Anxiety

I finished making my changes to WS and put them on the electronic ms. I'm so much happier w/ WS now. Not that I was unhappy before but I felt I'd gone off on tangents that didn't stay close to the story I wanted to tell.

I really love the different ending & I like that there was that extra scene w/ Wilkes at the end. I always liked his character and the arc he followed but this feels more complete.

I also like Thaddea (I always did but I don't think other readers did) and the way she's written now, I can focus more on her and hopefully she's fleshed out more and might garner a little more sympathy. A little at all would be good.

Now I'm hand-editing RFM. I'm just about to the point where I began writing Jan 18. I should be done by this time next week.

Last night I was chatting w/ Jam and she asked me what it's about. I told her the basics of the opening and then I said "Stuff happens." I added that I'm bad with synopses. She said "stuff happens" is a good synopsis. Then I said, "Stuff stops happening and it's over."

Theryn wrote my WS synopsis, which was way, way better than anything I would have ever been able to do. I'm afraid that once she reads RFM, I'm going to have to ask that favor again. Last time in thanks, I got her a year membership to the Darwin Foundation. If she writes me up a RFM synopsis, I'll have to do something as well b/c I will be so overwhelmingly grateful.

I think I have a block against writing synopses. I have this mindset of "if I could tell you this story in two paragraphs, it wouldn't be a novel." Plus I have certain things I want to say with the story and I'm never sure if they come across. It's nice to know what other people get from it. Unfortunately the person who's read it that I could speak with most in depth has given me his review of "I liked it." He went so far as to add, "It made me miss State College." So I grabbed onto that and said, "So the setting is good? It's accurate? You got a sense of where things were and how things looked and were set up..." He's like, "Yeah."

He also liked the sex scenes. He said, "There's a lot of sex in it." I said, "Well yes there is but it's important to the story. Every time it happens, it has some kind of meaning." Then I counted and said there are six sex scenes. Hawk said, "Seven. Are you forgetting the guy in the truck?" Yes I was. I didn't think of it as a sex scene b/c Seth doesn't consider it as sex. Anyway, I did do some cutaways. I didn't show every single little thing (some "literary" sex). I had in mind something Theryn said when I took up knitting. I said to her that I would probably have characters now who knit (Thaddea took it up in the rewrite but we never see her do it). Then I said, "How do you describe knitting?" She said something like, "It's not about showing the knitting. It would be about the motion of the hands, the knitting project, how the knitting is part of the scene, etc." That's how I approached the RFM sex scenes. If something was important, I had to show it. I did some blocking and I tried to go inside Seth when he'd let me and when he stayed external, I did as well. I also tried to add some realistic details. Like I finished the dorm scene last night and I have the details about the narrow bed being right up against the wall (and the wall was always cold, ya know?) and the books falling off the shelves and stuff like that. None of the sex scenes are gratuitous. If I wanted that, I would just write an erotic short story.

Anyway, he also said, "There's a lot of drugs." Yes, there are a lot of drugs. Or a lot of one drug really. It's important too, when it shows up. It's never arbitrary when Seth decides to toke up or get drunk. Same as it's never arbitrary when he's working on his poems. I have a strong feeling Hawk read the story and that's what he took away: just the story. He made an edit note on his copy and he'd told me about it when he read it. He said, "I think you have the wrong sister's name in one place." Entirely possible. I said to mark it and I'd read it on my edit. Here's the line, from the August 1989 flashback chapter:

“Kristen,” I say, staring at the money. “He hurt Kristen. I don’t know where my mom and Jessica are. That bitch left Kristen behind.”

He thought the first two Kristens should be Jessica. That he thought that was a typo means he missed the entire impetus behind the scene, the crucial moment in the main character's life that influences the entire action of the story and the development of the character.

Here's the rub: at first, when I saw that correction last night, I thought "I didn't do my job." Then I realized that he wasn't reading it to get all of the literary stuff out of it. He read it (1) b/c I wanted him to (2) to see State College circa 1992 and relive his glory days (I don't think his college experience was much like mine, even in the same place) and (3) to read the sex scenes. I don't think it's saying anything too inappropriate that I had gone to bed when he stayed up to finish it and he came to bed "ready to celebrate." Sure, I'm happy that element of the book worked but I don't know if "horny" is the primary reaction I want from a reader.

When Erin said it made her cry, I was overjoyed (sorry Erin) b/c that meant I had done my job. That meant that I'd created multi-dimensional characters, showed her what happens to them and made her care about them. The only review Fredlet had for me was a spelling correction and "sell it." I assume she liked it.

I'm so needy and desperate. I just want someone to tell me that s/he got something out of it beyond the story, fell in love with a character, that I captured something perfectly... anything. Even "I liked the names" would be a boost to my ego.

The other reason for this post title is that once I finish my edit on RFM and I get fb from my writery friends (after the UPOP, of course), I'll start querying again. I posed the question on a related entry at Miss Snark (but I don't think it'll be answered) about whether to query two mss together or to query one and say "btw, I have another completed ms here waiting"). And then which do I query? Hawk refuses to read WS again; I don't know why. I told him it's all changed and I need the fb. He loved it the first time & had more to say about it than about RFM so I don't know why he's being a stubborn prick now except that he's just being a stubborn prick in general. I've told him there's sex in it and still... I say, "You could read Jake for me" and his response is always, "I already read Jake." I say, "But it's changed." He walks away.

I think he thinks RFM is about him (and he likes that). I know he does. Beyond the fact that he attended Penn State, grew up in a trailer and once held a baseball bat in a threatening way against Jed, the similarities end there. I'm more Seth than he is. I had to tell him just the other day, "You are not the bright, shining center of the universe." Seriously. Ugh. Yeah, there's more there than just the self-centered reading but this isn't the place for that rant.

Anyway, I have to write new synopses, which I suck at, and start querying again. I assume that the way to approach it would be to query RFM. I don't know which I have a better chance with. RFM is more me, more indicative of my style and the stories I want to tell from here on out (yes I have a new one in mind, vaguely) but I do think that WS would have a broader appeal, as I wrote before.  When it comes down to it, if someone said to me, "Will WS sell?" I would respond, "I think so. I hope so." If someone said to me, "Will RFM sell?" I would say, "Yes."

I might play around with this new idea but the main thing I want to do now is write some short stories and publish. I need fresher credits.

So that's where things stand, kind of whimpering in the corner and saying "Love me." ;)