Cliffhangered

LOL - I just cliffhangered myself!

Am reading the rest of draft one of Night Shift, so I have a better sense of how to handle the details left out of the outline. Read the last chapter I wrote over a year ago, #33. It ends right in the middle of something very important! But nooo, now what, there's gotta be more! My eyes popped wide open when I realized that in fact, that's where draft one ended.

Reading old stuff is fun. Chapter 33 has some dramatic stuff going on and I got caught up in that. I don't clearly recall writing all of it so it was great fun to find out what happened. Right at the tail end of one dramatic part, Kazimir said something very irreverent about angels and I just cracked up laughing. Of course I know the characters deeply so it's natural that I found it so funny. My aim is to make other readers laugh out loud at that spot too, assuming that plot point survives into draft two!

There's a bunch of great dialogue between Kazimir and Devorah that's specific to the situations it happens in; much of that doesn't make it into the outline so it's not going to be in draft two. Sad, so sad. What I love about it is not just seeing Kaz's wacko sense of humor, it's also seeing Devorah react to it and seeing her own personality adapt to the new environment she finds herself living in.

I don't (at this point in time) intend to write a sequel or a prequel, but as a writer, I can't help thinking about showing readers how Devorah got involved with demons in the first place. One of the big reasons I dumped draft one is that Devorah asks way too many questions. She's a deer in the headlights most of the time. Not good for the Point Of View character! I could probably swing a great novel from that point in her history if I told it from Kaz's viewpoint. That would put the focus on the person who has a better idea of what's going on.

That thought was what led me to the realization that for draft two, I should have switched the main characters' roles and made Kazimir the initiate and Devorah the long-time Crosser. That would have presented her the way I wanted when I was first developing the story idea. But I whined about that in a previous post so am not going to rehash it here.

It's not as if I don't like Devorah the way she is now. It could be said that I am showing the beginning of her Crosser career and why her personality develops as it does, even if I'm not starting with the day she first met Kazimir.

Readers of my blog, if you're a writer, feel free to comment on things you've had to drop from early drafts and why it hurt to cut it. If you're a reader but not a writer, let me know about scenes you've read where it felt like something got cut out and whether or not you're satisfied with that. I'm always curious about other writers' processes, and curious about what average readers think as they read.

Changes made and changes passed up

Gaaah! It's hard to toss stuff you like. Kicking characters out into the ether is bad enough, but somehow it's worse when I have to drop scenes that have quality interplay between characters.

I'm working on draft 2 of Night Shift, my paranormal novel. I made an outline for it by cannibalizing draft 1. Reading through draft 1 for the parts I can edit and re-use, I'm finding some great dialog between Devorah and Kazimir that is downright painful to dump. The passages really illustrate their relationship. Those characters are just not going to be the same people in draft 2, and it's a loss. The start of their kind of nutty relationship is, to me, just priceless, and it explains why they become the people they do later in the book.

*sigh*

Had an even more painful revelation recently. Thinking about each main character's place in the overall story, and what I wanted to say in the story, I realized that before I did the outline for draft 2 I should have reversed Devorah's and Kaz's roles. She should have been the 400-plus-year-old demon and he should have been the recruit. That would have made Devorah the natural choice for the POV character, the way Kaz wants to be.

However, each of them goes through specific changes in their current roles that would have been impossible if those roles were reversed. They would have become completely different characters. That might have been okay for readers who never met them before, but I like the plot points in the outline and how the characters change. It's a good story the way it is.

And honestly, I'm so not willing to tear the damn thing apart and start from scratch. Rebuild both characters from the ground up? Ehhhh, nope. Should I get enough feedback from draft 2 that suggests I should do that, I'll consider it, but for now, just gonna roll with what I have.

I also realize that my blog desperately needs an overhaul, but who's got time for that? I'm beta reading for somebody, got a full-time day job, do some online work after the day job because it's fun and brings some extra money, am one of several moderators on a critique site, do admin and moderator stuff for Weekend Writing Warriors, and work on my novel in between all of that. Not to mention that gardening season is approaching and I need garden time.

Poor little blog, starving for attention :-)

Thanks for popping in today. Readers are the backbone of what I do and I appreciate you coming by!

YA YA! I did it :-D Two announcements

Announcement #1 -- I finished the outline for Night Shift :-D I've never written one before but here it is, in its shiny imperfection.

