Cutting Deep

Wow, it's been a crazy August. I just got back from a vacation with family last Monday. It was a rough trip. We managed to catch the stomach flu and one or the other kid was hurling half the days we were there. We still did a lot of stuff and saw family, but it was rough.

I finished off the revision on SECRETS for the film agent with my agency yesterday. I still have a lot of polishing and reworking to do, but I got through to the end. I connected point A to point B. It wasn't pretty. At all. I stripped the story down to the bones and then rebuilt it. The most significant alteration she wanted was for more plot. Adding more plot to a story isn't pretty. I never want to do it again. I will if I have to, but it's not fun.

When this all started, my agent, Sarah, sent me two things to help me with this revision. First, she'd compiled all the revision notes from a lot of different people including one of my beta readers and my husband. If more than two people said it and she agreed, it made it into the revision notes. The second thing she sent me was extremely helpful, but not in the way I'd have guessed: she sent me chapter notes on SECRETS and that's when I realized that entire chapters were about character development not plot development. So, my goal was to change that... to add events so that every single chapter had a significant event in it.

The frustrating thing is that when a story changes this much--you're sort of left in shell shock when it's done. People keep asking me if I've improved it, and I can't tell. It's different. It's very different. I'm not sure what to think of it. The previous story was all about the relationship between Piper and Gris. This one is about the story around them. It's focusing with a broader scope than before. I like it. It still makes me cry, but it's very different. Some chapters started from scratch.

I'd told Sarah before beginning that I expected this revision to end with about 80% new/altered material. I think it's about right. I went from 36 chapters to 24 chapters. It decreased from 92K down to 89K. It's just so very different from before. Plot points moved around or were dropped. A substantial amount of plot points were added. I stole a scene from the second book.

It's madness, I tell you! Madness!

Every time you add an event to a story, it ripples out. All the stuff early on meant that chapter 23... was entirely new. I had to toss out the next to last chapters in their entirety. They meant nothing and made no sense. The only thing they had in common with the previous novel's final chapters were the location and the same characters.

Another hard thing about this revision is I've been sending Sarah six chapters at a time as I finished them so she could make sure I was on the right track. Sending chapters from a book that was incomplete... nearly killed me. I never send off chapters to people unless I'm really not sure it works at all... and then I just send it to my sisters usually... very close beta readers... not someone I'm trying to convince that I'm a good writer. I just finished my Kindle read-through to look for major plotholes and typos... and it makes me sick that I sent off "rough draft" chapters to Sarah. *shudders* My rough drafts aren't hideous, but they aren't anything I want to show anyone... ever... at all.

Anyway, I've been a bear to be around this summer while I was working on this. This was a tough revision.

"Easy reading is damn hard writing." ~Hawthorne

*Wendy hugs a dead writer* Yes, Hawthorne... yes, exactly.

I'm hoping to finish off this revision completely and email it to Sarah tomorrow. (This will make me a wreck while I'm waiting for her reply.) She is talking about sending me a hardcopy of revision notes which, frankly, scares the crap out of me and will be my first real experience with a gritty red pen editing type deal. I might go out and stockpile a case of Mt. Dew for that. It might be the only way.

In other news, my kids start school in a week and a half, and my husband will be in Hawaii all week on a business trip. Fate, you crazy minx... you do like to mix it up, don't you? This week should be interesting. (In the previous sentence, "interesting" actually means "likely to suck hard, hairy, grimy rocks." So, that's interesting, huh?)

I have more in my brain to blog about, but I need to get to this revision and knock it out. So, some other time... *blows kisses*

If you know a writer, go give them a hug because sometimes writing isn't fun and I don't know why we do it other than it's in our blood. I just hope this is what Sarah and the film agent wanted because... well, this was some damn hard writing.

Truth is Much Stranger

I had an odd experience today. I spent time at a playground with a child whose father's body had just been found after he committed suicide. This sweet little four year old didn't know that somewhere else in the city adults were white-washing his father's image... because his father is the son of a local celebrity. I watched this child play in the sand and laugh and have fun... and have no idea that outside of the playground his life would change forever. Such a cute kid. Such a sad legacy he'll now receive.

I'm somewhat disgusted by the scrubbing this news story is receiving actually. Can you even call it news when they've highly-saturated it with spun versions of events and when they're actively deleting any comments that address the facts? It doesn't seem like nonfiction at the very least. Let's call it an opinion piece rather than a news story.

*sighs*

It's made me realize that news is horribly impartial.

I'd already started feeling that way after watching the London Riots rocket across Twitter while the mainstream news channels kept it quiet and buried for so long.

