one more draft…

quickly, because i’m almost late for work, but i got another 4+ pages done this morning. a bit less than expected, but i was teaching myself a bit of PHP, which i’ve been telling myself i should do for a while and finally got an excuse to do so.

but that’s neither here nor there. today’s writing got kelly out of a particular physical location where she’s been for what may end up being too long. i’m still uncertain about that, but we’re leaving it for now. anyway, now, she’s on the move, and she’s not alone, and there’s a big reveal coming in the next 3-5 pages, which i’m a little wary of, because i want it to be powerful, but not heavy-handed.

i’m also thrilled to be able to use the world she lives in in more ways than one. or, more specifically, to flesh out the world she lives in by approaching recurring places with additional information. these are things that i’ve been hoping to do, particularly with the groundwork i laid in NGD, but to see it start to happen is very exciting. again, though, i hope it doesn’t seem heavy-handed or contrived.

now, to work.*

* i cannot wait to get back to writing this evening!

today, i finally got to have lunch with some friends i haven’t seen in more than a year, which was very nice. we’ve been trying to make this work for almost this whole time, and while not everyone was able to make it, it was lovely to see folks again and to catch up. it also made me again realize how much i miss daily interaction with real people (as opposed to email, etc.), particularly people i very much enjoy spending time with and talking to. thanks, folks!

of course, meeting people for lunch is also good because i get to eat foods i don’t tend to otherwise have, like yummy reubens.*

anyway, i sequestered myself above the garage this evening and got another 7+ pages done. things are really picking up speed now. the kitchen timer went off at 9 o’clock, but i was not having any of it.

this evening’s work was the end of that perhaps tortuously long chapter**, which knocked down the first domino of the next third of the book, and it’s hard to stop when i get into it all like this. i also identified some key phrasing to be inserted in earlier parts of the book to provide some lovely bits of understated foreshadowing.

i love it when this happens, and it’s one of the great joys of revising. i get to see the whole creature in its full form, and then i find ways to tighten it and strengthen it and seed it with these little bits of intrigue or insight. i try to identify as much of this as possible ahead of time, but i accept that there will always be more.*** sometimes these new pieces are genuine surprises to me, but sometimes they are conscious choices – craft, if you will – and these are the moments that really inspire.

* that said, it’s probably good this doesn’t happen more often, particularly when i didn’t bike this morning (because i got an early start at the computer job. really!)

** which, in fact, should not have been a single chapter, if i’d referred back to my outline more often (but i was in a writing groove!)

*** particularly when i start wandering off the map/outline

well, today was mostly a distraction day*, but i was able to get 5 more pages done.* i wavered on the edge of literary quicksand for a while there, but finally managed to get back on track.

the arrival of a new character certainly helped this. the arrival itself was planned for, but the execution of the scene went drastically differently than i’d anticipated. different in a powerfully exciting way, though.

i hope, anyway. the twist caught me by surprise, so i hope i can carry that over to the reader. on the other hand, i didn’t see the ending to The Sixth Sense coming, so read what you will from that.

* raining. again. spent way too much time fiddling with WordPress, only to switch it all back at the last minute.

** milestone note: today’s work puts me just past one third of the way to the estimated total. three weeks and 35,000 words. it was a little bit of a slow start, but i’ve got the momentum, now, and hope to see an increase to the weekly output i’ve had so far, as long as i can keep myself focused.

i managed about 5 pages, today, which is just fine for a sunny summer saturday.* i also got another 3 pages last night before bed, bringing the current total to 98 handwritten pages.

i think i mentioned that i was uncertain about forcing the scene, yesterday, and that was exactly what was happening. i may still be making this mistake, but i’m taking heart in the fact that i’m at least identifying these situations earlier on. knowing this, and getting a few pages past it also helped make today a lot of fun.

i got a page and a half after my bike ride this morning and this set the stage for the rest of the pages this evening. why? becuase another particular scene i’ve been looking forward to was in the offing. or was it?

i had written up to that scene pretty much as i’d intended it**, but just as i was finishing to go have breakfast, it occurred to me that another character’s situation was not quite as straightforward as i’d thought. this realization came out of an unexpected thought that kelly had, regarding that person. at first, when i wrote it, i thought i was forcing things again, and it was out of place in the current context anyway, so i scribbled it out and went to breakfast.

by the time i got back to it after dinner, though, i realized it was a very realistic possibility. when i started writing, it became clear that it was, in fact, an absolute necessity. and now, with that scene just wrapped tonight, i’m again surprised by those parts of my writing that are not consciously intentional, as well as excited by what this does to kelly’s situation, both short and long term.

* thanks again for all your help, dad! the doorways look great!

** though probably in far more detail than will reach the final draft – i could backtrack a bit further, to mention that the current chapter, which i expected to take up a few pages, tops, when i wrote it into the outline, has reached page 21 as of tonight and has at least a few more to go. there are two reasons for this: 1) as mentioned above, there’s a lot more detail in this than will likely remain in the end, but 2) much of that additional detail is the result of actually writing the scene and seeing what actually works/has to happen/makes sense/is realistic, compared to what i’d sketched in my head and in the outline. i imagine it’s like this for movie directors. a scene on the page must often look drastically different than the one on the screen. anyway (to drag this footnote out a little longer), this seeming diversion into nuanced detail has also opened up some potential comedic and dramatic poignancy i hadn’t intended, and which i’m very grateful for. in the end, this chapter is drastically different than the original intent, but it achieves the same results, and then some, so i’ll probably just be cutting it into a few smaller pieces, for flow, and whittling it down for intensity.

i had a feeling of foreshadowing when i finished yesterday’s post, and i should’ve paid closer attention. with the return of the internet, came the loss of my self-discipline.

not totally, but enough. i only got 5 pages this morning, because i got a very late start, thanks to my inability to walk away from this machine first thing this morning.

bleh, but enough of that.

