Slapping Myself Around

I was just sitting here thinking I deserved some time off - take a few days, read a few books, play a little poker - when it hit me. I'm not taking time off because I deserve it, or I've earned it, or any such thing. I'm stalling.

To be perfectly honest, I've been dragging my feet editing Spectacle because I'm scared witless of sending it out to another publisher only to have it get rejected again.

Stupid when I think about it. Seriously. I wrote the book for my than just my own pleasure. I want to see it published. It deserves to be published. It will be published. If not by this particular publisher, than by another.

So, it's time for another bi-monthly exercise in slapping myself around until I get my head out of my everlovin' whiz-wang.

Back to work, soldier! Drop and give me three chapters!

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Idle Thoughts

Have any of you ever watched that show - America's Got Talent (or something like that)? I don't usually, but the other day I was flipping through the channels and saw the beginning of one of the acts. It was this little girl - cute as a button - who sang "Somewhere Out There". Very sweet, but not my thing, so I kept surfing. (As an aside, the guy who sang opera? WOW. And I'm not a huge fan of opera either.) Anyway, a couple days later I was surfing again and saw an entertainment news report that said the audience booed that little girl. She ran off the stage crying. Come on people. She was like FOUR. I mean, sure, she wasn't going to make it on to the next round, but... Have a little humanity. Sheesh. And what kind of parent would subject their baby to that? I'm still shaking my head over that one. Life's cruel enough without that crap. Let the kid play with Barbies and watch Dora for a few more years before you thrust her into the cold of entertainment.

In other news... There's the election. Umm... yeah. Two guys, neither of whom impress me, stepping in front of a bazillion cameras and being... well, snerty... for lack of a better word. Anyone else thinking of seceding from the nation? Oooo, just thought of another word for it... Whiffley. Snerty and whiffley. I miss our founding fathers, but they'd probably climb on the first boat headed for Bora-Bora if they saw the mess this place is in. Wyoming and Alaska are little pretty nice right now (since they're about the most free states we have), but the weather sucks no matter which way you go.

I can't tell you how happy I am that Stephanie won Top Chef. She earned it. Her food looked great, she seemed like a dedicated chef, and a very important trait for any human IMO, she wasn't an asshole to anyone. I admit I was pretty sure after the first couple shows, she was going home early. She seemed too nice, and I was sure people like Spike :cough:prick:cough: and Andrew - who we referred to as the pizza whiner - were going to eat her alive. But she made it through, even when Dale left one of her dishes out of the frig overnight. In Puerto Rico of all places. Needless to say, she tossed the pork and made a whole new dish at the last minute. My hat's off to her. That chick has the chops. I hope she really succeeds in life.

Have any of you been watching the Olympic trials? Wow. The shot put guy damn near put his chunk of metal out of the sand pit (I know, it's not the right word for it). The women runners were awesome. The chick who took first in the 100yd dash thingy, when she wasn't the favorite, impressed the hell out of me. (As another aside, when did the female track atheletes start wearing those horrendous bikini bottoms instead of shorts? If they're going for better aerodynamics, maybe they should worry less about their shorts and more about the hoopy earrings and the long hair. I seriously believe the one chick came in fourth because her hair was dragging her back.) As you probably can tell, track and field is not my forte. Give me football or baseball, and I can wax eloquent.

Speaking of football... I'm going into withdrawals. I want to see the Wolverines and the Packers and the Steelers and even the Seminoles. I want the mud, the blood and the beer. I want fight songs and cheerleaders and the band marching across the field at halftime (even though they hardly ever show the halftime any more). I want to hear the crunch of helmet on helmet, to see the hokey-ass touchdown dances, to watch the amazing catches. Soon... but never soon enough. And for the record, arena football just doesn't do it for me. It's not the same. :pout:

But I still have baseball. I just wish the Yankees were doing better this year. I don't know what's up with Posada playing first base, but he's my guy. Yeah, I know... As my husband pointed out, he's saving his knees, but he doesn't belong at first base. I can't stand the guy playing catcher right now, and I want my Jorge back. Jorge and Derek... When they retire, watching the Yankees just won't be the same. I guess it'll be like watching the Wolverines after Bo Schembeckler retired. I'll get over it, but it'll be hard. Of course, I had a tough time letting Paul O'Neill go, and Bernie Williams, too. I also miss Joe Torrey, but since he works for the National League now, I can root for the Dodgers without feeling like a traitor.

So, what's rolling around in your mind lately? Any good news? Anything you want to get off your chest? Free chat will now begin (within reason, of course).

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Twenty Years

This whole week The Fictionistas have been doing a "I wish I'd known then" Week - talking about things they wish they'd known when they were younger. Thinking about the things they've said brought to mind my own past self and life in tiny-town Michigan.

