A Random Assortment of Updates

*waves* Hi-hello! How goes things? Long time no see (as always, sigh). At least the New Minion is a passable excuse for not blogging, right? RIGHT? O:)

So, I have a random assortment of updates today - which, considering the title of this post, is shocking, no? Mostly, it is non-writingish. There has not been much writing in the 6 weeks since New Minion's birth, although the last week has been more productive in that regard - and I finally, FINALLY figured out where/how to start Jesscapades. Really, I feel like I ought to plow on and finish the current draft (I have 52,000 words, give or take, and it's about 2/3 done), but I can't help but think I'm writing throw-away words when I work on it... So I may decide to just go back to the beginning and start over again. We shall see.

It's funny, though. If you've been hanging around the writing world for long enough, you'll know that sooner or later every writing how-to translates to - 'but everyone does things their own way'. There's no one right way to write - and yet, much and all as I know that, I feel like going back and starting from the beginning of Jesscapades is the 'wrong' thing to do, because so many of the pros say that you should never go back, only go forward. Stupid of me to let something like that hang me up - I mean seriously, isn't it better to go back to the beginning and rewrite, even though I haven't finished the end, than to NOT WRITE ANYTHING AT ALL?? Dude. Seriously.

Unfortunately, my brain is a very all-or-nothing place, something that manifests everywhere from hobbies to housework. I hate vacuuming (which I always try to spell vaccuming or vacumming!), for example, because I have this horrible, lingering feeling that unless I've moved every single piece of furniture and vacuumed under it, the job ISN'T DONE PROPERLY. And I LOATHE not being able to do things properly. Hence, house ends up unvacuumed because the Inky, she has neither the time nor the muscles to move every bit of furniture every single time. *sigh*

I suspect this is somewhat of a serious character flaw, one which I am Working To Overcome. To that end, 2012 has been dubbed the Year of Finishing Things, in which I must finish all projects that I start, or finish old projects. None of this bad-habitty, start-a-project-all-excited, reach-critical-mass, freak-out-and-run-away business.

I have already finished one lovely shiny project early this year: The Chair. Those of you with exceptional memories may remember that I mentioned DH & I were reupholstering our old lounge. Well, we did it, and here is the shinyfish result (well, nearly; I apparently don't have a pic of it TOTALLY finished, which is sad, because OBVIOUSLY it looks better with arms and a seat cushion):



I've started another rather major undertaking: making bags. It combines too many things I love not to do: pretty fabric, textures, colours, designing stuff, useful things (BAGS, HELLO!), Etsy, and hopefully, enough extra cash to enable my return to work in July to be part time rather than full time O:) (yes, that was a slightly shameless plug...) Because I am Amy and can never have enough blogs that I rarely update, I've started another one! This time to deal with all my fabricking adventures. Do follow if you're interested in that sort of thing, and unless anyone here screams loudly to the contrary, I'll post here when I have something new over there. So head on over and find out why my shop is called Cobbett&Paws... :)

Finally, in the list of random updates, the Dog Book, she is nearly done. FINALLY. This was only supposed to be finished, you know, LAST OCTOBER. *sigh* Oh well. Better late than never.

And speaking of dogs, you totally have to watch this video I stumbled on today. CANINES FOR THE WIN. We all knew they were superheros in disguise.



What are you guys working on at the moment? Do you have something you're having trouble finishing? I know, I'll make a Finishing Club 2012 badge, and we can all pledge to finish something this year, bwa ha >:) To the year of finishing! Hurrahs!

The More You Know...

So, I was catching up on my blog reading the other day and came across this post by Natalie Whipple - Have You Seen My Confidence Lately? It Ran Off. I read it, and went - wow, have I been there. The last year-and-a-bit has been one big long episode of I-have-no-confidence. Other than the fact that I was sick for at least 3/4 of last year, which seriously screwed with my mental abilities, for some reason, finishing Sanctuary was like holding up a metal rod to the Electrical Storm of Doubt.

Which is stupid, because Sanctuary was the easiest book I've ever written - less than 3 months, start to finish, which for me is pretty jolly awesome. Especially since I had a sisterous wedding and started working full time in the middle of that.

But for some bizarre reason, that's kind of WHY I started freaking out over writing. After writing a book that was so easy, all of a sudden everything else I tried to write seemed hard. Yeah, okay, I was spiralling into health-induced depression too, but it was more than that. It was like I developed this fear that if something was hard to write, it must be awful - and since everything was hard to write, clearly everything I was writing was awful.

So I didn't. And then what with dealing with the health issues and whatnot, by the time I had *brain* again to start writing, I felt like I was back at the very beginning again, trying to convince myself that I really truly could write a first draft, and that no, it didn't matter if it was terrible (only it did, because by now, I'd totally failed at my first attempt to revise Jesscapades too, which added to everything else the lingering suspicion that I'd never actually be able to fix any of my drafts).

Slowly, slooooooowly, I got back into the swing of things, and started rewriting Jesscapades. And then I went and decided to grow a parasitical minion inside my own body, which sapped all my available brainpower :P

But the other day, I came across this awesome wiki article. I can't remember how I stumbled on it, but it really hit the spot, and although it's an appeal to the logic circuits rather than the emotional centre, I found it really quite comforting. It's about the Dunning-Kruger effect, which in essence boils down to that lovely pithy truism, "The more you know, the more you know you don't know." I.e., the more proficient you become at something, the more likely you are to think you suck, because you assume EVERYONE has that base level of proficiency, and you can see full well just how far you fall short of perfect.

