Goals Revisited

So, it seems appropriate for the last day of the year to look back at my goals and see where I got.  Mostly, I've decided not to have goals anymore because goals are a big freaking pain. At some point, I added submit one short story per month, but it's not showing up on here... huh. 

Here are my goals from this year (I made them in March, so that's how I could cheat and add the agent thing) : 

Writing Plans for 2011:

January:

Finish Honor 7. (Completed) 

Revise Secrets of Skin and Stone. (Completed) 

Submit short stories. (Completed--both stories were accepted in the anthologies I submitted them to.  Mystery Times Ten 2011 and Undead is Not an Option.) 

February:

Get agent. (Wooo wahoo!) (Yay)

March:

Do revisions of Secrets of Skin and Stone. (Completed a set of revisions)

Work on short story project. (I probably did.) 

April:

Finish Sentinel's Run. (At some point during the year I finished Sentinel's Run.)

May:

Revision of Curse Me A Story for Sarah. (I did... but it's not quite done.) 

"Six month" scheduled revision of Versus the Bounty and The Unseen Kingdom. (Nope.)

June:

Finish My Other Life. (Nope.) (I wrote Promises of Light and Dark instead.)

July:

Finish Chosen Changeling. (Nope.)

August:

Revise Honor Series. (Crap. No.)

September:

Work on short stories or Honor 8. (Short stories... done.)

October:

Revise Scorched. (Crap. No.)

Revise Good Girls Don't Date Mutants. (I started a revision on Mutants but I haven't completed it.)

November:

NaNoWriMo novel (Completed 50K. I did five novellas instead of a novel.)

December:

Revise Sentinel's Run and begin Sentinel's Run Book Two. (Uhh. No. I did manage to submit 11 short stories during 2011.) 

I'm still working on a revision of Secrets of Skin and Stone... well, I'm waiting on Sarah with that.  I've revised it three or four or five times this year.  

Per my earlier announcement I did get a short story picked up by Entangled Publishing. 

I did actually finish writing my entry for Mystery Times Ten for 2012, but I need to do another revision on it. I could have probably powered through it and subbed it tonight, but I like eleven better than twelve anyway, so there wasn't a lot of incentive.

I fell behind in some ways this year and made some progress in others.  I read around 89 books, did five betas, and I did quite a few requested revisions for editors and for Sarah.

Outside of writing, I lost fifty lbs this year--so that's pretty cool.  

Then, there were parenting struggles and sickness and injury.  It hasn't been all fun and games.  

Next year... okay, I do have some goals.

Goals for 2012

I want to do more reviewing. I'm hoping to review all my favorite books on Amazon--just my favorite books--and just on Amazon. 

I want to lose the last fifteen lbs. to my goal. 

I want to finish revising Secrets of Skin and Stone for the last time with Sarah.

I intend to submit to Mystery Times Ten Contest by its deadline of January 31st. 

I have some short stories to revise for editors, and I'll do that.

My only specific writing goals are that I want to revise and resubmit Honor.  I want to finish my revision of Mutants.  Also, I want to do NaNoWriMo again this year. That's about it. 

In social media goals, I want to work a little harder on keeping up on my blog and creating an author website.  It's been a tough year, and I keep feeling like I'm dropping behind--in fact, I need to write a few blog posts and retro-post them in regards to Christmas and the nativity display. (I did take a bunch of pictures, and I'll post them--soon.)  I can't seem to keep up.  B got the stomach flu for Christmas and my son had it before her.  It's been... fun. 

Anyway, that's it. I hope everyone is having a good New Year's Eve.  See you next year. ; ) 

Somebody Wants Something

And I'm tempted to give it to them.

*raises eyebrows*

No, I haven't lost my mind.  Well, a little, but that's beside the point.

So, I was reading this article and, being as I've now passed my three years as a writer point (mid-October), I was feeling a bit snide when I read the title.  I thought, "Yeah, I've written so many novels... I don't need to read this over-simplified advice on how to write a novel."  I scoffed.  *Wendy tsks self*

Here is the article: How to Create a Story.

To create a good story, you must first understand what a story is. I have a simple formula:

"Somebody wants something and has a hard time getting it."

Now, if you're like me, you're thinking, "It's not that simple and even if it is, so what?"

So what?  SOOOO WHATTT?  I give you gold, and you dare say, "SO WHAT?"  GOLD!

Actually, that's exactly what I thought. Then, I boiled down the novel I'm preparing to write for NaNoWriMo:

A Mused: An artist wants peace and inspiration; an unusual girl he meets near the lake is going to make sure neither comes without a price... in fact, he might not even survive to see either.

My mouth dropped open, and I thought, "But that's like a tagline.  That's sort of brilliant.  It can't work every time... can it?  But... really?  Can it?"

Okay, fine...

Secrets of Skin and Stone: Piper wants to know if she's to blame for her dog's death... and if it's not her or her OCD... what dark secrets are hidden in Hidden Creek, Alabama.  (Alternately... Gris's side would be: Gris wants to solve the mysteries of the neighbor girl and keep her alive--all while keeping the monster inside him hidden.)

I then mentally ran a bunch of my novels through this.  It was fascinating.  They all could be summarized with that same formula.

Still, what use is that for someone who clearly can write a complete novel?  Writing the novel isn't my problem.  On the other hand, I'm going back under the knife for yet another revision of Secrets of Skin and Stone.  Sarah and I have been going back and forth on a few scenes I want to keep, and she says they need to contribute to the narrative in some way.  (Isn't the fact that I like them and want to hug them enough?  NO?  Wuh?  Why?)  As I examined these scenes in light of the boiled down plotlines above... *coughs* they may not further the plot or entirely contribute to my MCs' main driving forces (those things they want, but are having trouble reaching....)

One of the downsides to pantsing is that you end up with these straggling scenes or narrative fills where you needed a plotpoint or scene to get you to the next scene or to fill in exposition.  These aren't final copy scenes, but they're hard to cut completely or replace because they're entrenched.  *sighs* I need to get rid of or fix a bunch of those in Secrets of Skin and Stone.  I may be talking a lot about revising for the first part of November as I'm doing what I hope is my last revision.

