Weekly Update: 5-31-14 Cover

I have a cover for The Changelings.

Five covers to be exact.

Kaleo Welborn, a talented illustrator and a member of the Brea Library Writer's Group, was kind enough to sketch some "roughs," samples of the cover based on my descriptions. As I have no great sense of graphic art, it was a huge relief to brainstorm with someone who could take my ideas and sketch them into something solid.

Today I got them back.

It was so amazing, it was almost like a shock. The Changelings had been real to me as a story, but now I could suddenly see it as a book. Something I could put on Amazon and perhaps sell and have other people read. It filled me with excitement, but also with fear. This was really happening. I had to get my act together and become a book publisher. Oh God. Soon perfect strangers might be reading and judging my book.

It was quite a big step.

The whole month of May has been taking steps to go from merely being a writer to being an author/ publisher. I didn't expect it to happen. It wasn't in my spring schedule. In addition to cover art,I'm giving The Changelings one last edit for brevity and clarity and trying to get it to an editor. I've even set a rough date for publication: January 2015. Right in time for my dreaded 30th birthday.

I've made progress, but there's still more to come.

Oh, did you want to see the cover?

Don't worry. It will get its own post soon enough. 

But for now, I just want to sit and take in this moment.

Books Like Chocolate

A chain-blog post seems to be making the rounds on the Internet comparing favorite books to fine chocolates. Recently Debra at dayya.wordpress.com wrote her take on vampire chocolate love and tagged  me to continue the trend. Thus, I've decided to throw my rather unexotic tastebuds into the mix.  

Let's begin.

Aria of the Sea by Dia Calhoun (YA/ Fantasy)
Symphony Toffee Bar

 The first time I got a Symphony bar in my Christmas stocking, I thought it was just a stock chocolate bar.  But the more I ate the more I thought it was subtly elevated, smooth and delicious, with the surprising crunch of toffee.

Aria of the Sea seemed straight-forward to me as well.  Thirteen year old Cerinthe leaves her small town and family to compete for a rare position at the Royal Dance Company. I thought I knew where the story was going. I was wrong. The story grew more complex and delicious the more I read. Nuggets of wisdom provided sweetness and texture and made the story all the more memorable

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Mystery)
See's Raspberry Truffle

Picking up an Agatha Christie mystery is a lot like choosing a truffle out of a See's Candies sampler. I might not know what I'm going to get, but I know it will be good.  Reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was like biting into a raspberry truffle--the absolute best of the lot, in my own humble opinion.

When industrialist Roger Ackroyd is stabbed in the neck right before learning the name of his wife's blackmailer, it's up to Hercule Poirot, detective extraordinaire, to solve the case. Sweet, tart, and perfectly balanced, it's a classic that needs no extra fuss or unnecessary complication.

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Literary)
Andes Chocolate Mints

When I go to restaurant and see an Andes mint on my bill (instead of the usual hard candy), I instantly warm. The green wrapped chocolate is small, but it packs a tremendous punch before melting beautifully in my mouth.  It's perfect end to a meal.

The Remains of the Day also deals with endings. Stevens, an aging butler, takes a trip across the English countryside to reunite with an old friend and evaluates the course of his life along the way.  A simple yet intense story that will melt your heart.

* * *

I'm going to tag LJ at eljaezoutlook.weebly.com/blog.html and Christy at rainbow-unicorns-ate-my-dog.blogspot.com and challenge them to compare chocolates to books.

Weekly Update: 5-24-14

Happy Memorial Day!

Now I'm no girly-girl.  In fact, I'm probably one of the few females who actively hate shopping for clothes, shoes, and jewelry.  Nonetheless, I was forced to put my fashion sense to the test today in order to find clothes for my cousin's upcoming wedding.  In a grueling 3-hour session, I got a crochet shrug, a necklace and earring set, a bow pin, a hair barette, and some pretty flats. I was fairly pleased with the finished ensamble... and by how much stuff I got for sale.

Not much exciting happened this week.  Only one subbing job, so I caught up on my writing. I finished revising Chapter 7 and 8 of The Changelings, cutting around ten pages out of each.  I also finished Chapter 32 of the Three Floating Coffins and worked on the ending chapters. I did some cleaning. I spent time with my dad. I put flowers on my grandma's grave. That's all.

Ode to All My Murdered Trees

How many times I choose to write
Of forests pure with rapt delight:

Of pale-limbed birch and maple rich

In crimson hues in autumn's pitch,

Of scent of cedar, scent of pine,

Pink-crowned cherry in spring's prime,

Acorn, willow, oak, and spruce:

Nesting grounds where songbirds roost.

And all the pomp and majesty

Of tall and stately redwood tree.

You might have lived a thousand years

But for my angst and ghostly fears.

