Posts (page 3)

So I finished my edit on WS at like 3 a.m. the other night. It's a good sign when you can't put a book down, even if you know what happens in it. Now I just need an agent to feel the same way...

That said...

I need another ellipse here, I think...

Anyhoo, I'm having such residual Jakefeeling that I'm really not able to plunge into another book right now (in terms of editing or writing). Luckily Jam recommended a book to me that I'm really enjoying and it's getting Jake out of my mind. Not that I mind him there b/c I luffs him but if I wanted to move on to something new (which is what Maggie tells him... hrm...)

Ellipse...

So that's where things are. No new writing. No submissions. I should send out that Cole story. I think I have a final draft here. Yeah, maybe I'll do that. Damn I need a title. I think I'll call it "Ellipse."

Dot dot dot.

Last week I was busy putting Nine changes into the electronic ms. I felt very confident that I would get all my changes in in about a week and then I would pick it up and start writing on it again. I don't like it just sitting there. I like the story a lot and I like the MC. I even like writing in present tense (inside TC joke there).

Then on Thursday night Hawk was out (1) at a meeting and (2) playing D&D. So I had the kids downstairs, which is easiest, and I didn't want to play Sims or start a new story. So I looked on the computer and saw WS -- the rewrite I'd done in January 2007 (according to how I titled the file). So I thought, "Okay. I'll read a book."

Then I saw a change I wanted to make. Changed it. Kept reading. Another change. Then a line to cut. Then I'm thinking, "Ugh. Why does he keep using all these extra words?" So I start editing in earnest.

Because of his language, I felt distanced from Jake (the narrator) and I felt like I didn't get to know enough about his character. So I kept making cuts, mostly small ones. Then I got further in and I still felt like he was telling me too much and I wasn't learning about who he was. Now I'm getting frustrated.

So I get up to the scene where he goes for tea and it's like it clicks in that all of those things he's telling me in the beginning actually are telling me about him. I know what he notices and what he thinks is important and what he really has on his mind. Then when he goes for tea and Maggie gets him to open up some, I realized, "Okay, here's why he's been kind of a guarded narrator up to this point. Now someone else is making him show things about himself that he might not have wanted to show me (the reader) and he won't have any choice but to open up." I felt like a therapist with a client sitting across from me who wants to tell me things but wants me to chip away at his little layers.

I wondered if that might not be too much to ask of a reader, to stay tuned until we're 40 pages in.

Then I read Pt 2, wherein we switch narrators, styles and time periods. I really, really like that section and I like how it falls into the story. I admit, when I wrote it, I was concerned that the diary format was gimmicky but I forgot that I was reading a "diary" as I read it fresh last night. And yes, when I start to read part 2, I always read it in a day -- a sitting if I can.

I think structurally it hooks you out of part one and pulls you to the top of a hill and you just go with it and roll from there. The pace increases over part 2 and we learn a lot of things that, I think, reflect on and enhance Part 3 (where we go back to Jake and "present day"). I haven't reread Pt 3 yet; I'm doing that today. I need to get more of the stiffness out of Jake. I understand where he's coming from, based on how he would have had to present himself to people and the time when he lives. How he'd be guarded about his thoughts and emotions. But Seth (RFM) is the same way and he didn't hold back. I knew who he was on page 1. So I'm wondering if it really works: is it better to discover who your narrator is as the story unfolds or do you want to know who he is from the beginning? I think it depends on the story.

I'll let you know how part 3 goes and if my opinions change.

And then I'll get those Nine change fixed and then I'll probably dig into RFM again just because.

Well I submitted a story. I wrote it on Saturday after I found the listing at Duotrope. It's a WD story contest so there'll probably be a bazillion submissions. It was free, flash and had a good theme to use. I did a couple of rewrites, including one after I posted a second draft at TC. I know if I futz over it too much, I might miss the deadline (the 10th). Who knows what'll come up in the meantime? So I put it in. I don't know if I'll do something else with it if it's not picked. I might. I mean, it's here, I might as well send it off to some flash journals. Oh and the best part is I never had to title it ;)

I haven't put my changes to the "Cole" story in the computer yet. This flash story, I never edited it in hard copy. I edit flash electronically b/c I'm always kissing the word limit, cutting & adding and I want to know where I stand w/ that. I also make a lot of little edits w/ flash.

It's been a long time since I submitted anything. Especially something other than erotica. So this is fun to get back into. I like the idea of working with a theme. I know from our contests that a lot of writers try to shoehorn in the theme. I think from that standpoint, I have a good chance w/ this piece and with any other themed writing piece I might want to try.