How is that comforting? Well, it means that if I'm doubting my ability, I'm objectively speaking more likely to actually be competent in that area. If I'm sailing along thinking everything is fantastic and that I am amazing, it's most likely that I simply don't realise just how crap I am. So doubt is awesome, because it means we're on the right track. As long as we don't let it overcome us, of course.

And you know what? I think I actually have improved. I picked up Jesscapades again last night, because I'm determined to fix the thing by hook or by crook... And, yes, there's stuff that still doesn't work - but there are things that do. I haven't fixed all the problems - but I've fixed some.

So next time you start feeling dismal about your own work - remember to take a break, and read about the Dunning-Kruger effect *grin*

6SS: Aaaaawkward!

Six Sentence Sunday. In which John didn't know Jess would be there. In which Tara told Jess John expected her. Let's say it together: awkward turtle! Especially since he just volunteered to kiss her again and all.

Photo by National Geographic on Super Stock.

John’s lips quirked. “That’s a very noncommittal response, girl-without-a-name who keeps appearing conveniently in my path.”
Jess’s heart hammered, but this time it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. Conveniently? “What do you mean?”
John glanced back towards the shop. “I was meeting Tara here.”

And now I think we'll leave Jess & John for a bit. Tune in next week for something different... And as always, check out the other sixes here :)

6SS: Open Mouth, Insert Foot

Welcome back to Six Sentence Sunday, Episode: Jess Needs To Learn To Think Before She Opens Her Mouth. Continuing on from last week...

Photo by National Geographic on Super Stock.

“And how are you going to do that?” she asked. “Accost me again?” She said it without thinking and immediately flushed.

“Would you like me to?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Um.”


Um? The guy volunteers to kiss you again and you say 'Um?' Jess! Seriously. We need to talk. And speaking of talking, make sure you check out the other sixes here and talk about them in the comments! :)

6SS: Make My Day

Welcome to another week of Six Sentence Sunday. This one continues on from two weeks ago - Jess & John's second meeting.

Photo by National Geographic on Super Stock.

Jess shrugged again. “What are you going to do about it?” It was a nonchalant, rhetorical sort of phrase, but John answered anyway.

He leaned over and bumped her with his shoulder. “Make sure it stays good?”

Jess glanced up and saw that his face had turned serious, and her pulse skipped.


Ah yes, but how? Tune in next time to find out ;) And as always, check out the other sixes here :)

6SS: The Kiss

Welcome to another week of Six Sentence Sunday!

So, last week I promised to show you what happened that first time Jess & John met that made things so... interesting between them. Well, I promise, and I deliver. Here it is :)

Photo by Tracy Nors from 123rf.com.

“Sorry for this.” He leaned in, holding her waist. Jess just had time to see the owner of the footsteps – a tall, burly man – appear around the next corner, and then her stomach flip-flopped and her skin tingled as John drew her in and kissed her, hard. For a second she stiffened in surprise, still trying to keep her attention on the approaching stranger. But only for a second. After that, her knees got a little wobbly, and it was quite pleasant to have to cling to John’s shoulders to stay upright.

As always, check out the other sixes here :)

6SS: We Meet Again

Welcome to another week of Six Sentence Sunday. Here we have Jess running into John for the first time since she saw John last. Jess goes to meet her sister at the local ice creamery, and while said sister is inside, John conveniently shows up...

Also, it occurs to me that I'm yet to actually show you what happened during that last meeting. Maybe I'll be nice and show you next week O:)

Photo by National Geographic on Super Stock.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?” John said and came to join her.
Jess scooted over to make room for him. “Sure,” she said, pretending that he hadn’t just laughed at her for kicking her legs like a five-year-old. “Maybe.” Jess wrinkled her nose. What had made her say that?


As always, check out the other sixes here :)

6SS: Jesscapades

So, I have cunningly employed a friend to sign me up for 6SS each week, because I am hopeless and keep forgetting to do it. This means that even while I am in the throes of busyness and falling to pieces (not literally), you will still be guaranteed of at least one post per week!!

Also, the sky just opened up. Literally. One second it was sunshine, and now it's pelting down. Bizarre.

ANYway, 6SS. Today we find Jess in a spot of trouble after being knocked out in the Shards' territory. Rah :o) For the other 6SS entries, see here :)




Jess's sense of hearing tuned in first, slowly filtering through to her the sounds of traffic and a dog barking. Shortly after that, she realised her head was pounding. Shortly after that, Jess came to enough to realise that she was lying somewhere she never thought she'd find herself: in a back-alley gutter. She squeezed her eyes against the pain, and when it didn't full, she sighed and opened them, blinking bat-like at the evening sunlight that stabbed her retinas.

"Ow." She glared up at the sky with eyelids slitted, cursing it for dancing above her with bright colours that flashed in and out of vision like darting insects.

6SS: More Jesscapades

Today's entry continues on from last week. Have fun! :o)


“So, girl-without-a-name,” John said, catching her arm. “Will I see you again?”

“Maybe,” Jess said, quirking an eyebrow to hide the fact that a million fireworks had just been released in her stomach.

