Yes, I’ve been away.
No, I really don’t have an excuse.
But….
Draft 3 of MysteryNovel is complete!
In a little while, I’ll make a post about what happens next, but right now, I’m going to let other things eat my arms for a while.
Final Word Count: 96,061
Final Page Count: 296
To date, this draft is the longest single work I’ve finished.
MysteryNovel Progress:
Still meh, deadline. I’m not really editing fast enough to make this deadline.
WC: 25,336
PC: 76
Gods/Monsters/Winnebagos/Crying Progress:
16 days
Pages done: 220 (86% finished)
TL;DR= All the things are eating my arms.
MysteryNovel Progress:
Still meh, deadline. We’ll see about this deadline.
WC: 15,650
PC: 45
Gods/Monsters/Winnebagos/Crying Progress:
23 days (maybe, we’ll see)
Pages done: 164 (64% finished)
And I have been very bad and haven’t yet started BitchcicleNovel Draft 3. That one, though, is in theory going to be the fastest read-through, so that’s why I’m saving it for last.
Oh how woefully behind I fall.
Not actually juggle. I’m not-surprisingly very bad at juggling, because, well. Hand coordination?–bah! Who needs it?
Anyway, I’m here to give you a very brief update on how my next month or so is going to look.
I just received two very important things: MANUSCRIPTS FROM MY CRIT PARTNERS!
One of them is one I’ve been waiting for for a very long time (too long) by crit partner Allyson. In four words she describes it as: “Gods, Monsters, Winnebagos, Crying.” It’s the first draft, and the other critique partners and I will be happily reading it and critiquing it.
The other is the third draft of Bitchcicle’s novel, which all of us crit partners are looking over one last time before she starts to query for it. Mostly, we’re looking for any looming plot inconsistencies, characters that still read very strangely, and other such problematic things.
In theory, in the next month, I’m going to be critiquing those two things and finishing MysteryNovel Draft Three.
*laughs nervously*
Progress:
Still meh, deadline. We’ll see about this deadline.
WC: 11,096
PC: 34
Finally, the post where I talk about my list of agents!
I took a break from plotting out MysteryNovelSequel (some might say this is a bit early; pshaw, I say!) to make a little post about how I’m going about sorting through this whole agent business.
The method I’m using is one that I shamelessly stole from my critique partner Bitchcicle, who just finished (what we all hope is) the last draft of her novel before she starts querying for it. It’s all quite exciting.
But yes, the method that I didn’t come up with.
I’ve divided the agents I want to query into three categories: A Agents, B Agents, and C Agents. All the agents I’ve selected, no matter if they’re an A agent or a C agent, represent the genres MysteryNovel could fit under and also the genres that I want to eventually write. But specifically, the A Agents are agents who represent authors who I respect highly and who also write similar types of novels that I want to write. B Agents are agents who represent authors who I like, but who don’t necessarily write the types of novels that I want to write/am currently writing. The C Agents, on the other hand, were agents I chose based on what they were specifically looking for in terms of queries and based on how they marketed themselves. But all in all, the C Agents are usually agents I haven’t heard of before.
The choosing process wasn’t the most organized thing. How I decided on most of my A Agents was by plucking books from my bookshelf and scanning the Acknowledgements page until I found the agent mention. But I did end up finding almost every agent and their bio on AgentQuery.com. I certainly did for all my B and C Agents.
So what am I going to do with this list? Once I finish the third draft of MysteryNovel (*sweats nervously*), I’m going to first start off writing my query letter (I’m sure I’ll make a post on that later). Then, like every good storyteller, I’ll begin at the beginning. And by beginning, I mean the C Agents.
Then (hopefully), I’ll get to gauge responses. If they’re mostly positive, ie: they look something like this:
Me: blah blah, query letter, blah. *attaches pages of MysteryNovel* Can haz representation?
C Agent: I wept, loudly and audibly. Much pretty words, such characterization. Yes, can haz! Haz many virtual ponies!
Then I’ll move on to querying the B Agents (more on that in a minute). But we all know said above scenario is my imagination being a caffeinated toddler. Yes, I said caffeinated. So, if the responses look more realistic, something like this:
Me: blah blah, query letter, blah. *attaches pages of MysteryNovel* Can haz representation?
C Agent: I used the pages of this novel to wipe up my spilled coffee and then tossed them in the trash where they belong. Not even worthy of recycling. Back to the drawing board, penmonkey. Don’t come to me with this snit. Negative virtual ponies for you.
(I’m kidding; literary agents are very kind creatures. I’ve met several of them). If the responses look more like rejection form letters or even personalized rejection letters, I need to go back to the drawing board. If that scenario happens, then I’ll clean up my query (maybe even rewrite it) and compile a new list of C Agents. And start all over again.