There are 3 or 4 minor holes, to be honest. No, really, minor ones. I'm not sure HOW certain things happen but I know they do happen. I've dealt with that kind of issue before and my muse has always helped me work through it.

I'd like to say that forcing myself to sit down, sit still, and deal with plot problems head-on has been enlightening. I didn't think I could solve writing problems like that. But writing by the seat of my pants only gets me into trouble I can't get out of, so rather than keep on doing the same thing and expecting a different result, I did something different. I marched right up to those Gordian knots, cut through some and untied others.

Writing by "pantsing", for me, is like letting a young child run loose. The poor kid has no sense of priorities and no sense of direction. There's a feeling that everything has to be investigated because you might miss the BEST opportunity if you skip looking into even one treehole.

However, once I put side-blinders on and forced myself to focus only what was in front me, I was able to handle the uncertainties.

Ta-da! Outline!

Yes, it's imperfect. I'm not entirely sure how much I need to explain in the outline and how much I can leave open to be solved during chapter writing. Some points may be cliched or cheesy or weak or impractical or impossible, but they keep the framework of the story up for now. That leads me to --

Announcement #2 -- Someone has agreed to professionally critique my outline, and then my chapters :-D Art Edwards was co-founder and bassist for The Refreshments (no, not the Swedish band!). If you've seen the TV show King of the Hill, that's The Refreshment's music in the theme song. Art's writing regularly appears in online magazines on the topics of music and writing. He has self-published three books and is planning more. I took an online rock-n-roll writing course with him back in 2010 so I have a sense of what kind of teacher/guide he is.

However, Art is only able to do this in February 2015 because of his usually busy schedule. I need to get him my outline ASAP, then I'll have roughly two months to produce the manuscript. I did hit 51k in NaNo 2013 so I hope I can do a real manuscript in twice that amount of time.

Talk about pressure :-) Keep your fingers crossed for me, peeps. There won't be any time for fooling around on Facebook or watching cat videos on Youtube. I'll post updates as I can. Cheers!

Photo Credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/21897757@N00/13574102525/">evaxebra</a> via <a href="http://compfight.com">Compfight</a> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/help/general/#147">cc</a>

And that, friends, is why I haven't progressed further on my outline

Me to muse: Come on, empty that Magickal Crockpot. I know there's something else in there.

Muse: But how can there be? Look, it's empty!

Me: Uhm, I see bits of something clinging to the bottom.

Muse (grabs Crockpot back): Well, bits of mushroom stems and sauce scrapings don't count.

Me: Of course they do! If I can see it or smell it, it counts. Now give it up.

Muse: Here, why don't you have more from the Street Glass bowls? I can tell you really like the one labeled Possible Epilog.

Me: Cut it out. I told you, one creation at a time. No meddling with something else while this one's unfinished.

Muse (folds arms and huffs): Look, I can only work with what you give me. You don't put in all the ingredients, you don't get a complete dish.

Me: You're a muse. Creativity is supposed to be your forté.

Muse (waving arms around): You're the one who grabbed the Crockpot as soon as you smelled something good! Did you ask me if I was finished with it? Nooo!

Me (drains coffee mug): We've had this conversation before. Stop being stubborn. Where would Neil Gaiman be if his muse was as stubborn as you?

Muse: His muse has better working conditions. You don't even have a desk, how am I supposed to concentrate with you muttering and complaining about your headache or backache? The cat comes in and sneezes all over the bed. I'm constantly being interrupted!

Me: Other muses deal with it. Some even help their writers churn out a book or two every year.

Muse (sighs overly loudly and rolls eyes): Speaking of writers, why can't you come up with some of this yourself? You bark orders like a drill sergeant and I'm just supposed to ask 'how high' when you say jump?

Me (fills wine glass): Screwing up metaphors and becoming an incarnate cliché will not get you out of this. I know there's a way to connect these plot points, I can smell it. Put the Crockpot on "keep warm", maybe that will loosen the bits stuck to the bottom.

Muse: And you never share anything you're drinking. Look, I ... (Drops gaze to floor, kicks feet back and forth) I'm kind of stuck. I made some sauce with the new ingredients and it should have been a great sauce, but it's watery and tastes like old socks. It won't coat anything. It's not even soup, just failed sauce. I hate it when that happens.

Me (nods): Oh, you should have told me before. It sure smells great, though. Does it need a bit more spice? Would some arrowroot help?

