Malleability

I’m in a good ways into my new work in progress, and since I’m going more pantser on this one than usual, I’m finding my characters are more malleable than I generally like to work with, changing professions and backgrounds with a lose fluidity as I find what works best with the unchanging needs of the story. Frankly, it’s a glorious mess right now.

The thought process and actions of the character, though, seem to be unchanging, which is why I’m forging ahead and leaving him, say, a carpenter in chapter one, and a ship’s captain in chapter five, making notes as to what has changed in the upper margin and forging ahead.

I guess what I’m saying is that I could spend a month on the first fifty pages trying things out, or I could write two hundred ugly pages, knowing I will need to go back and change things, but all through those two hundred pages, I will be finding out what works, what doesn’t. Even if nothing changes, I will be rewriting those two hundred pages at least three more times, so no hit, no foul. Let’s get on with it and write the story.

Thank God for malleable characters, the ones that can take the tugs and pulls of the creative process–become stronger for it, smelted in the fires of inspiration and folded and refolded like steel until they are the sword that cleaves to the soul and shows us who we are–or could be.

And then there were leaves

I get about three days a year where the maple trees are strewn with flowers/helicopters, before the leaves come out. The trees don’t look anything like themselves, either in color or shape, and the unusual pale green color against the blue of the sky is singular and breathtaking. I wait for it every year. This year it started on Friday, and will end probably today as the leaves finish coming out.

Needless to say I didn’t get much book work done on Friday.

I am pleasantly tired and worn out from my weekend of gardening and potting up some annuals into hanging baskets, and hanging out with my folks a bit at a garden center. We had a full trunk and plants on our laps on the way home, so it was a success. The yard is really starting to look nice again, and I’ve been busy tweaking and adjusting things to suit my sensibility. But having said that, I should add that I’m tired, pleasantly tired. I don’t always sleep well, but working myself into exhaustion always results in a restful sleep and I appreciate it.

It should be a great work week. I got up almost a half an hour early to start it. The more I  reserve my weekends for non-book work, the more productive I am during the other five days. Or maybe I’m just too tired to do anything other than sit at my desk and move my fingers . . .

Long Game

You ever have someone do something for you unexpected and yet totally on the mark? I’m not talking about letting you go first at a stop sign or the grocery store line, though those moments are nice too. I mean a total stranger who–for no reason other than simply wanting to make things right–gives you something that you’ve wanted, tried for, and then reluctantly let go of because, well, you can’t have everything you want, and that is life. Something that really makes no diff to anyone but you but you can’t seem to reach it? Sort of like wanting your grandmother’s vase that vanished the last week or her life, and you know it’s somewhere because someone thought it went with their drapes, not knowing that you have memories tied to it of cutting flowers with her and arranging them every time you went to visit? And then, someone just . . . hands it to you because they knew it meant something to you?

Yeah, I had one of those days last week/month, and though it doesn’t have anything to do with vases or fond memories, it still has that feeling of this-is-important-to-me, why-do-you-even-want-it? about it.

I’ve always been a big believer in paying it forward when you can, and though lately it feels like I’ve been focused very closely on my bellybutton, so to speak, this was a reminder that though Slipknot is right about some people being S*it, that there are still people who are knights in shining armor, gallivanting about the desolate wasteland with a bright sword of power.

So Bill, if you read this, know that even though a nasty antagonist in my next series has your name (Really! His name has been Bill for over a year now.) that you will always be one of my heros, standing on a hill beside your white horse with your sword held high and bright. Thank you. My faith in humanity is refreshed.

What weekends are for

So, Friday I finished up with the last chapter of Peri, knowing I wasn’t quite happy with it, and I spent all weekend mulling over why. Long story short, I’m opening it back up today to tweak the last two chapters again. To be honest, if I can pull off what I want to do, the entire story will need minor shifts in a handful of chapters, but if it’s the last two they culminate in, so that’s where I’m headed today.

This has been a weird one to write, and most of that is because it’s still new and I’m finding the layers. It’s sort of how you get to know someone. You can’t get to know anyone within that first date, and you can’t write good fiction in the first, second, or even third draft.

