RiP Wednesday

Ooooh, that really sounds bad, doesn't it? Still, it caught your attention and you clicked on over. My day is now complete. Seriously, I considered calling today Revision in Process Wednesday until I realized the abbreviated form was . . . RIP. Rest in Peace Wednesday? Oh, no, has my revision died and nobody told me? If so, what in the heck was I working on last night . . . a ghost manuscript???

Yes, a bit of snarkity-snark first thing in the morning. Perhaps it's the absolutely gorgeous, non-humid weather that has settled over the South for the past week or so. I'm talking 60 degrees in the morning with dew on the ground. That (snicker) just (snicker) does not happen in July. Then again, as capricious as Mother Nature is, the heat wave is looming around the corner. She just wanted to lull us into a false sense of non-humidity before walloping us over the head with both stifling heat and humidity for the next two months. Ah, the joys of Southern living . . .NOT!

I am making progress on the revision stage. I'm up to Chapter Twenty (out of Twenty-Four) solely with the word that! Then, there are the words like, just, some, had, was and the list continues. At this rate, a very hot place will freeze over before I finish the revisions. Well, at least I'll have a pitcher of margaritas with me!

I've eliminated close to 2,000 words so far. Woo-hoo! No, I didn't have that (there is a time and place for this word, btw) many thats in my manuscript. I've also deleted sentences here and there, created contractions, and eliminated the lyrics as I've come across them - except for the one section where the lyrics must remain. They are too important to the story, and I'll get on my knees and beg the artist for permission to use them if I must!

I have a huge chunk of words still to go. I'm confident I'll succeed.

My question for the day: Why, oh, why, does Blogger screw with my formatting when I add a picture? Have I offended them in some way? Is it just Blogger's way of screwing with my mind? Like the world doesn't screw with it enough? Where, oh, where, have my spaces between paragraphs gone dear Blogger? Does anyone else have this problem? Geesh!

S

Margarita Nights - Dirty Little Secrets

Ah, yes, I got your attention didn't I?? Oh, come on now, admit it - the only reason you clicked over so quickly, probably spraining a finger or two in the process, was because of three little words: dirty little secrets.

I seriously had nothing to blog about so I thought I'd see how many people would click on over based on some tantilizing possibilities.

Okay, I'm kidding. I do have a post today, I'm just messing with your collective minds. Resistance is futile, after all!

Today's post is just another step in Platform Building.

There's a phrase I use in Margarita Nights every now and then - gayvine! The gayvine - telephone, telegraph, tell a gay man - is the source of all information, plus a healthy dose of misinformation, within the Nashville gay community. Okay, its within any gay community, but in Margarita Nights the story takes place in Nashville. Enough written! The characters within the story love to listen to the gayvine and discuss the information over coffee! Kidding! Over margaritas, of course!

Now, what's a good story without some truth interwoven into fiction. I mean, modern society is fascinated with gossip. Heck, without celebrity gossip, TMZ would go out of business, as would The Enquirer and Star magazines. So, I decided to throw in tidbits from the gayvine, as well as some totally fictional events just to spice things up in the novel. Hopefully, I concealed the true bits with enough fiction. Then again, if not, who cares? I mean, I don't mention names, and I'm sure people aren't going to be lining up to say hey, that was me who cheated on my wife with another man . . . or whatever other tidbits I threw into the novel.

Ah, the tidbits of information . . . Should I share some of them here? Should I spill out a dirty little secret and let you, dear readers, try and figure out if it is a) fact, b)fiction, or c) fact hidden behind a facade of fiction?

An up and coming lawyer, the prodigy in his law firm, is firmly in the closet. No one knows his dirty little secret - not his boss, his closest friends, or the woman he is dating . . . so he thinks. Secrets have a nasty way of leaping out of the closet when a person least expects. The lawyer's secret is no different. What price will he pay if his secret comes to light?

The country music star - butch, very masculine, allegedly redneck as can be. Rumors fly through the city about his 'other' life. Are the rumors true or false? Was he really seen in the parking lot of the local gay bar? Is his marriage one of love or . . . convenience? Is his marriage lavender?

A couple, together for fifteen years - one faithful, the other not. The whispers shiver the tendrils of the gayvine. What will the truth do to a relationship allegedly built on trust?

Two very prominent businessmen, both married, and both - allegedly - living a secret life . . . with each other.

A bet between the sons of two wealthy families - first to marry gets a plot of land. Six weeks later an engagement announcement appears in the paper. The poor woman has no clue she's only providing a cover for her future husband's faux heterosexuality.

