamikaze about the eleven-hour drive ahead. It was mainly through beautiful mountain country, though--Maryland and West Virginia--and there was a spectacular sunset. We made it home around 3 a.m., having listened to what feels in retrospect like a thousand episodes of This American Life, Studio 360, Stephen Fry's Podgrams, and RadioLab. There are worse ways to spend eleven hours. There are definitely worse ways to spend six days.

And now I have a book to finish.

Final mapquest tally: 23 hrs 47 mins / 1453.25 miles.

The Secrets We Keep From Ourselves

I already tumbled this fabulous quote from Terri Windling's blog, but I'm putting it up here too (not least because, um, cleanliness wasn't meant to stay at the top of ye old Shaken & Stirred for a whole week--oops):

"What you need to know about [your next piece of art] is contained in the last piece. The place to learn about your materials is in the last use of your materials. The place to learn about your execution is in your execution. The best information about what you love is in your last contact with what you love. Put simply, your work is your guide: a complete, comprehensive, limitless reference book on your work. There is no other such book, and it is yours alone. It functions this way for no one else. Your fingerprints are all over your work, and you alone know how they got there. Your work tells you about your working methods, your discipline, your strengths and weaknesses, your habitual gestures, your willingness to embrace.

"The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only look at the work clearly -- without judgement, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen, the way a good parent listens to a child."    -- David Bayles & Ted Orland, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking

First off, I'll definitely be seeking out Art & Fear, just based on this snippet.

Anyway, this quote immediately made me think of one of the wisest things anyone ever said to me about writing, one of those lessons that I come back to often. The advice, because I think it does qualify as advice, came from Tim Wynne-Jones (recent Horn Book award winner--yay!) in an early packet response my first semester of grad school. What he said was essentially that we give ourselves the solutions to the problems we encounter in our work. That when really and truly stumped, the answer is often to be found hidden, obscured, embedded somewhere on the page. The subconscious is a tricksy beast. I have found that this is a great and powerful truth.

When I really can't find the answer, no matter how much long dog walking and listening to playlists and banging head against desk and vacuuming I've done, I go back to what I have and I look at it and I think about it and I usually do find the answer in hiding there, right in front of me. Occasionally it's the absence of something that's the answer, or that something feels wrong, but often enough it's a grace note, an image or a line that appeared and that I didn't understand the importance of yet. When I give notes to someone else or talk out my own plots (Christopher is very patient on the dog walks where this happens, and sometimes we talk out his too), often that's what I come around to. It's that "OH! It's already in there! I just didn't RECOGNIZE it!" moment.

We give ourselves the answers we need, we only have to be willing to look for them.* Every piece is its own secret decoder ring.

Unrelated, but amazing, a feature slide show of photographs of aging dogs from Nancy LeVine's Senior Dogs Across America.

*Of course, for this to work you have to make pages where the answers can hide first. That is the Greatest Secret of All: Everything is possible once you make the pages.

DRAFTED

Done! And my longest first draft ever* at 82K, although this feels less like a first draft than my usual, too... since I have been working on it for ages, and did some revision during. Which I hardly ever do.

Now to watch a lot of Fringe, finish Sarah MacLean's delicious new romance, and then tomorrow catch up on metric tons of freelance stuff.

Still, yay. Done. (For now.) The creepy island novel exists!

*My first drafts tend to come in short. Hopefully, not this time.

**On twitter, I mentioned that I have this slight but constant anxiety whenever I'm mid-draft or -revision, that I'll be hit by a bus (or lightning or a falling piano) before it's completed and so all I'll have left on my computer is this random mess that isn't done. Morbid writer thoughts or type A personality run rampant? You decide.

Acts of Translation

Michael Cunningham has a fabulous essay at the NYT about the ways in which all acts of writing and reading are translations:

Here’s a secret. Many novelists, if they are pressed and if they are being honest, will admit that the finished book is a rather rough translation of the book they’d intended to write. It’s one of the heartbreaks of writing fiction. You have, for months or years, been walking around with the idea of a novel in your mind, and in your mind it’s transcendent, it’s brilliantly comic and howlingly tragic, it contains everything you know, and everything you can imagine, about human life on the planet earth. It is vast and mysterious and awe-inspiring. It is a cathedral made of fire.

And another snippet (Helen is a waitress, and devoted leisure reader):

I began to think of myself as trying to write a book that would matter to Helen. And, I have to tell you, it changed my writing. I’d seen, rather suddenly, that writing is not only an exercise in self-expression, it is also, more important, a gift we as writers are trying to give to readers. Writing a book for Helen, or for someone like Helen, is a manageable goal.

It also helped me to realize that the reader represents the final step in a book’s life of translation.

Well worth the time. (I'm at the stage of my current draft where I feel like I'm trapped inside the cathedral of fire, but there are worse places to be.)

Edited to add: See also the wonderful Tiffany's related post.

The Other Kind of Power Ballad

I've posted here before about the importance of playlists in my writing process. And I always love reading other people's playlist posts--it's one of the reasons I like largehearted boy's Book Notes feature so much. It's a particular look through another writer's window, slightly and enjoyably voyeuristic, even though limited to the book in question. Another way of understanding both writer and novel, or just of finding new bands or being reminded about old ones. For my own part, I know a project's taking on life when I feel the need to pause and make the big playlist that I'll listen to while writing, though that playlist evolves along the way. A new draft means a substantially tweaked playlist, usually.

Anyway, I realized this morning that I also tend to find a new song sometime along the way through the draft that I come to think of as the book's anthem. Typically, it shows up right before the last third of the story, and this morning the creepy island book's came blaring out of the car stereo muse-sent from my very own iPod,* a song I'm not even sure I'd ever listened to after I downloaded it. The song is "Kick In Your Heart" by Gliss (which can be heard here, if you like). I suspect I will listen to it a millionty times in the next few weeks.

The anthem is different than the playlist. First, it gets played on repeat over and over again, and usually when I'm consciously thinking about the story, instead of while actually writing. The song tends to conjure strong visualization of big scenes, call up emotion to match, and lead to lots and lots of plot nailing-down. It begins to represent the whole story I'm working toward having told. It becomes the song of the book that will soon be written.

The last book had, I'd say, three distinct anthems: "Golden" by Sister Suvi, "Splintering" by Arizona, and "Golden Children" by Black Feelings (the last was probably the anthem).

What about you guys? Do you do this, too?

*Good thing I haven't quite figured out how to manipulate the contents of my birthday present yet (it's fancier than my old one!), or I probably wouldn't have had the song on there in the first place. Autoload can sometimes be serendipitous.

The Quote and the Context

This is one of my favorite Dorothy Parker quotes, because it feels so true:

"If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you."

But I'd never read the long interview in the Paris Review it's from (that's a PDF*) and the whole exchange is:

INTERVIEWER
Do you think Hollywood destroys the artist’s talent?

PARKER
No, no, no. I think nobody on earth writes down. Garbage though they turn out, Hollywood writers aren’t writing down. That is their best. If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you. I want so much to write well, though I know I don’t, and that I didn’t make it. But during and at the end of my life, I will adore those who have.