First impressions are what your date is wearing, how they talk, body language, who they are trying to be–this is like the rough plot, as in “this is what I the writer want to accomplish.”

Then you get to know a few things that the public doesn’t, like family, interests, stuff that makes the person something other than they want to be–this is the motivations that move the plot and make actions make sense. This is what the work is actually saying under the action and adventure.

Thirdly you start to know the person well enough that you can predict what they like, don’t like, how they will react, more intimate details–now we’re into the lies the characters tell themselves, how they fight against their own best interests, find complex interactions and feelings that move the story, sometimes in a big way. This is where I’m at with Peri, and though I love this part as the knowledge gained here is the stuff that really opens the world up for me both in scope and interest, it’s kind of a pain to have to go back and do another rewrite, even if this rewrite is the one that will shift the work from potential good to actual good. Fortunately it will be a fast one.

 

As the little tiny bits begin to add up

I’m working with Peri/Overdraft today, as I have for all of March, rewriting a shift to third person from first to help simplify the plot. I’ve always said first person requires an exquisite subtlety in crafting to get the reader informed, but not the main character, and yet keep the main character from looking stupid for missing the obvious. But Overdraft’s story line needs a little de-cluttering, and so I’m working it in third person, adding a few chapters between secondary characters, and generally having a good time doing it.

But I’m almost done with it, being on the last couple of chapters and very happy with the results. The rewrite has also let me tighten up a few of the plot points that had never set well with me. (Bonus!) Changing the tension from the main character/reader finding things out, to the reader being anxious for the main character to figure it out is a big shift for me. I’m using tools I’ve ignored since the Truth books, so I have to think about what to do rather than just reaching for it.

I’m already thinking about what comes next, though. I’ve got an ambitious idea for some self promotion, but it will require a lot of my resources so I’m still mulling it around. Fortunately I’ve some time as the editorial rewrite for book 12 of the Hollows is on my desk for April. Believe it or not, my editor and I are already discussing the cover. (Dude!) At this very second, I have to work to remember what book 12 is about. (head hits desk) But that will change when I dig into the edit letter next week and I go back to Rachel refreshed and recharged. Book 12 is going to rock some socks.

Loyalty, Trust, and Pixy Dust

Borderlands,San Francisco. 2007.

There is so much change in the publishing industry right now, and my thoughts on it seemed to gel over the last couple of weekends as I got out and around, rubbing shoulders with my peers, all of them coming from different genres, different places in their careers. Some were on the rise, some were maintaining, and some had just gotten the rug pulled out from under them and were facing the familiar three- to five-year struggle to get themselves back where they were with another publisher, perhaps using another publishing style.

I’m in a good spot, but even I’m vulnerable in an environment where loyalty increasingly takes a backseat to chasing those publicity dollars, and money tells the reader what is “good” not your friends, because honestly, when a distributor of books starts creating their own product, it’s their babies who get the front page, buzz, and attention, and it’s the competition who gets pushed low in the algorithm or just simply loses their “buy” button at a critical point. For as much as a new publishing/distributor might claim to like books, readers, and advocate authors, they are there to make money like everyone else.

Which brings me back to the traditional publishing industry.

Traditional publishing has been taking hit after hit lately for being money grabbing and insensitive in the face of new opportunities graced with low overhead and little to support. They’ve been  deemed uncaring about books and even now, their authors. Yep, publishing is hard. It’s always been hard, and with the doors having been opened wide the last decade or so, there are many more people seeing their dream realized. Downside? When things don’t work out, they are disillusioned and blame the easy target.

But one thing seems to have been forgotten in the ultimate ugliness. Everyone in the traditional publishing industry is there because they love books–or they don’t stay there very long. They love reading them. They love discovering them. They love sharing them, because quite honestly, the hours are too long, the rewards too little. No one goes into publishing to “make it big.” They go to discover and share.