Muse: I don't know, I've tried thickeners. I guess the next step is to lock the top on and turn the Crockpot upside down again. Just please promise me you'll turn it right side up when you want to look inside!

Me: I do try to remember that. It's hard to slow down when I smell the perfect solution. Tell you what, I'll set out the ingredients one at a time so you can get a look at what I've got before putting it all in the pot. Sometimes throwing it all in at once messes it up, I think.

Muse: Great idea! Sauces are tricky, you have to get everything just right. And you have a lot of requirements for this one so it might just take longer than you'd like. You tell everybody else to be patient.

Me: I know, it's just that the aroma is lingering and is making my mouth water. All right, I'll go pull out stuff from the cupboards and the fridge. We can do this. You've stuck with me for a long time, I know it's not in you to give up.

Muse (puffs up and grins): I'll go wash the utensils and get the cleaning things out. I secretly get a kick out of watching you come tearing in here and grab the Crockpot, even if you do forget to turn it right-side up.

Photo: By User:MECU (self) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AOval_Crock_Pot2.jpg 

Outlining, as seen by a pantser

This is my first try at making an outline. Now that I'm 7 pages into it and approaching the climax of the plot, it's not as awful as I feared. In fact it's similar to writing a first draft, just less of it. I have something of an advantage in that I wrote 35 chapters of Draft One so I got to know the main characters pretty well. Without that, I wouldn't know where the plot should go.

There are a couple of hard things about it. First, I'm writing some new plot points so am trying to figure out how the characters act in those situations. That can take a few days of hard thinking. Second, deciding which problems I need to solve before continuing the outline and which ones can wait.

One guiding principle for the second issue is: how hard is it to solve? If I have that "so close I can taste it" feeling, I'll spend a few days on it and usually come up with something that will work. If I've tried coming at it from different angles and do not have the sense that a solution is close, I add a note in parentheses right there in the outline to the effect of, Need a reason for this.

It's happened that not solving something has led me to a brick wall. Running into that while doing the outline is a whole lot better than running into it in the middle of chapter 16 (or chapter 35), believe me.

I still have a lot of respect for writing spontaneously. That's where the emotion comes out. It's not planned for, just like in real life. You get to be the fly on the wall. If I just let my characters talk, they can come out with great lines. One example that comes to mind is in Street Glass. In music, sustain is the length of time you can hear a note after it's played, roughly speaking. Neal and Sandy are talking about relationships and Neal expresses frustration that women don't seem seriously interested in him. Sandy knows Neal is still hung up on a woman from his past and tells him: If you try to prolong the sustain, you'll ruin the song. In other words, don't hold on to relationships that are finished. Neal immediately gets what Sandy means. I love that the comment just popped out. I can't plan that kind of thing in an outline.

So, onward and upward with outline writing! I'm not going to hit 50k this year in NaNo but that's okay as long as I make strong progress. Primary goal is to finish the outline, get it into shape so I can use it to start writing chapters. Secondary goal is to write a few early chapters. I tweet about it as OwlladyWriter, using #NaNoRebel.

Writing is so cool. You learn about yourself as you go. I never thought I could write an outline or that I'd ever want to. Got a new superpower :-D

Sailing the wide sea of possibilities

The plot. Does anybody besides me involuntarily shudder when they think about the plot? If your plots usually come together without much trouble, I salute you. Mine don’t, le sigh. They look coherent, they even might be coherent when I start, but then I inevitably write myself into a corner. Or several corners. “Pantsing” does not work for me.

This is what happened with the story I started for NaNo 2013, a little thing I’m tentatively calling Night Shift. Eventually -- some 35 chapters into the story -- I realized there were too many things I didn’t know, and because I didn’t know them, I had no idea how they might affect other things. And I got sick and tired of Devorah -- the POV character in a first person story -- always asking for help and needing everything explained to her. 

I can’t live with a wishy-washy female main character, and I don’t want my readers to. So I threw a bunch of stuff out of my head and turned certain assumptions upside down, which led to the realization that the story needs to start at a later point. Instead of showing how Devorah met Kazimir and how she joined his group of Crossers, I’m going to start after she’s been part of the group for a while. So she won’t need so much explained to her AND --

-- the best part is that she will be the confident, don’t-screw-with-me character I always envisioned her to be. 

Because the world does not need another helpless female character waiting to be rescued. 