John sighed and released her so he could put one hand over his heart and the other against his brow. “Ah, so cool, and enigmatic; you wound me, fair lady.”

“You'll heal,” she said, fighting off a giggle.


Don't forget to check out the rest of the amazing authors who have posted this week, over at the official Six Sunday website! :)

Six Sentence Sunday: Jesscapades

Those of you that follow me on Twitter will have heard an awful lot over the last month or two about Jesscapades, my current wip. Well, it's finally time for you to read some! Yay! *confetti*

For the next undefined period of time, I shall be participating in Six Sentence Sunday. You should too! Tis much fun. My first contribution is from ch4, at the end of the scene where MC Jess first meets John, the to-be love interest. The 'she' John refers to is Jess's sister.

Have fun! :o)


“Yeah,” said John. “But she’s an assassin. She’d scratch your face right back. And it’s far too pretty for scratching.”

“That,” said Jess, rolling her eyes, “is the worst line I’ve heard in my entire life.” She went to leave.


Tune in next time to find out what happens when she goes to leave (bwa ha), and be sure to check out the rest of the amazing authors who have posted this week, over at the official Six Sunday website! :)

The Unravelling

Three reasons why writing is like sewing:


1) You create something from nothing, building and shaping raw material into something beautiful and useable.

2) You have to have experience working from the pattern before you can create your own patterns. You need to know how a pattern is actually supposed to go together before you can branch out and make a different, new one.

3) You can be creating along, thinking everything is going swimmingly, and all of a sudden realise: Things Aren't Right.


There are four key types of 'As in Sewing, So In Writing' mistakes.



A. The Birdsnest Bobbin. This is where you are sewing along and it looksl ike everying is going fine, but then everything comes to a crashing halt. The machine seizes up, and if you try to go any further you'll snap the thread. Everything looks okay on top, but when you look underneath, there's a whole birdsnest of thread. This usually happens because you didn't thread the machine properly (or because it unthreaded itself when you weren't looking; sewing machines are pains in the butt for that).


How is this like writing? Because if your story is not threaded properly, if it's not set up right to begin with, things can very rapidly come to a crashing halt, and if you try to write any further, you'll just break something and make it worse.



B. Running Out of Thread. I don't know if any of you out there are sewers (! seamstresses? O:)), but if you are, I'm quite sure you'll have had the experience at some point of sewing along, probably down a very long seam, thinking everything is going well, only to find at the end that you only actually sewed the first third of the seam because the bobbin ran out of thread. o.O All the stitches you've done that look neat on top have nothing to hold them in, and they unravel almost straight away.


In writing, this is when things are going along swimmingly and think it's all fantastic, until you get to an endpoint and you stop and reassess, and realise that you've just written 30 pages of fluff. None of it's actually relevant to your story, to your plot or direction - it's all tangentenal, and there's nothing to anchor down those threads that look pretty, but will never be able to hold any weight.



C. Catching the Fabric in the Seam. This often happens when you have a tricky seam to sew (like the circular seam on those jolly hats). Things are going fine, you finish the seam off, it holds together nicely, but then you take it off the machine and have a close look and realise that the wrong part of the fabric has gotten caught up in the seam. The only solution here is to unpick that part of the seam and sew it again.


In a story, maybe you put a scene in the wrong place. Maybe some dialogue got caught up somewhere and actually needs to come later. Maybe a subplot was introduced at the wrong point, or a key plot point happens too early or too late.



D. Sewing the Wrong Seam. This is probably the most frustrating mistake. Maybe you read the pattern wrong - or maybe you read it right, but you just picked up the wrong piece of fabric at the last minute. You sew the seam and it looks fantastic; it's the neatest seam you've ever sewn in your entire life! And then you realise: you just stitched the left sleeve with perfect precision into the neck hole. o.O Not so helpful.


This is when you have perhaps stitched the wrong back half onto the front half of a novel. Or maybe a character has had a personality transplant and become someone you loathe. Or when you realise the entire point of your novel as it stands is, just by way of example and not at all stealing examples from my own experience *coughcough*, Revenge Is Good, Please Take It. Urgh.



In Jesscapades at the moment I haven't been progressing terribly quickly. It occurred to me recently that I have managed to make most of these mistakes. The writing came to a crashing halt and I knew if I continued I'd break more things than I fixed. So I went back to the last place the seams were holding together, and had a good look around. I realised that the steps I had the characters taking from that point onwards were not logical at all; they were stupid and plot-serving and not all all in character.

So this week, I'm unravelling. I'm unpicking the seams of my story to uncatch all that fabric that got caught up where it shouldn't be; unstitching things that were stitched together in the wrong place, and rethreading the story so it has a stronger foundation to build on - because once I get these first few chapters right, I know the middle is going to be so much stronger :o)

And yes, as those of you following the insanity on twitter know, I made ten of those witches hats over two nights. And I mean nights: 11pm - 3am on puppy watching duty o.O They were, believe it or not, for the school swimming carnival O:) :D

That We May Ever Strive

I should probably point out that I've switched the blog schedule around. At this point, I'm planning to post Tuesdays and Fridays. As we can see, I totally rock at keeping this schedule already. *insert Look here* So, let's all pretend it's Friday. After all, Friday evening is much more exciting than Sunday evening - hello, weekend!! O:) To aid you in this endeavour, I shall send you all imagination cookies via carrier bat. Rah.

