Chapter Eight becomes . . .

. . . Chapter One! Yes. It. Did.

I'm gearing up to go into revise mode on a project. Rough Draft was completed a few years ago. Last year, I went back in and revamped the project and then set it aside while I worked on some other things. For the last few days I've been thinking about his project. Tuesday, things gelled together and I knew what I needed to do: Chapter Eight needed to become Chapter One.

Okay, so this means ditching approximately 20,000 words. Geesh, talk about word elimination.

Okay, it's really not that bad, and you'll find out more about that later.

Chapter Eight, now Chapter One, was an important chapter because it set up the main antagonists for my protagonist. Now, the first seven chapters laid the groundwork for Chapter Eight, but . . . well, after careful consideration, why not just throw the reader right into the conflict - wham, bam? Why not show the dynamics of the situation right off the bat?

Forget subtlety. Forget laying the careful groundwork. My protagonist has six antagonists. Yes, six, get over it! The main bulk of the project is the MC's interaction with the antagonists. So, since the main interaction is with these six secondary characters, why wait until Chapter Eight to throw them all together in the same room. Yes, I did that. One, two, three, four, five, six, and seven characters all in the same room, and no, their names aren't Doc, Sleepy, Dopey, Grumpy, Bashful, Happy, or Sneezy. Still, seven people, five at least who would, possibly literally, maybe only figuratively, love to see the MC dead, and a sixth who knows the MC could totally, irrevocably ruin their life, makes for a bit of interesting drama.

Now, back to those other chapters. The first part of this project has always been about confrontations between the main character and the majority of the secondary characters. The confrontations that occurred in Chapters One through Seven will need a bit of tweaking and reworking, but . . . they are not lost. They didn't land on some mysterious island when Oceanic Flight 815 crashed. They're still alive and well in this reality and not some purgatory on an island where they're trying to right past wrongs.

The confrontations in what were the earlier chapters are very important. Their importance remains the same. Now, I just have to revamp the chapters a bit to make them fit with the new opening since they occurred earlier in time (go figure) than Chapter Eight. A tweak here, there, and everywhere will - hopefully - fix everything and the Chapters can remain pretty much intact.

So, in the revision process, if you're stuck, if something's just not working, why not try shifting a later chapter, an action chapter, to the first chapter and see what happens. For me, magic!

Oh, and I'm still plugging along on the urban fantasy project. There are just times when I need to step away from that project, so editing/revising this other project fills the void in writing.

S

Journey Support

I'd like to thank the Academy, my gazillion fans, and of course . . .

Well, unfortunately, neither the Academy or my gazillion fans are responsible for this . . .

The Journey Support award (a highly prestigious honor, btw) is passed on to folks who are helping along on this writing journey. Oh, my, the list of people I should pass this on to is huge.

Now, the person who passed it on to me is Jon Paul from Where Sky Meets Ground. Hop on over to his blog and show him some love.

Now, on to the latest recipients of this fantabulous award . . .

Tess @ Tess Hilmo - love the fact that, due in no small part to me, she sang Starland Vocal Band's one hit wonder Afternoon Delight to her boss! Yes, she did. LMAO!

Elana @ Elana Johnson, Young Adult Author - whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, ever since I've been reading her blog I've been known to say dude, seriously??

Scott (the other one), Davin, and Michelle (aka Lady Glamis) @ The Literary Lab - all three of these fine folks make me think, which can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on the day of the week.

Robyn @ Putting Pen to Paper - strangely absent lately, but probably in mourning due to the crushing defeat of the Dolphins. Ha!

Now, there are so many more I could award this award! Ha! But . . . time is short and I must depart the cyber world for now. I can tell you, every blog I follow deserves this award. I learn so much on a daily basis - perhaps a few things I could do without learning (Tess!!) - from reading all the blogs I read. Knowledge is power!

S

Blogger . . . You're Back!!

Blogger, how much did I mess thee yesterday when you were not working? Very much so! I started to twitch by about 9 AM and by 10 . . . well, it wasn't pretty, not at all! Don't let it happen again!

Okay, on a bit less snarky note . . . Last night I started Chapter Four of the urban fantasy project. Woo-hoo! I didn't get a lot accomplished, but it's started, and the words should flow this week (I hope - fingers crossed). I also did a bit of formatting changes since the history of one character will be interspersed in brief paragraphs between each chapter. I was going to do lengthy chapters detailing the events of this character's life, but decided last night that brief snippets showing the progression of her life would work better . . . at least that's my theory right now.

Yes, there's a reason I'm detailing this character's history. Michelle knows why, but she's the only one and I'm not telling anybody else. This one character's history is important to the overall tale I plan to tell. The other characters that come into play, while important, do not have the rich history of this one character. Her story seems to be shouting out to me, and who am I to ignore such shouts, such demands for attention that say: tell my story!!?

So, her story shall be told, from that fateful day so long ago when she set off . . .

Chapter Three

So, over the course of this week, I've been working on Chapter Three of my urban fantasy project. I finished that chapter just a few minutes ago. Woo-hoo!

This was basically a rewrite of a chapter I had completed a few weeks ago. As I mentioned earlier in the week, I'd changed the voice of one of the characters, and the previously written chapter didn't work with her new personality. So . . . rewrite, revamp, revise (in no particular order). Then, I somehow knew that the third section of Chapter Three needed a revamp as well. Yeah, I just keep piling the work on myself. Go figure.