Now I’m on to trying to figure out more of the backstory. One of the problems Draft 1 had was that I decided there were things I didn’t need to know because I didn’t plan to get into them in the story itself. After all, a lot of stories leave some questions unanswered. 

I know, I cringe too just thinking about it ;-) At least I didn’t publish that draft! So now I’m looking at Devorah’s dad -- who really killed him, and why? I hit on what I think is a great reason for why he was killed though the details need to be cleared up. Without spilling all the beans, it involves him having done some work for the angels several years prior. What I don’t know yet is why the angels wouldn’t tell Devorah that when Kazimir first says he wants to recruit her into the Crossers. 

I have a tiny bit of “fudge factor” in that the lower levels of angels (who deal directly with humans) are not above obscuring certain facts if they believe it serves a higher purpose in the long run. So if they believed keeping Devorah ignorant of her father’s past was in her best interest, they would certainly do that. 

(Why is Blogger red-underlining most of my words with apostrophes??)

Still, what does that really mean, in practical terms? How is it in her best interest? Writing is a continual journey of discovery. It’s like ancient mariners sailing an ocean for the first time, or the first astronomers to peer through crude telescopes. Writing a good story is challenging and sometimes pretty hard, but it’s also a damn lot of fun.

:-D

Photo credit: Alexander Steinhof via Flickr Creative Commons

Writers paying it forward

I've been tagged in a meme that asks some pointed questions of writers. It's a neat "pay it forward" idea put out there by Frank "Chip" Etier, who's been a steady contributor at Weekend Writing Warriors. Some peeps I've come to think of as good friends were first encountered on WeWriWa or its predecessor, Six Sentence Sunday. Writing is, at its core, a solitary pursuit but there's no way you can do it effectively by being 100% alone, IMHO.

What am I working on? --not a simple question! Define "working on". I'm currently engaged in plot wrangling on the novel I started for NaNo 2013. The working title is Night Shift. It involves demons, humans, and angels. I'm currently redefining it because I wasn't able to do any planning or plotting before having to jump into NaNo; 34 chapters in, I had to admit that I simply can't write a novel without any planning. I mean I had some general ideas on what to do with the plot but that's nowhere near enough planning. 

In the process of learning how to write better, I joined two online critique sites: Critique Circle and Scribophile. Each has slightly different things to offer and both are worthwhile. The more I learned about the writing process in general, the more I would think how to apply the various lessons to to the novel that's on my back burner, Street Glass. Neal and the boys have been in my head for some 30 years. I badly want to write that story when my skills are improved, not when I'm still a writing newbie. I kind of think of Street Glass as my fine wine--and you know what they say about wine, do not open it before it's time. Or something like that! 

So I could make a case for saying I'm working on two projects more or less at the same time, though I'm only actively plotting one of them.

How does my work differ from others of its genre? --also a tough question, even if I stick to Night Shift because I haven't read other stories with demons and angels. I do that on purpose. I don't want to accidentally pick up anybody else's plot, characters, or writing voice. Whatever I write, I want it to come from my weird brain only! But I will say that my demons and angels, while having certain things in common with Christianity, do not reflect any existing religion. My angels always refer to God with ambiguous titles like Holy of Holies and One Without End. I try to even steer clear of using a gender pronoun when referring to God. 

Even the demons are not meant to depict Christian ones. Kazimir explains to Devorah that the being she's familiar with as "Satan" is actually much older than that title (and Satan is really a title, not a name). I'm basing my demons on those found in a particular ancient mythology. 

Why do I write what I write? --holy cow, pun intended, how do I know? If I want to wax philosophical, I could say that people like me who felt ignored and belittled as children turned to books for comfort because those "people" were always welcoming. They always invited me into their world without any hesitation, it seemed. Once I realized how wonderful it was to get lost in books, it was a short hop to creating my own stories. 

Because now, I hold the power! muwahahaha! Of course most fiction, particularly the fantasy sort I like best, tends to need the main characters to suffer somehow in order to keep increasing the tension--this isn't something I made up, it's advice given by well-published authors, and successful agents and editors. I not only bring my characters to tears, I chase them up the proverbial tree and plop snarling wolves at the base of the tree, then I fire flaming arrows into it! 

