First Writing Conference - Argh!

Well, here goes. I'm currently sitting on the train heading to York, going to my first ever writing conference, the Festival of Writing. I think I'll be fine when I get there, but at the moment I'm mainly trying not to think about it! I'm definitely excited, but I'm also pretty nervous. It's an amazing opportunity to meet some fantastic people in the UK writing world and get some helpful input, and I'll try to post some kind of report soon after I get back.

But that's all to come. For the next hour and a half, I'm just aiming to get some revising done. This revision is taking much longer than I'd hoped, for a number of reasons - my routines have been entirely shot to pieces lately, so time hasn't been on my side, but my process is also proving difficult.

For some reason, I'm finding that this time around - perhaps because the revisions and rewrites are just so extensive - I'm having to do a few scenes on paper and then type them up and slot them into place. Last time I was revising I did the whole thing on paper first - I marked up my existing scenes and wrote in new ones, but nothing got typed up until I'd worked through the whole manuscript. This new process is helpful, since it's giving me a much better grasp of how the whole thing fits together, but it does feel much slower and as if I'm stopping and starting a lot.

Still, I'm getting through it, although I'm itching to get this draft done so I can start playing with my new shiny plot idea. All I've let myself do is write down a couple of sentences on what the story's about, and I really just want to get on and start discovering the rest. (Ideally, I'd be doing the discovery along with the Lucy March/Lani Diane Rich workshop over at Storywonk, but unfotunately my budget needs time to recover from the Festival!)

Well, that's where I am. And since I'm now fifteen minutes further into my journey, my manuscript is now screaming for attention.

Have a great weekend!

Revisions, query letters and creativity

I'm ploughing on slowly through my edits. Well, actually, the editing itself is going pretty well, and I even feel like the synopsis is pretty good - the difficult part is the introduction and author bio I have to write. Essentially, it's a query letter, and having never actually had to do one of those before I'm struggling a bit. I have two days left to get it how I want it. Then I'll have to get it sent off, so at least then I'll be able to concentrate properly on the actual revisions. But yuk, it does feel very messed up doing this now, when I still have so much more editing to do. I know it'll be worth it for the chance to get some decent feedback, but it just seems very unnatural to be essentially writing a query letter before I've properly finished the book. Mainly because it is. And in an ideal world, I wouldn't be doing it. But hey - I covered all that pretty thoroughly in my last post. Kindly allow me to shut up, and I'll try to talk about something else.

I've been feeling a real need for other creative input in my life lately, which has mainly manifested itself in something of a book-buying binge. Financially, this isn't a great thing, but from the point of view of that whole filling-the-creative-well idea? It's fantastic. It's not that I'm feeling all that uninspired, or that I'm finding it particularly difficult to write just now, but I think it's a pre-emptive thing. It's been a while since I had an obsessive reading splurge, which is a shame, and I think if I hadn't given in to the urge I probably would have found myself running on empty pretty soon. (I may still do so, who knows - but I'm hoping not, with all the new and exciting territory I have to uncover in that pile of books.)

The only problem I'm having at the moment is that I'd bought the first two books in a series (Holly Lisle's Secret Texts trilogy) and once I'd finished those, of course, I had to have the third one. I immediately ordered it online, and it was posted on Tuesday, but it has yet to arrive. Now, I have that whole pile of other books waiting to be read, and there's a part of me that wants to just dive one of those - but I'm still very much in that particular world, and so I'm really, really hoping that the third book arrives tomorrow. If not, I guess I'll just have to try something else, because for some reason I'm seriously craving other people's writing just now. I mean, I always love to read, but at the moment, it's making me a little crazy!

The other thing I'm obsessing about just now is fantasy art. Not just looking at it - no, I want to draw it. The problem, of course, is that I can't draw, never have been able to, and so, although I am dying to pick up a pencil and start sketching, I know without the slightest doubt that the moment I do, I will be disappointed. But I think I may just have to risk it. Maybe I just need that additional outlet, even if the product of said outlet ends up heading straight for the dustbin.

What do you do to keep that creative well from running dry?

Revising on a deadline

It has to be said - I never expected to be working to a non-self-imposed revision deadline before even attempting to get anything published. But because attending the Festival of Writing in York this April includes two meetings with agents/editors who have read through a first chapter and synopsis beforehand, I need to get those together. And I now only have three weeks left to do so.