*Well worth reading in its entirety. Full of gems like this: "The people who lived and wrote well in the twenties were comfortable and easy living. They were able to find stories and novels, and good ones, in conflicts that came out of two million dollars a year, not a garret. As for me, I’d like to have money. And I’d like to be a good writer. These two can come together, and I hope they will, but if that’s too adorable, I’d rather have money. I hate almost all rich people, but I think I’d be darling at it."

::drumroll:: Margo Lanagan, Everybody!

As a reader, there are few better moments than the first time you discover the work of a writer you immediately love and know you'll follow for years to come. Reading the first story in the short story collection Black Juice, "Singing My Sister Down," was that moment for me with Margo Lanagan (and I know for a bunch of others). I've yet to be disappointed, and don't expect to. Margo tells brave, wise, outrageously beautiful stories filled with terrible, wonderful things. Her novel Tender Morsels (Amazon | Indiebound) is one of those books I know I will return to over the years, finding something new every time. All by way of saying I'm happy to host the final stop on Margo's blog tour for its paperback edition. Now, as usual, I asked for process porn--I know you all love it so--but instead what Margo has written is an essay about having various editions of one's books and, also, about process. (It's a difficult topic to escape*.) So, welcome, Margo!

NOTE: First three U.S. commenters will be sent a copy from the publisher!

Gwenda, I know you usually ask people to talk about their writing process, especially for the book in question, but honestly, I’ve written and talked so much process-porn about Tender Morsels, there is really nothing new to say - and I want you to have new stuff!

So, let’s talk about the weirdness that is new editions. It was pretty weird for me to have two editions of Tender Morsels come out (US hardback and Australian adult) in October 2008, and then two more hardback editions published in the UK (by David Fickling as YA and as adult by Jonathan Cape) in July last year. I don’t publish a whole bunch, and I’m used to maybe a new cover every couple of years, so to have four different covers for the same book felt a bit excessive (in a wonderful way, of course!). And to watch the different reactions to the book when it was marketed as YA and as adult was interesting, especially the very strong reaction both for and against it as a YA book in the UK.

Now, with the fuss over challenging-YA-book-wins-World-Fantasy-Award well and truly died down, it’s  time for the Knopf paperback edition to come out, and for the novel to be published in Australia as YA (by Allen & Unwin) - both of these with gorgeous new covers, of course. And soon the UK paperbacks will be out, too. So the thing proliferates, wrapping itself in cover after cover like a vaudeville actor undergoing costume changes.

This is mild stuff; this is very small beer. I don’t know how really-properly-famous-bestsellery-authors  keep track of all their different editions - they must have assistants to remind them exactly which and with whom and for whom and when etc. Especially prolific authors, who would by this time have published something else and be just about finished the book after that, plus have backlist reissues happening all the time - how do they even remember what it was like to put that story, two books ago, together? I mean, I can remember the writing of Tender Morsels, pretty much month by month, throughout 2007, but that was because it was my first novel for 10 years, and a struggle. For a novel that flows easily, that just falls out of you (as this next one of mine - due end March - seems to be doing, yay!), what’s to grip onto?

Because the process itself is kind of mysterious; if the writing is going well, it kind of feels as if the story is happening because you’ve stepped to one side and are letting it happen, rather than that you’re bodily pushing it along. There are not many points where you step in and make conscious decisions. I don’t, anyway. I kind of play around at the start (with both stories and novels - oh look, here I am talking process! how’d that happen?), then when I feel confident enough of the mood, general direction and some of the characters, I do step in and make a kind of a plan, keeping it fairly squishy so it’s not predictable enough to take all the surprises out of the writing. And then, for a short story I fix my eye on the end point and let the rest happen; for a novel I kind of wallow, and try to keep the process playful and not-a-chore and not close off too many possibilities. I’m not a highly technical, front-brain kind of writer, I’m more grunty and instinctive; all the clever, connecting-type stuff happens at a subconscious level and surprises me as much as it does my readers, how it all seems to work together at the end!

So, looking back and talking about process (especially from such a distance) feels to me somehow wrong-headed, because although, yes, there’s a lot of head involved, the main direction of the process is not happening anywhere that can be seen. Happily fumbling around in the dark for the next bit of dialogue is not really a spectator sport, and neither is screwing up your face because you got a scene wrong, and going for a brisk walk and watching the alternative path through that scene unroll before you. Nobody who doesn’t already do that habitually is going to understand what you mean when you try to describe it; and anyone who does is quite happily doing their own fumbling and striding about, and probably doesn’t need your reassurance.

Yes, so, new editions? Pretty, but a little puzzling for the author who once was inside that story, engineering its many possible resolutions, and is now firmly outside the single version that survived, and up to her ears in something else, a setting with a whole different climate and shape, a group of entirely characters with a new set of tortures to undergo.

New editions of Tender Morsels? I love them all, and I still stand by the story inside all those covers - I think it’s knobbly and meaty and interesting, and I still love all the magic bits. I hope the new paperback and YA editions find their way even farther out into the world, and that more and more people get to chew on them.

Visit Margo's previous stops:

Through A Glass, Darkly

Steph Su Reads

Bildungsroman

Cynsations

The Story Siren

(*I think every writer feels a bit suspect talking about process--we're storytellers, after all--which is one of the things that makes it so fascinating for other writers to read. And, really, it all circles back around in one way or another, since without the making, there's nothing.)

The Lessons of Despair

Junot Diaz has an excellent short essay in Oprah Magazine about the trials and tribulations of writing The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for ten years:

That's my tale in a nutshell. Not the tale of how I came to write my novel but rather of how I became a writer. Because, in truth, I didn't become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn't until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am. 

Having Written O'Clock

I've never been a morning person, and though I have dabbled with writing early in the day over the years, only in the last six months or so have I actually been able to execute it on a regular basis. This morning I went back to my morning writing schedule (up at or before 6 a.m.), which I plan to stick to for the duration of this revision.

I think the switch is a combination of factors:

• The knowledge that things are just too busy many days to delay it and still have writing happen and knowing the angst cycle that results when the writing doesn't get done.
• The loss of regular lunchtime writing time (again: see busy).
• My journey away from the perils of procrastination.
• The fact that I'm really and truly in love with the world and story I'm working on right now, so it actually ranks above that extra 45 minutes of sleep.

I have always been one of those people who can write through hurricane or hailstorm, and not a diva at all about the specific conditions necessary to get to work. But I do really like my sleep. And I do really hate getting up early. So it's no small thing to be able to pry my eyes open these days and do the thinking and typing. There is something to be said for the hidden quality of time before the world intrudes. And, as expected, I feel a lot better about the State of the World once some production time has been done. I actually don't hate writing, but don't we all have a smidgen of the Dorothy Parker Disease*? Having written is even nicer.

The thing I'm most addicted to now though, is an unanticipated side effect of this schedule. I tend to make more overall progress, because any writing session later in the day is icing on a pragmatic cupcake. Also, because the early morning never feels fully real, writing later in the day doesn't necessarily feel like the second hour. It feels like another first one. Perhaps that means the real lesson is that achieving things is all about mental trickery--or good scheduling habits.

*Offered without comment. Dan Brown cannot be destroyed.

In Which I Am ALIVE

Deadly Bouquet
Originally uploaded by gwenda

It's true, I've returned from the land of the incredibly-grouchy, cold-beleaguered, fatigue-ahoy types. At least, it seems likely that I have. It rains here all the time now, and so these giant mushrooms grew in our front yard. Aren't they pretty?