I can put them through heart-breaking times and help them find love everlasting. Bringing these people to "life" is the most amazing thing I've ever done. They're all different facets of me and I can see myself in them sometimes, but other times, I swear I've tapped into some other dimension :D

How does my writing process work? --well, I wish I knew :D I can say this much--I cannot pants a true story. No, going down that road only leads me into a hedge maze. A story is more than just a string of events--there has to be a coherent plot; a start, a middle, and an end; there should be some sort of climax or high point; and I think the whole thing should mean something. Without some plotting, I just have a narrative of events and emotions that don't lead anywhere. 

I can also say that my stories are character-driven. I'm not really into troop movements across the continent, hard-core science, or predictable plots. What grabs me first is a fascinating person--why they're fascinating is subjective, but overall I'm attracted to characters who are different from most people around them. 

In Street Glass, Neal's a card-carrying gang member who desperately wants out of that lifestyle. What traps him is the rule that if you leave and the gang catches you, you are very dead. His opposite in almost every way, Sandy is the drummer in a rock band. He lives the high life but also carries a secret guilt. When Neal kidnaps him, Sandy thinks all he wants is to get back home safe and sound, but then he sees a chance for personal redemption--or is it more than simply personal? 

For Night Shift, as I said I'm retooling the plot, but the basic idea is that Devorah is the "point of view" character. She comes from a mixed Jewish-Christian family and isn't strongly drawn to either faith. When her father, the police chief, is gunned down she feels she's lost her biggest supporter and the person who helped her make sense of the craziness that is life. But she doesn't take anything lying down, so when she's recruited into a group of demons who are also servants of the Light, she willingly reinvents herself. She has to maintain her cover as a demon and finds that sometimes, she likes it. 

I get seed ideas by asking the age-old question "What if?" For Street Glass, I got the initial idea from the first verse of the song Baba O'riley by The Who. To me, the verse sounds like two different people talking, and I wondered, What if those two people met? 

With Night Shift, I was drawn to stare at the front porch of a house, shadowed by a fully leafed-out tree. The emptiness seemed to be waiting for somebody. What if that spot was where some dodgy guy came to meet somebody, and what if one of them was up to no good? That led to a scene in draft 1 where Devorah first meets Kazimir in a cemetery, and he does look pretty dodgy to her. I may ditch the scene in the next draft, but without having thought of it, I wouldn't have the story at all. 

So there you are :) I think all good writers are basically nosy people :) I'm off to tag three writer friends of mine to keep this thing going. Although before I go, to bring this back around to where I started, I've been able to progress with both novels because I've given and received critiques. Getting them has obvious benefits in that readers point out things they feel don't quite work well, and things that work great. Giving them has more subtle benefits; you gradually train your "ear" to what sounds good and what doesn't, and you realize that some of the mistakes you see in other people's work are the same ones you make yourself--and then you realize that you need to start taking your own advice! 

I've gotten some truly wonderful compliments on my writing. That would never have come about without the give and take that happened when I got active with other writers. One of them, when she found out my laptop died and I couldn't replace it, sent me a mini laptop she was no longer using. For free. Simply offered it to me. Writers have kind of a bad rap, people think of them as loners who drink too much and talk to themselves. But they're some of the most generous people on Earth. I'm so honored and humbled to be part of that group. 

Learning all the time

The interesting thing about actively working on one novel-in-progress and having another in the back of my mind is that as I get help on the active one, I sometimes think of things that will help the inactive one. I can't really give a specific example. It's more of a cumulative process. Sure, sometimes I'll remember something a character said or did and the thought will pop into my head: Oh, I see why that's weak. I'll have to change that. But more often I'll remember the thought process that went into having a character say or do something, and realize that the process itself is lacking.

My other novel-in-progress (maybe I should start using NIP instead of WIP? *laff*) is kind of a self-discovery/coming-of-age story. One of the main characters is 18 when the story starts and is 24 or 25 when it ends. This is Street Glass. I got most of Neal's motivations and goals figured out, but when I put most of the first draft up for critiquing, people had a lot of trouble with Sandy who came off as just too nice of a guy without a good reason for wanting to pull Neal out of a dead-end life.

I put a bit of an edge to Sandy's personality and gave him a temper. Then I gave him a personal reason for wanting to help Neal (in the form of a cousin whose death Sandy felt was his fault). Both of those changes helped but still didn't feel like enough to readers.

That had me perplexed and even annoyed for quite a while. Annoyed because it was all so clear in my head and I couldn't understand why I wasn't conveying it to readers.