I've been using the How to Revise Your Novel course by Holly Lisle so far, and it's been incredibly useful in highlighting problems I would almost certainly not have noticed without it, but I'm going to have to wing it a bit from this point on. I don't have enough time to put Amulet through the rest of the course, so it's time to take everything I've learned so far and start figuring out how best to use it to ensure that my first chapter is gripping and my synopsis is accurate.

There are a lot of changes that I know need to be made to strengthen the story. By necessity, I need to figure out all the intricacies of my new plot now, so that I can get my synopsis sorted. Then I need to get on with tidying up and rewriting that first scene, before working through the rest of the story. It's far from ideal and obviously if this were for a traditional query I'd be holding off on sending anything out until the story were as ready as I could make it, but under the circumstances... Well, I can't afford to miss out on the opportunity for professional feedback.

Today I've made some decent progress, writing out the scene by scene synopsis of the manuscript as it currently stands and then marking in broad strokes what needs to be kept and what needs to be cut. But there's a long way to go. So I'd better get started.

My writing space

Quite some time ago - approximately eight months ago in fact, when I first moved into this house - I promised the Wiffers some photos of my writing room. And since I am way behind in my blogging and currently trying to make my way through the rather messy world of my revisions on Amulet, this seemed like a good time to make good on my word. Well, better late than never, right?

So, here we go.


My whiteboard is on the left, with the collage for Amulet taking up most of the space. While I was working on the first draft of The Bonded, that collage was up instead. I use the part below the collage for random notes, key quotes, and change it whenever something better or more relevant comes along. On the right I keep track of my goals.

Then there's the desk, as you can see. When I'm writing, the laptop's in pride of place. Since I'm editing at the moment, there's revision notes, pens, index cards, and usually the lever arch file containing the manuscript.


And there's the view from my desk, looking out onto the park. I got lucky there.





The rest of the room consists of two bookcases, a filing cabinet and my craft drawers. And that's it really.

I like it. I'm not really at home often enough to take full advantage, of course, but when I am, it makes a pretty good writing space.

What about you? Where do you like to write?

May Goals, Sims 2 and Other Stuff

Okay, so I think it's time for another update on my May goals. If it's just crossed out with no explanation, then I already covered it in my first update on my May goals.

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning. - I have started this. Or at least, I've read through the lesson. I'm deliberately putting off the actual task, though, since I don't want to start properly until all my edits for my NaNo are typed up.

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is. - I'm getting there. I'm nearly at the halfway point. I scrapped 3000 words today. Ugh.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea. - Done.

- Edit the short story.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea. - Nope - see above!

- Further research into possible markets for short story.

- Submit short story. - Done. First and second rejections already received. Third submission made - and this one gives mainly personalised rejections, so hopefully if I don't make it in I'll get some helpful feedback.

So I'm doing pretty well, all in all. I've also done some other stuff on my NaNo - I finally drew a decent map for it (yay!) and I also built two of the key buildings in Sims 2 (my gaming weakness). That's really helped me get a feel for the world and the layouts - I had most of it pretty much in my head anyway, but it's really helped to clarify a few things. I did create two of the characters as well - limited accuracy, really, but it made me think a bit more about the physical characteristics that I maybe haven't described as well as I should. I've also been doing some behind the scenes work on my new website - not quite ready yet, but it's getting there.

Oh yes, and I'm moving to Wales, where I will have a gorgeous view over a beautiful green park from the room I've already labelled my Writing Refuge. If that doesn't help my muse, I don't know what will.

Update on May Goals

Just over a week ago I set myself some goals for May as part of our May Challenge over at Will Write for Wine. Here's how I'm getting on - completed tasks have a line through them, my comments and additions are in bold:

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days. - I had a first draft before the 1st May was over. It turned out that it wasn't quite going to make it to 3000 words - there wasn't enough story for that - but I was pretty pleased with it.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning. - Haven't done this yet - seems silly to start it when I haven't finished the previous lesson's exercises yet!

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is. - Nothing yet.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea. - I've started this - I've done character sheets for my protagonist and antagonist. Hoping to get some more done over the weekend.