I don't want to skip over a little chatter about Blue Heaven though. I managed only a handful of photos, but Holly McDowell and Bill Shunn have lots more in their sets (note: do not ask why I have a napkin on my head). I'd like to thank all my fellow workshoppers--Holly, Bill, Toby Buckell, Chance Morrison, Sandra McDonald, Greg van Eekhout, Rae Carson Finlay, Paolo Bacigalupi, Heather Shaw, and most especially Charles Coleman Finlay for inviting me in the first place. It was an incredibly generous and insanely talented bunch, and you'll be seeing lots more from all of them and I recommend you seek out their work. Also, they were nice to me, even though I was the lone BH newbie this year. I feel really lucky to have been there, and so much more set to dive into the revision of the new book. Now that I'm not dying of plague.

Anyway, I keep meaning to do a larger post about the workshop process and not getting around to it. One thing I've learned is that workshopping can give you different things at different points in the process (and, yes, of course just as important the feedback you get is listening to what other people have to say about a piece of work and thinking about the work of others and how it can be better) on any given project. I don't think this could have come at a better time for the new book, a new title for which I haven't quite settled on yet. This was the first time I've ever workshopped a whole novel--at least in such a formal way--and now I think I will want to try and formulate some version of this forever on. My first drafts are very much raw materials, at least in some sense (although I did choose the right story this time, more or less = progress), and being able to sit in a room with incredibly smart people bringing a fresh eye to those materials and bounce around new ideas and refined ideas and then come up with even better ideas about how to make the book, well, better... It was awesome. That's what I'm saying. It didn't hurt that I already had some really great notes from generous people to start the rethinking process, either.

So I guess I'd better get to work then, and finish a more presentable version of this sucker. I will try not to anger the handless guardian of the mainland.

Attack of the Dust Bunnies

I feel like I'm fighting tumbleweeds of sparse content around here lately*, and this may be crazy, but I'm off for a week to hang out with a bunch of other writers and focus on improving our books and assorted hijinks and although I still have lots of reading to do: I will post something here every day. 

Assuming there's wireless. 

What's life without daring yourself to fail?

*For generous values of lately.

Smells Like Teen Angst

Or, rather, a playlist for the new revision I'm working on for the Medea book (well, really more of an experimental rebirth than a revision, but it still falls under that heading). The new approach is really getting me in touch with my inner angsty teen, and if I'm going to stick with it I have to have a playlist*. Thank god, this does not mean including the Jim Morrison poetry songs. This angst is more interesting than the type I possessed.

I also used this as an excuse for a little iTunes slurge, although the Bowerbirds was the only thing newly purchased that was tonally right. We'll see how this experiment progresses. I make no promises, and after Blue Heaven I'll dive back in to the new book armed with notes aplenty and make it presentable. (And hopefully this will be--or nearly--a new book by then, too.) 

*Why so short? This is the portable version, as I am currently iPodless, since mine exploded in the car awhile back. It was very exciting.

Graphic Draft

I just finished the first draft of a new book, currently called The Secret History*. Ben apparently just finished one too, and reminded me about Wordle with his post. Anyway, I'm not all fancy and can't figure out how to screen grab to embiggen, so you'll have to click the link if you wanna see more detail.

But, honestly, aren't these mostly fun for the person making them? Yeah, I thought so.

*Yes, yes, I know this will almost certainly change. I, too, love the Donna Tartt novel of the same name. But it is a good title for the book.

The Written Word

1. In almost all cases, we want the reader to be wondering what happens next, not what is happening.

2. You ever get one of those vertigo moments when you're working, the sudden realization that, "Holy s$#*, now there is a story where before there was nothing"? That's a nice feeling, with side helpings of dizzying and scary.

(C leaves for a different set of mountains for another week of workshopping tomorrow morning. My intent is to bang and bash away on the new book, and get as close to finishing the current draft as I can. And to watch lots of bad television, of course. I suspect there will also be a slew of forlorn tweets. And you never know, I might starve to death.)

Killer Serials

As y'all know, there's nothing I like more than a good process discussion. So for the past few days I've been reading with great interest the posts at the Fangs, Fur, & Fey livejournal community, where a bunch of authors have been posting their responses to the question of the month, "How did you plan the last novel you wrote (and successfully finished)? Outline? Synopsis? Summary? Divination Rod? Nuthin' at all?" (Here's links to a few, and you can seek them all out using the link above: Laura Anne Gilman's, Maggie Stiefvater's, Janni Simner's, and Megan Crewe's.)

This all falls under the category of when you're thinking about something, suddenly you see it everywhere. One thing I'm trying to do as I approach my next book (or what I'm fairly certain is my next book) is give it a little more cooking on the front end. My process seems to be shifting over time to allow more planning, with the caveat that the story still sometimes manages to jump tracks and end up somewhere completely different. I have no expectation that I'll ever completely eliminate that track-jumping, at least not in the smaller sense, and I don't really want to. What I do want to try to do is get more of a feel for the story, the world, and the characters before I start actually constructing them on the page.

So I've been thinking about that--stopping myself from actually starting the book, as is my usual modus operandi--and slowing down and letting the pieces come together a bit more first. I'm sure this won't actually turn out to be that slow a process, since I also believe that too much planning can be useless or, worse, detrimental. Witness all the research I did on Aztecs and the Romani in the earliest of early drafts of what was to eventually become a book that uses only Greek mythology (the book I just finished). Now, that stuff will come in handy--in fact, I expect some of it will come in handy on the project I'm doing all the thinking about. But I certainly didn't end up needing it for the last book, so I'll be doing my researching as I go this time. Because despite all this front-end work, I still thoroughly expect that I won't know exactly what I might need to research until I get into the placing of one word after another.

Which brings me to the second thing I've been thinking about--what are the elements that seem to be common to successful series? By series here I mean both open-ended series with lots of books and the more traditional trilogy; for my purposes, the key elements would likely be the same. I'm thinking the next thing I write might be such a trilogy, and that also necessitates more planning up front, at least in theory. Here's what I've come up with so far, and then you smartypants can (hopefully) add or comment on things I missed.

New Year Agent News

Wow, so this post is going to be kind of insane and nutty happy--sort of like my week. I can't imagine how this year could have gotten off to a better start, and if I don't post this here immediately, I might die!

Late yesterday/early today, I gleefully accepted an offer of representation from Jennifer Laughran of the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Jenn is a brilliant force of nature and I couldn't be more thrilled, thrilled, thrilled. There were many excellent agents on my list of possibilities, but I just knew Jenn was the right one as soon as we talked.

I'm sure there are probably writers who enjoy the uncertainty and excitement of agent searching, but it made me feel like throwing up--for three days. Christopher and I went out to the grocery store last night after I'd talked to Jenn and I was all whining about how I just wanted to go ahead and say yes, and not wait for anyone else, and that doing otherwise made me feel like my hair would fall out. He told me to go for it. By the time we got home, one of Jenn's clients (one who I'm an insanely huge fan of) had sent a charming, hilarious, glowing recommendation for her. I said, Screw waiting, and called the Melissas over to celebrate. Just before bed, another glowing recommendation came in from a different client, and a follow-up with yet more glow from the first one. I woke up in the middle of the night knowing exactly what changes I wanted to make to the manuscript before it goes out, and e-mailed Jenn (who had already sent me notes! because she is that awesome!).