Still... this child is only four... and just barely four... and his father was selfish. By the time the journalists and publicists have scrubbed everything, I'm curious who'll be the victim... the four year old who now has no father or the man who made that choice.

Reality isn't pretty. I learn something new about human nature daily... and most of the time I'd rather not. I was still somewhat reeling from the riots. Mob mentality scares me.

Anyway... it was a strange day. I was glad I wouldn't be breaking the news to anyone. I was just there for moral support and to share pretzels. (I'm good at sharing pretzels.)

In writerly news, I'm almost done with my revisions. This has been a really severe revision. I've only got a few chapters left, but the revisions have snowballed throughout the story so the conclusion is going to be a far cry from the previous version. I hope it works. I think it works. I'm still nervous though. I've made so many changes.

I should try to get my brain to be quiet so I can get some sleep. Night.

The Obsessive Side to OCD

I can't sleep. I'm exhausted. I want to sleep. I had a good workout at the gym. I got far too much sun. I spent the day watching my kids and my sister's kids while my husband and sister worked on her treehouse. By all rights, I should be able to fall into my bed and go to sleep right away, but I can't. My brain won't let go of one event that happened today, and it keeps going back again and again and again.

So, my sister painted her house in latex paint... and it's been really hard on my lungs and allergies. When I went to her house last night, it was bothering me still... even though it's been days since she painted. So, today, I was on the fence about going back. My husband told me that it'd be okay if I stayed home. I wanted to stay home. On the other hand, my sister has a two year old and having the older kids watch a two year old didn't sit right with me, so I went.

My sister's two year old is a wild child. He is trouble... boxed... canned... compacted... with a capital T. Trouble. So, I was checking on him frequently and trying to keep him out of too much trouble. One of the times I went to check on him, I found that he was downstairs with all the other kids... which was good. They were all engrossed on DSs or playing. On the other hand, the two year old had thrown my sister's little tiny dog into the aboveground pool before going off with the others. I dragged the exhausted dog out of the pool (because the sides were too slick for him to get out.) The dog collapsed in the sun for a long time to reheat and recover... but he was fine.

I'm not fine. I just keep thinking, "What if I hadn't gone outside to check on him?" "What if I hadn't gone today?" "What if...?"

My brain won't let it go.

I just want to turn it over and over and over in my head.

I can't sleep even though... technically... nothing bad happened.

I live my life in careful mode. I examine everything from every possible scenario several times. I plan for the worst possible eventualities.

It's not good. It's not easy. It's not fun, but that's how I live my life. That's what OCD means to me. I have to be extra extra extra careful because the world is full of people who won't be as careful... and bad things happen when people aren't careful. Bad things.

Bad things like my nephew drowning their dog because my sister has told him that dogs can swim and they've watched her put the dog in the pool to swim. Every time I've been there and they've put the dog in the pool, I've said, "Do you really think you should do that? If he gets put in there and they forget him... he'll drown." My sister has rolled her eyes at my overly careful attitude for years now... and, in so many cases, she's right. She lives her life with a lot more abandon than I do. She lets her 10 year old daughter use sharp knives and cook on the stove... and has for years. B will be able to drive before I let her do either of those things.

I'm stuck in permanent careful mode.

When this pays off... it's not a good thing, trust me. I just want to wrap the world in bubble wrap and tell them not to play with sharp objects. I just want to shake my sister for not planning for every possible bad thing in the entire world in multiple and often implausible scenarios.

I might never get to sleep.

There is this phrase: "You can never be too careful." It's a lie. You can. I'm living that phrase. I am the poster child for what happens if you're too careful. On the other hand, I also think it's true to the depths of my very OCD soul. It's true, you can never be too careful because, chances are, even if you try very, very, very hard, you'll never be as careful as me.

And that's the truth.

Prying the Words Out

So, my insomnia finally broke a few nights back... when it no longer mattered what time I needed to be up in the morning. That's the bitter irony about insomnia--you get the sleep when it doesn't matter anymore.

I'm up to my neck in the hardest revision I've ever done. Revising Secrets is like drowning slowly. I've made so many changes to characters and scenes that it keeps snowballing to later chapters... nothing can be the same in the end if you overhaul where it began. Plus, I'm meant to be adding more plot points and action, but I just don't know if it's enough. This is hard. Really hard. My husband kept coming up to check on me yesterday when I'd dragged my laptop into the therapy room to work. Every time he'd come up I'd rant at him about how hard it was and how much it kept snowballing to more revision. I was living up to the crazed writer stereotype yesterday.