- Edit the short story. - Done - I'm on the third edit now. First I showed it to my husband, who was very helpful, and followed his suggestions. Then I asked a couple of the people in my HTTS workshop to take a look at it, and have taken their comments into account. I'm waiting for their feedback on the changes now, and then I think it's about ready.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea. - Nope.

- Further research into possible markets for short story. - Done - I've found six I like and put them in the order I'm planning submit to them. I'm not expecting miracles - these are pretty difficult markets to crack and I am after all entirely new at this - but I'm kind of looking forward to that first rejection. Also a couple of them seem pretty good at personalising rejections, so that should be useful.

- Submit short story.

May Goals

At the suggestion of the lovely Karen Pinco, we're holding a May writing challenge over at Will Write for Wine. I have quite a few things going on right now (at least in my head!) so I thought it might be a good idea to write down my goals for the month.

- Write a 3000 word short story - it's pretty much all planned out now, and even has a working title (which is more than I can say for my NaNo), so I hope to get started on that in the next couple of days.

- Work through Lesson 8 of the How to Think Sideways course, Planning.

- Type up all my handwritten edits for my NaNo story and send it to my sister to read. Will also probably get my husband to read it, although he's insisting that he wants me to read it aloud to him! Try and line up another writer to take a look at it, terrifying thought though that is.

- Put the pre-plan modules from Lesson 7 of HTTS into practice for my new novel idea.

- Edit the short story.

- Put Lesson 8 into practice for new idea.

- Further research into possible markets for short story.

And if I manage all that, maybe I'll even get to start writing that new story!

Deadline's creeping up on me....

I have seven chapters left to edit. Fifty-four pages. And three days to do it if I want to reach my self-imposed deadline.

I've been averaging a chapter in the morning and a chapter in the evening, so in theory if I do one extra chapter in a session (and I know a couple of them are quite short) then I don't need to make any real extra time for it. Of course that doesn't allow for any additional scenes I might need to write in. So far I've added an extra ten or so - well, sort of. Some of them are really extensive rewrites rather than actual new scenes.

Anyway, one way or another I think I should be able to make it. It would be nice to be able to just say I'll take a morning, an afternoon, even a day and get it done, but unfortunately work is rather hectic at the moment so that's not really practical.

Once I'm done with this bit, of course, I'll have to figure out the best way to process the changes - I can't decide on the practicalities. On one hand, working in yWriter 5 is amazing - I love the way I can move scenes around and so on. On the other, though, I don't want to overwrite the original draft in that form, and it doesn't seem to come with a Save As button! If I were to work from an exported file, I'd have to do all the scrolling that comes with a long Word document, but I wouldn't be making any changes to the original. Decisions, decisions.

I decided a while ago that I wanted to try my hand at writing a short story, and with some considerable help from Thinking Sideways I've come up with an idea I really like. I've done some work on the idea and I think I have it pretty well mapped out, so before I start transferring all the edits I think I'm going to try and write that. It should mean that when I get back to it I'm a little more distanced again too, which will hopefully help.

As an extra bonus of the How To Think Sideways course (and yes, I know I'm linking to it a lot, but really, it's wonderful) I had the chance to submit up to 500 words to Holly Lisle for a new concept she's starting, the Writer Crash Test. Essentially, if she picks mine I'll get a free crit - but in video form, on the internet. If you visit the site you'll see that the first crit is up - and even if mine isn't used, I think it's going to prove to be quite a useful resource.

I'm currently on Lesson 7 of the course, which is to do with getting everything you need together before you start writing - pre-planning, if you will. It's not plotting, exactly, more getting particular ideas and conflicts in place. I'm just working through the theory at the moment but it will be interesting to apply it to both the short story and the novel idea I've had recently.

And I think that about wraps it up for now.

Progress Update On Edits

The past week has been fairly slow for edits, what with being away and Easter get togethers and so on. Still, I'm half-way through now, and although the really bad bit is still to come (that would be the bit before I completely changed the villian's story) I still think I can reach the end before the 1st May. I think there will still be some tidying up to do after that - mostly making sure that I've actually followed up on all the notes I've made during this process - but to my surprise I'm finding that there's less actual rewriting to do than I expected. I've only got about five A4 pages of completely new material, although of course that's on top of all the bits I've written directly onto the manuscript.

