Nanowrimo Update

So...I sort of completely restarted Nanowrimo from 0 on Day 14 because my WIP was being effected by my emotional state post-election. So I dug through my WIP folder for a couple days until something finally spoke to me in the state I was in. The things I needed to say.

Out of that, Scout's Honor was born.

 I made a cover mock-up because it statistically increases your chances of winning. I've clawed and typed my way up to 24K words over the last six days so...that's good. I'm marginally hopeful that I'll finish this. I've written more than that in week before. I finished in two weeks last year so...Anything is possible.

So, what's this thing about?

When the US has been overtaken by despots, there's only one organization willing to try and take the country back. The Scouts aren't going to let tyranny reign.

Dinah, a Wing Scout and the daughter of the Scout Mistress General (missing for near four years now since a mission gone wrong), takes a major risk. Smuggled on to US soil, this Girl Scout is ready to fight back, find her mother and free a few Scouts while she's there.

And if she can finally throw down the terrible regime choking America? Well, the Girl Scout motto is "Be prepared...to resist!"

And because I can't help it, my current favorite scene:

“When the doctor said you should push yourself,” Eddy remarked, “I don’t think this is precisely what she meant.”

I shrugged. “Exercising in the rehab gym was depressing.” I continued walking along the top of the fence. “I’m testing my balance.”

She shook her head, leaning back against a post. “If you fall, I will not be blamed for the scrapes and bruises.”

“This whole curmudgeon thing you do, you know it’s like, only more attractive to me. Right?” Did I say that out loud? Oh…fuck.

“And I admit you are pretty damn cute when you’re plotting to overthrow despotic regimes.”

I stumbled, airplaning my arms to regain my balance. Failing that, I tried to fall toward the grass rather than the sidewalk. The sensation of falling, of losing balance, my heart jumping into my throat—and then stopped by a firm grip as Eddy caught me.

Okay, this was not in any way making me less attracted to her.

“I thought you weren’t going to stop me from falling.”

“Never said that.” She peered down at me. “I said I wouldn’t be blamed.” Her nose wrinkled. “Didn’t think it would be this easy to sweep you off your feet.”

I groaned. “A pun? Really?”

“If it works? Yes.” She licked her lips. “I’m really glad you did something stupid and reckless and got me out of jail. Thank you. I meant to say it before but, thank you.”

“Oh, you know, it was nothing.” I swallowed nervously.

“Right.” She nodded, leaning closer to me, strong arms still holding me tight. “Can I kiss you?”

I was entirely okay with that but I couldn’t quite bring myself to speak in the moment. I could only nod, eyes wide as she pressed her lips to mine. I felt like the whole world had shifted suddenly. Kissing Eddy was like electricity tingling against my skin. She was decidedly in control of the encounter from every aspect an outsider could see but I couldn’t ever remember someone stopping to just ask that one little question before.

It made me feel…cherished. Important.

Eddy pulled back the moment I started to cry.

“Hey,” she got me standing again and put a hand on my cheek. Brows drawn down in worry. “Hey, are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

I shook my head. “No. No I just…that was perfect. I don’t know why I’m crying.”

“It’s okay.” She smiled. “Hug?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” She pulled me back into her arms, stroking my hair.

She gave me the time I needed to compose myself, not really caring if I got her shirt wet.

“You know,” I said as we finally began to walk back to the hospital. “If you need a shoulder to cry on, I’m here for you too. I don’t want you to think that I can’t be there for you. I want to be there for you.”

Eddy took my hand as we walked. “I know. Right now though? Right now you need me. And that’s okay.”

“Thank you.”

“Come on, we’ll get you some cocoa and see if we can’t find something decent to eat in the cafeteria.”

I snorted. “I really thought the food would get better once we got out of prison. You know?”

Eddy laughed. “Yeah. I know—maybe we can find a burger place on the way back.”

Here’s hoping.

Stand Together

Reading Chuck Wendig's reaction helped me sort through some of my thoughts. Enough at least, to write some sort of reaction of my own.

We started with hope yesterday and we ended with fear. Anger. Despair. The thing that should not have come to pass has come to pass because our country is divided. It's divided, not by principles or religion as those who chose to elect that man to office would have you believe. It is divided by hate.