So, which of the above are fact, fiction, or fact hidden behind a facade of fiction? I'm not telling!

The fact is, these tidbits are only a peripheral part of what happens in Margarita Nights. The tidbits are not the total story. There are tons (okay, not tons, but I like the word and I'm using it) of these tendrils of the gayvine within the manuscript. A few more might appear here or there before the book is - hopefully soon - published.

S

P.S. Lavender marriages are marriages of convenience where both spouses are either gay and marrying for position and/or reputation, or where only one spouse is gay and the other spouse knows about the gay thing.

Contest at Rebecca's Blog

Okay, since I'm all about free stuff.

Rebecca Knight is giving away a book because she has way too many and is too cheap (her statement, not mine) to buy more bookshelves! Boy, do I know that feeling. So, go here to enter the contest.

S

Useless Words

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm in the process of attempting to edit my manuscript from 140,000 + (and it's a BIG +) words down to a more acceptable 110,000 words (maybe 115,000). I received some great suggestions on little things I can do to begin the process such as (thanks Robyn) eliminating such words as just, that, and was.

Do you have any idea how many times I used the word that? OMG! I mean, I'd mention this, that, or the other, or that night, that man, that thing . . . and that, that, that, that, that, and dang it, that again!

I have decided that (OMG, see how easy it is to use the word) the word that, for the most part, is a useless word. Yes, useless. I don't need to use that as much as I do. I mean, check this out . . .

Jared knew that Wes was not the most reliable of people.

Now, check this out . . .

Jared knew Wes was not the most reliable of people.

That is totally useless, not needed, and thus, it disappeared from the sentence, and countless more (trust me on (big grin and wink) that!) as I began the elimination of words revision process yesterday!

I also learned, that many other words can more readily replace that - such as who, which, the, and so many more. It's all about context.

Now, I didn't eliminate every instance of that because sometimes, the word seemed to fit. In any case where it did not, I took out the word. Delete! Delete! Delete! Delete!

I'm halfway through the manuscript with the that search right now. Sigh! I hope

Now, here's my question for the day - Contractions or no contractions? No, I'm not in labor, though I sometimes equate writing with labor. I'm just saying. Or perhaps my question should be - did not versus didn't? I eliminated quite a few words yesterday by creating contractions!

I read somewhere that a writer should write out the contractions, i.e., use could not instead of couldn't. So, that's what I did. Then, a reader made a comment that could not sounded to formal, and I should use couldn't. Geesh! Yes, as I went through yesterday, I created contractions left and right. Octomom beware! Do you use contractions in your writing? If so, why? If not, why?

Lastly - I want to thank everyone else who left a comment here. Your comments/advice have really helped. I'd love to do a link to every single one of you, but I seriously don't have the time this morning. So, newbies to this blog, check out the post and the comments, click on the names, and check out the blogs of the commenters. They're great sources of information!

S

Trust

This seems to be the (shudder, gasp) theme of the blogs this week: trust. Lady Glamis did a post about it over at The Literary Lab , as well as a brief post on her own blog, and some other bloggers mentioned the subject as well. This morning BookEnds did a similar post, but in a different vein. It was not about who you trust, but to trust yourself. Go figure.

Even though all of you are capable of clicking the link, I'm going to insert the main gist below:

You know what each of us thinks about certain practices and procedures and you’ve learned firsthand how subjective everything can be, from whether or not we like a book to how we like our query letters. Therefore, when push comes to shove there’s only one person you should be listening to, and that’s you. When it comes time to write your query, choose an agent, find a publisher, sign a contract, and write the next great American novel, you need to trust that you can take all you’ve learned and are continuing to learn and do what’s best for you and your career, and do it with your own personal flare and style.

Okay, my peeps, this is about the best advice any of us can, or will ever receive. In the end, it all comes down to trust in ourselves. We can read all about how to write the perfect query letter, how to do this, that, and everything . . . but the final result is how we, the writer, do those things. Sometimes, we have to go with our instinct and step outside the box. I believe Tess did that with her query letter and what happened? Well, she got an agent.

I've stepped outside the box with the format of my own query - example here - and received the following comments:

This may be an example of a query that doesn't follow all the standard advice, but that really works.

I agree with anon@10:53, the voice makes this stand out above form or format. I think if I read 50 queries in a row, I would remember this one for the voice.