This morning, I e-mailed the other agents I needed to and let them know I'd made a decision. I should also give a shout out of thanks to one of the best friends (and best writer friends) a girl could ever have, Justine Larbalestier, who has gone above and beyond this week, offering advice and endless support of the moral variety. And the rest of you who kept me from levitating and answered my plaintive e-mails--Kate, Micol, Kelly. Christopher, of course. And I could probably go on. But I won't.

Yes, I realize I don't get to whine about the stress of this too much. Starting an agent search on Tuesday and finishing it in the Best Possible Way by the end of the week OVER A HOLIDAY is a blessing. What can I say? I'm insanely lucky, and beyond insanely happy.

And now I should really go work on revisions For My Agent. Such beautiful words. This is going to be a very fine year.

Best Typo of the Day's Revision*

Undead for dead. Whole different book, that way.

*So far.

Meet Alexa: She Kicks Ass

Well, actually she's not all that great at the literal ass-kicking, though willing to give it an old college try in a pinch. Anyway, one of my JoNo compatriots posted a link to a hero image generator, and I spent awhile yesterday creating one of my book's Alexa. I can't figure out how to actually save the image in a way I can just quickly paste it in here in its full glory, but I did print a copy and scan it and the result will appear below. (Complete with lines in the background from the crappy printer!)

The main thing you can't see as well in the scan is the dark olive tone of her skin. ANYWAY, it's not as if we go around in our novels talking about what our characters look like all the time (at least, I don't), but I have a pretty good image of them all as I'm working. And it actually felt useful (not to mention fun) to have to figure out her warddrobe and al the other million details. And now she's watching me...

So, without further ado, Alexa Johnson, aka Medea's daughter, aka the heroine of Saving the Witch.

Huh.

Fixing this book may actually be fun.

Getting Things Done

That would be my Siouxsie-pale hands literally attacking the keyboard for the next month. Yesterday I turned in the last packet of the third semester for my MFA program. And saving my advisor's response and a bunch of paperwork, that means I now have a month off. The next residency begins in scenic Montpelier on July 9.

During the semester, I finished a 16,000 or so word critical thesis (called, perhaps boringly, "Eye for a God's Eye: The Bold Choice of the Omniscient Point of View in Fiction for Young Adults"), which, while it took me away from fiction for a good chunk of time, also turned out to be a tremendous learning experience. (Oh god, did I really just use the words "learning experience"? My apologies. I'll get back to the hedonistic kind forthwith.) I also wrote about 16,000 words on a new (old) project, oddly enough using the omniscient POV--or the OPOV, as I now call it, which is, thus far, an even bigger learning experience. (Last time I use that term, I swear.) And did brief annotations for somewhere north of 50 books that I read, mostly not including the theory books I read bits and pieces of for the thesis. My advisor, the fabulous Leda Schubert, who is so smart her brain may actually throw off sparks at times, kept the faith and prodded me forward and endured the whining that comes from serving on two juries (the Tiptree and the Cybils) during the same period of time as writing a thesis and doing freelance stuff and the normal day job/life stuff, etcetera.

I'm saying this because I have a nasty tendency to only focus on what I haven't done. Which, in this case, is to revise the novel I wrote during my first two semesters. I managed to do a bit of it, but for the most part it got set aside. (This will undoubtedly turn out to be a good thing, but some of us like to enforce insane standards for ourselves, or at least indulge in self-flagellation.) Anyway, that brings me back to attacking the keyboard. Doselle--whose ear I bent for far too long one night in Madison, answering the innocent inquiry "so what are you working on?"--will be glad to hear that I plan to take this month to Finish That Damn Novel.

Yesterday I printed out the first draft and got my pen and notebook ready. Mostly, I already know what needs doing, but I'm sure some other stuff will occur to me coming back fresh to it. The most major surgery is writing a new ending, but I know what the right ending is and that's always the hardest part. For the next month, that's what I'll be doing. And then I will send it off to my genius first readers, who will tell me how to make it even better, and then I will send it to some agents.

But, first, the finishing of a coherent draft.

What I won't be doing this month is taking on any freelance assignments, saying yes to anything optional, keeping up with e-mail or returning phone calls in a timely manner. I've already downsized my feedreader subscriptions by about a hundred (so if something really important is happening in your life and I should know, e-mail me). One of the most important things I know about my own proclivities is that I require time to goof off, in fairly large measure, when I'm working really hard on something. So I will be playing Defend Your Castle (yay, Wii Ware!) and making it through the last couple of seasons of Angel (after getting bogged down by that whole Darla's return storyline) and catching a stray movie and posting random stuff here and going out to dinner and that kind of thing.

I will just also be working very hard on making le novel and not keeping up with some stuff. Wish me luck and fortitude.

Also True

A couple of weeks ago, Roseanne Cash was blogging about her songwriting process at the NYT. This week it's Suzanne Vega (who I was listening to in the car just this morning). I like this:

Many times a song will begin with a clear image in my mind, but sometimes a song can begin with a melody popping into your head. How does it come? On an instrument? With a voice? On something unearthly that is neither, maybe. It could be a clear voice that says, for example, “Men in a war, if they’ve lost a limb, still feel that limb as they did before.” I heard that line clearly in my mind and it sounded like a voice to me.

But voices and visions are scary to admit to.  And also you have to make time for them, or they go on to someone else.

Like what Cash had to say, this strikes me as equally applicable to the writing of fiction. Which I should get back to right now...

Word Count

  Word Count 
  Originally uploaded by gwenda

Before you judge, I wrote 1900 words--and they weren't half-bad.

Blurriness should be attributed to the photographermy cameraphone. A couple more snaps at the old Flickr, including one of Puck licking the keyboard.

The Neo is my favorite thing since EVER. Proper post soon, but it works sweetly with Scrivener. A winning combination.

Also, please admire the edge of our new table!

Oh, and I have a question, for you smartypants types: Is there a special name for the center of a labyrinth?

True Things

Jenny points to wise words from Roseanne Cash, who's guest blogging at the NYT this week. I am stealing her excerpt whole cloth and even adding a chunk, because I'm lazy like that and might want to be able to find it again sometime (whole thing behind the cut):

Sometimes songs are postcards from the future. Often I have found that a song reveals something subtle but important about my own life that I was only vaguely aware of while writing, but that became clear as time went on. I wrote "Black Cadillac" six weeks before a rash of deaths began in my family. The day I finished writing it, I played the completed song to myself, as a kind of last run-through to check for rhyme scheme errors and syllable scanning, and a tidal wave of anxiety started rising in my gut. I knew I had given myself a message.

Writers Fight Ostentatiously

Well, not really. But over at Contemporary Nomad, Kevin Wignall does have a great little post about the controversial, rarely humble adverb. He offers the last paragraph of Joyce's "The Dead" in the adverb's defense:

"A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."

At least one other writer would agree. (There's some interesting conversation in the comments.)

In writing, as in life: Everything in moderation, except when excess is demanded.