I grew up about a mile from Atlas - population 411 (at the time - it's bigger now), but I didn't think of it that way. Instead I told everyone I was from Goodrich. I did this mostly because no one ever heard of Atlas, even in the nearby towns, and because everything we did was done in Goodrich - shopping, banking, socializing... and schooling.

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the last time I set foot inside the walls of Goodrich High School. Home of the Martians. Not little green men - little followers of the god Mars. Formerly Goodrich Agricultural School, and since Mars was the god of war and of agriculture he seemed like the perfect guy to use. *shrug* And here I go digressing again...

Anyway, they should be trying to find me shortly to send an invite to the ol' 20th class reunion dealie-bob. :waves: Hi guys. Good luck with all that. I got married and moved far far away. Since my mother also moved, you can't find me there either.

Not a huge loss for any of us, I imagine. I wasn't as popular as Rhonda or Josh. I wasn't as athletic as Becky or Perry. I was a band nerd, and a brainiac, and one of the silent forgotten who roamed the halls of GHS. Years later, I learned from one of our classmates that you thought I was a snob. *shrug* I wasn't. I was just a kid trying to show how little you hurt her by acting like none of you mattered.

Thinking about it all now, I really wish it hadn't been an act. Looking back with the clarity of hindsight, I know in the grand scheme of life, you really didn't matter. Or rather, you shouldn't have. All those things we said and did to each other two decades ago really haven't made a difference in our lives. Sure, Russell married Jenny, and last I heard they're a happy family with 2.4 kids. They made a difference to each other, obviously, but most of us have moved away and moved on.

I did go to my ten-year reunion. It was... Well, let's just say it was fun and awkward and a travesty rolled into one short package. It was great seeing my old friends, but that was all they were. Re-connection failed. Abort abort abort. Two of my best friends from high school had moved on, and so had I. With nothing in common any more, I don't know why I expected we could pick up where we left off. Not that I didn't try, but Maria knew something I didn't. You can't go back. She never returned my call, and I guess that was for the best. A Catholic-school teacher and me would have nothing in common but memories, and you can't live in the past. (Even if you like to visit it every now and again.)

Needless to say, I won't be attending the 20th. Ten years changes people - or it should - and as changed as I was at the last reunion, double that. I still look the same, with maybe a few more gray hairs and the beginnings of wrinkles, but that's about it. I'm not the chick who, when our gang was picking nicknames, chose to be called Bruno. I haven't touched my flute since 1998, when I hocked it. I no longer listen to Poison or Bon Jovi or Faster Pussycat. I don't wear my pants tucked into my socks, ripped jeans or too-tight tank tops any more.

Looking back at the girl I used to be, I can only hang my head and grieve for all the pain she allowed herself to feel. If I could go back, though, I don't know that I really have any advice for her. All the things she was and all the events that took place in her life, they shaped her, and eventually made her into the woman I am today. Maybe if I didn't go through those trials, I wouldn't be a writer today. Maybe if everything had been happy-happy, joy-joy then, I would still be in Goodrich, living in the house where I grew up and shopping at Rankins every week without a thought of what might exist beyond the boundaries of Atlas Township.

*shrug*

If you could go back, would you? Or if you did, what would you change? What advice would you give to the younger version of you?

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Snippetty-Snip-Snip

You know, after not reading a manuscript for a while, the snipping becomes almost too easy. Now I find myself having to watch that I don't snip too much.

*sigh* I really did love the backstories on everyone... Oh well.

Back to surgery for more nip-tuck. Here's hoping I don't turn David into Quasimodo.

Applying Lessons Learned

I've been at this writing thing for a little over four years now. (Seriously writing, I mean.) In fact, we're fast approaching the four-year anniversary of the completion of Spectacle.

Or I should say, what I thought was the completion of that book.

Looking over the first draft... :shudder: Glancing over the subsequent drafts... :cringe:

Yesterday I got a line on a potential publisher for the manuscript. Which explains why I'm looking over something I haven't touched in over a year. It also explains why I have a new progress meter over there --->.

Now sometime a while back, I renamed Spectacle. That was part of a learned lesson. I love the title Spectacle, but it doesn't really make a boatload of sense to anyone but me. It's new name is Fear Itself. (Yes, as in 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself' - which is a quote I think from Teddy Roosevelt... or maybe it was FDR.)

Lesson: Even though the publisher is probably going to change it anyway, your title still has to be grabby enough to attract the attention of an agent/editor.

So as I'm re-reading Spectacle to get it ready to really be Fear Itself, I'm noticing a whole chunk of things I would never do now. For instance, extra words. Way too many extra words. Yesterday I snipped out almost 300 from the first three chapters. Now please understand that when I first finished Spectacle it topped the scales at 147K. After a few edits, it was 137K and I was happy with that. (I didn't know any better.) My first queries were for the book at that length. Needless to say, I didn't get any requests for partial. In fact, one agent - I forget who - wrote directly on my query letter. TOO LONG!! <--- just like that. (I should be glad it wasn't in red ink, I guess.) Lesson: Even though you think your masterpiece is perfect at well over a hundred thousand words, most manuscripts fall between 80-100K. This means even if every word is perfectly placed (which mine weren't), the agent is going to have a tough time selling it.

