Catwaxing

Finally finished chapter 19, which I'd hoped to finish Wednesday. I've been catwaxing in a big way this week; I'm not sure why. It's always been my experience before that the writing gets easier down the stretch, and for the most part that's been the case this time too, but I struggled a bit with this chapter. A lot of that is the need for research. Research takes time. There were a lot of logistical challenges to be ironed out in this chapter as well. How does person 1 get from point A to point B, what time is it when he gets there, how will he overcome this obstacle, and so forth.

My protagonist is, for the moment, a runaway. I feel some unease at the possibility that I might be glamorizing running away, but we don't write stories about characters with happy lives in which nothing happens, neh? To expiate my guilt, I've worked in phone numbers, 1-800-RUNAWAY and 1-800-4-A-CHILD, but I'm not sure how smoothly that comes off, or if it's totally obvious that I'm trying to work a PSA into my novel. We'll see if that stays in.

As part of my catwaxing, I've discovered Yahoo Answers. I've long said that I love teaching so much I'd do it for free, if I didn't need to put food on the table. Now I get to prove it! I'm such a nerd.

On author blogs . . . in moderation

I finished another chapter! *bounce*

This was an important chapter, because it provides the motivations for what all the characters will be doing from here on out. I hope I pulled it off well.

I'm about ready to start working on my query letter. Not ready to begin querying, mind you, but to give some thought to the letter. The leader of my local writers' group asked me if I would lead a discussion/training/critique on query letters a month from now. What the hell do I know? Just what I read online. I'm not any kind of expert until I write a query that, you know, lands an agent or something. But I have a big mouth and love to point people to the resources I have found, so I guess I walked into that one.

I read something on a blog--I can't remember if it was Kristin Nelson's or Lucienne Diver's, and I think I was browsing old posts, so it could be hard to find out which--that talked about how you should not blog about your book once an agent starts shopping it around, because you'll undercut his or her bargaining position with editors if you blog about rejections, how long s/he's had it, and so forth. Makes sense, but it got me to thinking afterward that any blogging about a WIP--unless it was already sold and being written on deadline--had that potential. After all, if I finish writing it in June and get an agent who's still shopping it around in March, that will send the same message, no? Oh, well. She didn't mention blogging before you had an agent, so I guess I'll take my chances. It's not like it matters--my WIP will sell in a heartbeat and it won't be an issue, neh? ;)

Speaking of lost blog posts, I read a post by some guy about how he uses hypnagogia to tap into his creativity, and it resonated with me, because it reminded me a lot of what I do (though I didn't know there was a fancy name for it), but when I went to look for it again, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd read it. *sigh*

And then there's lost blog comments. I posted two comments on Lynn Viehl's blog today, one that was reasonably thought out and one that was a throwaway. She moderates her comments, so neither showed up right away. A few hours later, my second post, the brief one, showed up, but not my first one. Lost in the ether?

I'm not sure how I feel about the practice of moderating comments. There are two blogs I read that do this: Viehl's and SF Novelists. On SF Novelists, because they're several writers on a single blog, it can sometimes take days for a comment to show up. I find it very off-putting to wait for days for my expression of sympathy or whatever to be deemed worthy of appearing on the page. On other blogs I read, I see dialogues break out between the various different comment-writers, and hey, sometimes even between comment-writers and the blog author. Isn't that the point? A little back in forth, instead of the stream of thoughts only flowing in one direction? But how can any sort of dialogue break out when comments have to sit in a holding pattern waiting to be approved?

Of course, the luxury of being a complete unknown is that nobody is showing up on my blog just be be insulting. I've dealt with generic trolls on other internet forums, but never my very own stalker-troll. I can see where that would be hurtful, a drain on psychic resources, what have you. So who knows how I'd feel if I had that experience. I know Elizabeth Bear keeps threatening to shut down commenting, and Steven Gould has had at least one troll pop up on his site. Is the benefit of shutting down trolls worth the price of shutting down conversation, though?

