Don't Throw It Away

So I was digging through some old files and came across some of the earliest words I ever wrote for a novel. I'm not going to share that one, because...reasons. But I am going to share with you the opening of the second novel I ever finished (At sixteen). Because I rewrote this one recently. That's write, I dug out a decades old novel and rewrote it. And I'm pretty happy I did. So, without further ado, one of the earliest examples of my writing.


Version One

It was dark by the time she came home. She snuck in through her bedroom window. Her feet had just touched the floor when the lights came on. Bringing her face to face with her angry mother. She looked around for an escape route but the only way out was through her window, and she doubted she could get out and down, before she was pulled back in. "Hi mom. Been up long?"

"Don't 'Hi mom' me! Where have you been? I've been up all night worrying! You are in so much trouble! This goes beyond grounding. I can’t believe you! Every night this week! I thought that you would have known better than this! First, you've been expelled from every school I've ever put you in. You spend most of your time away doing who knows what. Then you dare to break curfew. This is exactly why I'm sending you to private school.” Gwen eyes bugged out as she tried to make sense of what she had just heard.

"What!? I can't go to private school! They brainwash you and make you into little robots that act all snobby and not only that but, I'll look stupid. They'll make me wear a uniform and...eww."

"Not just any school. Darkcastle Boarding School for Troubled Youth. Besides you should have thought about that before you blew up the gym."

"I didn't blow up the gym. The moron, who decided to explain how dynamite works set up right next to my display about fire, blew up the gym."

"Yes but you lit the fuse."

"Not on purpose. I thought it was my candle! I was only expelled because the principal hated me so much!” she said trying to recover the upper hand. “ Anyway isn't Darkcastle in Europe?"

"Yes. But that's not important. They've accepted you on the reasoning that your uncle went there."

"Which one?"

"You have to ask?” she rolled her eyes in exasperation. “It was your uncle Eric." Ah yes the good for nothing uncle Eric who lived in Europe and apparently had no job.* At least he got away from my psycho mother she thought bitterly.* Her mother plowed ahead, ignoring her daughter’s look of chagrin." Besides, since he lives over there you can live with him while on break or you can stay at the school that is up to you. You'll come home for the summer, of course, but I can't afford for you to come back during the holidays this year, so I'll just send you your gifts."* I can't believe this. She's planning the rest of my school career for me she thought angrily.*

"Don't I get a say in this!?"

"No. You have a day to pack. Meaning tomorrow. Then the next day you leave."

"You couldn't have told me earlier? I won't have time!"

"Oh don't worry. Anyway, I didn’t want you running off. You just have to pack clothes and a few personal items. They provide everything else. Food, uniforms, soap. The essentials. Don't worry about it." *Oh my God. She was really gonna send me away she thought.* "The travel buddy I got for you has your ticket so you can't tear it to pieces or whatever. Now get some sleep. You have a big day tomorrow." She left the room and turned off the light, leaving the girl in the dark. Gwen flopped onto the bed and fell asleep.


_____________________________________________________________


So...you can see that I hadn't quite grasped "craft" at this stage. But that's okay, I was sixteen. I didn't have anyone who could provide feedback on my work. I didn't want to show it to my parents, or my teachers and at that particular moment I wasn't speaking to my friends so...yeah.


But, I kept coming back to the ideas I presented in the book. Because some of them were good. There were, as they say, good bones. So I tore it apart and came back at it once in college, and then again more recently. And that scene above? It's still in the book actually. Sort of. It's no longer chapter one, it's not the opening and my craft has been refined to some degree. So for comparison's sake, the newest version of that scene.



Chapter Three: Run
Astrid

The lawn was damp with morning dew before the sun had risen. I could feel the cold of it against the flesh of my bare feet as I made my way back to the house. It was sandwiched between two other homes; to which it was indistinguishably different. A cookie cutter home in a bushel of cookie cutter homes. A testament to the ingenuity of the American city planner. I crept across the dampened lawn like a thief, silent as I could be. The second story’s left hand window was still cracked ever-so slightly, just as I had left it. My hands met the twining greenery of the ivy trellis as I pulled my way up the side and towards the window.

My legs were already protesting as I had made my way across the lawn, and now they screamed at me. I could feel one of the muscles coil and tighten beneath my flesh, cramping. I gasped, letting a little hiss of air escape as I tried not to make too much noise and wake my guardian. I reached down and massaged the leg as best I could and pulled myself up the rest of the way to the window. Fingers slid under the metal pushing the window up far enough to enter.

My fingers were followed by my hands and arms as I pulled myself into the room beyond the window. “Ow.” I muttered, head slamming into the floor at my miscalculation of the drop from window to beige carpeted floor. As hand went to head the lights over my head flickered on and panic set in as I glanced around for the intruder. “Oh hi, Silvia.” I forced a smile and scrambled to my feet, waving at her with the hand not currently clasping my head.

"Don't 'Hi Silvia' me! Where have you been? I've been up all night worrying!” she shouted, waving her arms about in an effort to make her point of just how exasperated she was. I wasn’t really in the mood for theatrics.

“I took a walk.” Now was not the time to explain my midnight excursions into the forest. I didn’t want to worry her.

“You took a walk.” She turned away from me, arms wrapped around her chest. “I...” She turned back, face pale and eyebrows drawn down sharply. “You and I will discuss this over breakfast. Go to bed.”

She shook her head and marched out of the room, slamming my door closed behind her. I glanced down at the floor for a moment, marveling at the way the carpet sucked away the damp from my feet before I turned and closed the window. I took a quick shower and rubbed some ointment into my leg. I turned the light off with a sweep of my hand as I hobbled over to my bed, collapsing into its soft, warm embrace.