Anyway, I found that article interesting and useful, and I hope you did too.

Happy Halloween, everyone.

The Evolution of a Story

Here is the story of Secrets of Skin and Stone from birth to where I am now.

Once upon a time in April of 2010, I wrote this story about a girl with OCD, and the guy who liked her a whole lot--and he was a gargoyle. Back then, it had the soap-opera worthy title of "Shades of Obsession." *Wendy gags*

There it is.  Isn't it pretty?  I thought so.  It was 70K, so basically just a baby novel compared to most of mine. As I've done in the past, I set it aside once it was done so I could gain perspective.  In September of 2010, I took another look at it... felt ill about the title, so I changed that and a good many other things, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.  I was already querying on a few other things, and I'd been asked by Sarah to do a revision on Curse Me a Story. (She hadn't seen this book nor was she my agent back then.) So, I set aside "Good Girls Don't Kiss Gargoyles." (Yes, that was the name back then.)

Then, in January 2011, I got this crazy idea in my head that I was going to do Amazon's Breakthrough Novel Award and I was going to use this book... after I changed the name to Secrets of Skin and Stone and majorly worked it over. Majorly. Sarah contacted me about another revision on Curse Me a Story, and I said I'd do the revision for her after I finished this revision of Secrets of Skin and Stone because there was a contest deadline looming. She asked me about this book and then asked me for a look at it when I was done with revision.

I was determined to polish this story until it cracked to pieces and then polish them too. I was going to treat each chapter like a short story and severely revise it to death.  I started reading it aloud, and I realized my novel set in Alabama didn't have an accent... at all. So, that revision took a while. Reading it aloud for over a week made me hoarse, and I talked with a southern accent for at least a week. The deadline passed, and I didn't enter, but the manuscript that emerged from the fire was the one that got me repped.  When compared to the original, it looked like this:

The black is what lasted... so very little. It was up to 90K, though.  Yay!  90K!  Sarah helped me polish it again, and we worked through a lot of things, and it went out for submission.  We got feedback from producers (through the film agent with my literary agency) and editors, and I went back to revision and worked on it over the summer.  This time for a MAJOR revision. It needed more plot... and action... and cowbell.  Yes, cowbell.  Violent cowbell. I stripped it down to the bones and moved things and rewrote and revised and by the end of August, I was done--even though I knew I wasn't. It didn't feel complete. It was better, but it wasn't done. I sent it off to Sarah with a "Better?" email, hoping she'd be able to direct me.  It looked like this:

Holy frijole, Wendy!  It's all red!  Yes, that's because I realized that I started off by telling about this traumatic event that had happened (her dog's death) instead of showing the event.  In retrospect, I don't know why I did that. When you have a traumatic event, you don't throw it in the background and describe it as "this thing that once happened earlier today."  Just FYI. Anyway, I knew it wasn't done. I just knew it wasn't. It wasn't a surprise when Sarah agreed.

At the beginning of September, Sarah started getting back to me with notes on how to do another revision. There were some line edits that I whined about.  There were also a lot of notes in the form of "What ifs..." and they were brilliant. They were just what I needed.  I did another revision, focusing on a new character and the later chapters. I finished that last night and sent it off to Sarah. I'm not completely sure it's done, but the novel has changed drastically since before the summer. It feels done, but Sarah will be able to tell for sure if I've finally nailed what the feedback was getting at. If not, we'll go back at it again with more cowbell until it says Moo.

Most pages, if the changes are tracked, look a lot like this when compared to April's version of Secrets of Skin and Stone:

It's at 87K now. I cut entire chapters and moved other chapters to a different location.  It's been the most brutal revision I've ever done, and I couldn't have done it without Sarah because I couldn't have seen the possibilities on my own. It's interesting to see entire pages of red that are either entirely new or entirely cut. There's something deeply satisfying about seeing a novel emerge from words strung together. The focus is very different from where it was in April. The voice is hopefully the same. Both are worlds away from that first draft with the awful-awful-awful name a year and a half ago.

So, there you go, there is the evolution of this book up to last night. *fingers crossed* that it'll be less brutal revisions in the upcoming weeks.

One thing is for certain, that book is not the book I started with--it's much better.

The Crowded Room

I know. Two posts about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in a row. It's madness, I tell you! Madness!  And when it comes to OCD it really is actually.

I'll start off by mentioning this actually does apply to writing. I'm revising Secrets of Skin and Stone again and Piper has severe clinical OCD just like I do.  It's been hard for me to write and work on her chapters at times because it strikes too close to home.

I said something to my agent recently that probably ought to be said to the world at large. OCD is 80% or so internal. Some people with the most severe symptoms of OCD aren't recognizable as having OCD.  I think most people would have been able to guess my mother has OCD before they pegged me.  My mom is OCD about cleaning... which is the physical manifestation that most people expect. I don't have that.  I like things in a certain way, sure... and if the house magically became clean, I'd like that too... as long as everything was in the right place and there was order.

Still, OCD is mostly in your head--which is funny, in my opinion, but I have a broad sense of humor. (Btw, I wouldn't say that to anyone out loud; they might take it wrong.)

Living with OCD is like being in a crowded room.  A very, very, very crowded room and everyone is talking at once.  It's filled with versions of yourself, some older and some younger and some strange variations on you with deeper or higher pitched voices (I have no idea why.)  They shuffle around so that sometimes, amid the fog of voices, some are more recognizable because they're closer to you.

There's one person nearby who spends all day everyday muttering, "This, not that.  This!  Not that!  This, or maybe this, but not that... never that." All day.

There's the paranoid jittery soul to the side who keeps bringing up how dangerous or dirty everything is. "You know, you really should stay inside.  There are bugs out there.  Plus, odds are that someone is out there.  It might be someone who hates you and wants to kill you."  Usually, I tell that person to shut up, but they keep talking regardless.