Catch-up

I have a cold. It comes and goes. For Christopher, it just stays, so I'm not complaining (too loudly). And we haven't even begun to Xmas shop yet. But a post on recent writing stuff, anyway...

Turkey City 2007.
For those of you who don't know, the Turkey City Writer's Workshop is, to quote the home page, "a long-running Texas science fiction institution," held in Austin. It is, of course, the genesis of the infamous Turkey City Lexicon. When Chris Nakashima-Brown graciously invited Christopher and me to attend this year's incarnation as guest workshoppers, we immediately said yes. (Or it would have been immediate, were I better at keeping up with the e-mail.) Plus, any excuse to impose on Maureen's hospitality is thoroughly welcome.

The thing that makes Turkey City a bit different than the usual workshop is that it takes place over one day. The format involves spending the hours up to lunch reading everyone's stories (we had 12, I believe, a few of which came a day or two in advance via e-mail), grabbing lunch, then indulging in the standard Milford-style critique circle until every last story's been given the royal treatment. It's kind of like Survivor: Workshop. Sounds brutal and hellish, I know, and, well, it is brutal, but thankfully not so much with the fiery torture. We didn't see a whole lot of TC's legendary acid and scrappy critique stylings, for which I'm grateful. Instead, we read a bunch of really good stories and had very cogenial discussions about how to make them better. I got some excellent feedback on my novel's opening. Afterward, there's a party, which was fun (if sort of a blur due to the complete and utter exhaustingness of the day). (C-Nak's house, btw, is basically the coolest pad in the world.)

The next day we slept in, then went for a delicious lunch at local staple Las Manitas Avenue Cafe. After that, we paid a visit to the extremely excellent Harry Ransom Center to see the current exhibits; one was about the trend for costumes and staging in Victorian photography (including a whole bunch of Lewis Carroll's stuff that I've loved for ages), the other about Arthur Miller's theater and featuring some amazing letters written during the McCarthy era about his refusal to name names. Christopher and I both had our pictures snapped in the interactive part of the Victorian exhibit and they can be seen at those links--we'd have done something more interesting if we hadn't been so wiped. Then on to Book People, where I overindulged in the stupendously wonderful children's and teen section. (Seriously, best staff recommendations and selection EVER. What a great bookstore.) Airport, ice cream, hellish flying experience that at least involved free booze from the flight attendant, and home home home. Needless to say after this report, Maureen and Chris are the best hosts around.

Revision. & Again.
Yes, we all love Scrivener. I'm finding it's really and truly worth its weight in gold (or more, actually, because it probably doesn't have a weight in gold) as I go into revision mode. Not that it's not wonderful during composition, but it seems there are so many functions I'm only discovering now.

Which is a short way of saying that things will probably continue to be sporadic around these parts until next year. My intention is to turn around the major revision of Monster Nation in the next month or so (I leave for my next MFA residency January 13, and more on the First Year of the MFA soon), which will be lots of work. I'm working on my revision outline the rest of this week and then will dive into it. Luckily, as I said, Scrivener makes rearranging and tweaking your story spine and managing the overall task of stuff so much more intuitive. This is a very good thing. Then, I'll circulate it to some people and see what they think. (And start something else.)

Oh, revision, my favorite favorite part of the writing process. The part when you get to make stuff good.

Write Porn Meta

So over at Seven Imps, Jules posts:

At the Southern Festival of Books a couple weeks ago here in Nashville, I heard author/illustrator/novelist Rosemary Wells speak briefly. She said — and I quote this exactly — "process doesn't exist. Any good writer will tell you that." What say you, authors?

Now, you may find my response shocking, what with the process questions and the write porn around these parts and all. But here's what I said over there in the comments:

Oh, I definitely agree with her! The reason I’m so fascinated to "talk process" is because I think it's all lies — seriously, I think we all make up our processes as we go along, and that we probably aren't even right about what we think they are. Plus, there's the not wanting to embarrass one's self when discussing such things. I mean, honestly, so much of it is just thinking, wandering around, taking things in and reforming them into something else. Life is the real process, right?

Still, sometimes what we perceive as the process of creating any given thing can be illuminating, and it's always an interesting procrastination tool.

I suspect process is just another story we tell ourselves. Thoughts?

Now back to the actual process of TYPING.

Updated: Okay, so I was a bit flip yesterday -- I didn't actually mean it's all lies. And, besides, note the probably(s) and things in there. Sometimes I forget that this is not actually a window into my brain and so if I don't frame the whole thing, there is no context.  Here's a bit of a clarification from the comments, which only convinces me I should have made this the longer, more fleshed out post about process I've been wanting to do:

Oh, I'm definitely _not_ saying that none of it can be described, that the _entire_ way we say we work is a fiction. That's not it at all. And I'm using process in the (yucky arty term alert) "creative process," sense, which is larger than habit.

What I'm saying, I suppose, is that the magic is _part_ of the process, and so we can only describe the most mundane aspects of it? So someone saying they sit down for two hours every day and write for 500 words describes something (and definitely captures _part_ of the process), an action that either happens or doesn't, but it doesn't say anything about the rest. Or about the six months in which not a word was written immediately before that. :)

And, Dave, yes, yes -- all I'm saying is that most quantifications of this stuff are missing a lot at best. For instance, if you answer a question for me about your process today, you give me an answer and it's "true." But how about when your biographers dig that out fifty years from now -- was that your process? Because often what a writer said at one certain time gets reprinted a million times and this one's a moving target for most of us, I suspect.

We want to be more in control of it than we are.

And I will add that the big revelation in terms of my own "process" this year was the discovery that I basically have to write every section of my novel about four times, to get anywhere approaching something I'm happy enough with to move on to the next bit. Honestly, the four times thing is probably inaccurate, but it feels right, to Dave's point below. (And the flip one I was making yesterday.) At any rate, the reason why this was a big revelation is that it staves off the utter despair that comes during the third revision, when the chapters still aren't right and I don't know why. The next novel will probably be entirely different.

Novelization for Dummies

I love it when I discover that I buried something extremely useful and necessary in a crappy first draft ... just as I'm getting ready to delete that part.

Some Days

It's a victory just to talk yourself into opening the file.

(Why, yes, Gwendagras -- defcon subdued this year -- is Thursday and I'm also preparing for departure to Vermont for two weeks on the 15th, so, yeah, busy ... but tomorrow I will manage to make an actual post with content about books. Pinky swear.)

Elsewhere on Writing

Maureen McHugh (my yoga hero) on thickening the plot:

We are so hardwired to make assumptions about other people's interior states, that we make assumptions about all sorts of interior states. We personify stuff. We describe houses as 'happy' or 'gloomy'. We think that the grocery cart has it in for our car door. We think that characters in fiction are people. We can leap to rather complex assumptions about them on the basis of fairly flimsy details. The details that we find most telling tend to be their actions. So in fact, part of character is what I describe them doing, and if I think of situation and describe characters acting in the situation, I am in fact characterizing as much as I am generating plot.