Next I'm going to work on the "Cole" edits and I have some AB stuff to do.

I currently only have one active query out there and it's in Dream Agent's hands (or more accurately, his inbox). As I said before, I don't query far & wide. I research carefully and look at who's a good fit for what I write.

The rejection on the partial includes this: "Though I found your material to be unique and intriguing, unfortunately I've decided this project is not right for me. As a reader, I did not connect to your narrative enough to take on the project." Then he said he was sorry it wasn't a good fit and it was signed.

So that's a pretty good rejection. I know the story isn't for everyone and it's going to take a certain agent with a certain level of chutzpah to say "Yeah, I'd like to shop this around to publishers." More than WS would take, I know.

What else I take from the letter (and maybe I'm reading into it) is that it's the story he didn't dig, not the writing. Thing is, as an editor you can help fix up bad writing. You can't really change the story and if you don't like it, there's not much that can be done to remedy that.

But I was waiting to hear from this guy b/c I sent out this ms (land mail) on the same day I got the "yeah send me a full via e-mail" from Dream Agent. So I'm hoping that's a sign that I'll hear from DA sooner rather than later. He never responded to my nudge but I'll give him until March before I nudge him again.

Via Mari, this is the original:

The Jobs Meme for Writers

How many books have you written? Two complete
How many copies of your books are in print? Zero!
How many of your books did you write on a Mac? Zero
When did you buy your first Mac? Never

The Jobs Meme for Readers

How many books do you read a year? Hrm. If I can get to one a month, that's good. Sometimes more. So I'll say 15.
When was the last time you bought a new computer? We got a laptop in October, for NaNo
When do you expect you'll buy your next computer? No plans
When do you expect you'll buy your next cell phone? No plans
On a scale of 1-10 how important do you think it is that we support reading and literacy? Of course I think it's a 10. Increasing literacy would help with issues like poverty. Who doesn't think literacy is important, other than Steve Jobs?

So I printed out a copy of the new story (I'll call it "Cole" after the one character for now) for Hawk to read. Apparently he read it sometime last evening. His single comment on it was "Is this based on someone you know?"

Yes. I know so many rock stars and, as you know, I am a world-traveling music journalist.

He did the exact same thing w/ RFM. To this day he insists he is Seth. This means he is a 19 year old drifter who writes poetry and smokes weed.

See, I made the mistake of once writing a story that was based on something real that involved him: Time Bomb. It was a fun little piece that I actually got published. He loved reading about himself. Since then I've written two books and I don't know how many short stories and he keeps looking for himself in them.

I think he'd be better off to look for me in what I write. As I was working on my NaNo, I realized that I have some very definite theme that I write about. There is always a sibling relationship that somehow drives my MC. This is strange as my siblings (I'm an adoptee; they're biological children of my mother) want nothing to do with me and never have. Probably why I examine the theme so often. Another theme that has come up in each book is an unintended pregnancy. In WS, it's central and in RFM, it's incidental; in Nine it's a false alarm that works as a catalyst. That probably comes from my fears in my teens & early twenties and then issues beyond that within marriage.

Naturally the core of most everything I write is sex. I'm not sure what all it says about me but I know it says a lot. I'm sure psychiatrists, behaviorists, etc. would enjoy the analyzation. It was hard to keep it out of this short story. I had to fight it off (but there's a little something in there). When I told Hawk, "Be prepared. There's no sex in this." He said, "But you always have sex in it." I think he was disappointed. In fact, I'm sure he was disappointed.

When I was actively writing and publishing BDSM erotica, he was under the impression that I was 100% into everything I was writing about and putting myself in the female role (even in my ultraflash guy-guy story so I don't know how that worked). That's not to say I wasn't interested or that I didn't find it exciting; that's pretty much the point of the genre.But he couldn't draw the line between me and my characters.

I ran this latest reaction past a writer friend and she said, "I can see he'd say that. Because, of course, everything authors write about is always true." We went on to have this exchange:

I had a cool dream last August with a fairly realistic plot. I woke up before the dream was over but I thought, "I could make this into a story, I think." All writers have this plan approximately 27 times during their careers and it rarely works b/c dreams aren't like that.

So I wrote some when I could and it kind of fizzled out. I didn't know the ending and I didn't know, in terms of it being a short story, what I wanted to say with it. I had some symbols in mind, dependent on a real life setting. I had two characters, the narrator being one.