Still, I'm happy (perhaps not ecstatic, but happy nonetheless) with the new direction (btw, did the rewrites while listening to Glee) of the chapter . . . which sets the stage for the rest of the novel. I have the tone I want, the various conflicts for two of the characters, and a path of where I want to take these characters as they deal with their conflicts. There's also a bit of backstory interspersed throughout the first three chapters. Backstory is necessary. There's a rich history for all these characters and to not mention that history, the events that led up to their present conflicts, would diminish the story as a whole.

Yes, I know, some people think backstory is a bad thing. Perhaps it is. Perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it is up to me to decide how much, and when and where, backstory to use in my novel.

The thing is - backstory, adverbs, adjectives, blah, blah, blah - are all things that can change within a novel at any given point. I can strip it all out in the beginning and yet, every book I've read lately has these elements within the books.

So, sparingly, here and there, just not everywhere!

Have a great weekend.

Not Working

As Michelle will be glad to know, I've been working on my urban fantasy project lately. I have tons of notes, potential plot points, conversations, and three chapters done.

Then, I went back and rewrote a section - I changed the voice, tone, the character's name, and her occupation. Go figure.

Then, I re-read what I'd already written. CRAP! With the change of voice for one character, things weren't gelling together. CRAP-CRAP-CRAPPITY-CRAP-CRAP!

So, I've spent this week tweaking the voice and trying to make things work.

I started the total rewrite of Chapter Three last night. Yes. I. Did.

Chapter Three was NOT WORKING (ta-da! the title of this post! clever, huh?).

Chapter Three is working much better with the revamp.

Luckily, I figured out things weren't working early on, so it's not like I have to go revise, revise, revise until I'm standing on the brink of insanity and about to teeter over the edge! Whew!

So, my question this fine Friday - hot and humid here, naturally curly haired people beware - is: how quick are you at discovering things aren't working in your writing?

Do you stop what you're doing and fix things, or just make notes to fix later? Does this moment of epiphany cause you joy or sorrow?

As for me, I knew it wasn't working and figured I'd fix it sooner rather than later. This whole project is new territory for me, so I'm taking a cautious approach right now. Perhaps I might be better off with a "buckle your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride" (ya gotta love Bette Davis) kind of approach. Who knows? All I know is it wasn't working, now it is, and the words are a-flowing (kind of like a storm is a-coming)! Ha!

Have a great weekend.

S

Lost

I'm back in writing mode. The urge was with me this past weekend, but . . . house full of guests didn't exactly jive with sitting down and writing. I had to wait until last night, after work, normal ritual, to sit down in front of the computer and start writing once again.

I've been struggling with my writing lately - what do I want, what do I need, is it really worth it, why do I have to work so hard, why isn't it easier to find an agent, why can't I write a fantastic query, why the heck do I have to write a synopsis, will it all be worthwhile in the end, and blah, blah, blah????

Then, I read Rachelle Gardner's post You Have to Believe and all the questions were pretty much pushed aside.

It's not that I don't believe. It's just that I'm human, and it's human nature to doubt and wonder if all the effort is really worthwhile.

I think part of the problem, at least for me, is I'm spending too much time trying to figure out how to do everything - query, synopsis, find an agent, editor, publisher, market trends, popular today, not popular tomorrow - that I've kind of lost my way. There's too much outside influence clamoring for attention and not enough solitude to do what I love to do: write.

Now, don't get me wrong, all that snazzy info is necessary, but . . . do we lose ourselves in the process of publishing so we no longer write?

I did. I have. I probably will again.

The publication process is far from easy. Probably the easiest part is writing the book in the first place. The rest of it - query, synopsis, blah, blah, blah - is the hard stuff.

The hard stuff, at least for me, can get in the way of the easy stuff.

I've realized that taking about twenty steps back is a very good thing. I need to write, not worry about the query and all the other gunk. Yes, those things are important, but not if they impeded the writing process. Not if every time I sit down to work on the query or synopsis I get all stressed out. Not if every time I search for an agent within my niche genre the results are smaller and smaller and smaller because the majority of agents are now repping the hot trend of YA or MG. Okay, it's not as bad as I make it sound. Just a little bit of drama on this fine, allegedly going to be very, very hot here in TN, day. Still, there's a trend toward YA/MG and I don't write YA/MG, so my options narrow even further. Geesh!

Somebody once said "don't sweat the small stuff". I have no idea who, and really don't feel like consulting my best friend Google to find out. The point is, while querying, synopsing, blahing, blahing, blahing might not seem like small stuff, it really is, because the BIG stuff is the writing.

So, I'm stepping back from everything (well, not blogging, because I love to blog) so I can write, so I can read, so I can bond with the boyz (Jesse and James) and my girl (Squeaky) and, of course, most important of all, Franklin. I'm still going to work on my query and my synopsis, I'm still going to do all the research as before, just not with as much fervor as in the past. I want to write. I want the words to spill forth in an endless torrent. I want to rush home at the end of the day, fix dinner, bond, push Franklin out the door, and write until my fingers hurt. Then, I want to curl up on the couch with a book and read for a while. I want to remember (and do) that I love writing, it's not a job, a chore, an obligation, but something I love doing.

I no longer want to lose myself, my way perhaps, in the dream of publication that WILL happen one day. There is a time and place for everything and things happen when they happen, and not when I want them to happen. The journey to publication, for most, is a long and arduous journey. There are bumps in the road, a detour or dozen, and yet, in the end, it is all worthwhile. We (I) just need to remember that the easy part is writing the book and when we (I)lose that concept than, at least in my opinion, we (I) lose something of ourselves (myself).

So, research, query, synopsis, follow the trends, blah, blah, blah, but never forget that you (I) are (am) a writer and the writing should, at least in my opinion, supersede all other aspects.

Believe

Go here to Rachelle Gardner's blog. She nails it on the head today.