Taking a break from writing to write (14k)

I'm reaching that wonderful place in Shadow of the Dragon (tentative title) where I am excited to write so I can find out what happens to my characters. It's both thrilling and a great bummer, because it's not like I can curl up in bed and read -- I have to write the damn thing first. But I love where I am, I love that I am bringing to life not only my story, but my husband's. Every day when I hand him my new chapters, he gets more excited to see his world flushed out. And that gets me more excited to write it for him.

The trick of it is, I sit down to write, and my undisciplined mind automatically thinks of all the things I could be doing instead. It's horrible, because when I'm not writing, all I do is think of writing.

Example: I recently signed up for culinary school, while my husband signed up for classes in game design. I felt very conflicted, because while I am very interested in food as an artistic expression, I know the game industry so well, having been a part of it for almost three years. It feels safe to me. So I debated for a couple days as to whether or not I should really take the game design classes instead. I mentioned this dilemma to one of the admission's councilors at school and she said: "What do you do because no one tells you?" I lied and said "I cook," but it isn't true. When no one tells me what to do, I write. When I told my husband about this, he said: "Yes, but you already have a degree that proves you can write. Now you need one to prove you can cook." He's right -- my undergraduate degree is in Creative Writing, albeit poetry.

That's what NaNoWriMo is all about: doing what you love even when the circumstances, the new videos games you receive in the mail, and your school schedule tell you otherwise. I won't say that I'm not getting sidetracked -- otherwise I wouldn't be blogging, now would I? All these words and I can't count a single one toward the dreaded 50k. Only...I didn't mention this to anyone but my husband...my goal isn't 50k, it's 100k, and I'm crazier than ever.

Well, I suppose it's time to find out what Arturis discovers in that great hulking cathedral he's just found in the forest. I hope it's something good.

Whole wheat bread, or at least the makings thereof

Whole wheat -- mixing process 5, originally uploaded by Mandifesto.

Here's proof that I'm actually in culinary classes. What you'll find down in that churning mass are the elements that make up whole wheat bread. From basic yeast, water, honey and flour you can create something of substance, of power, something that will help sustain you. That is the beauty of cooking.

And the planning begins...again

Last night was a talk night. We have this every once in a while, my husband and I, where we get on an idea and are energized by it. The resulting electricity is something that fuels my writing, my projects, gets me into trouble and gets me out of it. It might be that I'm turning back into a night person, or just that I need someone to bounce ideas off -- or it might be that this is in some ways a collaborative project, and this buzz in my head is a result of finally getting to scratch the surface on a cohesive timeline.

The trick of it is, Art and I have been building our own personal stories since we were children. Now we are weaving those stories together, and it gets tricky. Seriously tricky. Like we have to change the laws of nature tricky. SotO takes place in my world, which I've named Terra. It's like Earth but not Earth, as the clever name indicates. His story takes place on another world entirely, so you can see how connecting the two may seem unlikely. But see, there's this Well in my story, and strange things happen with that Well.

Does this mean that I won't have an outline done by Sunday? I'm not sure. But it does mean that I'm starting to get a grasp on it, and if I had to sit down and start writing today I could. That's a good feeling, because before last night I was feeling a little lost, a little out of sorts mucking around with someone else's world. Today, hopefully the discussion continues. I will, at least, attempt to sketch out the first few scenes so that I know I have somewhere to go in the first 20k regardless of how much planning happens beyond. Nanowrimo will happen, busy as I am. I promise it.

The countdown to Nano 2009

Yes it's been a while since I blogged here, but now that I am no longer blogging professionally, I thought it high time to return to good ol' Game Nouveau. I am currently working the skeleton of a sequel to my 2007 novel, tentatively entitled Shadow of the Rose. This will be the first of the novels in the series to be set in a completely new world, one created by my husband. It's a massive challenge, writing inside someone else's world, but I realized something yesterday: I can make it my own, and if he doesn't like what I make of it, then this will stay unofficial fan fiction instead of canon and lore.

Tonight I am sitting down doing some world building, even though the outline is far from finished. I figured that these sorts of gems will make it easier to write the outline, as I need a bit of action in what is largely a personality drama wrapped in a fantasy setting. I'm halfway through my list of curiosities, and so far they are interesting enough to build a couple scenes from, which is ultimately the point. If I am not invested in the world, I cannot expect my characters to want to spend time there.

So I'm going back to it. Despite so much happening in my life, despite the marriage and the move and the unemployment and culinary school, it's important to me that Nano go on. That means that I have three days to formulate a road map, a plan, and a semblance of a synopsis before October 31st. Can it be done? Certainly. Will it be done? That remains to be seen.

Five rejections and a realization

A couple of weeks ago I sat down in a frenzy and wrote out a synopsis of SotO and a query and sent it off to a dozen agents. I got nothing but form rejections back, which makes me immediately wonder if the query is weak. With no way to verify its strength, I decided that I needed to look deeper into the manuscript and see if there was anything unusual about this book that makes it worth publishing.

In talking over the process with friend Will Davis, I learned that his novel, already accepted by a publisher and previously in editing stages, was put on hold since the industry is suffering now. This is not only disheartening, it's shocking, because a strong literary fiction piece deserves to be put on shelves and enjoyed by readers the world over. Trouble is, his agent told him, only one genre is selling now: Horror.

