Posts Tagged ‘doubt’

Writing My Query Letter and Trying Not to Freak Out

Posted: April 17, 2013 in career, discovery, doubt, planning, research, writing
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This past weekend has been dominated by the hair-raising, hair-ripping experience of writing my first query letter. That means the really hard editing/revising stuff is done, at least. (Though the book is now loaded onto a twelve year old’s Kindle, to get feedback from my target audience. Gah!) I’m scanning the manuscript for word stuff right now–cliches, redundancies, finding better and more economic ways to phrase things, etc.

Can I make a confession here? I’m going to pretend you all just said yes, and gave me soft, encouraging smiles.

I’m really nervous about this manuscript.

I believe in the story. My characters. I know what I’ve done to the manuscript (the rewrite, the deep revisions, the feedback integrated by my amazing alpha readers) has made it hella stronger, and I’m proud to call it mine. ALL MINE! Mwahaha!!!

Ah…right. But there’s still that seed of doubt. That niggling, irritating stone in the bottom of my writerly boot. And at this point I don’t know if it is a legitimate fear, or if I’m just experiencing the built-in self doubt that comes with the whole being creative (being human?) thing.

So, dealing with that while at the same time trying to draft a letter explaining why someone might want to read this staggering work of genius. In 350 words or less. Yay!

I found a couple sites that were helpful during this process.

Successful Query Letters for Literary Agents. Listed here are a number of query letters that garnered representation, for a lot of different genres. YA Fantasy, Steampunk Novel, Lady Lit Mystery. (What is a Lady Lit Mystery?) Seeing how these authors formatted and presented their information helped give me direction on what to include, and how to include it.

How to Write a Query Letter from AgentQuery. I’m sure many of you are familiar with this site. Essentially it’s a database of literary agents, along with some nice resources. Take this article, for example. A very comprehensive look at not just one way to write a query letter, but several different approaches an author can use. Most of this stuff I either didn’t know, or hadn’t considered in this context.

Like, should I use a more ‘formulaic’ style blurb? When necrophiliac Nancy meets celebrity impersonator Ned, sparks begin to fly. But can she overcome her need for necrotic flesh, or will Ned be the next body on the slab?

Or should I try something a little different? Nancy knows she has a problem when the only guys that give her the hots are cold, dead stiffs. At a work party, she meets Ned, in the guise of Elvis Costello, and for the first time her heart beats faster for someone ambulatory. Now, Nancy struggles between her desire for love–and her desire for lifeless corpses.

The article goes on to describe what else is necessary–mini synopsis, author bio–and has a list of resources and examples as well. I think this one article might be enough to illustrate everything one needs to know about query letters.

Lastly, the Query Shark blog is invaluable. This blog is run by a literary agent, and she does the whole literary world a huge favor by dissecting query letters submitted to her by readers. There is a crazy lot of good information here, though it takes some time to get through the archives.

So, I have the draft ready. I have four agents picked for my first mailing. I’ll go through and personalize each of the query letters maybe tomorrow, and then I’ll start trying to breathe while my heart lives in my throat for a while.

Oh! And I finally changed the title. Toulouse is now *drum roll*… A Little Bit of Magic! I think it’s better. Not amazeballs, but better.

Do you have any query letter resources or stories? I’d love to hear them!

Photo used under Creative Commons license from Freddie Pena.

Throwing in the Towel on Blood Berries

Posted: February 28, 2013 in advice, creating, discovery, doubt, writing
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The very first book I tried to write (barring the awesomesauce vampire collaboration I did with a friend in high school) was fantasy. Secondary world. Set in a vaguely Renaissance era time period. You know, standard fantasy world.

I hated it.

Didn’t finish.

There were things I loved about the book. There always are, otherwise there’s no reason to write it. I liked the dark fairy queen, I liked writing about changelings and a cat with a very special link to his human. I liked the gruff, reluctant hero and the way his wife communicated to him through her ghostly visage (though she was well and truly alive).