Part of this is summer being what it is, though. It's rare for the kids to have a quiet "nothing scheduled" day. Every day is a new scheduled activity or a planned playdate or something. I'm insisting on down days for T because he isn't handling the strain any better than I am. We've had long keening/crying jags and last Wednesday he started banging his head against things to cope. On Saturday, we spent the day in Seattle watching "Aladdin the Musical" in the kids' first real theatre experience. By the drive home, both kids were crying and overwrought. We had a whole week of day camp for T the previous week. He was a wreck by the end of it. I was a wreck by the end of it.

*sighs*

Anyway, today is one of those rare "nothing scheduled" days, so I'd planned to work more on the revision. I've told Sarah that I'll have it done by the end of August, but I haven't added that I really, really, really have to have it done and have moved on to something less stressful.

This revision... this summer... this chaos... is killing me.

On the other hand, I think the kids are having fun. The parts they'll remember... will be fun. I'm hoping they forget the crying and strain and their mother hiding in the therapy room and remember the fun. I'm also confident I can do this revision. I just wish my brain didn't feel so muddy from trying to mesh the old and new and change everything while keeping the good parts.

I'm nearly to the point where I drop the old manuscript other than a few scenes. I'm not sure how to do it... at all. I don't think Sarah knows how to do it. She's been cheerleading me on Twitter and through email, but I don't think anyone really knew how to cut and yet save with this. Sarah took advice from like eight different sources and sent me their notes... but it was pointless to give revision notes throughout the story because this revision was going to change so much.

This revision/reinvention/reimagination is the hardest writing work I've ever done and most of the time, I feel like I'm floundering as I think: Does this work or am I just creating more stuff to cut?

I sent Sarah the first six chapters reworked a week ago and she approved them... but now... that seems like the easy part comparatively. It just keeps snowballing to more changes. It feels like I've got a crowbar, and I'm prying the words out of my brain. I know when I've finished it's going to take some serious work to make it flow and not look like it was crowbarred out of the muse.

It's so hard. I quoted this on Twitter but it's worth resaying: Nathaniel Hawthorne said, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." It's true. Making this flow so it reads like it did before... is hard. I think it had a natural flow before but it lacked in other ways. Trying to make sure it's not just all character development... is hard. I mentioned before how I sometimes "Clark Kent" characters. I give my paranormal characters some great powers, but then I tell their Clark Kent story. It turns out... the Clark Kent story is easier. The story about character development is easier. This... this is hard.

I think I'll need to go for a run later. Running always seems to help me clear the fog of too many voices and ideas out of my head. So do vitamins and caffeine and Vitamin D (via sun exposure)... I've been trying to get all those ducks in a row. Strangely enough... sleep has never helped or affected my writing. I do some of my best writing when sleep-deprived--even if it needs more clean-up. I'm hoping I'll get on a roll soon and it'll just turn into magic where the ideas seem to have a life of their own. I'm hoping to ease up on the crowbar. I'm hoping.

I wish I had a time machine and I could get to the end of August where I'll have this revision done, and I could just pick up the completed revision without all this mind-numbing chaotic stress... but that's just fiction... and possibly lazy. And while I am often lazy... even I don't believe in time travel. Besides, that'd totally mess up the space time continuum.

I close my eyes, and it begins, and it doesn't end.

I thought my insomnia had broken a few nights ago. I'd hoped it had, but I think it was wishful thinking. Some nights, I spend more time trying to get to sleep than actually sleeping. Some nights, I'll spend six hours trying to get to sleep and only three or four hours sleeping. This last week has been like that... and to add to the misery, I've started getting tension headaches from lack of sleep and stress. It's like the insult I could have done without.

If I've seemed short with anyone this week... I apologize; I haven't been myself. I've been that other Wendy... and none of us like her. She's mean. She yells everything. She's a little like the Hulk... only slightly less green and bulky.

Tonight, I've been lying in bed for an hour and a half staring at the back of my eyelids. I've tried to con my mind into focusing on fiction rather than nonfiction (aka stress)... but not SECRETS because then I'd have to get up and write it down. In some ways, it's working. I've got a full story going on in my head... but I'm still awake.

Last summer, I spent the summer writing short stories--writing the stories that I used to get to sleep. The summer's story collection is an ode to insomnia. It's around 150K. My insomnia generated 150K worth of stories.

This summer, I'm trying to focus on projects, but it's not working as well as the short stories.

I feel wrung out, shattered... hopeless. I know most of it is because of a lack of sleep. You can only go without sleep for so long. Your body starts dragging your brain down to sleep regardless of whether you're awake. Plus, everything seems impossible and hard when you're this tired.

Then, there is the kids. T isn't doing so well. He is in constant overload. I'm not sure how he is going to handle scout camp this week. B is doing better, but they argue when T is like this. The arguing and the constant noise is getting to me. My skin itches to be in right now.