Now though, I can see the problems I had with Sandy were because I don't know him as well as I need to. Neal has always been easier for me to get emotions and thoughts across to readers. The thing is, I've written many scenes with Neal just for myself, because I like him so much I wanted to watch him react in scenes that are not intended to make it into the novel.

I did that a little with Sandy but decided I had him all figured out so didn't need to find anything else out about him. Oh, youth and inexperience!

Ironically, it's the same problem I currently have with Devorah in Night Shift. I like her well enough but have never felt I know what makes her tick. Kaz became much more interesting; bits of his backstory kept popping out at unexpected moments, pulling me right into his character. Devorah, well, not so much. Again I like her (quite a bit) and it didn't seem like I needed any more motivation for her.

Surprise! Then I got well-meaning advice like "pretend Oprah is interviewing your character". Sure, in general I can see how that could help. But I have no idea what Oprah would ask my character! Any real-life interviewer is a distinct personality that I can't just pretend to be. Generic, static lists of questions don't help me either because they're not tailored to my character.

So I got myself into the Plot Busters group at Scribophile where the purpose is to fix plots gone awry by looking at specific elements of character and plot (as well as story, which is different than plot).

What are some things you've gotten stuck on? Do characters give you more trouble than plot? Can you "pants" a story, or do you need to plot the whole way? I can't "pants" anything coherent. Do character interviews work for you? Do you use plot templates? This inquiring mind wants to know :)

Retooling in a nutshell

Have realized I don't know where I'm going with this story, and am not even really sure where I'm at right now. It's become a sort of octopus with a multitude of arms flailing around. Or --

What am I talking about? The story I started writing for NaNoWriMo 2013, working title Night Shift. I've discussed before that I got an idea two weeks before NaNo began, lost the outline I'd started when my laptop imploded, and had to plunge in typing for a solid week on the touch-screen of my iPad. Lousy way to start one's first NaNo, but hey, I was on fire with an idea so I ran with it.

How the hell did I write 51,000 words that month, without hitting this brick wall?? The upshot is that without having planned out the plot, I've been basically grabbing whatever idea comes into my head that doesn't conflict with what I already wrote. I'm sure some people can pull a coherent novel out of that but I can't. Nope, sadly, pantsing does not work for me. Too bad, because I could bang out 100,000 words a lot faster without having to plan anything first.

So, still hoping I could save my really big pile of words without too much surgery, I went to the good people at Scribophile for help. Only about four pages into the thread I realized that nope, the fix did not have anything to do with using more figurative glue, it had to do with all those unanswered questions that popped up as I wrote to which I would answer, I don't need to know that now, maybe not at all.

Silly me. You'd think I'd have learned to fully trust my gut about stuff like this. If I'm not sure about how or why somebody did something, I cannot gloss over it. Even if it's a secondary character. Because secondary characters affect the plot too, so if I don't know why they do certain things, that represents a hole in my plot. I do not like plot holes, I much prefer donut holes.

So, I'm going to do what I wish I'd had time for last October: ask myself a bunch of questions till I've figured out everybody's motives for starting the story in the first place. I'm going to understand the characters' backstories going back to when they were born, if I have to. Then I'm going understand why they -- all of them -- did certain things that set the plot in motion. I'm going to uncover exactly what they want, short and long term, and what's stopping them from getting it.

And, I'm going to discover what they do to try to knock down that wall, why it won't fall down (or why it falls on their heads), what they do then and why, and a whole long series of whys and hows until I'm confident I've reached The End.

I've got some coffee, chocolate-covered almonds, wine when it becomes necessary, a computer, and some time. I'll still post bits from the project. Wish me luck :-D

Image courtesy of Flickr CC

Happy Christmas

My laptop recently blew up (well close to) and I found myself with just an iPad. I've saved a lot of my writing and related docs to Google Drive, but an iPad is just not meant for lots of typing even with a bluetooth keyboard. I'm also still job hunting so I don't have the money to replace the laptop.

I went on to one of the writing sites I belong just to cry on the shoulders of other writers, because I knew they'd understand my pain. I got a bunch of sympathy and believe me, it helps! One lovely writer offered to send me her old mini laptop, complete with Microsoft Word and Excel (both 2010) and a small mouse. For free. Because I found myself unexpectedly without a good tool for writing and she had one to spare. It arrived two days ago, and I'm so grateful that I wanted to share the story with you peeps.

It's times like this that make me so proud and humble to be part of this community. I feel like once my first book is published, I should simply dedicate it to writers everywhere because we are all bound together. We do not stand alone like we used to. Nowadays we link arms and hearts much more strongly. I simply couldn't function as a true writer without this whole community.