If the first scenario happens (or more realistically, if I receive letters that are generally positive) then I’ll move on to querying my B Agents. Then I’ll gauge their responses. If Scenario B (rejections) occurs, then it’s back to the drawing board to figure out where I screwed up. If Scenario A (positive words about my words) occurs, then I’ll move on to my A Agents.
I haven’t exactly figured out what to do after I get to my A Agents (if I ever get there). There’s really no end-all-be-all agent for me, no MacDaddy of Agents that I want as badly as some people want to get into Harvard. So, to be honest, if it comes down to choosing an agent (which it won’t), I won’t have any clue what to do (which is fine, because in all likelihood you won’t have to choose).
Right now, I have four A Agents, five B Agents, and seven C Agents.
Let the games begin.
Progress:
Still meh, deadline. We’ll see about this deadline.
WC: 9,305
PC: 28
Oh look at that, not a lot of progress at all.
Penmonkeys.
I’ve been absent…but I have to say that I haven’t exactly been doing anything productive in the process.
I haven’t yet complied all of my beta responses. I’m still missing one or two, I believe.
I have, however, sort of started to make another list of Revision Snakes to address for Draft 3. Oh, dear sweet Draft 3. Things are changing. Not as much as things did in Draft 2, but I anticipate a substantial amount of edits. Especially to the beginning. Damn beginnings. Opus proves to be such a difficult book to start right.
I’ll have more updates later about what the re-tooling of Draft 3 will maybe/kind of/possibly look like. I think it will take me less time than Draft 2 took me but probably more time than Draft 1 took me. Let’s put it this way:
I wrote Draft 1 in 1 month and 29 days.
I wrote Draft 2 in 6 months and 15 days.
I’m hoping that Draft 3 will be some sort of a happy medium between the two.
But I haven’t been doing that these past ten days. I’ve actually been critiquing Draft 2 of Bitchcicle’s (one of my crit partners) novel, which has taken up a fair bit of my limited (read: nonexistent) writing time.
Anyway, penmokeys, I shall return when I have something productive to say.
Readers.
It’s almost here. September 1st. I have approximately two more days to wait.
* squee! *
In other news, I have received my second critique back from Allyson (amazing, amazing darling). However, I can’t read her comments on Opus because, well, they are on the actual document.
Which I’m not allowed to open, peek at, or touch for another two days.
I’ll keep you posted, of course. Keep an eye out on September 1st. Because I’ll defiantly be posting that day.
Now, for your daily dose of music from yours truly.
This song is, as per the pattern, a selection from the “Schemes” playlist.
Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQZLPV6xcHI
For pretty much every other song on the “Schemes” playlist, I have a reason why it should be there. However, Sunday Bloody Sunday seems to be on the playlist for inexplicable reasons. I’m not sure I could tell you why this song reminds me of Opus. Perhaps it’s because it’s a song I discovered around the time I was hit on the head with that heavenly coconut I mentioned so many posts ago. Perhaps it’s because some of the lyrics remind me of a character who knows all too well the meaning of sacrifice.
Either way, good night, dear readers.
Until Sunday, September 1st.
Welcome, readers, welcome.
Critiques come in all shapes and sizes.
They come in the form of purely line editing. They come the form of purely plot/character re-tooling. They can even come in the form of just a read through for pacing.
Because my critique partners are busy being fabulous, I asked for something simpler until we could get together and talk through Opus over cookie dough and breakfast tea (rest assured, we’ll all need copious amounts of both).
I sent them a copy of Opus half way through (at or around 40,000 words) along with a set of questions. The set included things like this:
Hello, dear readers.
Remember how I mentioned that many authors have blogs and then mentioned something about my fabulous critique partners?
Good. Okay, we can move on then.
Now that she is on The Swirling Pool of Endless Creativity (the Internet), I can mention my other critique partner and penmonkey of epic proportions: Allyson!
Read her blog here: http://nerdyfantastic.wordpress.com/
(she’s way funnier than I am, by the way, so prepare to laugh)
Though, short confession.
If you do go check about her blog, she will confess that she stole the term “penmonkey” from me.
…heh, heh….well. It’s not my word. I wish it was. But it is, in fact, the word of the lovely and absolutely hilarious person and amazing author Chuck Wendig (aka, the Wendigo).
He is indeed more funny than I: http://terribleminds.com/ramble/blog/
I do not know you, Mr. Wendig, nor do I think you will ever read this blog. But might I address The Swirling Pool of Endless Creativity and say that your blog has helped me heaps. From deciding whether or not to write awkward scenes, how the hell to pull yourself from the Writing Pits From Hell, what a throughline is, to how to get through those lies we tell ourselves as writers.