I know I can get through this and work on what I need to. I know I can. I know it'll be done by the end of August. I just wish I could get from point A to point B as easily during the summer as during the fall.

Even the moon is annoying me tonight... it's too bright. It's freakishly bright.

*sighs* Insomnia is brutal. Your body is so tired. You feel exhausted clear to the bones and, yet, you're awake. It feels as if you've piled sandbags on every square inch of you--you feel THAT tired... and yet you're awake.

For hours.

Staring at the back of your eyelids.

And you have early morning church.

*sighs*

Okay, I'm going back to stare at the freakishly bright moon. Night.

Conversations with an Eight Year Old--Part Two

So, the endless questions continue with T. They go on and on. Sometimes, I wake up to him staring at me, waiting to ask me a question. His Aspergers means that he doesn't "get" why this is creepy and weird. Sometimes, he also doesn't get that when people have their eyes closed while in bed... they're sleeping. The other day, he woke me up by throwing a can of raviolis at me while saying, "I'm hungry." In the car, I'm a captive audience to throw questions at... endless questions... forever and ever and ever and ever....

Today:

T: "So, school is like slavery, isn't it?"

Wendy: (sputters out laughing) "What? No! School is nothing like slavery."

T: "Well, there are rules and rules are like laws and laws are like orders. So, school is like slavery."

Wendy: "School is nothing like slavery. Learning and math and reading are nothing like slavery."

T: "A little, though, right?"

Wendy: "No."

T is silent for a bit and I think he's conceded the point, but I don't know why I think this anymore. He cannot and will not concede any points as long as he draws breath. (See previous post on genner.)

T: "They tell you what to do at school, though; so, that's like slavery."

Wendy: "School is nothing like slavery."

T: "Why?"

Wendy: (I'm tired... exhausted actually, so my ability to form logical arguments has completely deserted me.) "Because I said it's not. You're in school to learn, and it's not that bad."

T: (mutters under breath) "School is a little like slavery."

B: "What's twenty times twenty-four?"

Wendy: (has nervous breakdown)

*head slap* Okay, so some of you might think, "Hey, Wendy... you missed a wonderful and touching opportunity to explain the plight of slavery in history and modern times. You missed a glorious teaching moment! For shame!" First of all, this is my blog... and how dare you? HOW DARE YOU??? *diva slap* Actually, in all honesty, I was too tired to do anything other than "because I said so!" but also THIS IS T. T will pick the worst possible moment to parrot back comments or ask awkward questions. Until you're in a grocery store and your son says loudly, "So, I know the Chinese kill their boy babies due to overpopulation, but I have one question..." well... you just wouldn't understand. Trust me. He does that.

*makes note to thank husband for explaining infanticide in overpopulated Asian countries to second grader*

So, next time you feel like saddling up your moral high horse and riding it around my blog... first... nice horse... second... I'm not touching the land mine that is slavery until he's in fourth grade, and I won't sound like a zealot when my son parrots it back in the weirdest terms possible. People expect fourth graders to know crazy weird things. People don't really expect small boys to spout weird facts and info in grocery stores. Trust me, I know these things. I've learned these things. I'm waiting.

In the mean time, I'm going to continue to throw my poor eight year old into what he thinks is akin to cruel oppression.

Actually, I can't wait until third grade rolls around, and he's forced to go back to that hell hole where they worry if he doesn't have a coat at recess when they send him out to play on the biggest slide I've ever seen at a grade school.

Because that's what slavery is... the cold cruel world with a giant slide that they force you to sit down on when you slide down it.

These awful rules... which are like laws which is almost the same as orders! This oppressive regime. What are they thinking? They're monsters! Monsters!

We also got into a discussion about what constituted singing vs. humming vs. whistling vs. chanting when I asked them to be very, very quiet because I had a really, really bad headache. (I've had headaches nearly every day for a week... I've been a tiny bit short-tempered.) Specifically... I first asked them not to hum because it made my head want to explode. Specificity is often my downfall.

Today:

Wendy: "STOP!"

T: "I wasn't humming anymore. I was singing then. Humming isn't the same as singing."

Wendy: (moans) "Just be quiet."

B: (whistles)

Wendy: "Stop whistling."

T: "I can still sing right? You didn't mention singing? I can still sing right?"

Wendy: "Stop making noise!"

B: "What if I whistle quietly?"

Wendy: "No."

(Someone in the back seat starts banging things together.)

Wendy: (snarls) "We're playing a game... it's called "If you make any noise with anything, I will throw it out the window." Stop clicking things together!"