My instinct is to feel that it isn't. We'll see how I feel about it if the shoe is ever on the other foot, though.

Say, where the heck does that expression come from?

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Rawhide!

I wrote about three thousand words today, and finished chapter 17. I'm really excited about where I am in the plot right now. Things are hurrying toward the climax, and there's some exciting stuff going on now--and in the coming chapters too.

I plan to spend tomorrow writing. It's my Father's Day gift to myself: time to write. I'd like to get a scene or so ahead of my pace so I feel like I can take a day off, maybe go out and have some fun, and not feel guilty about it.

For now, I'm Good Tired (a Harry Chapin reference) so I'm keeping this post short.

Summer, and the living is easy

So I can finally concentrate on writing without that pesky day job interzzzzzzzz . . . Uh? Oh, sorry.

After some much needed R&R, and some even more needed contemplation on Where The Hell My Plot Is Going, I'm making progress again. For the second time in as many weeks, I've re-outlined the rest of Vanishing Act. Or maybe I completed a drastic re-outlining that I was only halfway through last week, though I didn't realize it at the time. My stalkee (I don't know whether it's better to give credit where credit is due or to avoid the appearance of name-dropping but the name is elsewhere in this blog) was kind enough to point out about a half-dozen holes in my remaining plot, and rather than fix those, I came up with a way to streamline the ending, eliminating a lot of them in the process. It also improves some stuff she hadn't even commented on--the fact that my climax was being brought on by a very minor character, instead of by the actions of my principals. I wrote that minor character out of the story altogether, replotted the rest of it, and I feel like I've got something a lot tighter and more manageable now. I wrote a lot last night and this morning, and it's coming so much more easily now. I finished chapter 16 today, which is why I'm giving myself permission to spend time blogging. ;)

I'm actually looking forward to doing a big revising sweep once this draft is done . . . finding ways to make my language less clunky and to incorporate all the different good tips I've been getting from authors' blogs and from the online class I'm taking. I think I can be done with this draft in a little over three weeks without pushing too hard. Hopefully if I push just a bit harder, I can substantially decrease that. Then the challenge will be coming up with readers.

All of the various readers that Cor had--including her so-called crit group--have pretty much quit keeping up. There's nothing wrong with her novel--I think it's a hell of a lot more marketable than mine is--but people are busy. They have their lives to live and even those that see themselves as writers are not necessarily as devoted to the idea of getting stuff done now at all costs, with no excuses. So what are my chances of avoiding the same fate? I can probably get a dozen people or so to read the first chapter, but I'll be lucky if I have one (besides Cor, of course) still reading by the twelfth.

I got some exciting ideas for my short story nugget. I hope I have it in me to pull this together, and that I can find the time without sacrificing progress on Vanishing Act.

In other news, our air conditioner is crapping out. Florida in June without functional air conditioning . . . fun. I don't know where the money to fix it is going to come from. Hell, I don't know where the money for WorldCon is going to come from, and I very badly want to go.

The calm before the storm . . .

In three minutes I give my first final of the spring. For now, though, all my grades are done. These stress-free moments are far too fleeting.

I've still been writing, though, even if I've been too busy to update here. Still, I'm embarrassed and reproached by the length of time between updates, lately. That should get better within a week, though.

I've spent my writing time this week doing tons of revisions on chapters twelve through fifteen--fifteen was actually more of a rewrite than a revision. I've also re-outlined the remainder of my novel to tighten it up a bit. Hopefully that compression won't cause narrative problems--as in, is enough time in the story passing for these events to take place?

My subconscious mind's tendency to not let me write scenes until I fix whatever is wrong with what I want to write is rapidly ceasing to be charming and becoming frustrating. I'm grateful that it helps me avoid some mistakes, but I wish it could point out solutions as well as problems. Grrrr . . .

I'm taking an online writing class (sponsored by the RWA, of all things, but taught by Linnea Sinclair) at the same time that I give and grade finals. I must be insane.