Including that we suck. Because we don’t. Not always. We will suck on the first draft and then we will get better.
ALLOW YOURSELF TO SUCK, PENMONKEYS, ALLOW YOURSELF TO SUCK.
Thank you, Mr. Wendig, that small saying has improved my self-esteem in epic proportions (that and your humor, especially in all its NSFL glory). And that piece of advice is now my mantra, followed closely by BICHOK.
While I’m on the topic, I should probably talk about the other two author blogs that have given me the most help as I travelled/(who am I kidding?) am travelling this rocky writing road (10 points for whoever makes that into an ice cream flavor).
This is turning out to be a longer post than I thought.
Maggie Stiefvater: http://m-stiefvater.livejournal.com/214290.html
Jesus, that woman is amazing. While I was actually penning Opus, I learned more from that blog than anywhere else. Even the blog of The Mighty Wendigo. I learned to embrace things like word count over page count (which is probably the reason Opus is actually as novel-shaped as it is), to accept that I need to have better stylized characters, and to deal with writerly angst. However, the section I’ve gleaned the most from on her blog is the “editing” section.
It’s actually her editing outline/skeleton thing that I’m following for Opus. If you want a free preview of the editing clown-hell I’m going to be trudging face first into come September, check it out. (If you are confused about the clown-hell, see the blog).
Kristin Cashore: http://kristincashore.blogspot.com/
Ms. Cashore is the author of three of my favorite books: Graceling, Fire, and Bitterblue. I routinely send aspiring high fantasy novelists to her books for guidance. I also learned from her top two most asked questions that I do not want to be answering those questions for Opus.
So, without giving too much away, I tweaked the plot so I wouldn’t have to answer annoying questions.
I know. I’m terrible.
That’s all for now, dear readers. Go forth. And I will give you another great quote to send you on your way:
“There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.” — Harry Dresden
PS: I love Jim Butcher’s novels with a fiery burning passion. Harry Dresden is his property.
PPS: Oh, that quote up above, the Harry Dresden one? Yeah, that pertains to Opus and might answer some questions for some of my critique partners reading this blog. As for the rest of you…well, you’ll have to wait.
Like I said, I am terrible.
PPPS: Yeah, okay, this might be overkill, but feel free to comment on anything. Leave comments, questions, snide remarks. Anything.
Welcome, welcome.
So I’m going to start this post off with a little story.
About five or six months ago, another writer friend of mine asked me to read her novel. It was a high fantasy novel about the same word count as Opus though for some reason like 70 million more pages.
It was really good. It was also really convoluted. Plots were twisty, characters were thrown left and right, cliches smattered many parts of the pages. So like I do, I did I full edit and work-up, complete with huge monoliths of text and amusing reaction photos of Nick Cage. It was so easy for me to climb out of the novel, take a look at it, and say what was wrong with it, why, and give copious amounts of feedback.
I never really grasped how it felt to be on the receiving end of said edits.
I do now.
Bitchcicle just sent me her thoughts about the end of Opus and right now I’m wishing for that objectivity I had with my friend’s novel. So far, in the hour or so since I’ve read her comments, the one thing I’ll say about receiving criticism is it sucks. And it makes you dissolve into a quivering blob of sad.
But it’s good for you and you should listen to it.
Because they are right and objectivity is the only thing that’ll save your ass.
It’s really hard to crawl out of your own novel. Because, of course, you read it and you think, “Jesus, I’m amazing! Look at how subtly this plot point is conveyed, look at the beautiful character arc, and ooh, ooh, look gorgeous prose!”
I personally think it’s even harder to give your perfect, beautiful prose to someone (especially as a fairly novice penmonkey in a sea of penmonkeys with long, pointy teeth and copious amounts of experience) and have to come to the realization that you suck.
Hear me out.
When you read your own book, your subconscious fills in the gaps in the story that you know should be filled with something. To others, those same character arcs will look more like those decaying aqueducts in Italy. When you think something is emotionally, tear-jerkingly powerful, odds are, it’s not. And when you think you have your reader’s attention every step of the way, you don’t.
That, dear readers, is what editing is for.
This is why we have people read our books. Yeah, it hurts. So we pick it up and move on. We edit and edit and force said same critique partners to read varying iterations of the same book until we get it right.
That’s my sage advice for the day.
So, full critique and editing. What exactly does that entail? Until next time, dear readers, until next time.
Thank you Bitchcicle, for the really helpful answers to my questions. I hope at some point in time, I will come to not suck.
Again, I repeat. Editing, dear readers, editing.
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