T: "So, if I hum you'll throw my mouth out the window?"

Wendy: "Yes! Yes, I will. Would you like to test that theory?"

(Blissful silence for nearly a minute while T tries to figure out how that might work... and then he starts humming.)

B: "What's four hundred plus three hundred and sixty-seven?"

*sighs* When is September again? Can we skip August just this once?

In the Darkness, There is More Darkness

Every so often I talk about OCD on here. It's not something I'm ashamed of. Not anymore anyway. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It's severe. It's really severe. It eats away at my thoughts all day and into the night. I avoid triggers. I wash my hands a lot. I get worse. I hide it better. It can be bad and not at all useful. I don't clean due to OCD. That would be nice. I'm not like that.

There are a few other things I have that most medical professionals would term co-morbid.

I get a little crazy at certain points during my hormone cycle. By crazy, I mean mental and psychotic, but I try to hide that so mostly you don't see that.

I have sensory processing issues that sometimes rival my kids'. It's mostly noise. I can't stand noise. I don't like white noise or loud noise or noise pollution of any kind. There are a few other things that set me off, but noise is the worst.

I have insomnia--not sissy, it-takes-me-a-bit insomnia, but lie-awake-for-four-hours-staring-at-the-ceiling and a-week-with-only-three-hours-a-night insomnia.

I also have agoraphobia--which, for me, translates into not wanting to go outside or to any place I'm not familiar with. One example is that I'll never go anywhere that I don't have a plan for where I'll park beforehand. I can't do it. I'd rather stay home. I need to know where my car--which is an extension of my house in my brain--will stop. I also don't like people in my home outside of my husband and kids. That's it. Sometimes, we'll go six months without having anyone else in our house and that's fine with me. I like it that way. I wish it could always be that way.

All of my issues ebb and rise with my hormones and stress levels. They also tend to aggravate one another. If my insomnia is bad, it trips my agoraphobia. If my sensory-processing is bad, it keeps me up at night. They bang off each other and make everything worse.

I don't know why I'm bringing this up... maybe sometimes I just like to talk about it to prove that it doesn't scare me like it once did. I know I'm stronger, and I've always been stronger than this disorder that devours my thoughts. Sometimes I do stuff just to prove who is in control. I go outside just to laugh in the face of my agoraphobia. I jump in a mud puddle just to mock my OCD. Then, I pay for it. In some small way or sometimes in a big way, I pay for it.

Okay, maybe I do know why I'm bringing this up.

Writing SECRETS was hard for me to write, and it'll be hard to rework too. It's going into my dark corners and yanking what roosts there out into the light. OCD isn't pretty. My mind is a dark, dark place that sometimes feels so dark that I can't imagine there ever being light in there. You can't imagine the darkness. I guarantee it. Unless you have OCD or one of its cousins, you can't imagine how convoluted and dark our minds are. You can't imagine how the thoughts build and twist and torque until you're convinced that if you don't do something or if you do it... people will die.

When I wrote SECRETS last year around this time, I remember thinking, "Why can't I just leave these monsters in the corners? Why am I doing this? Why am I trying to show people that inside me is a leashed darkness that I barely keep from eating me alive?"

Then, I wrote SECRETS and I eased up and left some of it in the corners. There were pieces that disappeared in revisions because I wanted to cut the ties to me. Maybe it was gutless, but I wasn't sure how people would react. I played up some aspects and maybe downplayed others, and what emerged was a good story but perhaps not the one I meant it to be in the beginning.

So, now, I'm reworking SECRETS and I'm staring into a cave, searching for a monster I've created, and it'd be easier to walk away. Once I leash that thing and drag it out into the light...

I can't imagine.

OCD is a horror story. It doesn't go away. The thoughts will smother everything if you let them. Your brain is crowded like a loud train station on a hot day where everything is coated with the heat of too many things in a shared space, and the hum is so loud it could make you deaf. My mind is like that every moment of every day for the rest of my life. The meds keep it from bothering me as much and make the noise more dull. I'm not on meds right now, though. They have a lot of side effects so I've been trying to go without them... which feels like the wrong choice this week, but the right choice other weeks.

Out of this madness I'm to craft a story about something that isn't horrific. Something hopeful. Something that will help and not hurt.

That's madness, isn't it?

Anyway, Sarah thinks I can do it. I sent her the revised beginning of SECRETS and she liked it. I just wonder, "If we poke in the dark corners, will we really like what pokes back?" We'll see I guess. I have the rest of July and August to figure it out.

We'll see. I've never backed down from a challenge or failed when I believed in something, and I think I can do this. We shall see.

At the very least, it won't be boring.