5 pages is okay. i was starting to write myself into a corner, though, so i guess it’s good that i didn’t grind any more on it. now that i’m away from it, even briefly, i can see that it’s one of those sections that i’m trying to force too specifically. the scene will come out to the same general end, regardless of how some of these specific conversations go, so i need to step back and start listening again.

and i need to leave the computer off until lunch.

p.s. – of the queries i sent out on monday, i got several almost immediate standard form rejections, but also a request for a partial!

there was Internet.

yep, back online. apaprently, i could’ve been back online yesterday, if the help desk folks hadn’t wiped out my modem and then proceeded not to answer or return any of my calls.

[vitriolic rant removed]

moving on…

i got another 8 pages this morning, and i’m having a lot of fun. things are still tough for kelly, but there’s a bit of potential comedy filtering through this latest scene, which i’m going to have to massage a bit more in revision, but which i hope comes through, because there needs to be a little lightness, too.

it’s worth noting that in the last three days i’ve done as much writing as in each of the previous two weeks. this is very exciting for me. i know there will be a fair amount of distillation in the revision, as i whittle the dialogue down and tighten the description and pacing, but it’s still a very respectable amount of work for me to achieve in three days. best of all, i’ve managed to steadily pack that capacity into the first half of the day, meaning i have no excuse for less productivity now that i can get back to the paying job.

which reminds me…

(thanks again to my dad and my wife for helping me post these last couple days!)

(today’s post brought to you by my incredible wife)

So this is day 2 without the Internet and there are mixed feelings.

On the one hand, I was able to get 7 and 1/2 pages done yesterday, and today I am on the 6th page now and it is only 1:30, which is great news for the book!

And not so great for the bank account.  No computer work means no paycheck and as much as I love writing, I love eating even more.  We’ll see what the rest of the day brings, but if it keeps going like this I may have to turn our service over to Time Warner, much as I’d rather not.

Bleh.

In the meantime, back to the book.

(thanks, love.)

Can be most clearly seen when it’s gone.

This post comes by way of a phone call to my Dad because we have no Internet access today.

Being forced to do the work however is a very effective tool. I’m looking at at least 6 pages, maybe more and some fun stuff too.

Of course by ‘fun’ I mean more of a roller coaster for Kelly. She is not alone though, for better or worse, and there are events in motion that will drastically shift her situation.

But that’s enough for now.

Thanks Dad.

i received another pass after a partial this afternoon, which sucked a bit of the wind from my sails.

however, i managed another page and a half of writing, making 5 for the day, and i’ve been putting together a list of additional potential agents the last few days anyway, on the assumption that the rejection would arrive soon, so we continue.

i spent the evening tweaking (again!) the core query letter and emailing it out to another 9 agents. i also printed two others for agents who require snail mail. there’s one more to be done, but i can’t bring my brain around at this point.

rejections suck. simple fact.

fine. now move on.

so, today wasn’t feeling too hot to start with. another lousy night’s sleep* and my lingering doubts and fears over the recent alternate direction of this last scene, made me less than eager to get to work. i did, however, get my bike ride in, raincoat and all, which certainly helped get my mind in a better place, as exercise always does.**

but above the garage i went, after a little bit of psyching myself up as i waited for the tea to steep and the leftover cinnamon rolls to warm up. i tried getting into kelly’s mind again, tried to hear and feel how she would really address this situation, what she would honestly say or do, not what i would expect a character to say or do in a movie of this kind of situation.

because this is the thing. i know it’s fiction. i know it’s urban fantasy. i know there’s no need to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s. i know that readers, myself included, are willing to forego specific continuity or believability elements when the story is strong and the characters compelling, or when they’re just having a great time. i understand all this.

but i can’t let myself do it. 9 times out of 10, i will end up not liking a movie/book/etc., not because i didn’t like the characters or i didn’t think the story was interesting, but because of nit-picky little things about the world or the plot. talk about hyper-sensitive, just ask my wife about watching movies or tv with me. not fun.

so, when i write, it kills me to let this happen. this means, often, belaboring the obvious, which is never good for a story, so i end up finding ways to cut it out. for some reason, this seems okay to me. i can chop it out afterward, but i have to have written it completely beforehand. i’d like to think that the way i write it out completely beforehand means that when i do chop something like this out, it’s because the kernel of the rationale or explanation or whatever is now found elsewhere in the writing, and can be explained.

ah, there it is: i hate the idea of a mystery being explained by something i, as a reader, could never have known, given what the author gave me. i hate it when characters, who have previously narrated the story, suddenly “get an idea” but refuse to share it with the reader, in order to increase the suspense of the story. drives me crazy.

whoa, i’m doing a lot of complaining, here. sorry.

let me therefore end with the good news. i got another 3.5 pages this morning, ending with the completion of the bypass and the return to the outline, with a tighter, more intense end result. the worst of kelly’s harrowing situation is over.

for now…
(sorry, couldn’t resist)

* special thanks to the cat who vomited in not 1, not 2, but 3 separate places downstairs at half past three this morning. didn’t really get back to sleep after that.

** after the fact, at least.