There are three or four constantly talking about kids and family. "Have you sent a card or talked with your grandparents lately?  No, you haven't.  What if something happened to them?  What if they died and didn't know you loved them?  What then?  You're a horrible granddaughter." "Have you checked your daughter's folder to see what she is doing in class yet?  She's away from the house for hour upon hour every day, and it's like you don't even care what she is doing.  She's practically being raised by the school, and you don't care." "What about your son?  If you didn't let him do that, maybe he'd be less angry." "What about your sister?  How is she doing?  You don't even know, do you?  It's been days. Days!" "Have you ever thought if maybe you cleaned more that your husband would like you better?  You'd be a better wife.  I bet he wishes he'd married someone who likes to clean." "If only you were more like your mother...."

Constantly. Talking.

Some worry about friends, real and online. "Did you offend them when you said that thing?  It might have been taken wrong."  "Have you noticed they haven't talked to you for awhile?  They might hate you."

There's one on the constant lookout for typos. That one triple checks everything I write by reading it out loud which is useful... sort of.  That person sometimes insists I open envelopes to make sure I've signed the checks I just put in there.  That's less useful.

There's a couple voices that are much darker.  Hopefully they just fade into the background noise, but they usually get closer at the worst times.  One of the symptoms of OCD is being plagued by inappropriate sexual or religious or violent thoughts.  Yeah, I have those too.  Imagine sitting in church trying to concentrate and something so deviantly sexual slides right next to you and whispers.  Or you're in your car with your kids and driving and your mind suddenly focuses on how easy it would be to drive off the road.  Sometimes, it's hard to be in church.  Sometimes, it's hard to drive.  Even if you push it out of your head, it's left behind a bit of darkness because it was there.  It was there, and you thought of it, so you must be dark and evil too.

My muse is there too.  My muse may be the one person whose voice and looks I can't peg down. He or she usually stares out the window and throws out comments of "what if...." If I can, I'd love to sit next to my muse all the time.  My muse usually isn't as strange and chaotic.

I have individual phobias who wander around. There's the one who spends all day worrying that it's too tight or too close in the room. I have an extreme contamination issue so naturally there is one muttering, "You should wash your hands.  You may have gotten that on them.  Did that person just cough?  That's disgusting.  Go wash your hands." I was at a meeting last night and everyone kept coughing. That person was very squigged out--not that I blame them.

There is one who is like the physical manifestation of the song, "Baby did a bad, bad thing." All day there is someone who keeps mentioning every bad thing I've ever done.  This voice is especially vocal at night when I'm trying to sleep. So you can get a better idea of what this is like:



...only less sexy and with less film use.

I've been on a lean protein, low carb diet for almost three weeks now, so I also have this gollum-like person in the corner saying, "Bread... bread... we wants it, my precious.  We neeeeeeeeds it."  I mostly agree with that voice, though.

There are some rational voices, of course, but having them talking is sometimes frustrating because they're just adding to the noise. Also, my rational voices tend to be pessimistically rational, so that's not as helpful either.

All day, every day... this crowded room is in my head. I take it wherever I go. I can't get away from it. I'd assumed everyone had this fog of voices in their heads all the time, but then I found out that this is an OCD thing--at least with how crowded it is.

The meds quiet it down and get rid of a few voices, but they also have serious side effects. I've been off meds for a year, but I don't think I'll be able to be off them much longer. Some voices have been crowding out others and some are louder right now. Usually they mostly quiet down enough so I can hear my muse immediately after running or... uhh... other physical exertion. Sometimes, when I'm writing I can get out of the room and get into the world I created. That's really nice.

That's part of why Piper's chapters of this book are so difficult to work on.  She has twice the inner dialogue of Gris and that alone is too close to my real life.  It's nice to be in someone else's head for a change and work on Gris's chapters.  It's nice to be out of the crowded room.

Anyway, that's what life is like when you have severe OCD.  It's a crowded room.

Edited to add: I hid my OCD for the first 28 years of my life and while my mom has OCD and many in her family do, they hadn't realized it and none are as severe as I am--to my knowledge.  My mom feels really guilty she didn't catch that I had OCD until I told her, but I don't blame her, and I never have.  I began to be very open about my OCD when B was diagnosed, and I realized that I never wanted her to hide her OCD or be ashamed as I was.  I chose to be ashamed, and I chose to hide it.  My family never did anything to make me feel either of those things.  In a way, the fact that I had OCD is an incredible blessing because I'll be able to help my daughter.  I know some people with disorders are a product of their upbringing or their family life may have contributed, but I have the best family a girl can have. Honestly.

Obsessed

For many of you the fact that I'm obsessive about things seems obvious in light of the fact that you know I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, but you might not have noticed my obsessions as they've played out... or maybe you have.

Obsessions with OCD are very strange.  It builds.  I eat and breathe something, spending hour upon hour on it; my life revolves around it.  It's all I think about.  I itch when I'm not doing it. It's the magnet, and I'm the metal, and it's pulling me toward it--all day--all night.  I need it like an addiction.  I have to finish it.  I have to complete it.  My life... my sanity depends on me finishing it. Then I finish, and I'm done. Sometimes I walk away, and I'm fine. Sometimes I never pick it up again. Ever.

Remember my Angry Birds phase?

I played Angry Birds until my battery ran out, and then I'd plug it in and hunch over it near the wall even though it wouldn't run quite right on a low battery.  I stayed up until 4 a.m. one night playing Angry Birds.  It was all I could think of.  It consumed me.  I had to make it to the next level and the next, and I had to finish them.  It was a rush inside me that built and built.  Nothing mattered as much as completing levels.  I didn't care about how many stars.  As long as I finished, I was good.  I played everywhere.  I missed sleep.  I forgot to eat.  Nothing mattered as much as Angry Birds.  Then, I finished all the levels... and it's been two or three weeks since I've played.  It doesn't matter.  I can't even understand why it was that vital to me.

