Wiping the Slate

I've pretty much decided that I need to start over on my entire manuscript.  I blame the Hobbit, which reminded me what  good story can really be.

I don't view this as  bad thing at all.  In fact, it's sort of a relief, and maybe a bit of a cop-out.  I was struggling so much with the revisions.  I think what I really need, now that I understand my direction a bit better, is to just start with a clean page...and see what happens. 

Quotes

I’m a big fan of inspirational quotes.  Not the really kitschy ones, mind you, but words that strike me and make me think ‘YES, that’s amazing,’ or ‘this can be done!’  I’ve got several of them plastered around my office where I can glance up at them occasionally.  My absolute favorite is from Thoreau:  “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be.  Now put the foundations under them.”  Thoreau’s pretty inspiring.  My favorite writerly quote is from Bradbury (RIP, Mr . Bradbury): “Let the world burn through you.  Throw the prism light, white-hot, on paper.”

Today I have a new one.  There was an article in the Houston Chronicle this morning about a man named Dan Black.  He’s a triathalete who has esophageal cancer, but is still following his passion- racing.  I am definitely not the athletic type, but the last line of the article struck me.

“I’ll never enter a race I won’t finish.  If I have to walk, fine.  But I will finish.”

I think it’s time I got back to work.

On that note, I’m always fascinated to research interesting things in the course of writing a book.  My first novel, it was all about guns, and I was lucky enough to work at our University’s campus police station.  I earned the nickname ‘Tackleberry,’ but the officers were delighted to show me how their pistols worked and bring in their manuals for me to read.  My second novel sent me into the world of the Catholic church. 

Today’s research is all about cavitation (the result of implosions of cavities inside a liquid).  I’m not sure I’ll be able to use it in the end, but it’s definitely something I’d never even thought existed! 

Afterthought:  Oh, I probably won’t be able to use it at all, since cavitaiton occurs in a low-pressure situation and I’m looking at a very high-pressure situation.  Hmm.  Next idea…

Surviving the Riots

Once a year, at the end of May, my partner (and partner in crime) Jollin heads to Kentucky.  At the Kentucky Horse Park, her farm participates in the Egyptian Event (which really is called just that).  It’s a very, very big deal in the Arabian horse world.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent on this one event, where the Arabian elite gather to network, buy, sell, and of course, to show.

What it means for our family is that she’s gone for a week and a half.  She left this morning at 3am to travel to the barn and ride with the crew up to Kentucky (15 hour drive) and get set up.  This leaves myself and our other poor roommate, Abby, to handle four miniature dachshunds, four cats, two ferrets, and a 55 gallon fish tank.  We can handle it, sure.   We do it every year.  We’re just not used to it, so inevitably there’s some adjustment as we get up earlier, change our schedules, and compensate.

I think I forgot to feed the cats this morning.

I fear their retaliation will be swift and violent. 

UPDATE 5/31:  Abby fed the cats.  I may, however, have killed the betta in the big fishtank.  And one of the female guppies is pregnant.  I fed the fish frozen ice cubes o brine shrimp and bloodworms this morning…the things I do for love.

Wars and Witnesses

I've always had a lot of trouble writing conflict.  Not emotional conflict.  I can handle inter-personal drama, heartbreak, grief...I'm a terribly emotional person, so these things come naturally for me (*coughhack*).  When I say conflict, I mean...a real fight.  Physical combat.  Attacks from unseen enemies.

Wars.

Which of course is pretty ridiculous, since I'm writing about a war right now.  That's why my revisions are taking so long; I finished the first draft a LONG time ago.  Unfortunately, I put a lot of time into the characters, and not a lot into what was going on around them.  Hence, serious plotholes.  The bulk of what I'm having to fix is the darker side of the book- the pressure on those characters that causes 'stuff' to happen. 