I went to open Nine yesterday, saw this and thought, "Work on this." So I did.I didn't know my end point, whether I had the right narrator, whether some backstory I put in was too tell-y and should be excised, etc. So I made a Google doc and shared w/ three writing buddies. Then today I managed to make time to finish it up. Jam gave me some good insight on it last night & made me think that in terms of an ending, I was looking beyond the natural end. So I took her advice and brought the endpoint closer and it seemed to work.

Since it's a first draft, it'll need more work (of course) and I'd like to get it under 5k but I think I'll be able to send this out before too long.

Oh and it needs a title. I would rather send it out to a dozen journals than have to come up with a title. I hate titles. I'm so bad at them and when I come up w/ one it's boring or bizarre. I could actually call it "Untitled" if I wanted to b/c that's kind of a part of the story. Hrm. That might work. I'll think about it.

We're currently discussing "Dead of Winter" entries. This year we have three judges instead of 2 so there's more opinion to consider in terms of what we want to declare a "placed" story.

Jam, Erin & I all agree on our winner and our second place story (I think). The winner is #5. The second place is #10. When it comes to third place, I like #3, Jam likes #2 and Erin was a "maybe" on stories 11 & 15. I don't remember #15 but my notes are "Not legendy*; just groess. Somewhat creepy but was creepy at the expense of clarity."

*moment*

I've been trying to remember the story all day and it just hit me what happened it it. In thinking back on it, I would still agree with what I said: it wasn't an urban legend. It was someone's personal fear or psychosis at work but not an urban legend. The fear brought about by the set-up action of the story was internal. This story couldn't happen to anyone; it had to happen to this MC for it to have this effect. I think if it fit the "urban legend" theme, it could have happened to anyone but it would have been more compelling with this MC. Like many DOW stories, it was a good idea that I would liked to have seen executed differently.

#11 was okay. There were technical problems, some continuity problems, etc. The unfortunate thing for this writer is that someone else did the same urban legend (but not as well). So naturally there are comparisons. This is one reason I think #2 & #3 worked: they were original urban legends. After both, I spent time searching online for what legend they were based on. They seemed authentic enough that I bought into them (#5 & #10 didn't require any searches, as you'll see when they're published).

What put #3 ahead for me was that I liked the POV and narrative voice. I liked the urban legend and the mystery around it. I admit I wasn't 100% clear on what was happening but I think it was b/c I was distracted by "I should know this modern myth." I think #3 could have used another pass through the edit machine but in general was technically good.

For #2 I though there was some messy word choice but that it was otherwise fresh. Again there were some technical issues that were more pet peevish than technical issues in #3. I wrote in my notes that I liked the "bizarre morbidity" of the story but I was concerned that it was shock for the sake of shock instead of flowing naturally from the story. I though there were good details, that the narrator was good at getting in close. When it came down to it, the story was almost all flashback (which didn't help w/ immediacy, which I felt #3 had) and there was no character interaction. Granted the story couldn't have had any b/c of its nature (and its insular quality was necessary to the tone) but I can't help the fact that I just like a story with dialogue (so much so that it's 15% of a story's score for me). We had more than one dialogue-free story so it's more my issue than a rule about writing.

So that's where we stand. We're having some fantastic back and forth about what we liked (or didn't) and why and this is what I love about being an editor. I could yet be swayed to chose #2 over #3 provided the right argument came along but when it comes down to it, I really only have one foot on that fence. Someone would need to convince me to sit on it before I would go over it ;)

FYI: when I judge a contest, I use a point rating system that has worked well for me for years. If you want one editor/judge's opinion on what makes a great story, this is it:

Held interest: 5
Opening: 5
Ending: 5
Technical: 10
Theme: 10
Dialogue: 15
Language/voice: 15
Originality: 15
Plot: 20

I'm sure other people would weight things differently. Some might not even consider the opening and ending but we've gotten so many stories that the ending fizzles out that I felt I needed to put weight on that element of the story. Usually my top picks are far and above the other choices so it's not a matter of a couple of points making the difference. I really do start in the middle and award or deduct points based on what I read. I'm a very harsh judge. That's why shows like "Dancing With the Stars" bother me. The judge will talk about the many wrong things a contestant did and then give him/her an 8 out of 10. When they just said they were mediocre. That would be a 5 in my math.

In other aspects of life, I'm very easy to please. But not when it comes to writing (especially not for TC).