Anyway, in wading through my feedreader today, I came across this gem from Nathan Bransford:

Writing is an act of getting down on your hands and knees and pushing on the ground and hoping the world spins on a slightly different axis. It's the art of not taking life for granted and trying to make something, anything change.

Go read the post; it's well worth it :) Essentially, what Nathan posits is that writers are, by definition, strivers; if one were happy with the world, one wouldn't write a book, after all. The act of writing is the act of petitioning for change. Even the books that are written off as 'fluff' are all trying to elicit change, all acknowledging that there is something in the world that needs improving on, even if that's only that people are sad and need to be cheered up. Escapist fiction, by its very definition, posits that the world needs escaping from.

I've talked about striving before to say that sometimes, even when we don't hit our goals, it's the very act of striving that counts. I think writing is part of that 'sometimes'. It's all too easy to lose sight of why we write when faced with rules and guidelines and agents and publishers and thoughts about the 'end goal' of writing as publishing. But really, I'm not here, presenting myself to you as a writer, because I want to be published. Okay, sure, that's part of it, but publishing is not my end; it's a means to my end.

My end is change. I write because I'm a writer, and writers strive. They strive for change, and usually to improve the world in some way, if even only by highlighting the bad and providing no solution beyond 'humans must die'.

In the throes of my first ever total from-scratch rewrite, I'm really glad I stumbled on this piece of advice today. Because during the rewrite, it's so tempting to concentrate on the fact that I'm rewriting it to make it better for people to read - which is to say, publication, in whatever form. But really, that's not why I'm rewriting. I'm rewriting because the original story, while fun, and while it had its shining moments, was not the story I wanted to tell. It wasn't the change I wanted to address; it wasn't what I wanted to strive towards. And the words flow much more easily when I concentrate on the heart of my story.

I'm going to end this the same way Nathan Bransford did: with some words from the great F. Scott Fitzgerald, reminding us once more that it is the very act of striving that's important - not so much the thing one strives towards (although that has importance too, in determining our direction):

"that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Oak to Acorn

I had a massive epiphany on Monday, and I'm tremendously excited about it. Not only am I now, thanks to Monday's effort, an entire week ahead of schedule on the edits of Jesscapades, I've also pinpointed a major thing that was wrong with the first draft.

The plot is majorly broken, I knew that - but this is something more. It's about the core of the story, the theme and message and point that I was never quite happy with, because it basically seemed to be 'ignore authority and take revenge into your owns hands', which, you know, is fine for some people, but not exactly the kind of thing I want to be upholding, yes? I like to think I'm a decent sort of person, after all (yay, self delusion! O:) :D).

But I realised, in Monday's work, that I'd been coming at the story all wrong, trying to summarise it wrong. Monday's task (and the theoretical task for the rest of the week) was to summarise each of my scenes in a single sentence, including the protagonist, the antagonist, the conflict between the two, and the twist - that all-important change that is the entire point of the scene.

I discovered, on Monday, that I'm getting pretty good at this whole sentence thing. Practice really does make you improve; who knew? Ha.

But I also discovered that this is a fantastic tool for sharpening your focus in your scenes. I mean, I kind of knew that already, but I'd never seen it in practice, you know? I'd only ever used the sentence personally as a way to make sure the scene had all its requisite appendages. But focus? Yes, it's good for that.

So, demos. Quick note: 'frankenscene' is a HollyLisleism for a scene that has two main foci, and thus is actually two scenes smooshed together, masquerading as a single scene.

Scene 11. Guilty girl, faced with yet another body she thinks is her fault, tries to reassert her authority and is reminded that she’s no longer in charge [AND THEN] distressed student spills her problems to her friends and they advise her to speak to the headmaster.

Sentence written not as a frankenscene: guilty girl, faced with yet another body she thinks is her fault, asks her friends for advice about her assignment and they suggest she talk to the principal.

But see how there’s a disconnect in this one? The first half of the sentence is about her guilt and dead bodies; the second is about her assignment and advice. Although it can be written in one sentence, there is a thematic disconnect there, which is what flagged to me that this had to be a Frankenscene; it has a split focus, in other words.

Here's one that's the opposite way around, one I was tempted to write as a Frankenscene until I realised that it did, actually, have unity of focus:

Scene 8. Boy avoids friend by going for a walk with vaguely annoying girl and they are interrupted by another student with a message for the girl, and Boy discovers everyone has similar assignments.

Written as a Frankenscene: Boy avoids friend by sitting with vaguely annoying girl at dinner and they end up going for a walk [AND THEN] Their walk is interrupted by another student with a message for girl, who threatens the messenger, exposing to John the fact that everyone knows about the kill-or-be-killed assignments.

Easily written as a frankenscene, but seriously, is ‘they end up going for a walk’ worthy of being a twist in its own right? Uh, no. LAAme. So, even though there COULD be multiple foci to this scene, there is only one MEANINGFUL one :)

Which got me thinking about the novel as a whole. Some previous attempts at summing up the novel were as follows:

Jess became an assassin of Fate in order to serve justice, so when she finds out she's been given an assignment to kill an innocent, she's furious. But then it looks like he's trying to kill her, and all of a sudden survival seems more important than justice...