Emotions won't stay in my head,

So your fair life is snuffed instead.

Your corpse cut up ten thousand times,

Tattooed with ink in dull black lines.

All this I do in foolish hope

That these words I use to cope

And the advice I sometimes scrawl

Onto your corpse may someday fall

Upon the ears of those in need,

Upon the lost whom I might lead,

To share the comfort that I know,

To show them ways that they might grow.

But life is not a graceful dance.

We bump and fall and hurt by chance

And hope that somehow by God's grace

We leave the world a better place.

I ponder all the sacrifice,

Unknown to me, to bear this life.

If my words can no one seize,

What have I done but murder trees?

* * *

Note:

All the while half-edited chapters flopped all over the living room floor, I moaned and groaned to my aunt about my guilt in not spending the last hour and a half of my evening pushing myself to write more. 

“You write plenty,” she said, exasperated. “You’re killing enough trees.”

That little comment stuck in my head and wriggled out into my notebook in the shape of a poem, rhymes and all. It reminded me of old-timey poets and I kind of liked that.

Weekly Update: 5-17-14

Wednesday.  11:30 AM.

Five minures before the bell, and I've just finished writing up the teacher's note. The students silently read The Catcher in the Rye.  The air conditioner hums.  All seems peaceful, when suddenly--

Wham! The lights go out.

BLACKOUT.

Another pleasant consequence of the stifling heat.  Fortunately, with only 5 minutes left in class, I just waited for the bell. The next period, I opened the blinds and let the sunshine in.  For an hour, we were deprived of electricity.

It was the most exciting thing that happened thus far this week.

I worked four days this week. I finished another chapter of Three Floating Coffins.  I did some revision.  I wrote a poem.  As the week ends, though, I've been feeling stressed out, because I know that more work is coming.  May and June will be filled with activity. Starting with the weekend.  I have a writer's club get together, volunteering for the library, and a dance rehersal for my cousin's wedding.

Sometimes I wish I could just Blackout my schedule.

Weekly Update: 5-11-14

Happy Mother's Day!

My mom is the ultimate mother, the most nuturing and caring person I know. This Friday she swung by to take me to my cousin's graduation.  I bought her a bouquet of flowers and her favorite snacks at Trader Joe's. It was nice just seeing her and talking to her again.  She really is the glue that holds the family together.

That same Friday, I saw my cool cousin Alydaughter who is going straight to work on a summer job mission trip that will take her to Pennsylvania and Niagra Falls. I remember that time in my own life when schooling ends but you're not yet worried about rent and food and building a career.  That tantalizing moment of freedom! Right now I'm at a different stage in my life--the settling down stage.  It's depressing moving from young adulthood to middle adulthood, but thewre's good and bad at each stage. It just takes time to recognize it.

Writing wise, I've been on an editing blitz, re-reading The Changelings and slashing through it with a red (or blue or black or purple or green) pen. You'd think this would be depressing but actually I find it addicting.  Editing taps into the same obsessive part of my brain as watching YouTube or browsing TV Tropes.  Or possibly eating butterscotch cookies. You just can't stop! There is something oh-so-liberating in cutting out all the mistakes, all the imperfections, all the misphrasings. Real life is rarely so easy.  There's no delete button.  You spit your stuff out there and hope you create more good than bad. You do your best and then move on.

Weekly Update: 5-2-14

The days had been getting warmer, but this week, the weather annouced, "It's summer!"

Monday, I woke to the roar of the Santa Ana winds. The wind brought in the dry heat. By Wednesday the hills were on fire. Ash blew in, and the air tasted like cigarettes.  I was working at an elementry school at the time, and the poor air quality forced us onto rainy day schedule. I've been coping with the heat by eating copious amounts of ice cream. Sadly, this is just the beginning. It will grow worse.

Last week I decided to "move the goalposts" on my Nanowrimo, which turned out to be a mistake when I got subbing gig on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and had to complete a short story for my Brea Library Writer's Club.  Sadly, Nanowrimo would not let me move the goalpost. I decided to accept my loss and clocked in at 59,000 words (their word count knocked out 1,000 of my words). Better just to focus on my Coffin story.

As the weather transtions, so does my writing, and I've moved from The Originals to Three Floating Coffins. I've completed Chapter 30: "The Lady of the Stars." I'm excited because I got to reveal secrets I've been holding onto for a year now. The story is racing toward the climax, which means I have to weave together all the separate storylines and pump up the action and drama. It's a lot of work, but lots of fun!

Body of Revision

A few years ago, I read an article on Steven Pressfield's website about revising in layers.  Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me remember the title or even give a more specific summary.  What I do recall, though, is that this mysterious article came as a revelation.