(You know, those romance writers are a cool bunch. I wish I had it in me to write in that genre--they're so supportive of each other. At least, that's the way it appears from the outside.)

Still . . . *gasp* . . . alive

Work is killing me . . . two nights in a row going to sleep after 2 am. (And that's all I'm going to say about the time). But still I've managed to find some time to write, if only a little bit--fifteen chapters done so far! Senior grades are due Thursday and my professional development binder is due more or less now, and then I'll get a (relatively) quiet week or so before it all starts again, but for underclassmen.

People don't realize the extent to which the last week of the school year is hell for a high school teacher. (And if you teach a mix of seniors and underclassmen, it's two weeks of hell.)

But this blog is about writing, not about teaching. So let me talk about that. Once again I had the experience of finding a scene impossible to write until I realized that I was keeping a character from acting consistently with his motivations. It's freaky and awesome all at once how the story won't let itself be railroaded. If I'm doing something wrong, I just sit there, paralyzed, unable to write.

I had another cool (to me) experience last Friday. I was on a plane and hoping to take advantage of the time to get some writing done. This was when I realized that I had totally failed to consider my protagonist's mental state and motivation in the scene I was struggling with, and had the epiphany that made it possible. But I still wasn't ready to write. I needed to re-envision the scene now that I better understood how my protagonist was feeling. So I daydreamed, basically, trying to get in his head. Well, Chris, my protagonist, had just been through a pretty awful experience, something humiliating and heart-breaking. As I put myself in his shoes, I found myself becoming more outwardly angry and sad. Intellectually I knew these were not my emotions, but I found myself genuinely feeling Chris's, and I had this sudden realization of what I must look like if anybody happened to look my way--I bet it was scary!

Anyway, I'm probably the only person who finds that interesting, but that's the whole reason I started this blog. So I could gush about quasi-mystical experiences like that without boring anybody who might find him- or herself my captive audience. Those are the moments I'm finding astounding and rewarding. I need a blog label for the posts that have these rambling reflection. Maybe "gushical."

In other news: Fifteen days! Fifteen days until vacation! :)

Torturing Characters, Students, and Prose

I finally finished chapter 14, a week later than I'd hoped. 26 intense days of work left before vacation, and I hope I can juggle both my day job and my writing and not fall any further off the pace. I know I'll be able to write faster once I'm on vacation, but I don't want to count on that.

I know part of why this chapter was hard to write was my work demands. Every week from here on out has at least one big task that I must accomplish. Formal observation tomorrow, write finals by Friday, finalize Professional Development Plan by the end of the next week, then grade senior exams, and then everyone else's finals. And, of course, the usual stuff. But I think this chapter may also have been intrinsically hard to write . . . it might not be all about the day job.

This chapter, I took Chris, my protagonist, out of a setting that was tense because of what he was bringing to it, but, in many ways, idyllic. Idyll is not the stuff of good stories, so he had to go. But it was hard, you know? I really like the characters he was spending time with, and don't like the characters he's with now--as people, that is. The conflict is getting ratcheted up as I head for the ending. Hopefully now that the transition is done, it will get easier.

I've been giving thought to where I can cut. I think the bad guy that sets the plot in motion needs to appear earlier . . . like about five to seven thousand words earlier. I'm pretty sure I can spare the wordage, so I'm looking to cut stuff. (I suppose I could also move some stuff that comes before this point to after it, though.) I think I see where the cuts can come. I'm also finding that the later chapters are getting shorter, which I think, at this point, is a good thing. To me it suggests that the pace is picking up, which it should at this point. I don't think I need to worry about my novel being too short at this point.

I spent several hours last night waxing the cat by thinking about a story concept for Ellen Datlow and Nick Mamatas's new horror anthology. I'm desperately trying to finish this novel by August, so what the heck am I doing thinking about other stories, but an open call for submissions for an anthology like this seems like a golden opportunity. And I have an idea I think may be unique. Do I have the horror chops to pull it off, though? Therein lies the question . . .