Alan at the LBC on poetry and fiction informing each other:

Which is a roundabout way of saying, I think, that the poetry reading and writing that I was doing post-MFA was beginning to have an effect on my fiction--but not in sense of a specific technique, but rather a mindset--or let's even call it a position--that I wanted to take with my writing. That I wanted to push myself into real engagement with the world, and how I was situated within it. Sometimes, but not always, that led to a more political type writing; it also, for sure, helped open up the aversion to philosophy that I'd harbored for some time, and began to read philosophers speculatively, in ways that could open up new ways for me of looking at both writing poems or stories. These are obviously tenative baby steps, and when I mention being "comfortable" earlier, I should make it clear that this involved being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

And, finally, David Lubar says it short and sweet:

An insprirational message for any writer who has gone online to procrastinate: There is nothing on the internet as interesting as the book you are supposed to be writing. Get back to work.

Routine Pleasures

It seems like whenever I resolve to post more about writing, it just doesn't happen.

My packet was actually due this morning -- I wrote down the wrong date on the calendar. But it was almost done and I got it in around noon and Tim was, of course, a champ about my space-out, which is only to be expected. This is my fourth packet; I believe the last one I talked about in any detail was number two. That's because my third packet fictioneering consisted of the kind of crap you occasionally crank out in a novel when you know what happens in thirty pages, but not exactly what happens in the thirty pages you have to write now (I can't write out of sequence, just can't). I gave myself a couple of good breadcrumbs in those pages, but it was mostly treading water -- some nice, entertaining dialogue, but where was the tension and action?

So, I spent this last month on tension and action. You know, making Actual Things Happen. Letting the antagonist(s) show up for work, etcetera. For a little while, I was feeling as if I hadn't gotten enough done this month, but that was only until I remembered that I was expecting to have gone on to the next 50 pages or so rather than rework these. In reality, I messed around with a short story (that I still need to get into better shape soon), substantially reworking it, and turned out about 50 pages of mostly brand-new novel. That's a pretty good month, all told. Especially since I did the PW piece somewhere in there.

I still feel like the slowest writer in the world, but, oh well. These pages are still a little rough, but better (I hope -- will find out soon). The thing that turned it around was getting back to my lunchtime hour of writing in the corner at work with my headphones and no wireless. I probably wrote half of the new stuff this week and it was the key stuff. As a concept, I have always hated routine with its associations of boringness. But really, what is it except a rhythm you get into? I'm not advocating writing every day for every writer -- I certainly couldn't manage it forever. But.

It does make a real difference when you show up at the page most days. It really, really does.

Now, to keep doing it. Which should be somewhat easier because I mainly know what happens from here on out -- when I stop working as much as I should be it's because of one of two things: 1)too busy and stressed or 2)consciously or subconsciously hung up on some detail that always turns out to be much easier to solve While Writing Than While Thinking About It. On number one, I just have to keep doing the yoga, the magical, magical yoga and on two, well, I'll fall down, but I need to remind myself it's always eventually solved at the keyboard. Or while sleeping.

Now to figure out what the hell I'm submitting for the summer workshop (and write my fingers off on MN so I make my last packet of the semester really count) ... something old, something new or something in between?

Anyway, cheers. Good weekend, everybody.

Headbang Your Pen

Y'all will remember that making playlists can be a useful outlining and writing tool for me. And I hadn't made one in awhile, not since way back when the novel had an entirely different name. I prefer writing to certain kinds of songs, so that's the kind of playlist this one is, not necessarily one I hear as a soundtrack to the novel.

Well, it is, but not in an overt way. There's way more slow, drawn-out quiet songs on here than there are chapters like that in the novel (I hope), but I like those for thinking and writing. They blend into invisibility easier. So, without further ado, here it is. Remember that my iTunes is all stuff I've downloaded since I got my computer last summer, so it's all from music blogs and albums I've bought since then.

Warning also: It's long. That means I don't have to keep hitting repeat. Most tracks findable online at the Hype, if you're intrigued by something.

Hotaru - Kama Aina
She Was a Girl, She Was in Love - Matt Baldwin   
Splintering - Arizona       
The Funeral - Band of Horses   
Mushaboom (Postal Service Remix) - Feist       
Minors - Flying       
My Dad Is Rich - Brian Ross    
This Sentence Will Ruin/Save Your Life - Born Ruffians
True Affection - The Blow       
I Turn My Camera On - Spoon (Live at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on 8-12-2006)      
Cursed Sleep - Bonnie "Prince" Billy 
Crowd Surf Off A Cliff - Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton      
Hunters Map - Fionn Regan      
My Head Is Blank - François Virot       
Hello Hello Hi - From Bubblegum to Sky       
Rich Man - Ghostland Observatory         
Holy Cow (demo) - Margot & The Nuclear So And Sos      
On a Neck, On a Spit - Grizzly Bear       
Wild is the Wind (Nina Simone Cover) - Cat Power                     
My Heart Is An Apple - Arcade Fire   
I'm Just a Child - Coming Soon         
Bonnie & Clyde - Headset       
Citizens of Tomorrow - Tokyo Police Club   
Gotta D.J. - Hot Springs                   
Strange Desire - The Black Keys       
Winchester Gun - Katamine   
Under the Gun - Kristin Hersh       
Elephant Gun - Beirut       
Vertigo - Kristin Hersh       
Alaska - Camera Obscura       
Everything's Just Wonderful - Lily Allen                   
We Were Sparkling - My Brightest Diamond       
I Can Get Us Out Of Here - Lucero       
To Go Home - M. Ward   
Volcanoes - Islands       
Dancing Queen - Mantissa                   
Up To My Neck In You - Mark Kozelek       
I Am Not Willing - Moby Grape               
I Was Wrong - The Morning Benders      
Hold On, Hold On - Neko Case   
Breathless - Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds      
Shade And Honey - Sparklehorse       
Something of an End - My Brightest Diamond       
Home As A Romanticized Concept Where Everyone Loves You Always And Forever - Woodpigeon   
Scientist Girl - North Atlantic       
Cross My Heart, Hope You Die - This Is A Process Of A Still Life 
The Fatal Flaw - Lucinda Kruy & The Sun-Ups   
Song for Augustine Pt. 2 - White Flight       
Celebration Guns - Stars      

P. 123

The vacationing Carrie has a work in progress meme:

Turn to page 123 in your work-in-progress. (If you haven't gotten to page 123 yet, then turn to page 23. If you haven't gotten there yet, then get busy and write page 23.) Count down four sentences and then instead of just the fifth sentence, give us the whole paragraph.

So, here's page 123, paragraph with sentence five in it:

She issues the cyborg an order. "You. You drive us home."

You'll note it's still in present tense because I haven't gotten that far in the revision yet. (The cyborg is a Secret Service agent, by the way.)

And, since that was so teeny, here's the paragraph in question from page 23, which has been revised (for now):

It wasn't like I'd fainted or run a marathon or anything hard, only lost everything I thought I knew about the world. Except that it was falling apart--I was apparently right about that.

Now you.

Oh Woe: Time & Sanctions

So, usually I hate maxims and wise little sayings, etcetera ad infinitum, but I make an exception for Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project because I often find myself nodding my head at her posts. The other day, she posted a list of the secrets she'd learned in adulthood that changed her life once she figured them out. One in particular stuck out to me, since I was in a fit of multi-day procrastination:

What you do EVERY DAY matters more than what you do ONCE IN A WHILE.