I knew, through painful experience, that I had to go through many re-writes before my story took shape.  No matter how long I toiled or how carefully I planned, Draft 1 came out awful. Draft 2 was even worse.  Yet around Draft 5, 6, 7, the writing started to come out better.  The problem was, I didn't know why.  I'd tackle everything at once, and sometimes the story sounded nice and sometimes it didn't.

The article made me think about breaking up the elements of writing and focusing on different ones for each drafts.  This kept me from being overwhelmed.  So what if I my sentences were mangled, my description nonexistent, and my point of view kept switching?  I'd figured out the plot, so mission accomplished.

But I knew--again, through painful experience--that the elements had to be handled in a certain order.  Why spend hours trying to tune a phrase just so, when two drafts later you have to throw the scene out.  No, each draft had to build on the next one.  I thought of it like creating a human body.  If you tried to fix skin onto the bones and inject muscles in between, you'd end up with a bumpy looking mess.  Better to make a solid skeleton and then slap on the meat.

As I experimented more and more, I came up with a system for revisions.  I'd start humble, write fast and loose and messy, experiment and leave my options open.  As the story took shape, my writing became slower, more thoughtful, more precise.  By the end, I had a pretty nice, pretty shiny story.

Here's how it works.

Draft 1: Ideas
aka the Soul

Ideas gives birth to the story.  They're what compels the writer to write.  Each story begins with a simple question. "What is this about?"  As that question is explored, the humble idea grows up to become a theme or a motif.  Ultimately, it's what gives the story its meaning.

I call ideas the soul of the story because they are mysterious and hard to explain, but without one the story withers and dies.

For me, the idea draft is simply finding out what the story is about.  I take my time and ask a lot of questions.  How does this happen?  Why? What are the consequences?  I find a novel must have more than one idea.  As the first one starts to dry out, a new idea must be presented.  The old idea and the new one overlap and grow on each other, creating even more question.  I keep asking until I get an idea of an ending.  The idea draft usually looks like something between notes, an outline, or an exploratory draft with lots of gaps and plot holes.

Draft 2: Character, Plot, and Setting
aka the Internal Organs

Character, plot, and setting are fundamentals of story-telling.

Character means, of course, knowing your protagonist inside and out: his past, his morals, his desires, his fears, his strengths his limitations.  But it also means knowing these same things about your supporting characters and understanding their relationship to your protagonist.  

Plot is a progression of events which moves the story to the climax; it should run parallel to your theme and illuminate what your idea is trying to say.  For a plot to move, things must happen now.  Flashback, backstory, and exposition may be vital for clarity, but these are not plot.  At the same time, there must be a purpose to the action or it's just a random bunch of events.

Setting, obviously, means a physical environment: a forest, a castle, a room.  But it also includes the objects in the environment: clothes and furniture and weapons.  If your protagonist finds himself in unspoiled nature, what animals live there and what are their relationship to man?  If he's in a town or a city, what sort of culture does he confront?  What is history of the land?  What's the day, the month, the year?  What's the weather like?  How much time passes for the duration of the scene?

I like to think of character as the heart, plot as the brains, and setting as the lungs.  Each controls its own vital system that keeps the body alive.  Take away one and the story instantly collapses.

The reason I lump these three together is because they're interconnected.  Take a battle, for example.  You have to choreograph the action, one attack leading to another, until someone wins or the fighting ceases. (Plot.)  But in order to understand the action, you need to know where they're fighting and how many people are there and what's the weather conditions. (Setting.)  But you also need to know why the commanders chose to fight here and now and what they expect to happen and how your point of view character fits into the grand scheme of thing.  (Character.)  Any little alteration of one can greatly affect the others.

Not surprisingly, this drafts tend to be muddy, bloody, and messy.  I usually dive in at one section--say, plot--realize I need to do setting, change my mind about the plot, start on character, change the setting, change the plot again, have an idea for something completely different, and start all over.  At the end of it, I've got long thorough drafts so contradictory I can barely understand what I've written.  But that's fine.  I've explored different ways to develop the ideas all the way through from beginning to end.

Draft 3: Logic and Structure
aka the Skeleton

Structure and logic force the various writing elements into one solid story.  Structure means composing scenes, building chapters, putting events in order, deciding where backstory and exposition goes, choosing a point of view, commanding the pace, and ruling over everything with the iron fist of consistency.  Logic means going over the manuscript with a red pen for plot holes, unbelievable characterization, inaccuracies, and any other mistakes.

I call these two elements the skeleton, because they're rigid and they keep plot, character, and setting from spilling out in a disgusting heap.

It's on this draft that I switch off the right side of my brain and let my inner critic come out.  I make note of all the inconsistencies, the confusion, the unnecessary stuff, and I do my best to cut it out and clean it up.  On the flip side, I see what's working and what needs to be expanded or further developed.  This is the draft where I make all the big decisions about what happens in my story and stick to those decisions.  By the end of it, it actually starts to look like a novel.