This is how my life has played out.  A new obsession.  A new manic energy to finish at all costs.  Stress makes it worse.  Illness makes it worse.  I will push myself to crazy ridiculous lengths to complete or finish whatever my latest obsession is.  Then... I walk away, and it never has that same draw on me again.

Some of my obsessions have been more expensive than others.  I'm sure my husband wasn't as concerned about my Angry Birds phase.  Some of my obsessions have been hobbies like beading.  When I start something like that I need a lot of options.  I need choices--lots of choices laid out in front of me.  I manically collect everything I might ever need.  Then, it fades and I'm left with a load of expensive beads that are merely interesting and not my heart and soul anymore.

These last two weeks I've been obsessed with watching all of the Psych episodes.  Every night I've watched five or six episodes in a row.  It's hard to stop watching and go to bed.  I don't want to.  Last night, I finished.  It's so strange.  It's like coming up out of the water and realizing there is an entire world around you that continues. It's as if I'm coming out of a fog.

When I'm on OCD medication, sometimes I can walk away from an obsession. When I'm not, I've learned that I won't be able to stop until I finish it... so I work on finishing it. Inside my head, I'm thinking, "Wendy, this is nuts... you have things to do... you can't spend all your time doing this. Stop!"  I can't stop.  It's one of the absolutes: I can't stop.

One of the recent constants in my life is obsessive writing.  When I start a WIP, the momentum is all-consuming.  I'll sit down and write for hours and hours.  Sometimes I'll write for 12 hours every day for a week.  I can't sleep.  I don't care about food.  I'm certainly not going to clean.  The only thing that matters is getting the story down on paper.  Nothing else matters.  Nothing.  Writing is one of the few times when I like the obsession.  I like the manic energy.  It creates a product, an object--something to show for my obsession.  I wish I had the same manic energy for revision.

On the other hand, in the middle of a WIP, sometimes I average about 2-3 hours of sleep a night.  I can't concentrate on my kids' needs as much.  It's hard to focus.  Sometimes, I dream about my characters, and I wake up confused as to which is reality.  (Luckily, I can figure it out... but it's disconcerting for even a moment to think I've gone that deep into my fantasy world.)

I've had other writers envy how prolific I am, but it scares me sometimes.  At one point, after too many obsessive writing periods overlapping, I just wanted more than anything for my mind to be blank. Control is very important to me... and I'd lost control of my mind.  It scared me.  Luckily, these revision projects have broken it up so the obsessive writing hasn't taken over as much as it did that first year.

Obsession is a scary thing.  Unless you've been there... you can't imagine how intense it is.  You can't walk away without feeling like it would kill you.

So, tonight, I'm officially done with that obsession, and it's left me wondering: what next? What is the next thing that will devour my soul?

Maybe I'll be able to finish this revision on Secrets of Skin and Stone before the next wave sweeps me out to sea.  I hope so anyway.

Back into the Fray

Oy, once again, I seem to have forgotten to keep up with my blog. I don't know how other writers who are parents manage to get it all done. I'm really struggling to find the hours while still allow for down time at night to recover from the day. My kids have only been in school since last Wednesday so maybe I'll start to find more hours for social networking endeavors and writing.

So, Sarah got back with line edits on the first eleven chapters of Secrets of Skin and Stone's revision but the remaining thirteen are going to take more than line edits... which is sort of what I felt when I finished them. It's a complicated emotion this whole revision thing.... On the one hand, you want it to magically be done and perfect, but when you know it's not... you don't want your agent coming back and telling you that it is.

September might be another month spent on revisions. Possibly October. I hope not October.

Diana, early on, told me to learn to love revising because I'd be doing a lot of it. I won't say I absolutely adore this later revision process. I do like reading it the first time after it's complete almost as much as I enjoy the creation process. I'm okay with revisions, though, and it's a good thing because Diana was right. Holy cow, writers spend a lot of time doing revisions.

So. Much. Time.

Someone asked me how many times I'd revised Secrets of Skin and Stone, and I have no idea at this point. There have been major revisions... and I've done four or five of those. There have been endless amounts of smaller revisions where I'd read through it and catch smaller things.

So. Many. Revisions.

I'm approaching my third year anniversary of finishing my first novel, and I'll have been on Twitter for two years at that point. There are a ton of writers out there. A ton. There are a lot on Twitter. Finishing a novel is hard but you learn so much along the way. Revising is the same way. A writer who doesn't write is not a writer. A writer who doesn't revise will never improve. I have improved and continue to improve, and it's a process that your writing needs... that you need.

Anyway, this blog post feels rambling when all I really planned on saying is that I'm back to working on revisions.

As far as the kids go, they're both loving school, but T's sensory system is very touchy, and they've both managed to pick up their first colds already. (Gotta love the school's petri dish.) B is in a class with my best friend's son, and she loves her teacher. I think this is going to be a good school year. *fingers crossed*

So... back into the fray... *opens Word document* *battle cry ensues*

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.

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.

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.

Conversations with the Muse

I'm trying to con my muse into helping me work on Secrets of Skin and Stone. Thus far, it's not going as well as I might like.

Wendy: (dangles Mountain Dew in front of muse.) C'mon.... it'll be fun. Sarah said it will be fun.

Muse: (raises eyebrows) Really? That's what you're going with? Mountain Dew?

Wendy: (sighs) We've got to do it. You know we do.

Muse: We already wrote this book. (points at other WIPs) We haven't written those. We should work on those.

Wendy: (snaps in front of muse's face) Hey! Focus.... focus. Ignore the shiny.

Muse: (rolls eyes) Okay... what else do you have?

Wendy: Uhh danger music?

Muse: Danger music?

Wendy: Yeah... you know the music that plays during movie trailers and during actions scenes? I though maybe we could hum it while we work on the chapter summary. I thought maybe if we pictured the book as a series of flashing action scenes and then filled in the blanks....

Muse: That's what you're bringing to the table? Mountain Dew and danger music?

Wendy: Possibly sex. We might be able to con the husband into sex tonight if we finish this chapter summary.