“She worries too much.” I whispered into my pillow, burrowing into the feathered puff and into a dreamland I could only hope would be friendlier than that which had driven me out into the woods.

__________________________________________________________________

So that's different, right? It's amazing what a decade, writing classes, critique partners and betas and a whole host of amazing writers can do. My point is, we all start somewhere. We all have those terrible first drafts buried in our hard drives and in battered Composition notebooks. It's okay.  And if you find one of those novels and see something in it worth saving, you should trust your instincts. Your younger writer self may not have been fully-baked yet, but all that creativity you have now was present then, and you might just find yourself with a real diamond in the rough.

Happy hunting!

2017 Goals

I don't like the word "resolution" because it infers I have some sort of control over every aspect of the year. And I know better.

Instead, these are my goals, lofty at times, for the upcoming year.

Read: Read all off the books on my nightstand. There are like 30 of them and if I don't start reading them I'm almost positive the tower will topple, killing me in my sleep. It's practically my entire TBR list, honestly, plus some new books. I just...I didn't get a lot of reading done.

Write: I have a few unfinished projects that are too near completion to ignore and I'm going to finish them, dammit.

1: The Measure of  a Lady - Basically a gender-swapped, steampunk, Count of Monte Cristo with necromancy, ghosts and shenanigans - Currently sitting at 39K words, I believe I can wrap up the draft in 20-30K words.

2: A Caper in Crete - MG Steampunk - Currently sitting at 26K words, I believe I can wrap up it up in 10-15K words

3: Rule of Steel - YA steampunk, third book in a trilogy I've been working on with spies, an Irish empire, fairies inspired by Twelfth Night. Is at 46K words, should be able to finish it in 20-30K words.

4: Cyril : Sort of secret project. Currently just in beginning stages because of things. Need to finish ASAP.

5: Children of the Mountain: Adult fantasy, sitting at 17K words, an overhaul of a previous novel and sequel to another adult fantasy. Should be able to finish in 40-60K words

6:Are You Happy Now? - YA paranormal mystery - Started this end of December, I think it'll wrap up in 60K words or so, currently at 6K. Relatively hopeful.

7: The Merlin Cipher - Adult contemporary fantasy - Merlin's grand-daughter takes on Mordred. Basically. I needs to be finished. It's over the halfway point. 

Edit:

The only project I know I'll be editing majorly is Scout's Honor my Nanowrimo project from 2016. I've got a beta reader for the project and once feedback is in I'll start overhauling in preparation for possible submission.

Rule of Sword: Got the comments back from the lovely Chelsea, who beta-read this for me after the holidays, and once I've got a feel for where it needs help, I'll start on it. Not as exhaustive an edit as the other project, that's for sure.

Art: I need to get back into the habit of drawing or painting at least every week if not every day. We'll see how that goes.

The Truly Lofty Goal

Get an agent.


Well, that's it for work-related goals. I'm also hoping to finish some fanfics I have out there, meet at least one author in person for the first time and perhaps travel outside of the state. Fingers crossed.

Cheers.

Editing, Feedback and Knowing Your Book

Editors are human beings.

I know, it's a huge shock to us all, but they really are. Something we have to keep in mind going into edit letters, feedback and all of the wonderful things that can come from those things is that editors are human beings. Highly skilled, technically knowledgeable, human beings ready to whip your book into shape.

And sometimes, they are wrong. Now, I don't mean for you to take away from this the idea that you should ignore your editors or that it's all right for you to ignore every piece of feedback that they give you. What I suggest that you do, is talk to them. If there's a piece of feedback that, after you've sit with it, marinated with it, wrestled and worried over (And yes, you do need to let it marinate for a while. Just because you don't initially agree, just because you may feel like you got punched in the gut, doesn't really mean they were wrong), does not make sense, then you need to open up dialogue with your editor.

Perchance you thought you were writing in omniscient third and your editor comes back with edits for close-alternating-third on your entire manuscript...Well, it's time to A, consider that you weren't as effective in your omniscient third as you thought and B, to TALK to your editor.

Feedback is not a one-way-street. It is a dialogue between you and the people you are working with. Moreover, you will find that different publishing houses have different "house styles", and they'll want you to fit in with that style. This can be as basic as how you spell the word grey, to as extensive as the percentage of the book your romantic subplot takes up.

You have to know, going in, what the expectations are and you have to know your book. There will always be elements of any story that shifted left or right will make it stand out far more than it did before. Elements that don't change the core of your story. But you have to know what that core is. You have to know what you're willing to change and what you aren't--and why.

And you really have to ask yourself why. If you're really attached to Greg's hair being green...well, why? Why does Xander die? Why does Lulu fall for Steve? These sorts of things can be malleable, while say, your gay main character being gay is not. While querying some years ago I did actually run into an agent who told me she wouldn't be able to sell my book because my MC was bisexual. More importantly, because he had a male love interest.

If an editor had told me to change that aspect of the book to make it saleable, I would have walked away.

It was my line in the sand.

Try to remember though, don't draw your line in the sand in front of something that isn't actually critical to the core of the story. Learning to see the difference between the core and the malleable elements will make you a better writer and learning to talk to your editor, mentor, critique partner will definitely make you a better writer.

Ask questions, make mistakes, get messy...)don't get in a yellow school bus with a woman who has a pet iguana that actually drives the school bus.)

You will get suggestions you don't use--and you better have an explanation (a good one) as to why you didn't think the change was necessary, warranted, etc. You cannot say, "Because I didn't want to." it will not fly.

Bottom line, talk to your editor. You'll be happy you did.