Jessana Peakes became an assassin to serve justice - but now she's fighting for her life as the strangers who drove her to the school come after her once again, and her best friend seems to be trying to kill her.


But after seeing the sentence in action as a focus, er, focuser (O:)), I realised I was pursuing the wrong end of the stick. What was the change, the one thing that mattered in this story, the twist? Twists are usually near the end (of the scene, the story, whatever), so I hunted, and realised this:

The point of Jesscapades as it stands is that because Jess decides to pursue revenge for her sister’s death despite the Shard's code that Shards shall not kill for any other than Fate, her best friend ends up getting killed, which is the very reason she wanted to ignore the Shard's code in the first place - because it had told her she had to kill her friend.

Somewhat convoluted when I phrase it like that, but infinitely clearer in focus. And even if I were to rewrite the novel now WITHOUT resurrecting Jess's previously-dead sister, it would be a lot more coherent and cohesive - because I found my focus. I squeezed my oak tree of a story down into a tiny little acorn.

And it wasn't, 'take revenge into your own hands'. See? I told you I was a nice person, really O:)

Release the Editing Hounds!

So. It’s Wednesday. Edits for the novel Have Begun. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned it here before or not, but Liana Brooks and I are working through the How To Revise Your Novel course together over the coming months to work on our novels. Liana is doing Twisted Metal, which she literally finished drafting last weekend; I’m working on Jesscapades, which I finished over a year ago and am still having conniptions about.

Diving into edits is scary. I’ve done the course before on my novella-turned-novel which used to be called The Hunted Hunted, was often known as ‘the tiger one’, and is now called Marked. I can say with all sincerity that it is a fantastic course, and has taught me to look for so many problems I would never have even thought to check for before.

But that, in many ways, is why it’s scary. Marked was a relatively clean, 20k draft. Jesscapades is a 70k MESS. And not only is the plot a mess, I’m also intending to tear the MC in two and resurrect half of her as her in-this-draft dead sister. So. Much. Work. It’s boggling, and most of me wants to run away in terror because it doesn’t understand how I can do this.

But I have a process. I’ve done this before. I just have to let go and trust the process. Easy, right?

Riiiight.

It’s not all doom-and-gloom, though. I forgot that I actually did some of the first step on this novel months ago, and I found the sheets on Sunday – the sheets where I had to answer three questions:

1- Why did I write this book? What was my inspiration and motive?

2- What did I want from my main character? Who was she supposed to be?

3- What was the story I wanted to tell when I started with page one?

And you know what? I like my answers. There is something in this idea that I loved enough to wade through 70k for, there is a spark and a sparkle and life and fun. I had an idea that I loved, and it does me well to be reminded of that.

And so, I edit. Into the trenches, I wade, novel in one hand, Liana clutched tightly in the other. This is possible. I trust my process. And I will have a glorious, shiny novel at the end of it.

Here I go…


P.S. Last night during edits, we had a 3 minute storm that knocked the power out for about 40 mins o.O Hence, editing by candlelight :D

The Difficult Decisions

This post is more of a random musing than anything else. I'm stuck, and I need to think out loud; and lacking any more inspiring ideas for a blog post, I thought I might as well muse here and see if any of you want to offer opinions :)

So, on Monday I signed up for Holly Lisle's revision course. Although I've 'done' the first month already, the lessons I saw were the original drafts; I'm now working from the beginning again with the 'proper' lessons.

Lesson one got me thinking when I first read it a month ago, and it's blistering in my brain again now - and I don't know how to answer it. It's all about goals, about knowing what you wanted your book to be when you started writing, about knowing what it actually is now that you've written it, and about knowing what you want it to be.

You can't hit a target you can't see, after all.

I'm using Jesscapades for this course, obviously, since it's the finished draft that I want to edit. I love this story, always have - but I am really struggling to know what I want to do with it, which is, I think, why I've stalled in edits for it so many times.

I know what I originally wanted it to be; I still have my notes on scrappy bits of paper and in random books and on random blogs and websites, talking about my plans for the book. It was to be the story of Jessana, called Jess, who is about to graduate from the Shard Academy. Shards are assassins who kill at the direction of Fate, assumedly to protect the world from people who are Better Off Dead. Only in order to graduate, she is told that she must kill John, her best friend, whom she 'knows' is innocent. So she lashes out against what she's been told, uncovers a conspiracy in the process, and More Stuff Happens.

That's what it was to be, with fights and shiny technology and intrigue.

What it is (other than a mess of a first draft O:)) is altogether less spy and more magic than I'd intended. Jess is quieter, less certain about life and death. There's virtually no technology and only one real fight. She's still told to kill John, but that's only the catalyst for the real conflict, which is the conspiracy she uncovers. But the story doesn't really end; it's blatantly a Book One - which it is, but I wish it weren't so obvious about the whole thing. I'm a big believer that each individual book in a series ought to be able to at least mostly stand alone; and Jesscapades at present does not.

So. What do I want it to be? This is the confusing part. A lot of the problem in the draft stems from the fact that my central conflict, my main story arc is confused and unclear: is it the having to kill John, or is it the fall-out from uncovering the conspiracy? Of course, it can be both, but one or the other needs to dominate so that it can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion at the end.