Muse: Dude, that's all you... otherwise it's creepy... it's like a threesome.

Wendy: Yeah, I suppose. I was hoping... the endorphins...?

Muse: I do like endorphins.

Wendy: We don't have to tell him.

Muse: There is that.

Wendy: Plus, danger music and Mountain Dew. (eyes house) I should probably clean, though. Possibly do some laundry.

Muse: Okay, you do that... and bring the danger music and Mountain Dew and we'll see what happens.

Wendy: Hopefully some very dark things. BAWAHAHAHA!

Muse: Don't do that.

Wendy: What?

Muse: The laugh. Don't do the laugh.

Wendy: (rolls eyes) Fine. (Starts humming)

Muse: That's the Last of the Mohicans theme. What the hell kind of book do you think we're writing?

Wendy: Uhh....

Muse: (rolls eyes) Go with something from Terminator or maybe Transformers.

Wendy: Fine.

Muse: Fine.

Wendy: Pass the Mountain Dew.

Muse: (passes) You finish off that diet crap. I don't run on diet crap.

Wendy: Oh for the love of....!

Muse: Don't profane.

Wendy: (smiles)

Danger Music:

Taking a Story to the Bones

I can't tell if that title sounds just dirty or ominous or both or ominously dirty... you decide.

So, I'm working on a... reimagination of Secrets of Skin and Stone and it may incorporate but not gut Promises of Light and Dark.

Part of this will involve bringing in the larger story that I didn't even imagine when I started writing SECRETS... and it wasn't until Sarah asked me to open up SECRETS for the possibility of a sequel that I realized it wasn't just a single book. It still will read as a stand-alone in the end, I'm hoping, but there are other people involved that I never hinted at when I wrote SECRETS.

I've mentioned this before, but in case this is your first time here... my agent wants me to write a version of SECRETS for the film agent with her agency to present to producers. It needs more... plot points that involve action. So, I've got her notes on what several sources mentioned needs to be in the final draft and I'm working from that.

This will take SECRETS down to the bones of what it's about. I've never actually done a revision this deep. Of course, I'd never done a chapter-by-chapter summary before Sarah asked me to. There's nothing saying I can't do it, so I might as well try.

It comes down to "what's sacred" will stay in, but everything else is up for grabs. If you've never read Maggie Stiefvater's thoughts on revision, you should check out this post. It's brilliant.

So, what's sacred in SECRETS?

I told Sarah when we first started talking about SECRETS that there was one thing I would fight for... that I refused to sell my book to an editor who'd take it out. I was absolutely adamant on this one single point... You'd think it would be about Gris being a gargoyle. It isn't. That's not actually sacred. He's a gargoyle as a foil for Piper's issues... which are sacred. I told Sarah that I absolutely wouldn't tolerate having the cutting scenes tamed for public consumption. I knew that they made SECRETS a bit edgy but, if anything, I wanted Piper's OCD to be that way. I wanted readers to know that OCD is not simple and pretty.

So, Piper's cutting and her OCD are sacred.

Nothing else is sacred.

Everything else can be cut.

Those are the bones of the story.

I have to keep telling myself that.

Voice is king.... voice is always king. I'll revise until the voice is as strong as it is in this version in the new one. That's the other thing I keep telling myself.

So, my goal, to start off, is to go from Sarah's notes and chapter notes (my agent is a super hero, btw) and write a new chapter-by-chapter summary of this new SECRETS. It'll steal some from SECRETS... possibly some aspects of PROMISES but I want to add a lot more of an ominous feel to it as well as more action. Gris has some cool powers as a Watcher that I under-utilize. I need to really grab those and hype those up.

It needs more cowbell. More violent cowbell. If you don't understand the phrase: more cowbell--> Go HERE.

When I wrote SECRETS I only knew what was happening in Hidden Creek, Alabama for the few steps ahead of what I was writing. Now, I've written out PROMISES and I've written out a chapter-by-chapter summary of Betrayals of Blood and Spirit (the third book in the series... should it turn into a series.) I now know exactly what is happening in Hidden Creek. I've seen what is lurking in the corners.

I feel almost as if I've been given a unique gift in some ways... how would you rewrite the first book in a series if you knew exactly how the rest of the books went? Because of knowing this, I can knock out continuity errors, plant more hints, and really focus on what is sacred and where the action is.

It's a gift.

It's still scary.

I might have a breakdown.

I'll probably need lots of Mountain Dew.

In other news, I sent Sarah Sentinel's Run. That was also scary. I keep hoping such things will get less scary, but having a story bleed out of your brain onto the screen and then sending that off for someone to like or not like... it's a strange process. The world of Sentinel's Run only existed in my mind but it felt bigger than that. It always does. So, showing someone else that... it's always a little freaky.

Okay... back to that chapter summary. *takes a deep breath* *dives in*

Yay or nay. Yeah or nah. Oui or Non. It's done.

So, I took Sentinel's Run from a level zero to a level... five... with seven being the highest. (Because I like seven... that's why... so shut up.)

The continuity errors gave me fits at first, and I wanted to weep, but I made it through those via lots and lots of Mountain Dew and late nights.

Then, came the voice revision... and you know from previous blog posts that voice is king in my world. A book can have all kinds of problems, but if the voice is good... that saves everything. If I can hear their voice in my head, it's perfect and wonderful and I love it.

I wasn't hearing it on Sentinel's Run... not completely. The world was good. The plot is awesome... it has a lot more action, and it's tighter than my other stories. I might do chapter summaries from now on when I'm preparing to work on a book. But the voice wasn't as obvious as in other books I've recently finished.

Voice is king.

Then, over the weekend, I stumbled across the perfect fix for the voice, and everything fell into place. Usually, that's the way of it--when the voice works, I hear birds and see magic, and I just want to run out into the streets and scream in relief. That's how this was.

In other books, once I figured out a few key words that my MC would say... then I knew what they'd say about everything.