Which brings me to loyalty. I’m not talking about loyalty to a specific publisher or imprint. I’m talking about loyalty to the feeling of scanning the shelves, of seeing those imprints on the spines and knowing what you’ll find just by that. I’m talking about loyalty to a system that gave you the stories that took you to the stars. The stories that made you believe in dragons and space colonies, that showed you that you could make a difference, that you could fall in love. Someone believed in that story enough to force it through the gates of the publishing house and onto that shelf where you picked it up. I’m not bashing e-books, because they’re a part of traditional publishing now as much as word processing and electronic submissions. I’m talking about the system that brought you the stuff you read. Period.

So yes. The traditional publishing industry is struggling to adapt and thrive in a new climate where yes, anyone can become published and have that glorious chance to see their work loved and cherished. But I bristle at the notion that the traditional publishing industry is in it only for the money. They love what they do, and have since day one. It’s why they started, not the other way around. And that deserves a little respect, if only for the pleasure that they brought you when starships sailed beside dragons in the stacks.

I’m keeping this up for a while. Feel free to repost and comments are welcome.

I’m cleaning my office . . .

Yes! I’m cleaning my office today, and that can only mean one thing, and one thing only. No, it’s not my mom coming to visit, it’s me closing out a book and . . . starting a new one! Don’t get me wrong. I’ve still got years to work on the Hollows yet, but I’m at the point where I get to play with something new in a more permanent way, and I’m horribly, terribly, marvelously excited, and moving the Hollows out of my office, even if temporarily, is not only symbolic, but I seriously need the space.

Not only tidying was going on, however, I also reorganized my paperclips to get rid of the multicolored jobs mucking up my color-coding, moved a file downstairs into my fire-proof cabinet, brought one back up, gathered my rubber bands into one space (don’t ask) sorted through my software backups and trashed what was gone, picked out the folder color of the next book, (white) found matching paperclips, went through my post-its and threw a bunch away, and made/found $1.21 while clearing out my desk.

And I then hit the Easy button, because the last nine years were anything but.

Today I’m kicking around titles, moving deeper into some research, and brainstorming for ideas for possible series arc, finding my clipboard, printing up some headers for the pages I’ll be brainstorming on, and sharpening my pencils. Guy already helped me with the titles today, and wonders of wonders, we actually found a theme I really like. Here’s hoping it sticks.

tongue-in-cheek PSA

I know I’ve been sparse lately on the posting, and I promise I will try to return to my usual schedule next week with a fresh outlook that this weekend will hopefully provide.

Honest truth? I will admit that I’m having a hard time emotionally with this last rough draft. I’ve been through this before, but never this hard simply because Rachel and crew mean so much to me. It’s better if I keep a low profile until I get through the worst of it. People being massively creative become irrational and their actions a little off-kilter when they’re struggling with the imagined world they’re shaping and the real one demanding its own share of their attention–and every serious writer out there knows exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve got four more weeks of this, and I hope you stick with me until I can be nice again.

Guy is taking the brunt of it even as I recognize what’s going on and try to minimize it, so if you want to send him a sympathy card, it’s at the same address as the SASE. -laugh-

Risking the Jinks

I know I’m risking jinksing it, but I think I might have gotten my little elm tree to hold its leaves through the fall. It’s still kind of early yet to breathe that sigh of relief, but I’ve only lost about half the leaves. The instructions (yes, the tree came with instructions) said if I brought it in soon enough, it might not drop them, and I’m tickled that I might have actually timed it right.

I’ve tried keeping little trees in pots alive before, and every time up to now they end up as dead sticks. Do I blame myself and wear the pin of “black thumb” or “tree killer”? No. Unless the neglect is severe, usually it takes a plant several months to die, so that pretty plant I bought at the store I can’t keep alive might not be my fault, but the place I bought it at. I had my doubts about this one, too, when it lost half its leaves early this summer due to transport stress, but it bounced back and I’d give it about a five on the one-to-ten  scale right now. Ugly and in need of work, but the structure and bones are good.

The thing is . . . I want to be good at this so I keep trying, seeing the past failures every time I water it. But it’s only now when I have this tiny bit of success that I realize the baggage of dead trees in my past have slowed me down, made me hesitant when I should have been practicing  this art a little more because of the failures, not despite them.  So here’s to little trees and our desire to see them flourish. I shall go forth more confidently now, learning from the past dead sticks instead of being intimidated by them.