As it stands, the kill-John arc is concluded about 2/3rds of the way through, and the conspiracy arc isn't really concluded (because that's part of book two) - so there's nothing left to conclude at the end. I suppose, based on this, it's most sensible to draw out the kill-John arc to the end, isn't it? :)

But my major dilemma is this: Originally, the catalyst for Jess running off to join the Shards, the reason that she uncovers the conspiracy (because the conspirators have been shadowing her ever since), is the death of her sister, apparently murdered by the conspirators.

Fine and good, but for that line to work, Jess needs to step up to the plate in terms of character. She needs to become more of who she was supposed to be - a sassy, confident assassin - and less of who she became - a concerned, caring individual who wants to save everyone, and whom I'm not convinced (and neither are my beta-readers) could actually kill someone. Fight and maim, sure, but kill? Not so much.

In essence, Jess needs to be.... Tara. This is where it gets confusing. Tara is Jess's sister that was murdered - only in one lot of revisions that I started in the middle of the year, somehow, Tara didn't get murdered. Somehow, Tara ended up being the one at the Shard Academy, the one training to be an assassin, then one told to kill John. And Jess was her older sister, stuck on the outside, jealous at the attention and schooling and abilities Tara got but wary of the Shards, of their morals, of their attitudes. In this version, Tara gets in over her head when she discovers the conspiracy, and Jess has to save her.

My dilemma: at present, both stories have equal weight. Both sound like stories I want to write, and I'm in a complete deadlock over which I should write. Do I leave the original story and change Jess's character to fit? This is tricky because in my mind, Tara now has that personality. Or do I change the story to fit Jess's character, which is tricky because in a way, she's no longer the 'main' character; Tara is the one in the thick of the actual action and intrigue.

*sigh* Like I said: deadlock.

So I throw it open to you: Have you ever been in this situation? What did you do? If you were in this situation (imagination, here), what would you do? Which story sounds more appealing to you? Can you help me at all????

Thanks. :)

So Long, September!

Wow, another month down. Is it just me, or is time really speeding up these days? I swear I just did a monthly review... o.O :D

Anyway. Accomplishments.

Regular Reader may recall that back in June, I set myself a challenge: Once Jesscapades was finished and I had a shiny, complete draft, I would give myself permission not to focus for the rest of the year; I could write whatever I felt like writing at the time, without worrying about progressing on any set thing.

Regular Reader will also know that sometimes I had a hard time remembering that, and tried to stress over it.

But! All this aside, this month has truly been the month of Write Whatever I Feel Like. And you know what? The pot theory actually works. This has been my best non-nano month ever. *grin*

Here's the stats:

Total Wordcount: 20,021 (whee!)

Main Works:

Jesscapades 2.0: 6,258
The Hunter Hunted (aka 'the tiger novelette): 5,857
Quest to Rebuild Jerusalem (aka 'the Pathfinder play): 2,439.

Other Random Miscellania:

Borderlands: 25 words. Yeah. I know :P hehe.
Short stories written from scratch: Forget (flash); Adam, Be A Star (flash); Dragon Tuesday (~2400).
Of those, Forget was revised and subbed.
Other random shorts tampered with this month: In Death (ending rewritten, then slashed down to make it flash); Festival of Souls (did a few hundred words and decided that this is going to be a themed collection of shorts); Afterwards (a short idea that's been lingering for a while - I wrote the beginning); Understanding (mainstream story from university; figured out how to fix it and started the rewrite).

Also, on the very last day of September I was reading through the blurbs for some of my stories-in-waiting, and stumbled upon this, which made me go squee:

Mercury, youngest-but-one of seven siblings, went to Evil Overlord school to be different. After all, her parents are accountants, her other siblings are all sickeningly good - and she had to get attention somehow.

Shame, then, that her parents seem to have forgotten all about her.But that's fine. Mercury will show them. Armed with her ferret familiar, Bystar, a stolen Key of Power, and the brains that got her this far, Mercury sets out to graduate at the top of her class so she can take over the city where her parents live.

And even if the invasion doesn't catch their attention, virtually exploding the world when she gets a bit too close to an Eye ought to do it...

So of course, I started writing that, too. I think I'll use it for my nano this year; appropriate, since it's book one (How Not To Take Over The World - HNOT) to the book two (To Be An Evil Overlord - TBAEO) I wrote for my very first nano in '07 :)

Submissions:

8 this month, 3 of which were either new subs or substantially reworked subs. Huzzah! This is my best subbing month yet B-)

Finally, Random Trends of the Month:

Souls. As in Festival of Souls (dead souls collect in the Tower every year until the Festival, when four people are chosen to lead them to the top of the Tower and to peace), Jesscapades (the souls in the glasses which smash and indicate to the Shards who their next target it), Afterwards (possession of souls - or not %-)), Dragon Tuesday (sharing souls, inter-dimensionality of souls) and random miscellaneous worldbuilding for my over-arching universe.

Voice. Lots of great voices coming through from my characters this month, including the MC from Forget, the girl Chay in Dragon Tuesday, Mercury from HNOT, and finally, Selene in Understanding.

YA. Not necessarily what I've written, but definitely what's been attacking the fringes of my mind recently.


So there you go: that's my random month! How was your September?

Editing Jesscapades, Part Five

And lo, we come nearly unto the end!

When we last left off, I had a shiny L4S outline of Jesscapades, just begging for me to start writing. Right?

Wrong.