Draft 4: Imagery and Emotion
aka the Flesh

People read in order to experience something new, be it travel, adventure, or falling in love.  What gives them that experience is imagery and emotion.  Imagery appeals to the five senses: sight, smell, sound, touch and taste.  When people talk about painting a picture, this is what they mean.  But a picture alone can be boring.  Emotion creates a human connection.

Imagery and emotion makes up the good, meaty part of the story--the part people ultimately hold onto.  That's why I liken it to the flesh.  And like the flesh, this kind of description can be thin or voluptuous.

My previous drafts already include imagery and emotion--it's impossible to get this far without them.  But here I crank it up to eleven.  I go over my scenes and write exhaustive description, sometimes ticking off the five senses one by one.  Likewise, I have my point of view character react to everything from the weather to the sight of another character to a bit of exposition.  The more dramatic it is, the more paragraphs I write.

Draft 5: Prose
aka the Skin

Prose is the "good writing" part of the story.  It means choosing the right words, arranging the sentences, listening to the rhythm, building paragraphs, adding tone, and creating pace.  This is when I look at active verbs versus passive verbs and start hitting the thesaurus.

To me, prose is the most cosmetic part of the story, but it's also the part people look at first and judge accordingly.  It's the skin that gives a pretty face to the substance, and the clearer and smoother it is, the better..

I start this draft by reading through the imagery and emotion of the previous draft and hacking out everything but the most evocative words or phrases.  I build new sentences around these words.  This is the most time-consuming draft, as I easily spend an hour or more per page.  Everything is chosen and arranged with meticulous detail.

* * *

By now, the story is basically done.  There's more editing, of course: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and the like.  But this is what I consider hygiene.  It's clean up, not a major re-write.

This is my own method.  It works for me, for the most part, because it lets me switch my brain back and forth between creator and editor, feeler and thinker, experimenter and decision-maker.  To me, it's a logical progression.  But is it the same for you?  Or do you have a different way of tackling revision?

Please let me know.

Weekly Update: 4-25-14

There's a term in TV Tropes called "Moving the Goalposts," which means that anytime you think your close to accomplishing a goal, someone comes along and pushes that goal further back.  Like, for example, you commit to writing 50,000 words by the end of April.  You finish on April 21, so your boss comes along and moves up that goal to 65,000 words.

Except that in this case the boss is myself.

It becomes demoralizing quickly. I say I'll get something done, and I do it.  But I didn't get it done enough.  I didn't do it good enough.  Keep working.  Start over.

More insidiously, this actually works as a procrastination technique.  If I'm forever fussing over my writing, I'm not looking at less savory things, like looking for working, researching self-publishing, doing chores, or even talking to friends.  

This week, however, I started to break that habit.  I clearly defined what I would do this week.  Then I did it.  I decided not to mourn what didn't get done.  I felt good about myself.  That good feeling actually made me want to be more productive.  As I result, I got a good deal accomplished this week, including researching self-publishing, researching credentialing, signing my contract for Daily Science Fiction, getting critiques donew, working two sub jobs, and walking the dogs four times this week.

And Nanowrimo?

Currently at 60,000 words.

It's fun to run past the goalposts.

Weekly Update: 4-20-14

Happy Easter!

I'm on my way to church. I've just tossed the scalloped potatoes I made last night heating in the oven. It will seve as the starch component of my family's holiday meal.  I'm going to meet my parents and my best friend since I was five and we're going to celebrate with ham and vegan tacos.  Too bad we're not dyeing hard-boiled eggs or hunting for plastic ones.  I miss those old rituals.

Some good news.  One of my flashfiction short stories got accepted by Daily Science Ficton, an e-magazine that pays for submissions.  They have asked me to make some revisions before it's published, including changing from a second person point of view to a third person pov. I'm not sure how that will work.

You'd think the prospect of actually being paid for my writing would make me ecstatic.  Actually, when I got the letter, I blanked.  I think I was sort of in shock.  Then a strange sense of panic began to well up in me.  What if I messed up the edits or made a mistake? What if they changed their minds and rejected me after all?  I don't think I'll be secure until I sign the contract and see the published story with my own eyes.  'Til then, I'm holding my breath.

Let's see, what else?  My NaNoWriMo suffered and I'm sadly only at 45,000 words.  I blame the massively long Literary Orange blog for that.  9,000 words.  23 pages.  It devoured my week.  I subbed once at Brea Canyon High School.  I read a couple of Dorethea Simpson mysteries.  I signed up for Pubslush and Wattpad. My week had its ups and downs, but I'm slowly accomplishing stuff... which is better than not accomplishing it at all.