Lesson: Many words can be cut right out of a manuscript without changing the tone, the voice or the overall impact.

First thing I did after I learned the above lesson was to ruthlessly snip almost every instance of the word THAT. Most times we put it in there because it feels comfortable; not because it's really necessary. (On the other hand, it is sometimes necessary, so don't be too brutal.) You'd be surprised how many words that took care of.

The next thing I did was to root through the text to see if there were any unnecessary scenes. Oh boy, were there. This leads to the next...

Lesson: If it doesn't move the story forward, it shouldn't be in there.

This is an alternate form of the writerly phrase 'Kill your darlings' - which I'm not really a big fan of. (If I killed all my darlings, I'd be left with Chapter headings and page numbers. All my scenes are darlings to me.) I chopped every piece of backstory that wasn't crucial to the story, or so I thought, but I'll get to that in a minute. Chopping unnecessary scenes and snipping unnecessary words got me down to 113K. Twenty-four thousand words... Wackity wack. I'm sure on this read-through I'm going to find many more words that I should've cut years ago.

Live and learn.

All of these lessons I've learned over the past four years. Some of them took longer to actually sink in than others, but I think they're ingrained enough now that my more recent manuscripts don't have the same problems Spectacle did. (And apparently still does.)

I still love Spectacle. Reading just the first three chapters yesterday showed me why I love it. The writing is good (if cluttered), the characters are my friends, the story is sound (even if the premise is a little out there). All I need to do is clean her up a bit, and send her back out into the world - before the submission period closes.

Anyway, I'm still learning. I'm still improving my craft. My stories are getting tighter and the writing is better because of it. I guess what I need to do now is re-read my older manuscripts and do some cleaning.

I'm sure there are other writing lessons I'm forgetting about. Have you learned any lessons during the course of your writing career that you'd like to share?

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Introspection Time

Several times over the past few weeks I've thought about doing a post on introspection. I've even mentioned it in a couple other posts. Well, today's the day.

Let me start with a little lead in...

I woke up this morning feeling like a cross between Piglet and Eeyore. You remember Piglet? He's afraid of everything. And Eeyore is the epitome of negative. So, here I sit afraid of doing anything because I'm sure it will turn out wrong, that I'll screw up and everyone will laugh at me, or that I'll say something stupid. (Or that I already have said something stupid and now everyone is laughing at me. You get the gist.)

If you've been reading along, you know most days I'm a fairly solid, rational and secure person. So what's the deal with me today? This is where the introspection comes in.

First off, let's take a spin in the Wayback Machine. I wasn't always the person I am today. I was the type of person who wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful. I let people walk all over me (believe it or not). I was 'a very small animal', if not in stature than at least in my own mind. Which is weird because I also did very well in leadership positions - like first chair flute and captain of the QuizBowl team (i.e. Nerd Olympics). Outside of my box, though, I was Piglet. Drop me in a room with the popular kids and I shrank against the wall quivering.

This constant living-in-fear eventually turned me into Eeyore. If anything bad was going to happen, it was going to happen to me. Murphy's Law became my code to live by. In the end, I just stopped trying to do anything, and whatever anyone else wanted to do was fine with me. If other people were making my choices, then the bad things wouldn't happen.... Umm... Right.

Fast forward... After years of work, I finally pulled myself out of the Piglet/Eeyore cycle. But even though I escaped the mindset, it's still there. It's down deep for the most part, but it's still part of me. Every day I have to watch to make sure it doesn't sneak up and engulf me. Some days I fail.

In the old days, it would overwhelm me and I'd spend days in a funk, wandering through my life feeling crappy and wondering why. Then came introspection. You see, once I learned to sit my butt down and think about where the funk was coming from--once I discovered the things I feel now often have roots in the past somewhere--these attacks of Piglet/Eeyore came less frequently and stayed a shorter period of time.

Where today's funk started isn't important. (It's personal and after locating its source, I kicked its ass.) The reason I even mention it is to highlight the importance of knowing what's driving you and why. (Which is really all introspection is about.)

And believe it or not, this can help with your writing. Digging through the unmarked boxes in your own past--opening them up and baring all the contents to the harsh light--can show you how your characters' pasts and memories affect who they are today. It can give them more depth which makes them more sympathetic, which sells books.

It can also help you overcome your fears about writing, life and everything else, making better person because of it. (For instance, I used to have a real phobia about moths - complete with heart palpatations and screaming. Once I figured out where that fear came from and why, I got the damn thing under control. I still don't like the little buggers, but I can live with them in the same room - as long as they don't touch me.)