I had a bit of a breakthrough the other day when I finally got a handle on my single sentence blurb (thank you, Thinking Sideways course!), quickly followed by figuring out my theme. So my sentence is as follows, although I'm sure I'll rework it a few times:

With powers so great they scare even the Guild of Magic, a naive new witch is dragged into a struggle with the ambitious King of the Elves for control of magic itself...

And it turns out that my theme is all about how people deal with the pressure of expectations. I suddenly realised that this affects all of my four main characters in pretty significant ways, but I'd completely missed it until now.

So all in all, I'm feeling fairly positive about things at the moment. I am definitely thinking that this WIP may be veering to YA, but that's okay - my younger sister ought to be able to tell me if that is the case. She loved my sentence and kept trying to steal my manuscript when I went to visit this weekend, so at least I know she's willing to test drive it!

I haven't yet completed another Thinking Sideways lesson, but the next one is all about figuring out your market, so it should be fairly appropriate.

One last thing - a fabulous quote from Dennis Lehane printed in my Writers' News magazine last month:

"It's good not only to realise that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that you don't want to. There's a certain type of reader that you don't ever want to write for. And that really helps."

Edits & Sideways Thinking

I'm more than a quarter of the way through with my edits now and I think it's going quite well. I've scrapped a lot, but rather than being disheartened by that I'm finding it quite exciting. I can't remember where I heard this metaphor, nor indeed exactly what it was - but it's like I've got the rough wood or clay into a vague shape and I'm now smoothing out the bumps, chipping away the bits I don't need and adding the extra details. There are a lot of people who say they hate editing - but the process of refining this is proving rather enjoyable for me. Of course, I haven't got to the really bad bit yet. I've also got back into working on it morning and night, which is much better for me. It means it sort of tops and tails my day very nicely, and I get an extra chapter done each day. Although I'm letting myself off the evenings at weekends!

The only problem I'm considering at the moment is one particular scene. A couple of days ago I decided I should bring it forward, reworking it to fit in before one of the key moments. I was all set to do that this morning, and then I looked at the chapter and a half that would end up happening after it and realised that actually they're pretty key to making that scene happen. So now I'm sort of stuck. On one hand, I was convinced that putting the scene earlier would give a particular decision the extra kick I thought it was missing. On the other hand, this is going to mean a lot of rewriting - and so far, I haven't done more than a paragraph at a time of that since I started edits. (Which is probably why it seems so much easier than I expected.)

So really, I guess this is the bit where it gets difficult. Essentially I'm going to have to rewrite two, maybe three chapters, changing the location and various points which feed in and out of this particular scene. I think I'll have to condense them a bit, since I don't want to push this key moment any further back if possible, and then add some extra bits afterward to fill the void. This morning I almost convinced myself that I didn't need to, but thinking about it now... yes, I do need to. The practicalities are interesting - up til now I've been making my corrections, additions and deletions on the MS itself, and adding notes for clarification in the spiral bound notebook I bought for this very purpose. I think I'll need to use separate lined paper for this though - I don't want to start using the notebook differently as I've got a decent system in place that I'm happy with, and there's going to be too much to write it onto the MS itself.

Right, there's that decision made then. I'll let you know how I get on.

As for Thinking Sideways... ohhhh, I'm loving every minute. The last lesson I did was Lesson Five, which looks at how much you should develop your story idea before you start to write it - how much background information you need, how much worldbuilding you should do, etc. I got some great story development from it for my favourite of the three ideas I mentioned last week and I'm starting to get really excited about the story. It's all about looking for the extraordinary in your ideas and making it unique, and to my surprise I'm getting on really well with Holly's rather unconventional methods. So far, I wholeheartedly recommend the course.

Edits and Duh Moments

I have started on my edits - and despite all my apprehension, I'm really enjoying it. I don't know if I'm doing it 'right' as such, but it feels pretty satisfying all the same.

To help me get an idea of a good process, I looked over on the NaNoEdMo site for some recommendations, and that was useful. But what really helped was Holly Lisle's article on How to Revise a Novel.