What I hated was the time period, which threw me for a loop. See, I love books written in with semi-historical settings. Kristin Cashore’s Graceling comes to mind. Brilliant book. The Song of Ice & Fire books, too, though I never kidded myself I could write anything approximating those vast and complicated tomes. Plenty others I can’t think of off the top of my head. It’s a setting trope I’m familiar with, and happy in, usually.

But I couldn’t write it. So, I set the book aside, this weird, rambling book languishing in the very first of my Scrivener files.

Cut to five years later.

I have this idea bouncing around in my skull that’s been bugging me for the last 2.5 years. Vampires that have discovered a spell to enchant a species of trees, producing berries that can fulfill their needs. I envisioned a kind of Romeo & Juliet story arc. More star-crossed lovers than pre-teen angst, though. But I put it off, thinking I couldn’t do the story justice. I didn’t quite know what to add to the seed to make it a fully engaging story.

I kept seeing these bits of advice: Don’t save your ideas. Don’t wait ’til you think you’re ‘good enough’ to explore those thoughts. Finally, I decided I would write it. And in my head, the story clung to a secondary world, vaguely Renaissance era setting. Horses, nobility, villages and dirt trails. I was cautious, because of my previous experience, but hopeful I could push through this time.

Then the weirdest thing happened. I failed. In exactly the same way. The story has ended up feeling weird and rambling, too long already for what I’m doing with it but at the same time I know it’s not because I;m overwriting. Well, pretty sure I’m not overwriting. And I’m bored. And frustrated.

I wrote not long ago about reaching that scary point, where you start to think your book is a pile of crap and questioning the whole concept of being a writer. I stand by that post: most of the time those feelings are just a matter of temporary insanity. This…feels different. It feels wrong. I’ve been pushing up against that feeling since shortly after I wrote the Scary Point post, and I’m done. So long, Blood Berries. At least, in your current incarnation. So long secondary world semi-historical fantasy. At least, for another five years.

Sometimes projects don’t work. It’s something that I’m learning to be okay with. More importantly, it’s something that I’m learning to identify, earlier, so I don’t waste as much time.

I may return to the seeds of this project and mutate them into something edgier, something more urban and current. I’m not sure yet.

Tell me your thoughts on half-finished projects and abandoned stories. How do you make the decision to quit?

Photo used under creative commons license from Hiking Artist.

Reaching the Scary Point Too Soon

Posted: February 12, 2013 in creating, discovery, doubt, planning, writing
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I’ve written four novel length works (five if you count the from-scratch rewrite) in my life. Over the course of putting all those mad, mad words on paper I’ve made a few discoveries about myself. For example, I like plotting things out. Having a map helps me immensely when I sit down to write, and also when just envisioning the book. It’s like a safety net of words, waiting to catch me when I inevitably slip off the tight-wire that is creating a cohesive story.

Related to that, I’ve discovered that no matter how hard I try to pin down each and every scene, I will always surprise myself. A new scene will appear which must be told. Two scenes will meld into one. The number of scene cards I write in the beginning never matches the number I have at the end, and I’m learning to trust that process.

I’ve also discovered that I have a breaking point.

I’ve seen other authors write about this. That pint in the novel where shiny turns to shit, and you’re suddenly convinced that nothing you have ever written, nothing you will ever write, is anything but a pile of wasted energy. It’s a moment of bleakness. Plot bunnies start poking their adorable little heads out of the bushes. Mopping the floor of every single room in the house suddenly sounds like the Best. Idea. Ever. Then again, so does sitting on the couch with a half gallon pint bowl of ice cream, re-watching the first season of Buffy while laughing at her ridiculous pants.

In the past, my breaking point has come around the 25% mark. I’ve got a good twenty-thousand words behind me, maybe a little more. Enough to have a solid basis for my feelings of ill will and crushing disappointment. I’ve come to realize that those feelings are transitory, and take what amounts to a grand mope fest cuddled up with Mr. Eliza trying to figure out how to help. (Secret: He helps just by being there.)

Which is why when, after only seven thousand words into Blood Berries (working title, fo’realz), I came down with a bad case of the OMGWHYBOTHERs, I was nervous. Really nervous. Did it mean this book really was stupid? Was my plot to convoluted/overplayed/ridiculous/boring? Should I quit writing this book/altogether? Should I start sending out applications to local tech schools, get an accounting certificate and make myself happy in the role of reader, and only reader?