It is divided by the fear of the Other. Of Women. Of Muslims and Jewish people. Of the Black and Latinx communities. Of the LGBT+ community. They are afraid of us because we are different. They are afraid of us because they think we are somehow stealing from them. But that's not even close to the truth.

This man pointed at all of us and declared us the enemy, and for the shame of us all, white women showed up in droves to agree with him. Young white men. Old white men. They came out and declared with him that the Other was less than themselves.

We can take symbolic solace in the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, the fifth candidate to do so. The entirety of the night, as states began to be called, I couldn't help seeing parallels to the Gore/Bush election night. I couldn't help wondering if the Clinton camp would question the close races.

But Secretary Clinton conceded with grace, reminding us of the hopes and dreams we strove for during this election process. I, and so many others, stepped up to the polls yesterday morning and placed a vote for the woman we hoped we be our Madam President. Now, we look at the future in despair, wondering how to survive the next four years.

But we aren't going to just survive the next four years. We aren't going to hide. We have to use every scrap of political weight. Every right granted us. Every medium of expression.

And we fight.

I don't know what's coming next. I don't even know what our country will look like this evening, let alone come January.

This is only the beginning, and if nothing else we now know that we must renew our efforts for unity amongst the marginalized among us, even as we cut loose the cancer that has been exposed by this election. There are people I never expected to actually support that man who did so. I doubt if I'll manage forgiveness any time soon.

We are stronger together, as Chuck, as Hillary have said. So much stronger together.

I am still scared, but I'm moving into anger. And I'm going to put all of this emotion into my work. Because artists are powerful creatures. All of us. We can influence the world.

We just have to speak up, and stand together.

Querying, Tracking and Staying Organized

So, in the past I've been...less than organized with my query process. I used querytracker pretty religiously, but that didn't particularly help when it came to multiple projects over the course of time as I wasn't willing to pay for it.

Part of this is that I wanted a database I could utilize offline as well as online and part of this was just simply my own weirdness about what I should pay money for. In any case, this time around I am determined to be organized so I don't accidentally query the same agent twice for the same project. (Yes, I did this, I am still embarrassed about it)

So I came up with this spreadsheet design. Color coded, dated, with notes for guidelines, the email address, agent's name and all of that easily accessible and checkable. I've also put contests in here so I can keep track of dates and the like.

It's as detailed as I need it to be, basically. It also means that if ever switch to a new email account, I'll still have all of these tracked outside of my folder system and won't accidentally requery and agent whose rejected my project previously. (Yeah...)

The take away from this is, be consistent in your organizational method. If you need folders in your email, do it. If you need to use querytracker, do it. If you need a highly detailed, color-coded spread sheet? Do it. But make sure you are keeping track.

PitchWars Commission Winners

Many of you expressed an interest in seeing all of the winner's portraits once complete. Here they are in order of completion.

Hershey for Jeanne Intrieri

Hansel for Olivia Chadha 

Bandit for Beka Olson

 

If you're wondering about your own pet portraits, hit up my sidebar, I Can Make You Art, located to the right of this post. 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.

On Major Revisions

To start, I'm going to talk about a novel I wrote in college. It was experimental and told from multiple first-person POVS, twelve, actually, if I'm remembering correctly.

Yes, I said twelve. What I was aiming for was a story told patchwork, the heart of which remained the same while the rotation of narration deepened the understanding the reader had for the events, the city and the continual refrain that everything and everyone was connected. It was also high fantasy, starred a central POV and the other players were all tangential to this singular focus, adding to the whole.

It was ambitious, slightly insane and completely unsalable. My lit. department professor who was overseeing the project (Independent Study because I'd taken every single other writing course our college offered. All of them.) compared me to Cormac McCarthy in tone. I furrowed my brow in confusion, having never read the man's work (and still haven't) and moved on. This book, and all of it's madness, sat in a drawer resigned to obscurity.

One day I was bored and feeling masochistic, so I pulled this story back out and started to look at it. I could still feel what I'd felt when I started working on it and I still wanted that overarching concept of everything is connected, to move you through the book. So, I put on my writer hat and I rewrote it completely into omniscient third. This entailed some straight up retyping of whole chapters (which helped revise them anyhow), some find/replace on the word "I" and an overhaul of the ending, lengthening of the first act and changes to character's fates.