In this book, it was all in how Coby responded to questions... did he say "yes" or "okay" or "fine" or "yeah" or what? Was it "no" or "not really" or "nah" or.... When I realized he'd say "yeah" or "nah" and "fine" but never "no" or "yes" and rarely "okay" it all started slipping into place.

Then, I had Mori... who is from an area heavily influenced by French Quebec... and she keeps slipping into French. So, I went through and made sure that she always responded with "oui" or "non" especially when she was under stress, and I watched for those stressful points and added even more French. All week I've had several tabs with French translations and Quebec slang open... right beside sites with farm equipment pictures. I've looked like a cultured hick according to my browsing history.

So, Sentinel's Run is done... and it's well done. I'm really proud of myself. It's not often that I want to hug a manuscript once it's complete, but I want to hug this one. I've sent it off to three betas who'd read the beginning of it last year when I first started it. Then, I suppose I'll let it settle for six months unless Sarah tells me differently. So, I should be revising it the beginning of next year if I can manage it... which is probably when I'll start the second book in the series... if my schedule holds. Looking back, I haven't really kept to my planned schedule at all so far.

Next up, I have a beta read to work on over the next few days, and then I'm burying myself in SECRETS for the rest of the summer. I need to create a more high-stakes version for the film agent. Woo! Violent cowbell!

My muse wants to work on the other WIP that I walked out on last year, My Other Life, so maybe I'll work on that when I'm done with SECRETS or while working on SECRETS. It takes place in Las Vegas so the voices aren't at all the same. It's also in third person... so that might factor into when I can work on it. I don't know. I might create a chapter summary for it just to keep my brain on task. I might do that for SECRETS too.

Well, that's my writerly news.

In non-writerly news, my husband got our Subaru fixed which entailed swapping out the entire engine. It's pretty amazing. It's been out of commission for a while, so it's weird to have another car. He worked on it all weekend and then some. It's so awesome having a husband who can do stuff like that. It feels magical. He's magical. He can fix anything... I'm pretty sure. Everyone should marry useful geeks like him. The world would be a better place... but not him... he's mine... I found him first... get your own.

My kids had a good 4th of July. T is severely spun out from fireworks and hanging out with friends and family. He fell to pieces today at the park when he thought we were out of water for a moment. (My friend had extra water... and it wasn't more than a short walk to get some.) That's how it works with T... the little things add up until he starts falling to pieces over everything. B is doing really well. We got a YMCA membership and we've been taking her to swim at the pool which is perfect for her sensory system. They have a slide, and she goes down the slide over and over and over and over--in a loop.

I'm really, really stressed out. My OCD is so obvious to me that I just want to make excuses for it and say, "I'm sorry... but I have OCD and that's why I'm acting like this." It's probably not all that obvious to those that don't know, but it feels obvious. It's like when the kids were young and would have meltdowns in grocery stores over minor things and I just wanted to shout "They have Autism! They're not bad kids!" I just want to shout, "I have OCD... I swear I'm not psycho... but can you NOT keep repeating yourself or I'll be forced to kill you! Also, your kid isn't being safe! Go stop them from doing that, or I'll be yanking them off the slide while screaming and shouting and ranting... okay? Okay... good. We're clear that I'm not psycho, though, right?" It's so severe that I can't sleep. I stare at the ceiling for an hour or two or three while my brain obsesses over one thing or the other. Finally, exhaustion is knocking me down at three or four in the morning before T stares me awake at eight a.m. (He has got to learn a better way to wake me up... the staring is so creepy.)

Okay, so that was a long update.

So, how is your summer going? *hugs*

There is Now a Level Zero...

For those who don't recognize the title of this post, it's from Kung Fu Panda. Po wants to start on level zero with his training, and Master Shifu says there is no level zero. Then, Po gets his panda tail kicked by the practice equipment and Master Shifu says, "There is now a level zero."

So, I finished my rough draft of Sentinel's Run last night... uhhh... this morning after a five hour writing jag that went until three in the morning. (It was crazy and Mt. Dew-fueled and my husband caught me typing the last sentence at 3 a.m. and said, "You're still up??? You're not supposed to be up!!!" Yeah, it was crazy, but I was on a roll.)

Normally, and my betas can back me up on this, I don't write rough drafts really. My first drafts are typically fully-realized and clean. (I do revise as I write so that's part of it. Also, my OCD keeps my brain at attention constantly for typos.) They're not final drafts by any means, but they're typically not that rough.

The world in Sentinel's Run is more complex, though, and I've stumbled across a bunch of continuity errors I need to work through. So, while it's done... it's not really done. I'm looking at a genuine rough draft. It's killing me. *shakes manuscript* It's a level zero! Okay, maybe not that bad.... I am a little surprised at how many more traps there are for continuity or contradiction issues when you're dealing with a dystopian world. As my world fleshed out throughout the story I noticed that I'd need to explain things and really establish the rules of my world and make sure I don't stray from them.

A lot of it revolves around non-human characters that I've established. I played fast and loose with some of the rules that I set down for the machines, and I need to go fix that. If you have non-human characters... you know... they have their own motivations and responses and you have to stick to that or give a good reason why you're not. I got a bit sketchy at points. Oy. Bad Wendy.

So, yay... I finished... but I didn't. I also need to work on Mori's voice and decide on some of the intricacies in Coby's speech patterns too, but that might be a further down revision. Then, I'll send it to the three betas I promised it to, and I'll shelve it for six months. (I always have shelved my manuscripts for this long... so that I can get perspective before doing a serious revision on them. I "have" done this anyway, but it's something that might change I suppose with Sarah's involvement in my career.)

It's a weird sort of anticlimactic feeling to finish a level zero manuscript. I don't like it. There's not the adrenalin rush of other manuscripts where I can immediately send it off to betas or read a "finished" product and give myself mental high-fives. On the other hand, I really, really, really like this story. I think once I work out some of these kinks it'll be my best manuscript yet, but we'll see.

*eyes level zero*

I hope.