Writing is sort of like that.

If I can keep this little sucker alive, I’ll show you what happens in the spring.

I get by with a little help from my friends

*gush alert!!*  -grin- The following is an informal conversation about the importance of friends in the industry between me and the woman who shoved my foot into the door of this crazy business . Faith can be found at her own blog www.faithhunter.net  and https://www.facebook.com/faith.hunter#!/official.faith.hunter Her latest, DEATH’S RIVAL has just come out this week and is jumping off the shelves.

Most days I still feel like a newbie when I sit down at my desk.  The painfully introverted woman who picked up that pen seventeen years ago isn’t very far away, the person you see on the stage or behind the signing table really a much-practiced endeavor that I can only maintain for a few hours before collapsing. The tools in my tool box are admittedly more numerous and I reach for them with more surety.  My heart no longer pounds when I get a call from my agent, apart from when he’s getting me a new contract.  But as we all strive to make this job easier, there is one place we have to work to keep everything the same, and that is the friends we make along the way.

My first few years honing my writing were spent alone, and that was okay seeing as I had a steep learning curve.  Still, I hit a ceiling, one that I broke by joining a dedicated writers’ critique group.  Going to that first meeting was one of the hardest things I’d ever forced myself to do.  It was also where I met Gwen Hunter, also known as Faith Hunter.  Now, when I first met Faith, she was a PUBLISHED AUTHOR and a New York Times bestseller.  She’d been touring off the US, and she had what I wanted: the knowhow to effectively tell a story.  I was hungry for it, and she was willing to dish it out.  And boy, I have found over the years that she can dish it out.  -grin-

With that said, I’d like to bring Faith in on this conversation.  Faith, do you even remember what we were individually working on when we first met?  I think I read a short story.  In fact, I think it was Tempson Estates, (Scheduled to be released 10/9 in INTO THE WOODS.)

Faith:  I don’t remember the first thing you read aloud, though it was the beginning of a story, (something about pumpkins?) but I do remember your voice. Not just your reading voice which was always lovely, (though was very shaky at first with nerves) but your authorial voice. This was not the voice of a newbie, this was the voice of a dedicated writer and future star. The words were rich and intense and immediate, your world was fully realized. And so was your character. Not the usual first reading.

Kim:  Okay, now I’m blushing, but yes, I was terrified to read my work aloud, and my voice shook like a leaf.  It was the scariest thing I’d ever done.

Faith: We had a big group at that time and I put you on my “pay attention” list, which was my internal list for writers who stood the best chances of making it in the business. If I remember right, it was sometime after your third meeting when I asked if you were writing a short story or a novel. And it was a novel. I was ecstatic.

Kim: First Truth.  Yep.  I think I was on my fifth revision, and it needed help.

Faith: Right! I remember now! Much later, after we had gotten to know one another, I suggested that we meet outside the group. Do you remember the place we met for lunch? I’ll nudge you. Burger King. And you brought your youngest son, who was into everything and kept you feeling frazzled. Thing Two was clearly already creative, like his mom, BTW. I had carefully prepared what I wanted to say. I told you that I believed that you would be the next Anne McCaffrey. I watched your eyes as you absorbed that. And I realized that you already knew that you would be a star. You were quietly . . . knowing is a good word. You believed in your talent and your gift. You were ready for it. And I so wanted to help you get there!

Kim: OMGosh, I sort of remember Burger King now.  Wow. It was the only place I could think of that would keep Thing Two occupied for a few minutes. And I was a little freaked when you brought up Anne McCaffrey because those are very large slippers to try to fit into, but yes, I wanted it that badly.  I had a lot of determination and a very thick head.  Skill, not so much.  It was a big learning curve for me.  But that’s what a good writer’s critique group does: brings you up to speed and points you in the right direction. I still look on those few years as being sort of my Camelot—a unique combination of sundry talents where the perfect ideal was celebrated. I miss it, especially when I’m thumping my still thick head against a literary wall. Our occasional “writer sanity” meetings did a lot to fill that gap. It’s not just the chance to bounce ideas around, but the rare opportunity to talk to someone who recognizes the spark of a good idea when it flashes across your face, and then tells you to pursue it.  I can’t say that Jane Yellowrock was born between sips of coffee at Starbucks, but I remember you bringing her up at one of our writer sanity meetings.  You had some ideas for a new series, and I saw you light up when you talked about her.  I knew then that Jane had legs, as they say in the biz.  She was going to make it.  (And because Faith is to shy to mention it, book five, Death’s Rival, just hit the shelf.  Go forth and read!)