Mr. Eliza, being the more clear thinking of our party, initiated Operation: Cuddle Therapy. And as I lay in his arms bemoaning the ‘fact’ that…well, all the terrible things I think about writing. That I’m no good. That even if I was good, this industry is killer. No one makes any money, what hope do I have? Why bother writing this book if it’s just going to rot in my hard drive? And a few truths snuck in, too. Like the sticking plot point that introduces a character I know I need, later, but I’m not sure fits in this book. Which then reminded me that I made a realization about said character, which never made it into my outline, and which would serve to tie up her oddness in a much neater way.

Then I went and wrote three thousand words.

I don’t know if it works this way for everyone. And I don’t know if this will be my one and only breaking point on this book. What I do know is that the very act of bitching and moaning and throwing a tantrum in a safe and understanding space helped me move past the feeling of helplessness and into a healthier frame of mind. I can write this novel. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again.

I’d love to hear about any personal quirks you’ve noticed in your writing. Rituals, sticking points, processes. The mind is such an intriguing maze of tunnels and dead ends and surprising magic passages.

Musing on Genre

Posted: June 22, 2012 in career, discovery, doubt, not writing
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Well, I finished the second draft/first rewrite of Toulouse. The next day I woke up with a bad headache, and I’ve felt like I’ve had kind of a hangover ever since. Maybe I’m sleeping poorly. Maybe I have bad posture. Maybe I’m having Toulouse withdrawals, I don’t know. The plan is to start on deeper edits sometime next month. I’ll do another full read through, locate any serious structural flaws and address those first. Then I’ll go through straightening out characters, followed by another pass for dialogue, another for setting details, and then I’ll start working on the sentence level edits. Pretty words and whatnot.

Ugh. Maybe this headache is just a shadow of what is to come.

I say I’m excited about these revisions, and I am. I’ve written four novels, but this is the first I’m really working on, to try to get it in a submittable state. But part of me is unsatisfied, and I think it comes down, in large part, to not know what I want to write. What I think I can start a career on. There are so many genre possibilities out there, and each genre has its own tricky set of perks and pitfalls, both in general and for me personally.

Horror is my first true literary love. I discovered Poppy Brite and Caitlin Kiernan as a teenager, and gobbled

them up. (Drawing Blood and Silkare still two of my top favorite novels.) My love for Clive Barker’s weird and wonderful worlds came a little later, but not by much. And I found myself writing a LOT of really dark, bloody things, for a long time. But I’m not sure that’s me anymore. I still like blood, and am fascinated with serial killers, but I haven’t read near as much horror lately. Which may simply be a result of a few years of “Oh my god, I can’t like horror, it’s bad!” I’ve mostly gotten over that.

Science fiction is another option. Mr. Eliza claims that he likes my sf short stories most, out of what he’s read of my stuff. And I will admit, I like writing science fiction with a darker edge. But I think, even now, it’s difficult for a female writer to break into the SF genre and be respected. Beyond that, the genre itself is…kind of floundering. In addition to that, I always feel like a fraud when I write SF. I’m not big into science, and while my stories are focused more on the characters (sociological or soft SF), I still feel like a fish out of water. I think if I focused hard on this genre, I could love writing it. I’m not sure I want to do that.

My issues with fantasy are kind of complicated. I love reading about magic, and wizards, and talking paintings and elves and etc. But, deep down, I don’t believe in any of it. I think the closest belief I come to in this area is ghosts, and even my belief in ghosts is more of an energy pattern left behind, as opposed to the embodiment of a living personality being left behind. So when I sit down to write that stuff, well, again, I feel like a bit of a fraud.   There is one other genre I’ve toyed around with a bit, and keep coming back to on my consideration continuum, and that is romance.