I also got my revision notes from Sarah for the SECRETS version for the film agent from my agency, so that goes onto the calendar for me to complete this summer. It should have plenty more cowbell... even some violent cowbell... by the time I'm done with it. *punches sky* Violent cowbell!

In non-writing news, my kids' summer schedule is filling up. This morning we went to a reptile display and then to the beach. Tomorrow is yoga, a picnic, and the zoo. Thursday is... something... and so it goes. We'll have to take days off every so often so my son can decompress. Unfortunately, my kids tend to fill my life with noise--happy noise--bickering noise--tv--the computer--their DSs--noise, noise, noise, and I have a hard time writing during the day with background noise. So, I see many Mt. Dew-fueled writing sessions at night in my future. My tolerance of noise is so low right now that even my phone's alerts are making me snarl.

Summer is fun. Loads of fun. Really.

Clark Kenting Characters

Last night, I finished a revision of Mutants and came to a realization. Sometimes, I give my characters these amazing powers and then I either don't provide them the opportunities to use them or I brush over the scenes when they do.

I write Clark Kent's story rather than Superman's.

In some ways, this might appeal to my audience depending on who they are and how far I go with this. The average YA might find more to like and understand in a character with downplayed "exceptional" characteristics. I mean, that's the appeal of Smallville for the most part, in my opinion. It's first and foremost the story of Clark Kent. On the other hand, Clark Kent is such a fascinating person because he's Superman... isn't he? Or is it because he's both?

I think there is a balance there that sometimes I find and sometimes I don't.

For example, I've mentioned I'll be doing a "revision" of Secrets of Skin and Stone for the film agent at my agency. This is going to probably be something I address. My husband, when he read this book, had two primary comments.

First, he suggested that one of the flying scenes be shifted to be from Piper's POV rather than my gargoyle Gris's. Flying is nothing new to Gris... or Superman, so telling it from his POV will downplay the excitement of it. In the first Superman movie, when Superman takes Lois Lane flying the narration briefly slips into Lois's head while the song "Can You Read My Mind" plays in the background. You hear what Lois is thinking while you're seeing what she is experiencing.

It seems like a natural choice in narration to go with the most exciting voice in play in a scene.

Apparently, it wasn't, and I suspect it's because I'm a girl, I focused on Gris's emotions and his worries that Piper would think he was a freak. Piper is flying for the first time in her life! In her life! And I slipped into Gris's head instead. I chose emotion over excitement.

The second thing my husband suggested was the ending where I had the opportunity for Gris to use his powers as a "gargoyle" and I didn't; I went a different way and went for a more human approach to an endgame. I'm not sure if I want to change that, but it's a possibility in a major revision.

In the book I just finished revising, Mutants, Lucas has super-human powers. He's faster, stronger, can hear better, can see farther... but he doesn't use those powers as often you'd think he would. Why? Because his writer is telling the Clark Kent story. I've added a scene at the end to address that, but I suspect, the more I think on it, I need to punch that scene up and focus on Superman.

With both Gris and Lucas, I had the opportunity to go with Superman, and I focused on Clark Kent. As I said, I think this is honestly because I'm a girl. My first instinct as a writer is to still analyze the emotions.

Another reason I think I sometimes go with the Clark Kent persona is because I write "pantsing.' I think a plotter would know ahead of time where to place the focus in a scene. It's something I can work on in revision of course... or I might do some plotting in the future.

My writing style seems to evolve with practice, and this is just another one of those things I'm learning: the balance between telling the right story and Clark Kenting a character.

This week in writing I'll be taking revision notes from betas and doing a final revision on Curse Me A Story and sending it to Sarah. It'll be strange to have that off my "to do" list.

The Stories Behind the Voices

This might be one of those posts that is just my internal dialogue spilling out onto the screen, but on the off-chance other people find the writing/revision process interesting...

I'm working on this other manuscript which I hadn't intended to work on at all. (Yes, I'm not working on my dystopian.) I've called it many names since I wrote it two years ago. Re: Straint and Good Girls Don't Date Mutants are the most memorable. We'll title it Mutants for right now and call it good.

So, Mutants is an odd little YA I wrote which doesn't fit in the genres I want it to. Most appropriately, it's probably a YA Science Fiction... which is yikes-worthy because Science Fiction isn't something that all agents and probably editors are begging for. This is even a Science Fiction Romance. A Contemporary Science Fiction Romance. I know, go figure... it's a mutant in itself really. It is one of the main reasons I originally queried Sarah... because her agency represents Science Fiction so I knew that I might eventually find a home for Mutants.

Anyway, so Mutants is the tale of a boy named Lucas who is one of 200 souls on the planet who has evolved to need bacteria to survive. Well, he does more than survive; he and the others of his kind are fast, stronger, can hear and see better, and are all around better. Unfortunately, he falls in love with a regular, average, every-day girl named Hallie. Some of his group, the Strain, don't agree with this and the more violent decide to kill them off. So, that's the story... a love story ... an infectious love story.

Unfortunately, Mutants has/had a little stalking problem. It glamorized stalking... which I didn't know how to get around it, but I've figured it out recently. Yay, no more stalking.

Now, Mutants has a little voice problem. It falls flat. It's set in Florida on the panhandle in a city. Setting, of course, we'll lead into voice. I set it where I used to live so that the accent wouldn't be a problem for me but then I just sort of forgot to add it in. Doh! No wonder it falls flat, huh? Well, I learned a ton about voice from revising SECRETS, and it's time to put it to work.

First, of course, there is character to take into account:

Lucas is a genius who has lived all over, so he most likely won't have a southern accent and his vocabulary will be higher. He's nineteen but he's led an anti-social life and buried himself in books so he'll stumble in conversations with Hallie. I need to work on establishing his voice quirks in my brain.

Hallie, on the other hand, is a senior in high school and she's lived in that city her whole life. She'll have an access and probably some colloquialisms. She's smart, but not as interested in science or learning as Lucas. She's more social than he is with more experience in dealing with others. She also is fearless when it comes to him and has no filter on what she'll say to him.