Faith: I remember that! Starbucks was a great place to meet because no one looked askance at us when we talked about elves, pixies, poisons, throwing knives, and turning into small rodent-like animals or mountain lions. Yeah, you had just turned in a book and were exhausted, and I had just finished a rewrite of one of my Rogue Mage books and was exhausted. It was one of those days where we both just happened to need to explore something new and totally creative, whether we ever used it or not. I remember what you talked about. Grace. (Can I say that here?)

Kim:  Yes, she’s kind of out of the bag, though she’s working with computers instead of swords now.

Faith: And I talked about  Katie’s Ladies, the Oldest Operating Whorehouse In New Orleans, with Katie being a vampire. But the main character would be this Cherokee character, female, who hunted vamps. And the name I chose for her was Jane Doe because I couldn’t think of a name at the time.

Our usual tea-time was about 90 minutes, but this one stretched out into two hours. And yeah. Jane (Doe) Yellowrock was born.

Kim: Never underestimate the power of caffeine and like-minded people, but I know we got a few looks when the conversation became too animated and turned to vampires.  Maybe now not so much, but back then?  -laugh-  But even though it seems obvious that having friends—as in real friends, not associates you can tap for help—in the business is vital, I don’t want to give the impression that it’s easy. Writers are blessed with a job that can be done anywhere.  We move a lot.  Long-distance relationships are hard enough, but combine that with the perils of highly competitive women in a job where everyone knows everyone else?

Faith:  Yeah. Green eyed jealousy is a hard thing to get past sometimes. I was totally green, not just my eyes, when you hit the NYT the first time. And yet totally proud and pleased and whooting it up at the same time. So very proud. I still am. Proud of you.

Kim:  Okay, but remember me having to meet with you before I did my first copy-edit?  I was scared to make any mark on that paper and do something wrong?  I still feel that way sometimes.

Faith: You have done the writer thing with dignity and grace and poise. You have learned to speak in public, learned how to deal with it when someone out there doesn’t like what you write, (there will always be people who like to read other types of things, or who are feeling angry and take their bad day out on a book review).

Kim:  The stuff they don’t tell us we need to learn how to do.  All I wanted was to write.

Faith: You have also learned to become an even better writer than you were back then. Mostly, you have paid it forward, giving your stamp of approval when you read a book you like.

Kim: And who do you think taught me all that, Faith!  -grin-  I shudder to think what would have happened without you there to show me that grace.  Being friends lets us applaud each other’s successes (after a flash of green-eyed monster). We can be proud of each other and we manage to keep balancing work and life, and lean on each other for guidance when a new tool, like FB, or blogging, show up.

Faith:  Green eyed monster notwithstanding, you gave a stamp of approval to Jane Yellowrock, my main character. Thank you for that, for liking Jane. I’ve never written a character I liked more! So, yes, there’s competition, but in a good way.

Kim: Not competition for readers—because authors are like M&Ms in that you can have a favorite and still enjoy the entire bag—but for publisher promotion dollars and the like so that we can keep pushing forward with careers and with telling stories.

Faith:  Exactly! So. Here’s to the future. (Sound of clinking tea mugs.) A future where you are living far away, and I may only get to see you rarely. A future where life is different, maybe harder in some ways. Definitely more lonely with you gone. And here’s to Comic Con in New York City! I am sooo looking forward to finding a Starbucks and getting caught up.

And thank you for having me here today. (Waves to Kim’s fans.) She has so many wonderful stories to tell you! And to tell me, of course. I am still her biggest fan!

Kim: I can’t wait! Life is good — With Friends Like These.

Faith can be most readily found at her blog and website.  www.faithhunter.net  https://www.facebook.com/faith.hunter#!/official.faith.hunter