I decided I was going for force myself to put this into practice. The three things that offer the most instant rewards when I do them every day, but which I have the hardest time actually being consistent about are: 1) WRITING, 2) eating and drinking sensibly, and 3) exercising. Pretty basic stuff, right?

Since the spreadsheet for a novel doesn't actually appeal to me, I made a Word document with some tables in it -- because I want some sort of spreadsheet, even if not one specifically for my book. I put the quote from Gretchen at the top and made a table with numbered entries for 1, 2, and 3 with Yes or No check boxes for each. Each day, I have to honestly assess whether I did all three of these things. If the answer is NO, then I don't get to watch any TV the next day, not even if it's a Veronica Mars day or an Office day or whatever. (Two days a week, I am allowed to take off from any one of these things without sanction but must still do two of them.)
(More after the cut.)

Clues of Revision

Ben had a great post the other day about becoming reticent about posting about the writing process before things are done or sold--and about how BORING not talking about it can become. He says:

Like, you know how you don't, traditionally, tell people about the first trimester of a pregnancy? So that if you're going to miscarry, you can miscarry in peace?

But not talking about trouble and dismay, dead ends and trashed story beginnings and terror, makes this blog, frankly, duller.

And, well, yeah, I agree. (Um, not that Ben's blog is dull, because it's not, but that his point is right on: The possibility of failure is exciting. Always, in life and in fiction.) And I'd intended at one point to move those sorts of posts over to the teeny LJ, but I just feel differently about that space than I do about this one. This is my blog, that's just an annex. It seems weird to exile my posts about writing, and I never really managed to make such posts over there anyway. (It should be solely for friendslocking and commenting and possibly metrics and whining, I've decided. Basically, what it is now.)

I was also thinking about this in trying to decide how going through the MFA program was going to change Shaken & Stirred* (or if it would). And how can it not? I'm writing a lot more, and I'm thinking about writing a huge amount more (both my own and other people's), so it follows that I'd be posting about how fucking hard it is and what I'm learning more than occasionally. I think this place would get dreary pretty fast, otherwise. Also, it seems like MFA programs in general come in for a lot of casual slamming and my experience so far has been nothing but amazing. So I want to inject some honesty about my own impressions into that sea of carping.

That said, posting about work-in-progress and the Process still feels dangerous, for the reasons Ben describes, but screw it. My lone New Year's resolution was to stop second-guessing. Feel free to skip these write porn posts if you like; I won't be offended. Sometimes I think a writer's process is only interesting to that writer, but then I remember that I actually find other people's processes endlessly fascinating.

Which brings me to the real topic of this post, or at least the second one:

Revision. (Clicky below to follow.)

Let's Go Shopping (updated)

And it's even writing-related! I need warm boots for my first MFA residency in Vermont this January. The dynamite Haddayr Copley-Woods pointed out some excellent options at Zappos and I think I've narrrowed it down to the following fabulous selections:

crunchy
tall
flowery
gray
these (I keep going back and forth between tusk and rootbeer -- possibly too short; opinions requested, but I kinda like these best at the moment) (or here's a slightly taller version)
taller

Which is where you come in. Preferences? Other candidates? (X-posted at LJ, which is the usual writing nattering spot these days.)

Updated: Thanks to all who played! Cleary, crunchy has won the fantasy boot competition. But the actual cold weather-livers have confirmed my opinion that these or a taller version of these (why is the taller version not available in tusk? gnash) are probably going to work best ... especially when wearing pants. I like pants. So I'm gonna try those first and see if they work. Next stop: warmer coat that does not look like a Stay Puft Marshmallow Man costume!

File Under, Research I Can't Use

Awhile back I posted a gross yet interesting thing from my Aztec Dance Tunes' research that I couldn't use. Here's another remarkable tidbit of unusableness from an interview with Christopher Faraone about Ancient Greek love magic:

The other thing that struck me about these spells is that they are used by men to inflict great pain and suffering on women, but the men want the pain and suffering to stop when the women arrive at their door. Thus a common formula reads something like this: "Burn, whip, torture the heart, the liver, the body of Ms. X, until she leaps from her home and comes to me, Mr. Y." The assumption of the users of these spells is that these women are not going to make love to them or even look their way unless some supernatural torture is applied to them to force them to come. One of the ideas that I explore in my book is that you have the same kind of assumption and the same application of force in a certain type of marriage in the Greek world called bridal theft, or abduction marriage, a form of kidnap or elopement that was still practiced in Greece and the Balkans even in the 1950s. In more traditional places where a man was interested in a woman and there's no way for them to get together--maybe she's from a higher socioeconomic bracket--he might get a bunch of his buddies together and kidnap her. In some cases, however, he might do this with the tacit agreement of her parents, who might be glad to forgo the expense of a wedding or a dowry. There is not enough evidence for me to actually prove this, but I suspect that erotic spells were a kind of supernatural form of abduction marriage. That's the sociological frame, but when you're working in the ancient world there are no certainties because we don't have a lot of good evidence even for this kind of marriage.

Of course, maybe I'll use some of it in the next one... in which I will definitely be modeling the heroine's father sorta, kinda on Professor Faraone himself. An idea of great joy.

Whisper Don't Laugh

John Crowley posted about the dangers of writing as if you're transcribing a movie in your head. In an exchange in the comments, he says:

It may be a skill thing indeed. Writers of the "show-don't-tell" school have to find a way to tell without seeming to tell. They have given up the deep richness Tom Disch talked about and yet because it's a necessary and central part of fiction they have to win it back by other means, often at great effort. It's part of the reason why that directive can produce bad writing, or is at least not unambiguous as a prescription. Wayne Booth famously pointed out that the distinction is hopeless: there is nothing in fiction that is shown and not told -- it's all told.

And later:

If you could make mental movies like Hitchcock made actual ones, you would be in a different mode. And the "layered way" IS the glory of fiction and not available to film; it is the way that books are made as rich as the best films. But many inexperienced writers try to skip that step, proceeding directly form mental image to recounting. "I come in the room. The mangy dog is standing by the refrigerator. His eyes are on me. I hear a noise behind me, and turn. An even mangier dog is standing in the doorway. Turning to the window, I see a face looking in at me. Fear takes over my body, and I run to the left of the mangy dog, past him and out the door. Scenery rushes past me as I flee down the dark street," etc. Even good or potentially good writers who have fallen into this trap and are faced by their own production of stuff of this kind and know it's no good don't always see the reason, which I called Mental Movie Transcription.

It's worth reading the whole thread.

Incoming!

My slush bomb submission (finished pell mell at the last minute) has been sent. Let it be rejected forthwith! (And here's Charles Coleman Finlay's running tally of submissions.) And now for photographic evidence (the cat was watching the return of the mailing voyage):

Refusing the Call, or Devices of Potentially Limited Use

I don't believe in observing all the "rules" of storytelling all the time, but when I become aware I'm breaking one, or decide to break one, I do like to acknowledge it and think over why I'm making the choice and whether there's a trade-off and if it's the right choice/trade-off for the story. I want to throw out something I'm thinking about, but not have the discussion really be about rules and conventions, per se; I want to talk about this specific one.

So.