There's my Christmas miracle.

Image ID: 129037523, by Cranach at Shutterstock

Transcend … Purify … Glorious

Sanctus 

Kyrie

Sanctus kyrie 

Kyrie gloria 

Gloria holy, holy

Holy 

Gloria

Anthem, Neil Diamond

But for working with your *plot*, plotting's better than pantsing--it's right there in the name!

I'm about 3/4 of the way into draft 2 and have encountered some messy plot problems. Peeps, if you can pants a whole novel and have it come out making sense, more power to you!

In draft 1, people convinced each other to do things way too easily. Or else they argued about it for paragraphs and paragraphs. I forgot that even though my focus shifted to Main Character #2, MC#1 had to be doing something. You can't really have people just standing around waiting for their next scene. Doesn't work for plays, doesn't work for books either. The Bad Guy threatened the friends of MC#1, and I had a whole long scene in which MC#1 tried to convince four friends to leave town or learn to protect themselves. Gee, poor guy's only got 4 friends?

There are worse problems. I've gotten some of it worked out but still have problems with motivations. You and me are friends; a nutcase wants to extort money from you and says he'll break the kneecaps of your friends if you don't fork over. That means you, slick! What do you do? Well, my character got talked out of going to the cops. Yeah. I understand why the guy being extorted doesn't want to tell the cops, but come on, his friend is going to panic and tell somebody.

Don't have that part figured out yet.

I'm now almost at the point where a couple characters get caught in the Rodney King riots. Something important happens to one of them because of the riots, and that something leads directly to the climax. I can't change when the riots happened. My timeline has gotten squashed and plot points are falling out the side. This results in some pretty jerky movements for the characters!

I sat around for a couple days typing stream-of-consciousness "what if" notes to myself, asking "why does he need to do that" and "what would happen if he did not do that". That usually helps but for whatever reason, this time around it wasn't working. I got some suggestions on a couple writing sites; one or two of those made a few pieces click together. By continually asking myself "why" I narrowed down the one thing I absolutely need to have happen. That thing takes place on the same day the riots began, so I started a timeline for that day.

I decided what hour that all-important event needed to happen to fit the timeline of the riot itself, typed that into 8:00 pm, and worked backwards. It's actually a chart. It's not finished yet but I'm definitely closer to figuring out what needs to happen AND WHY. The other thing I did was start a list of the plot points I really wanted to include along with reasons why they should be included. Honest reasons, not thin excuses.

There is one scene I had to think about for a few hours before I realized why it's important. It relates to character development rather than plot movement. I really didn't want to dump it because, as written in draft 1, it's pretty emotional stuff. A character is scared for his life. At the same time, if I couldn't find an honest reason for it to be there, some benefit to the story, I would have had to cut it.

So keep your fingers crossed for me, friends! And listen, if I ever post about wanting to pants another story, you have my permission to break my kneecaps.

photo credit: Cayusa via photopin cc

The pants have it

Image by branox/stock.xchng

The kind people who stop my blog for my Weekend Writing Warriors posts often say that my excerpts feel real, authentic. I think I've figured out why, and it has to do with pantsing vs plotting.

My draft 1 was "pantsed" 100%. A tiny bit of scene occurred to me, sounded great, wanted to see what would happen, so I wrote it out. That's basically how the whole draft got written. Some scenes are based on the one written immediately prior, and some (most of the early ones, speaking of when they fall in the storyline) are only loosely connected to other scenes. I didn't even know what "plotting" meant back then.

So when I sat down to make a coherent STORY out of all that in draft 2 (by figuring out connections between all the scenes and plotting the story), I had serious work waiting for me. Recently, I struggled with a passage in which I kept deleting and rewriting dialog because I kept missing the point of the scene. I deleted and rewrote and deleted so much that I finally asked myself what the heck the real problem was.

The characters told me I needed to stop trying to put words in their mouths, and just let them do the talking! ;-)

I'd usually copy scenes from draft 1 into draft 2 and rewrite, delete, add, tweak until it all fit the emerging storyline. I realized I'd been saying "I like that dialog, it's succinct, it's emotional, it really fits the character, I'm keeping it" pretty often. By trying to change it to fit a more plotted draft 2, I was effectively trying to force a round peg into an oval hole. It almost fit, but if I was honest with myself, it was forcing.