It was painful, tedious, work. But I could not be more happy that I did it. A more recent novel, (which I talk about more extensively here) has gone through stages. My very first draft, at the tender age of sixteen, was in third person. The revision later was in third and the revision after that was multiple first. Oddly, the format stuck on this project. There's a single "strong" central POV and the others rotate around that one in a set pattern that focuses on deepening your understanding of the events, highlighting the differences between worlds and more importantly, giving a greater focus on the main character.

That was the goal, in any case. I had major revisions on that novel at least three times. I cut entire chapters this last time around (and it's still longer than it was when I started), changed a character's gender (oddly, this was the least difficult change to make) and literally had to print out the entire book, part it out by scenes and rearrange the entire timeline.

These kind of revisions can seem incredibly daunting. I know, I've been there. But the important thing to remember going in to major revisions is:

Have a plan.

 

This is usually called a "Revision Plan", easy enough to remember. Before I started chopping, changing and so forth and first had to know where the hell I was going. I mean, you don't start driving without knowing where you're going, do you? Well, you might, but not in this instance. Your revision plan is your road map. A guide to show you where to go. I could continue with this, but I think you get the drift. 

How do I know where I'm going? 

This is where CP's, beta readers and your helpful neighborhood Batman...writer friends, come in handy. It can be difficult to judge something you've gotten close to, and I had the good fortune of having let both of the books referenced sit for a few years before I took another look at them. This let me look at them with less bias. More of a reader/editor perspective. I was able to get a better picture of what was wrong because I was no longer so close. 

If you are still close, you're going to need an outside perspective. Take your notes/their notes, compile them and start making a list of the things that will need changed. I usually put my revision plan in my document at the end, and then reference it as I go, but it can be a separate document, a notebook, on a whiteboard over your desk, pinned to the wall--whatever and wherever best suited to you. 

This is not a sprint. 

Revisions aren't even a marathon, they're a decathlon. Revisions require you to utilize all of your skills in order to finish. Pace yourself, have your CP/reader/kidnapped friend read your chapters, scenes, etcetera along the way. It's important to check in, make sure you're still headed in the right direction. Think of your CP as the robotic GPS voice, gently and loudly reminding you to turn left. 

And then, when you forget, giving you an alternate route. 

It's scary sometimes. You might feel like you're in over your head. Like the book is going to consume your soul and sell you off to the elder gods, but that's why writers work best with community. Take a break from the book. Take whatever time you need to get through the process, and that end, celebrate the fact that you have a book that's so much stronger than it was before. 

Come What May

It's coming. The day when dreams will be crushed under the weight of...Hold up. No. That's wrong. Forgive my flair for the dramatic.

Mentee announcements are just around the corner, the PitchWars Live Event is tomorrow night and the next morning...well, some of us will be heading into a whirlwind of work, work, work that is the PitchWars editing round. The greater portion of us won't be be in that group, but that's okay. We're going to be moving on down our personal writing journey with best wishes to those working toward the Agent Round.

What will I be doing? Well, if I get selected, come the 25th, I'll be working on my book in hopes of getting published under the tutelage of one of the mentor's I pitched to. If I don't, I'll be working on my book in hopes of getting published with the help of a few amazing CP's, with a much stronger query letter, pitch, and synopsis to show for my time spent.

The query process for said book will begin again, and I'll keep working on book two while I'm at it.

And of course, there's the yearly prep for Nanowrimo, Halloween, my day job and a giant TBR pile to keep me busy (plus, you know, art. I need to be painting). My life will not be over if I don't get in. Plus, I'll be allowed to compete in a few other pitch competitions I wouldn't be able to if I do get in. There are opportunities galore.

I know there are going to be disappointments coming out of this, but try to keep your disappointment where it belongs. Your friends and family, private messages, etc. Let's be gracious. Writers are artists, we can be prone to...colorful expressions of irritation. We also have long memories.

(I am literally watching a My Little Pony episode on sportsmanship as I am writing this so...take from that what you will.)

Whatever happens Thursday, I am so happy to be a part of this community. I can't thank Brenda and the mentors, who have all donated their time and expertise to this even, enough. I have met so many amazing people and I cannot wait to see if they make to the next round.