I've been mulling this news around in my head, and ever the jump-the-gun kid, wondered if I shouldn't put SotO on hold and shift to ...err Shift, a book that definitely blends horror and fantasy. From the research I've been doing, genre blends seem to be much more popular with publishers than straight fantasy novels. Teen fantasy, modern fantasy, fantasy mixed with medical drama, every agent seems to be looking for these on Twilight/Harry Potter things that don't fit solidly into one box or the other. Striding the fence is all well and good, but ultimately Shift is little more than a spin-off tale, and one that doesn't have a backbone of its own as of yet.

I admit it's hard to write horror when I don't read much of it, and I learned with Molly's Fault that stepping out of your genre completely leads to nothing short of disaster. I sit on the precipice therefore, mulling over which story should get the first big push.

SotO is my original story, that "I have a novel in me" book, the story I have been writing since my childhood. Shift was the "oh hey, I think I can write something NOT SotO for once" revelation piece, and it's still amorphous and globbular the way that all unformed thoughts begin. I haven't found where this story wants to go. But maybe I need to form this unsculpted mass into something presentable, seeing as how it's a blend story with horror elements and all those things spell saleability.

Also I have gotten back into reading fantasy again, living in the genre I want to write, and I've come across some great work. Excellent work, the sort of writing I want to weave into my story. So I have also been chewing on how much tweaking is needed to deepen my world. Yes, ironically enough, it's the world building I have a problem with -- I know, shocking for a fantasy writer. I think it's because I read as a young writer that world building kills perfectly good fantasy tales, so I reverted to the opposite extreme. The notes I've gotten back from others reading my work indicate that the reader is left to fill in the blanks, which is fine for a murder mystery, but not when you're describing the sieging of a city.

I've started building bones for the SotO world, but none of them are represented in the actual novel as of yet. Essentially I built my origin stories for the races on the world, and in that received some much needed perspective, but there is no skeletal structure in the novel. It is still at its core a novel written by a twelve year old, with none of the solid description that comes from building out your universe until it's so real anyone could see what you see when they pick up the book. My bones are different from other fantasy books in that this is a fantasy based on American history and geography, not British, but you would never know that from reading it. Damn, I have a lot of work to do.

My brain is full, but nothing's getting done

A week from now I will be on a plane to New York, but today I sit here with a brain swimming with ideas and a body that has no direction with which to focus them. Even as I sit down to blog, I don't know which of the sixteen topics in my head I should write about. Should I talk about the rediscovery of good fantasy fiction and how I realized my work is missing the mark? Should I stew over the wedding? Should I lay out our lovely engagement pics for the world to see, even though I ressemble something that needs to jump hoops at Sea World? Do I discuss our troubles at home, and the brewing drama that has my stomach in knots?

Yes, I'm all over the place, and flooded with emotions and thoughts to the point that I don't know where to turn next. I guess I can only take things one post at a time.

The final countdown

It's officially 30 days until the wedding -- a day I am celebrating as our -1 month preemptive anniversary. Today I sent out the last of our invitations and received our first response card. It's a good thing because I was really worried that the response cards were too difficult to find behind the directions card.

At this point, we're so behind we JUST settled on bridesmaids' dresses last night, and the worst part is, it's a wedding happening across the country. It's a strange situation for a control freak, knowing I can control nothing having no cash and being in California. Perhaps I can hand make something clever for favors, but there might be nothing at all.

But I still have a month to go. I've lost ten of the 20+ pounds I need to drop to feel less than planetoid at my own wedding, and am searching for a pair of shoes that will look nice, feel comfortable, and yet still not cost $100. The family keeps saying don't stress, but life is throwing flaming curve balls of late. Not only have I been out of work since October, but Art came down ill last month, so we've been dealing with some pretty heinous complications from Diabetes. It's odd how things end up on the extreme ends of the life continuum for us. It's great things or horrible things, but very little in between. That's the way it's always been, but no matter what the heartache, I still have a faux anniversary to celebrate.

The synopsis, the query, and the insomnia

It all came together this evening.  Something about the smell of the rain outside, I'm not sure, but round about midnight I pulled Art's laptop into bed with me and the synopsis came pouring out of me.  This after five failed attempts over the course of several weeks.  After that, I was so giddy I couldn't sleep, so got up, sat down at my computer, and out came the query letter.  On a roll, I figured after re-reading them both five times a couple submissions couldn't hurt.  

Question 1: Is the editing done?

Yes and no.  I know, should prospective agents stumble on this I'll be crucified, but honestly, I am at the point where I think I need to hand the manuscript over to a higher power, a professional power.  No, it's not perfect, and I can even see where some of the weak points are, I'm just not sure about how to fix them.

Question 2: Don't you think you should wait until you have a sleep-rested brain to work with?

Definitely not.  I always used to write my best work in the small wee hours, and I really feel in my bones that what I created tonight represents my work as best I can.  

So now it begins.  I'm making a 100 query pledge.  100 rejections before I even consider giving up.  Maybe it will take 1000, but more than likely once I get 100 rejections from agents I'll just move onto the publishers directly. Making a mental note here to go buy a rejection binder for my first ever foray into novel submissions.  I feel so very grown up alluva sudden.