**BEWARE SPOILERS IN THE IMAGES**

First of all, there were two very important things I had to do. Here's the first (click to embiggen):



Firstly, the different colours are the different POV characters.

The left hand column is the new, shiny plotline. The third column contained the original plotline, scene by scene, one line per scene. The reason lots of spaces are blank is because I've dragged them into the middle column. The middle column is my attempt to match up old, existing scenes, to new scenes. This was imperative in order for me to figure out exactly how much work I actually have to do to make what I have look like what I want.

Sadly, the blank spaces in the middle column are scenes I don't have an existing scene for, so there are a whole bunch of new scenes I need to write *cries*

In fact, there are 10 existing scenes that I won't be using at all (*sniff*), and I need to write 19 brand new scenes. This isn't all bad, since the outline has gone from 66 scenes to 71, so that's 5 new scenes right there. And some of the new scenes I can co-opt paragraphs here and there from other scenes.

So, old scenes now matched up with new, here's the next thing I did (again, click for bigness):


This is the left hand column again, but this time instead of colour-coding by POV character, it's coded by amount of work I'll need to do to get the scene up to scratch. And yes, there's a terrifying amount of red there.

The numbers down the side show the various values of each scene: red gets 4 time units, orange 3, yellow 2, and green 1, which translates to a red scene taking approximately 4 times longer to work on than a green one. The right-most column of figures is that translated to percentages, so that I can track how far I am through the rewrite - which, according to this lovely chart, will take 167 time units to complete.

Oi.

However, all of this done, scenes ordered and coloured and compared, I am now, at long last, finally, ready to start the actual task of rewriting.

And that, I think, is a good thing.

Well, it would be if I didn't have to start the book with three brand new scenes, because we all know how much I love drafting :S Argh!!

Editing Jesscapades, Part Four

Sorry about yesterday's 'ghost post'. When I slotted the posts all in for the month, I accidentally hit 'publish' instead of 'save as draft', meaning the blank post posted itself yesterday. Oops!

Today we're talking about Stage 4 Editing, which is a great example of how writing processes can change, because when I first planned this series of posts, Stage 4 was the final stage; but now I have 6, slotted in between the original 3 and 4.

So what does Stage 4 Editing involve?

Turns out, it involves a synopsis. See, I went away last weekend, and as we were travelling I got talking to my husband about Jesscapades - well, complaining about it is probably more accurate ;) We ending up talking about the book for over two hours, and - lo! - my problems are solved! :D In't my DH wonderful? :)

Anyway. We got to where we were going and the next day I sat down to attack my plot. I prepared to break out tape and knives and red ink and whatever else would be necessary to beat the thing into submission.

I didn't mean to start writing. But I did, and 4.5 hours and 5.5 thousand words later, I had a beautiful, complete, shiny, PRETTY synopsis. And it works, and there are no more plot holes, and it's pretty.

And that was Part A.

Part B involved then examining what I had and putting it back into a Line-for-Scene (L4S) outline like at Stage 3. This was slightly less than dead simple, because my synopsis was a writer's synopsis, which means it includes into that my POV character can't possibly know.

Figuring out where and how to begin was hardest, and I'm still not sure that how I have it works, because I have what basically equates to a 5-scene prologue, but eh. I'll see how it works, and if it doesn't, I'll incorporate the scenes as flashbacks.

What I have got now is a scene-by-scene outline of my entire story, pretty, fixed, and ready for the next stage of editing.

And that, apparently, is Stage 4.

And yes, I'm now giving thought to writing synopses before spending 70k creating problems for myself. Oi. o.O

:)

Editing Jesscapades, Part Three

Thank you all for joining me last week for 'Smarter Than You Thought Week'. I got some positive, encouraging responses from this, so I might have to do it again :)

Today, it's back to the editing. I expected to be done with this particular stage a week ago. However, we all know that the best stories have a mind of their own, and sometimes we just have to go with that. Turns out Jesscapades had a mind of its own - but I'm glad about this. I'd rather have a story with too much personality than one with no personality at all :)

So, what does Stage Three Editing involve for me?

One word: Outlines.

I've done the pre-think, and I've developed some focus. I've reread the story, and I know what I'm actually dealing with. Now, somehow, I have to match up the rosy-tinted vision in my head with the sometimes horrifying reality.

I'm a tactile and visual learner; I like things that I can see and touch. So I work best away from the computer at this stage, rather than on screen. I can see the whole story at once in a way I can't when I'm limited to the 15 inches of my laptop's monitor, and I can pick it up and hold it, move pieces around, like they're a jigsaw.

And in a way, that's exactly what I'm doing: I'm taking all the puzzle pieces that I have, and I'm trying to figure out not only where they go, but which pieces actually belong to this puzzle I'm creating, and which pieces have accidentally gotten mixed up from other boxes.

The way I do all this is to use either index cards or post-it notes. Last time I used post-its stuck to paper so I could transport them around with me; this time, I started out doing the same (using plain coloured post-its for now), but discovered that the most convenient place to do all this work was actually on the back of one of the old leather lounge chairs! :D I'll take photos for you all later this week ;) The post-its, alack, are el-cheapo, so didn't stick too well - but half index cards with a bit of surgical tape worked like a charm ;)

Each card has on it a one sentence scrawl describing what happens in that scene, in as near an approximation of The Sentence as I can be bothered to create. I also put at the top right the initial of the POV character, and - because I'm visual - I colour code them.