Pause for a serious *duh moment*. I just realised as I went to find the article that although that link is the article I've used so far (and has proved useful as such), it's actually not the one I was intending to use. I was planning to use the One-Pass Manuscript Revision. So, um, I'm going to go over that one tomorrow... I'll let you know how that turns out...

Anyway, with the How to Revise a Novel link, editing has been fairly simple so far. (Looking at the second one, though, I think things may be about to change slightly.) I'm finding that although there's a lot of stuff that needs changing, cutting out completely or bringing into line with the rest of the book, what I've got is actually okay stuff. This makes me both nervous and excited about how things will change as I get further into it - I thought the second half was probably a lot better than the first, and I'm a bit worried that perhaps I was wrong and actually the second half is dreadful!

I was expecting it to be harder to cut things out, if for no other reason than losing precious word count, but actually, there's something quite satisfying about it. I'm only five chapters in to the edit (and I will probably go over those again once I've worked through that article) but I feel like I'm really getting rid of the weeds. I am however very much aware that I will probably end up completely scrapping most of the first half of the book - so maybe I'm being unconsciously easy on myself?

As for the Thinking Sideways course - I'm very much enjoying that too. Repeating Lesson Three helped a bit, and after a week I had the three ideas I needed. Lesson Four was all about refining them, and so today I did that with two of them. It was very satisfying, really helping me to get a grasp of what the stories could actually be about. I tried with the third one as well, but it turned out to be a fairly terrible idea that I wouldn't have enjoyed working on at all, so I scrapped it instead. I think the last part of this lesson is about making good ideas great, and I hope to get on to that tomorrow.

My current goal is to finish the first round of edits by May 1st. I'll have to pick up my pace to do that as I'm averaging a chapter a day and I'm on Chapter 5 of about 50 - but I think I can manage that. I'm only writing in the morning at the moment, and if I get back into the habit of working at night too then that ought to solve the problem.

Also, I think I've finally settled on a name for my hero. Hurray!

The Prospect Of Edits

I finished the first draft on the 8th March, coming in at 106K. Since then, I haven't written a word. Nor have I started editing.

When I wrote the last line, I was surprised to find that I actually knew it was the last line. For about half of the novel, I'd worried that I wouldn't know when I hit the end, and that I'd go on and on about nothing interesting until the whole point was lost. I was very pleased to find that wasn't the case. The last line couldn't have been anything else.

Since this was the first time I'd completed anything of this sort of length, I didn't know what to expect, and when I reached the end, I didn't know how to react. I was slightly stunned, slightly jubilant, and also slightly lost. I've been writing this since November 1st. Since the 26th January, I've even known what was going to happen. Suddenly this thing I'd been creating for over four months had a beginning and an end, and the initial writing was - well, over. It was exciting, but also bewildering.

I'd told myself I wanted to take a couple of weeks away from the MS (manuscript!) once I finished the first draft, partly just because I've heard so many people recommend that. But there's more to it than that. The fact is, I just don't know how to start on the edits.

I can do proof-reading. Thanks to Critters, I think I'm okay on short story critiques. And I can just about do reviews - at least, I try, at Pondering Around. But while editing seems to me like it must be a combination of those, actually sitting down with MY manuscript to start on it is an incredibly daunting task. Should I read it through once first, from beginning to end, without making any notes? Or should I plunge straight in with a red pen? And was the two weeks off really a mistake? It seems very distant now, but I guess that's a good thing.

Holly Lisle's How To Think Sideways course is going quite well for me. At least, it was. Lesson Two was all about getting to know your muse and what you really want to write, and I quite enjoyed that. Lesson Three is causing me more problems, since my muse is being rather contrary and not coming up with the ideas I need, but I think that was partly my own fault as I was rather caught up in Karen Miller's Godspeaker trilogy when I tried to 'call down lightning' as Holly calls it. I think being absorbed in someone else's story while trying to generate new ideas for yourself is possibly not the way to go. So tonight I intend to go over that lesson again, and we'll see how it goes.

Tomorrow, it's on to the editing. I think I may start by reading through some of the articles over at NaNoEdMo. I've given up all hope of reaching any decent editing count for March, but April, I hope, will be a better month for that. And I still have eight days to get as much in as I can.

Of course, the biggest problem I have is that I still haven't settled on a final name for my hero. But let's not dwell on the negative...