I always worry about reasonableness.  Does it make sense for this to happen, in the way I've written it?  I've never been in a war, so I don't know how certain things affect the people around them.  I answer that by trying to write as a civilian, from civilian POV's when I'm able.  I know how I would feel of someone came into my city and burned it down around my ears.  I know how I would feel if my brother were dying and the only way to save his life was if I moved fast enough.  Panic, fear, determination, shock...those are all easy to write.

I suppose in the end, writing conflict isn't about the conflict itself.  A conflict is bigger than the action of an enemy ramming your gates.  A conflict is all bout the people inside of it, the ones fighting to get out...or in.

Fixing Things

The harshest thing anyone has ever said about one of my books/stories/ideas was that a character that I love very dearly was a pedophile. 

It was a co-worker, who also happens to enjoy writing.  I had finished the original manuscript of Without Light and found the courage to let her have the pdf of the first half.  What was I thinking?  So MUCH will change…and the result was brutal.  A pedophile.  She’d become uncomfortable reading the story because of that fact. 

After talking to her I remember being in the ladies’ room at my office, staring in the mirror, just about in tears.  I felt sick.  I felt as if I had betrayed that character by writing him so poorly; clearly this was my fault, because it wasn’t HIS fault.  HE is a good man and would be horrified to be considered a pedophile.  I felt like scrapping the entire project, never publishing it, because the characters always become very real to me.  I couldn’t bear to think of anyone seeing him that way.

This was my most blatant experience with ‘putting the story on paper.’  It’s in my head.  I know what he’s really like, but I hadn’t managed to get that sense down on the page.  In the end, I was determined to fix the story so that people could see who he really was.   I understand now why she thought of him that way, and what I can do to change that view.

I’ve done a lot of things I consider stupid in the writing of this book, things that make me look back and wonder if I had all my crayons in the box at the time.  That’s true of most writers, I think.  The point is- that doesn’t kill a story.  You can fix it, save it, make it more reasonable, and still keep the feeling you want.  If something feels strange to you, it probably is strange!  But people are strange, and we don’t shove them in a drawer and forget about them.  I don’t want that to happen to my characters, either.

The Work

Rayless: Without Light is a book about a boy who becomes a knight and wins the hearts of ‘elves’ and does his best to save the day.  It isn’t a new storyline.  People have been writing about this sort of thing for years; in fact, the first fantasy series I ever read was partially along those lines (Tamora Pierce:  The Song of the Lioness quartet).  I like to think it’s a classic storyline that can still be loved and given a new life, but I guess we’ll see won’t we?  ;D 

I can’t tell you what inspired this book, or the ones written around it.  I can’t tell you where I was when I started writing it, or why.  I come up with dozens of story ideas.  I know one is going to last when I reach about 30 typed pages.  Then, it has a chance to live and really become something great.  Without Light hit 50 pages before even slowing down.  I loved the characters and writing them made me incredibly happy; that’s how you know something is working. 

At this point, the story is undergoing major revisions.  I didn’t want to write the first half of the book.  It was necessary to build the second (fun) half, but I rushed through it as fast as possible.  Because of that, it will take enormous effort to put my love back into those chapters.  I’ve also forced a lot of things like character relationships, and out of my own nervousness about society’s views, I’ve gone in directions I don’t like.  I suspect that once we get to Book Two (the section, not physical novel), the revisions will become easier because the story flows much better.  At least, I hope so. 

When it comes to writing, I need space and time to think.  I can’t just write easily on my lunch break.  I need more than an hour to really get in the ‘zone.’ I often wear headphones without playing anything through them, to cut out white noise.  I type REALLY LOUD and really fast, and I get self conscious about the loud clicking in the silence.  Those are excuses for why I haven’t even finished Chapter 2’s revisions.  That, and…well, what we’re doing to Chapter 2 has shown me the enormous amount of work still needed for the next few chapters, and it’s daunting. 

I’m also studying part-time to be a CPA and working full-time.  The tiny space of hours I have with my family every night is frighteningly slim.  Even so, there’s no one to write this book but me, and if I love it, if I believe in it…it’s my job to get it out there where YOU can love it and believe in it, too.  I promise, I’m not giving up.