For me, this is the best way to track the arc of the story - to see where things don't make sense, to see which scenes need to go before others, and to figure out which ones just aren't doing anything for the story.

For two weeks, I stared out the outline, knowing a lot was wrong, but not knowing how to fix it. Slowly, slowly, I elimated a scene here or there, tweaked a sentence, added a connecting scene, and generally tightened the whole thing up. Using this method, I fixed the first half of the story.

And this is where I was reminded of an important fact:

In writing, it's not so much about having a set process that you follow every time to get results; it's about having as many tools for approaching the job as you can, so that when one doesn't work, you have another right there in your box to pull out and apply.

Because, you see, this time the index card line-for-scene method didn't work for me. I had to go one step further. And that's step four, which you'll have to come back on Wednesday for %-) Bwa ha.

So, does that mean that the line-for-scene (l4s) technique failed this time? Absolutely not. It worked 50% of the way. I fixed the first half, and realised just how much I really could get rid of; I clarified a lot of issues - and more to the point, it allowed me to pinpoint exactly where my issues were. I could only move on to step 4 because I'd spent so long working on the outline of the story - so all in all, I'm glad I did it.

Seeing the story all laid out in front of me let me feel where the holes were; let me realise what was missing; and let me know what issues I had to solve (in terms of character motivation) before I could move on and pronounce the outline successfully replotted.

And really, I'd count that a success :)

Jesscapades Edit II - The Read Through

Welcome back to part two in my Editing Jesscapades series. If you missed it, check out part one: Focus Editing.

Okay. So. I am armed with my new shiny Sentence; I know more clearly what roles my primary characters fill. What next?

Next, for me, comes the Read Through.

Even though it's terrible for the trees, I have to print out the manuscript to do this. It's the entire reason, in fact, why I bought a laser printer :D Seeing your words in a different format to how you wrote them is absolutely imperative in the editing stage; it helps you see what's actually on the page, not what you think is on the page. If you really don't want to print out, or if you know you'll need to make major changes and will want to print it out after those changes, try changing the font style of your manuscript, or edit in a different program to what you wrote in so that the text looks different.

So, I've printed my novel, attacked it with the holepunch, and shoved it in a folder. Now what?

Next, I break out a blue or a red pen (not black, because it's printed in black), get a notebook handy (which I dedicate to the editing of this novel, and put the novel title on the front, etc) and start reading.

At this stage, I'm NOT looking to edit the manuscript. My purpose is to read through and find out what's actually made it to the page, and what hasn't. If there's a glaring typo, or the perfect rephrase hits me as I read, I'll jot that down on the manuscript, but I'm not going to let myself get bogged down by it.

What I do scrawl all over the manuscript is numbers. And in my notebook, I write down the corresponding number, and I make a note.

The note can be anything you particularly want to remember about this bit of writing, something you want to remember to add in here, or ways in which you want to change it. If you think of something, note it down.

There are a few things in particular I look for:

1) Dropped threads & references

Dropped threads and references are things that you introduce into the story that just randomly disappear. I have two characters in Jessapades, Matt and River, who appear several times in the first third, and then are never heard from again. Matt I'm deleting; River I need to figure out how to work in.

2) Promises

Promises are the clues you leave in the text - to yourself, to your readers, knowingly or subconsciously - that something is going to happen, or that this little point is important. Like in Jesscapades, where Gage refers to John as being really powerful - this promises that I'll bring in John's power somehow, that he will discover how powerful he is, and make use of it. Etc.

Promises can be large, or they can be tiny. But remember: every thing you write must be significant. Everything points to something. Make note of those things that jump out at you as you read, either to beef them up and make them mean something, or to edit out.

3) Plot Problems

Things that I either dropped and want to work back in, or that totally won't work with where I took the book in the second half. Things that need to be changed to make sense; things I can use to fix plot problems later on.

4) Consistency

This is where you look out for characters that change height (Harry), motivations that mood swing faster than PMS and thus make no sense (Jess!) and naming conventions that fluctuate (chi/qi).

5) Logic

Lastly, I keep an eye out for anything that just plain seems off. Illogical actions (John not having a weapon on him), illogical reactions (Jess running away), illogical plot twists or skipping from one thing to another without showing how/why (John researching Jess's background), or illogical scenes - scenes that don't fit, or don't make sense, or otherwise don't have a reason for being.


There are other things you can look out for too, but these are the main categories of things I watch for. The key point here is to resist trying to edit the actual manuscript (because even if you think you know what's wrong with it, and how to fix it, I guarantee you don't know everything you'll need to fix until after Step Three, or even later) and to make notes on absolutely everything you think you need to change, delete, or add in terms of plot, structure and character (NOT language; we're not editing yet, remember!).

If your manuscript's pretty clean, you won't end up with many notes. If it's messy, you'll have a lot more.

I think I have about 85 notes for Jesscapades, which is 189 pages printed. 85 for 189 isn't bad; that's less than one note every two pages. So I'm pretty pleased; it's a mess, but a fixable one.

And that's all there is to this stage! Quick and easy, and you can get through it in a couple of hours if you have the time :) Unlike the next step, which I've been struggling with for nearly a week. But you'll have to tune in next time to hear about that ;)

Until then - keep writing! And if you don't write, at least smile :P