So, I want you all to do a little exercise. Think about something that bothers you today, look into your past and figure out why it bothers you - maybe one incident that happened when you were a child. Dig deep. Chase it all the way down to its roots. (Back to the example above, my fear of moths came from when I was a kid. A moth landed on my face, startling me so I screamed and jumped - at which point, my family laughed at me. The embarassment of that night started the fear. The moth never hurt me; the laughter did.) You might feel better for it, and your characters will thank you, too.

Now, if you've done this little exercise, or experienced a similar epiphany, feel free to comment about it. If not, share some fears you have. Shared fear, like shared pain, lessens with the sharing.

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Remembrances

You know the old wives' tale about celebrity deaths, right? They always die in threes. Well recently we lost two great celebrities - not a thing similar about them, but both great in their own rights.

First, we lost Cyd Charisse. If you aren't familiar with this lady's work, go out an rent Brigadoon immediately. An excellent dancer, a beautiful lady and one hell of an actress. If you don't feel her disappointment when Tommy leaves, you need a heart transplant. And when she sings "Waitin' for Ma Dearie"... I love that song and I love her singing it. I don't think it would've been half as good if it had been any other actress.

Then we lost George Carlin. In honor of the man, I posted a piece of his wit as my quote of the day. He was a man unafraid of speaking his mind, and while I didn't always agree with him, I certainly respective his chutzpah in saying the things he said. Also an actor, you may know him from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (where he played Rufus... dude) or more recently as the cardinal in Dogma. But of all his comedic genius, he was probably best know for his 'Seven Dirty Words' routine. He was mostly irreverant, occasionally crude, and sometimes out there in left field, but always funny.

They will both be missed, but they will live on in our hearts and our memories. (And on TMC or YouTube.)

Now, for the million dollar question: If celebrities really do die in threes, who's next? (Or did I miss one?) I'm going out on a limb and predicting the next famous person to die will be Senator Ted Kennedy. (Not a huge stretch since the announcement of his brain cancer, but there it is.)

ETA: Travis Erwin pointed out Tim Russert, so there's three. Anyone else?

PS. I just spent an hour on YouTube watching George Carlin (and then various other comedians) so forgive me if I'm in less than a proper mindset to talk about anything serious.
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Scene Setting: How Much is Enough?

Yesterday was unproductive, at least in a writerly way. I did get the lawn mowed, and I'm most of the way through Gena Showalters' latest Lords of the Underworld book. But I didn't get any editing done.

I think part of the reason is that I was afraid I would have to go back and start over on my revisions. Something I read somewhere led me to believe I might not have enough description of the locales. *shrug* Maybe I'll write a post tomorrow about when to listen to advice and when not to, but not now.

Today I'd like to talk about the issue of scene setting. Or if you will, describing the scene behind the action.

As far as I can tell, opinions about this subject differ. Some say describing the setting in detail adds depth and richness to the story. Others say it gets in the way of the plot. Personally, I think it depends on the scene and the story, but that's me. Then there is the old maxim that if the words don't add to the story in some meaningful way, they need to go in the trashcan. How meaningful is a description of the sunrise or the details of a home's decor to a plot?

Example time: In Spectacle, I have a major secondary character racing across the country to save his friends. Everything to this point for him is tension. When he reaches New Mexico, the backdrop of the sunrise in the Sangre de Cristos with the native birds singing and the trees standing as quiet sentinels relaxes the story... until he comes around a bend in the road and sees a line of smoke rising from the spot where his friends should be. (And I'm not talking campfire here, folks.)

In this case, the description didn't drive a damn thing, but it added to the impact of the next piece of the story.

So here I am with Manhunter. The locations themselves are dramatic and beautiful in their own stark way (if you've never driven I-70 from the Colorado border to I-15 in Utah, you're missing something spectacular), but other than the necessity of a certain geographical feature to the plot, the detail isn't necessary. I have already written a certain amount of description - the terrain, a bit of the flora - as I deemed it necessary, but I don't think anyone reading it is actually going to feel like they're there. I don't think they need to at this point. Later, when they're in Northern California, I go into greater depth. I need the reader to be standing in the forest; I want them to feel what the MC is feeling underneath the trees.

I guess I just answered my own question. How much is enough? Enough is whatever amount the story calls for - no more, no less.

Maybe I will go back in my next edit and add a little detail here and there - like seasoning soup. But like seasoning, a little can go a long long way. Peppering a story with description it doesn't need can make the whole thing unpalatable.

Question of the day for you: Do you know of any authors who balance the description thing perfectly? Writers who describe too much or too little? Come on, dish. Personally, when talking too much description, the first guy who comes to mind is James Fenimore Cooper. (But he does it so beautifully, I forgive him every time.)

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