In the past year or so I have gained a lot of respect for romance authors. As far a genre ghettos go, this is the worst of the lot. Thought of as trashy, smut, and generally less than worthwhile, the romance genre gets a LOT of flak. It also gets a LOT of readers, and that’s because, in general, it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Plus, happy edgings! Who doesn’t like a happy ending. All those things make this a tempting genre for me to try, except I haven’t read much romance, and haven’t really even considered it before, aside from the one pseudo romance I wrote a couple years back. I know the writing here isn’t any easier than the other genres. For me, given my history of writing bad relationships, it could be harder. Plus, the idea of going from my SF/F background into contemporary fiction is…a little scary.

I don’t have any answers right now. I’m still thinking things over. I know that if I start in one genre I will want to be there for probably the first decade or so of my publishing career, barring any horrible mishaps. And maybe you think I’m getting ahead of myself, but I think that if someone’s goal is to make a career as a writer, they need to think about these things, so they can focus on building up the necessary skills. Besides, I like having a game plan. Makes me feel better about life.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on genre, and writing in a particular genre. Are there any genres you’re particularly drawn to? Repulsed from? And why? Let me know.

 

Moving Forward by Going Back

Posted: May 21, 2012 in discovery, doubt, editing, planning
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Thank you, Mr. Chandler.

I’m still deep in the rewrite stage of working on Toulouse, the YA novel I wrote last year during NaNoWriMo. It’s no secret to anyone who’s been reading this blog, or who has talked to me about writing, that the revision/rewrite process is my least favorite part of writing. The main reason, I think, is because I often have a hard time seeing what’s wrong with my own work, and figuring out how to fix the problems. Especially figuring out how to fix the problems. It’s like my brain says to me “You’ve already written the scene this way. That’s the only possible way this could go! Time for a drink.”

Sometimes my brain is not helpful.

Despite my struggles in this arena, I am committed to this book. There is a lot about the story—and the characters—that I love. I want to make this story the best I can, and in order to do that I need to fix things. A lot of things.

I realized pretty early on in my first read-through of the finished zero draft that I would need to do some serious rewriting. While writing the zero draft I got to a point where I found myself kind of bored by the story, so I took the age-old advice of Raymond chandler: “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.” I did exactly that, and ended up taking the story down a road it really should not have traversed. The focus shifted away from the main conflict and turned a character on his head, personality-wise.

Sometimes this is good and necessary. Some characters should be surprises, most characters should develop. But in this case, I lost my way.

So I started the rewrite, which turned out to be almost whole cloth rewriting from about a quarter of the way through the zero draft. At the fifty percent mark, or thereabouts, I ran into the same problem: I was getting a bit bored. This time, instead of a gun, I threw in a drug-dealer.

And then my rewrite screeched to a halt. I can blame the lack of progress on moving to a new place, on quitting my job, on a billion things, but what it comes down to is that I was on the wrong road again. I had pushed, I got another few thousand words out, but this time I was conscious enough to realize that what I was writing felt wrong. Instead of tamping down that feeling like I’d done in November, I used my busier-than-normal time to reflect, and came to the realization that I needed to rewind a bit and get rid of those words I’d forced. I need to figure out how to make the story interesting without sacrificing important things like continuity, internal logic and theme.

Tomorrow, I return to Toulouse in earnest, knowing that I will be cutting before I can move forward. I hope to get this rewrite completed by the end of next month, so I can start revisions with a solid manuscript in July. Hopefully the rest will be relatively easy sailing. I’ll nail down what I want to say with this story, and handle it with aplomb.

More likely I’ll be dodging plot bunnies left and right, while clawing my way toward the ending.

I’m curious to hear about your revision horror stories, and how you dealt with them. New characters you had to slay? A subplot worthy of Jerry Springer? Tentacle demons in your chick lit? Let me know!

photo used under creative commons license from Tim Cummins

The Good Stuff

Posted: February 7, 2010 in writing
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This weekend, on Saturday to be precise, I participated in Write Your @ss Off Day, a day dedicated to working on the story. This couldn’t have come at a better time, since I decided, on Friday, to start over.

From the beginning. Pretty much.

You see, I have a problem with creating boring main characters with an interesting supporting cast. Instead of plugging through with my lackluster MC (sorry Amber) I put on the breaks and threw the kids out of the damn car. No warnings, no threats.