One of my very least favorite things in a quest narrative (or, if you want to be all prissy and Campbellian about it A Hero's Journey) or any sort of story where the protag has to take up a torch of some kind is the initial "refusal of the call." So often, it strikes me as story water-treading. I, as a reader and audience member, know the call will be accepted. If the call's not accepted, then there's no story. The reasoning for the refusal often becomes perfunctory for just this very reason.

Romantic comedies are the worst offenders, or one of the worst anyway, in that the resistance is sometimes silly and sustained for wayyyyy too long. But that's not really a quest narrative in the way I'm talking about it here, unless you view the romance as the quest, which would really make it an incredibly lame quest. I think of quest, I think Big Stakes and Personal Stakes, not just one or the other. I'm pretty sure you'll instantly know the kind of story I'm talking about.

I'll say again. I hate that refusal to the call business, at least when it's given more than an inch of space. I'm thinking about this because Aztec Dance Tunes is a quest story. I don't want to get too far into the details, because I'm not ready to talk about them yet, but for the sake of clarity there is a girl and she is given a huge, impossible task with huge, impossible stakes if she screws it up. And I think she can skip this step, the refusing the call step.

Because I think a character can be reasonably expected to know when something like this falls on top of them that there's no easy way to get out from under it. I think it's believable emotionally for a character to think, "Yeah, got hit by that. Even I know I have to do this now." And there can still be all the rational fear and doubt and why me? of it, but the story doesn't stop for this step. I might also say that this particular character has been around some pretty weird things and is a reader (in other words, she knows how stories go) and whip-smart.

Why I bring this up is that you are a pretty savvy lot of readers and I want to see: Do you feel like you do need this step to buy into a character taking on a quest in a narrative like this? (And yes, I realize that execution is everything and there are no details here; it's not something I'll hold you to!) Or are you impatient with this dithering step too? Discuss.

p.s. I promise, swear, cross my heart and stick pins and needles in something nearby, that I'll catch up on email before I leave for BEA. Because after that, comes Wiscon, and after that, sleep. So if I don't answer now, there will be no answering!

More Aztecy Goodness

(This is a post to skip if you aren't interested in my obessive ramblings while working on this book. I wouldn't blame you.)

I'm still loving the hell out of Aztec Dance Tunes. It's a hard book to write, sure, but aren't they all? Anyway, here's a couple of fun things.

I made another playlist, this one with a few of the long songs I wanted to put on the first one but which wouldn't fit. (I couldn't get all of them on this one either.) This playlist isn't necessarily made up so much of songs in which I hear the novel as songs which aren't off and strike me as good writing background music for this book. Or at least that I think will be. It's mostly long songs. And a few short ones because. I'm now rotating out the two discs (still Podless, oh wealthy benefactor).

ADT Long Songs #1 Playlist

Scatterheart / Bjork
Car / Catherine Wheel
April The 14th (Part I) / Gillian Welch
Draining The Pool For You / The Go-Betweens
The New Cobweb Summer / Lambchop
23 Minutes In Brussels / Luna (Live)
The Cactus Where Your Heart Should Be / The Magnetic Fields
I Think I Need A New Heart / The Magnetic Fields
Miles Away / Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Fourth of July / Galaxie 500
Your Dirty Answer / Kristin Hersh
Limbo / Throwing Muses
I Dream A Highway / Gillian Welch

In general, the music I'm putting on these is slightly older than what I'm listening to the rest of the time. And I'm recycling several of the same artists -- people who have made a great deal of music that I love -- maybe because this book is also drawing on all sorts of things I've loved for ever and ever and ever. I like the familiarity and also that little buzz you get from hearing something you haven't been listening to a million times a week already but still love. I'm mostly sticking this one up here because some of you cottoned to the first (and there will be many more, I'm sure, before this sw-et b-tch is done), but also to see what long songs you have to recommend... (Long song = 5 minutes plus.)

And here, as a bonus, is one of the best, grossest bits of my research reading that I don't plan on using and can't help but share. I like to call it "The Misunderstanding":

As discontent arose, the Mexica themselves precipitated their own violent departure. Obeying the promptings of Huitzilopochtli's priests, they had approached Achitometl, one of the Calhua magnates, asking for his beautiful daughter as their "sovereign" and "wife of Huitzilopochtli." Not understanding the implications of this request, Achitometl acceded to the honor; his daughter went to Tizaapan, where she was splendidly arrayed and sacrificed. Following an old custom, the body was flayed and a priest donned her skin in an ancient agricultural rite symbolizing the renewal of life. The unsuspecting chieftain Achitometl, invited to participate in the concluding festivities, suddenly recognized the skin of his daughter on the body of the priest. The outraged Culhua took arms and were joined by others and, in the wild melee of javelins and arrows, the Mexica were once again driven into the reeds and brackish swamps of Lake Tetzcoco.

From The Aztecs by Richard F. Townsend

I know you're wondering why I wouldn't use such a spectacular gem. But, you see, Aztec Dance Tunes is funny. It's not just funny, but it's supposed to be funny enough that this particular anecdote won't quite fit. Misunderstanding or no. (Oh, to be a fly on the wall of an Aztec bar.)

Aztecy Goodness

I started writing a new book a couple of weeks ago. It's another YA and it's called (for now, at least) Aztec Dance Tunes. I'm head-over-heels in love with it. With the idea and the characters and the research and how weird it is. I'm so in love with it, I don't even feel guilty for setting aside Roanoke while I write it. Roanoke's just not where my head is at right now. It's in this other place instead.

I'm also trying to write it a bit more deliberately (though not snail's pace) than I usually do for a first draft. I'm focusing on a chapter at a time, trying to do a chapter or two a week, and fine tuning what I've written for a couple of days before moving on. All the while figuring out the larger arcs in the book. And finding little scraps of plays and poems and songs, etc., to start out the various sections with. And reading lots of weird, interesting research material about all sorts of things that may or may not make it in.

Anyway, I often pick out a working soundtrack when I start a new project. I choose songs that capture the feeling or theme of certain incidents or moments I think will be in the book, or sometimes it's a song that I associate with a character and what they're experiencing in the book. It helps. Christopher's work on digitizing our music has made it easier and even more fun this time. (BTW, thanks to all who have commented and sent tips for managing the library.)

Last night I burned my very first iTunes CD, which will serve as the initial soundtrack for writing this book (future playlists to come as needed). I thought I'd throw it up here, because I'm a little in love with all of these songs at the moment. If you were me you could totally see a book written between these lines:

The ADT Playlist

Mouthful Of Air / Catherine Wheel
Your Ghost / Kristin Hersh
Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft / Robert Pollard
Bucky Done Gun / M.I.A.
(I Was Born In A) Laundromat / Camper Van Beethoven
Galaxies / Laura Veirs
The Moon / Cat Power
Velvet Days / Kristin Hersh
Life Is But A Dream / Tanya Donelly
Monster Hospital / Metric
Service and Repair / Calexico
A Chicken With Its Head Cut Off / The Magnetic Fields
Low / Cracker
Season of the Witch / Luna
A King And A Queen / Okkervil River
Static On The Radio / Jim White
Wicked And Weird / Buck 65
We Could Send Letters / Aztec Camera
Humans From Earth / T-Bone Burnett
Run Devil Run / Jenny Lewis & The Watson Twins*

(*Y'all managed to change my mind on this one; it's just that one track that's imitation Neko.)