What keeps attracting me in draft 1 is the raw emotion in the dialog. It needs some shining up before letting other people read it, but it's exactly that spontaneity that makes it feel so real. That came from pantsing.

Now I'm not implying that plotting out a story will ruin the feel and flavor. Not at all. I've sworn on everything holy I can think of that the next thing I write will have at least a rough outline before I sit down to do any actual scenes. For me, a 100% pansted thing is not a coherent story. Readers like coherent books, you see :-D

However, for dialog that immediately grips readers, I have to let my characters just talk. When it springs right out of their souls, readers will connect with it.

If you're having a hard time with dialog that isn't getting the reaction you want from readers, take the gags off your peeps. Let 'em say anything they want, no holds barred. You can clean it up later. I learned some great Spanish swearing that way!

Dream until your dream comes true

Today I was let go from my temp job. They have very high standards for accuracy and the short story is, I understand why they let me go, though I do not understand why they waited until I’d left the office to call me and tell me. Being outdoors, I didn’t hear my phone ring inside my purse, and consequently didn’t know about it until about an hour and a half later.

I don’t have another job ready and have no clue if any temp agency will have something for me while I’m once again combing online job ads.

But don’t feel too sorry for me. The Universe has prodded me again. See, my rock novel follows me around like a shy puppy. It pops out unexpectedly from around corners, waves, grins a silly ear-to-ear grin, then disappears. I used to think this was the Universe reminding me that if I was going to write a novel, It had already given me the plot idea and now it was up to me to actually write it.

I think it’s stronger than that, in fact. I think the Universe is reminding me that writing is my singular purpose in life. Every time I hear about musicians who “made it”, I hear echoes of my own life. I fell in love with writing at a pretty young age, I didn’t miss doing other things if I could read and/or write, I got so obsessed with words that one year in high school, I spent my free periods reading the unabridged dictionary. No, really--*reading* it.

I don’t have the tenacity (or talent!) to do anything musically, though that’s a love that comes in a close second to writing. I have this funky twosome going on. Writing . . . that’s what makes me tick, that’s what fills my soul and pours out, just like musicians who never gave up because their music is what they need to live.

Kind of too bad I’m not independently wealthy, so I could devote more time to the dream. Still, it’s the only thing that feels *real* to me. I’m going to take Santana’s advice: don’t listen to the loud voices in your head that say you aren’t good enough, listen to the quiet one that says “this is what you are, go out there and do it.”

Gonna do that, peeps. Am gonna write every day, am gonna slay this bad boy of a novel! I may not make it to superstar status, but the important thing is to write it and set it free in the world. Hope to have you along, I’ve been very much enjoying getting to know some of you :-D

I don't have a ruler but ... Pt II

Continuing from here but this post will be shorter, promise.

Recently I paid attention to how I use commas because it seems to me that many people overuse them. And I noticed that in early drafts of chapters and blog posts, I do it too!

And I realized that typing while I think is the culprit. I go along banging words out as they occur to me and when my thought process gets stuck, I stop typing--but first, I add a comma. It's like I have to capture every nuance of thought, even the pauses. For a first draft, that's absolutely fine. Now we're back to proofreading: okay, you've gotten a bunch of ideas down kind of as they formed. Great, you've got coherent thoughts and you want to tell people! Go for it.

Just proofread before you press “publish” or “send”, okay? It doesn't take long and it's not as annoying as flossing. Here's a tip from a copy editor I briefly worked with: Start with the last sentence, read that out loud, then move on to the second-last sentence, and keep going backwards. It's best to have another person follow along on their own copy because they catch things you might miss, but even doing it alone helps.

You can even do it between paragraphs. Whenever you temporarily run out of ideas, read over what you have so far. Once you get in the habit of proofreading it becomes automatic. Your first drafts and off-the-cuff posts will have fewer mistakes. More people will smile at you.

Too many commas can slow readers down. That’s exactly what you don’t want in scenes with fast-paced action or somebody’s hyped-up, tumbling thoughts. Even in blog posts, too many commas make me feel like I’m riding a cantering horse: bouncing up and down.

Commas. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, some are necessary and some are like those spiked strips cops throw across the roadway to catch speeding crooks. I don’t normally pontificate like this but some things just get in my craw and I have to snap about it.

Rant over, really. Feel free to disagree with me, it’s fine. Won’t be the last time, no doubt :D

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