Not only did I replace my main character, though, I replaced her best friend, and the concept of my…erm…third person, whose details I will not divulge here. And all this required some major thought processing.

And, as it turns out, a set of Moleskines. Red ones. Yum.

Thusly, I spent Saturday morning brainstorming in my pretty new book, and Saturday afternoon/evening writing my pretty new book. I’m so happy I’ve made the change. It was a difficult decision to make, though. I didn’t want to give up on Book A, just to chase some shiny rabbit down it’s hole, for no other reason than it being shiny. That kind of thing might fly for a short story, but for a novel? I can’t afford to waste the time.

So I had to ask myself a few questions. Why would I change so many key elements? What would this accomplish? Would this really make it better, or is this just another form of procrastination? Most importantly, though, I asked myself: Will this make me happy? Will NOT doing this make me unhappy? The answer to both of those was a resounding YES. I was already bored with poor, defunct Amber, and enthralled with Hester, she of new MC fame. I wanted to hang out with her. I was making excuses for her to be in scenes where she didn’t really belong. I thought about her all the time. I sent her a note: Will you go to prom with me, mark yes/no…and she sent me back a wicked paper airplane that said Let’s Do This!

So here we are.

And having the permission/expectancy of WY@O Day helped kick me in the…well, you know where, to get this writing moving!

Now, as the weekend draws to a close, I find myself nearing 7,000 words of actual novel content, not counting notes at all. And I keep going back, because I know where I’m going with this story, and I want to see it get there because Efran is going to be so cool!

Oh, shoot. Did I say that out loud?

My new career path- now with numbers!

Posted: February 2, 2010 in writing
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Every month or so I tell my husband I’m going to become and accountant. I start browsing college websites, looking for good programs, sometimes even going so far as to start an online chat with the advisors. I’ll neglect my writing for a day, or a day and a half, and start looking elsewhere for my future.

But I have a secret. I never wanted to be an accountant.

I’ve wanted to be a psychologist, a veterinarian and, in one of my sillier moments, a pediatrician. (Anyone who knows about my feelings for children will understand how insane that is.)

But an accountant? Never. Sure, I think I would be good at it. I think I would be passably good at just about anything I set my mind to. But I would be bored, and frustrated. No offense to any accountants out there, but I can’t imagine myself actually doing that kind of work, day in and day out.

“I want to be an accountant” is my code phrase for “I don’t think I can do this writing schtick”. And also “Please pet my ego for a little while, it’s feeling fragile”. And my husband, being the wonderful man he is, will do just that.

But ultimately, pulling myself out of that funk is up to me. And I know, I know, I am not the only person who goes through this on a regular basis.

Writing is hard. Damn hard. I was speaking to a writer friend of mine the other day about this. He is in the fortunate position that his partner supports him, fiscally, so that he can devote large amounts of time to writing. He’s heard comments from people telling him what an easy life he has, and in a lot of ways it is. But the writing part of it? Not easy. Try the opposite of easy.

Because we’re all bleeding from the head here, people, to massacre a quote by Gene Fowler. Truly, we sit down and struggle to do a thousand things at once. Get the emotion on the page, get the characters to be realistic, get a plot that makes sense and is interesting, get our language just flowery enough to satisfy ourselves and our readers without going all purple… and on and on. It’s insanity, it really is.

But, unlike schizophrenia, it can be just as rewarding as it is trying. More so. Hearing someone (who doesn’t happen to be related by kindness or kin) say that they enjoy something I’ve written is like drinking a cup full of liquid gold. Only, you know, in a non-lethal sort of way. It fills me up with warmth, and almost obliterates that tiny voice that says you can’t do it.

I don’t mean to make it sound like I rely on others for my self esteem. But writing is both intensely personal, and ultimately disconnected from the self. I write because I love it. I write, because when I don’t I get weird. Weirder than usual. I write because I have something to say. And when all is said and done, and I have that final copy in my hand, I write because I want someone to read it.

What a crazy job.

But it beats doing other people’s taxes for a living!