So, did I follow all the query formatting rules? Heck, no, I kind of went with my instinct and took a chance by including my own personal flare and style.

As much as we all want to get published, as much as we (well, me, maybe a few others - wink, wink, wink) whine sometimes about all the rules, sometimes you (we, me) have to break the rules, trust ourselves, and go with our instincts. I did this in college once with an essay I had to do for 19th Century American Literature on The Last of the Mohicans. I wrote a semi-snarky (yes, even back then before the word was popular) essay that the professor absolutely loved. I broke the rule of being very formal and boring, took a chance, and didn't get a failing grade. I trusted that inner voice - the one that screams at me sometimes - and broke past boring to snarky. I still have that essay in a folder at my desk. I pull it out every now and then just to remind myself that breaking the rules every now and then is not a bad thing, not bad at all.

So, trust yourselves, dear readers, pay attention to the query guidelines, but pay attention to your own instincts as well.

Trust Yourself!

I hope everyone has a happy and safe 4th of July. I'll be lurking around the blogsphere every now and then between grocery shopping, cleaning the house, and drinking a margarita or two, oh, and trying to eliminate 31, 466 words! Woo-hoo!

Scott

Query

So, in a brave moment NOT induced by drinking too many margaritas, I posted my query for Margarita Nights on The Public Query Slushpile. Oh, yes I did!

Now that I've been publicly humiliated! Kidding. The experience has been really helpful. Still, I spent most of last evening reworking (to some extent) the brilliance of my query. I definitely - thanks to all the commenters (Robyn and Angie were two of them) - captured the Voice. Woo-hoo! The query just needs a tweak here or there to positively shine with brilliance! Right now, it's just glimmering brightly!

The frustrating part, at least for me, is trying to maintain the brilliance (thanks to Elana for helping me, and Lady Glamis) of the query. I don't want to add too much and somehow dim things down. Try as I might, at least last night, all my attempts to add have failed. So, I'm stepping away from the query!

Am I giving up? Heck no, people! I'm too dang stubborn to give up. I just need a breather - and a margarita, but that will have to wait until Friday! Hopefully before then, I'll finish my tweaking and repost the query on The Public Query Slushpile!

BTW - Hush, Hush by the Pussycat Dolls (yes, the Pussycat Dolls) is currently playing. I absolutely love the song - great beat, and they intermixed some of the gayest anthem of all time (I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor) into the song.

Have a great day!

S

31,466 Words

31,466 Words! Let me spell it out for you: Thirty-one thousand four hundred and sixty-six words. This is the number of words I must omit from Margarita Nights if I wish to submit the manuscript in its true brilliance. Yes, a daunting task, to say the least.

Now, as most aspiring writers know, there are words counts to conform to when submitting a manuscript. Rather than go into excruciating detail on that subject, I'm just going to direct you to Michelle's blog post here. So, according to these guidelines, a novel can be anywhere from 50,000 to 110,000 words. Great. Fantastic. Frak - I'm at 141,466 words with the total package that is Margarita Nights. Frak, Frak, and Frak again!

Okay, this isn't as bad as it sounds. Basically, the manuscript was written in two parts. Part One equals out to approximately 72,000 words. Not a bad thing. I can deal with that! Oh wait, most adult manuscripts are expected to be 80,000 words. Frak, Frak, and Frak again! I'm 8,000 words short of expectations. Oh, yes, there are exceptions to every rule. 72,000 really isn't that bad.

So, what's my dilemma? Well, I'll tell you - I like Margarita Nights at the 140,000 plus word level. I like Part One and Part Two as one book and not two separate books, which is entirely doable, btw! I'm just torn on whether to go for submitting just Part One or whether I should edit out 31,466 words and submit the total, unbelievable brilliant, package.

Do I spend the next few weeks editing out words, paring down to insane brilliance, and maintaining the snark? Do I continue to query the 72,000 Part One and hope that an agent likes it enough to consider Part Two as well? Do I query Part One while revising the total package? Do I just jump off the cliff and end my misery? Kidding!

What do you (not you, dear friend, I know what you think), fellow bloggers, think I should do? Do I go with my instinct and revise the 141,466 down to a marketable 110,000 words? Do I market just Part One and hope for a chance for Part Two? Do I market Part One and then blindside the agent with the fact that Part Two is a cohesive part (ha!) of Part One and can she/he sell it as such?

Ah, yes, that glass of wine is beckoning to me suddenly. Who needs to revise when he can imbibe instead? Oh, wait, I can multi-task!

S