A few things I establish upfront with voice:

What are their word tics? What words do they say frequently that fill in gaps and create voice? (well, uhh, fine, rather, probably, yeah, cool, awesome, then, really, suddenly, hmm, just, maybe, anyway, still) I try not to overdo it so their vocabulary gets sloppy with the words, but they'll have those words.

What slang/profanity do they use? Piper always said "Frak!" but Gris more commonly said "Holy hell!" What will Lucas and Hallie and everyone else say?

How much will their upbringing and environment impact their speech? Is it mother or mama? Folks or people? Guys or boys? I just finished a revision on Curse Me A Story which is set in medieval times... and that was a whole different ball of wax, but their voices had really settled in by the end of the revision. I already know Lucas will call his mother "mother" both because he isn't originally from the South, but also because their relationship is distant. (She's a psychopath.) Hallie was raised there and has a really loving relationship with her mother. So, it's "mama" for her.

Once again, I'll be switching from feminine to masculine POV in first person in Mutant so there are also gender differences to account for. My husband's speech pattern is nothing like mine. One of my non-writing friends first drew my attention to this. She'd beta read my books and highlight words and say, "Guys don't say this, Wendy." Sometimes it was entire sentences, but sometimes it was individual words. In her opinion, guys don't use the word "so" like women do. I started listening to the differences between the speech of men and women after that. I mean, obviously, there are no finite rules with speech, but I can decide which words MY male character will not be saying, but my female character will.

There is also a distinction between what a person will say out loud and what they'll think in their heads that I try to factor in when I'm writing in first person, but that's a final draft sort of fix.

I was talking with Sarah about how what I learned from SECRETS is helping me revise MUTANTS. I'm also beginning to realize that this deep revision I'm doing on MUTANTS may help me with the revision I'll need to do on SECRETS for the film agent. Writing has always been like that for me... I learn through burying myself in manuscripts and then finding my way out. Once again, I'm glad that it's taken me as long as it has. I couldn't have improved CURSE ME or MUTANTS without the lessons I learned from SECRETS on voice.

Anyway, that's what I'm working on right now. Well, I'm still trying to work on removing the stalkery aspects and then I'll focus on voice idiosyncrasies, but that's my plans for this week. By the end of revising to focus on voice, I'll hear their voices in my head and it will be so thoroughly lovely that I might write about it again. I'm weird like that.

Have a good week, everyone!

The Art of Deletion

So, I mentioned that I've been working on Curse Me A Story this previous week while Sarah was busy with BEA. I finished converting it to first person POV from third person POV which went well, and I like it. I like it a lot actually. It does create a quandary, though. Well, two quandaries.

The first quandary isn't necessarily a quandary so much as something I've noticed, I suppose. In a first person POV, even sex that is off the page... isn't quite so far off the page. In Curse Me A Story the characters are married and it's very, very off the page, but switching it from third to first person seems to drag it closer to the page itself. You're buried in the characters' thoughts so it makes sense that something as big as sex... wouldn't just stay in the background. Still, I hadn't realized that would happen, and I'm not sure what to think about it.

The second quandary is also due to the absence of the prologue and not just because of the conversion. (BTW I love it without a prologue. Sarah was soooooo right.) With the change to first person and a bit more inner dialogue, my first four chapters feel info-heavy even though I'm not sure that I added all that much. So, I need to work on those now and that might be a process that I come back to before Sarah and I tackle pitching Curse Me A Story (eventually.) (Sarah asked me to do this revision of Curse Me A Story back in January before she'd seen SECRETS and then she fell in love with SECRETS so we've been working on that.)

Adding elements to a story has never been a problem for me. Deleting excess... is much harder. Cutting without destroying flow? Oy. Snipping out unnecessary inner dialogue... makes my stomach cramp. I mean, when it comes down to character development... what is unnecessary? I'm trying to figure out how one does this. I'm convinced it must be an art. I've heard of writers highlighting everything they think is vital and then doing a cut and paste into a new document. I'm tempted to try that. Also, I'm terrified of that. LOL.

My goal, for today, is to cut 1K from the first four chapters. Ideally, I want it to be around 73K--which is where it started out the week. It's at 74, 693 words right now.

I did a read through on my Kindle and I've got around 200 notes to address too. Some are quirks left over from the conversion. (These quirks are hilarious to me because it sounds so disembodied when they turn up.) "I told himself not to worry." "My hand brushed her hair from my face." They're sort of creepy and funny... but I'm choosing not to share them with beta readers. I'm selfish that way.

In writing news... which isn't really news, Sarah met with the agency's film agent while at BEA, and they discussed my book and I'll have notes from that conversation as soon as Sarah recovers from the long week. I might be doing some requested work on SECRETS when I get those. So, I might be out of the cursed castle and back into Hidden Creek again fairly soon.

Being agented is different. You can't just pick up something random that you've worked on once upon a time and play around with it to your heart's content. It makes me grateful, once again, that this process took as long as it did. I have all these completed manuscripts behind me that I wouldn't have the time to just write "just because the story was there and I felt like it." Don't get me wrong, I love the SECRETS world of Hidden Creek. I love Piper's and Gris's voices. If I'm going to keep getting dragged back into a world... well, this is awesome, but it is different from how writing is before you're agented.

*Wendy looks at her dystopian and sighs*

In March, Sarah warned me to write what I wanted because it might be the last time I could work on whatever I wanted. Instead of working on the dystopian, I dove back into Hidden Creek and wrote PROMISES. I don't think Sarah regrets that because it fleshed out the world and there is the possibility I might make changes to SECRETS based on PROMISES. I don't completely regret it, but there is some part of me that keeps looking at the dystopian I want to work on and wondering if I actually need to sleep ever. I keep having crazy thoughts like, "If I work on SECRETS during the day in June, I can work on Sentinel's Run at night instead of sleeping."

Writers are crazy.

I'm the king of crazy... err... queen... or whatever.

Okay, well, that 1K isn't going to delete itself. Unless there is a massive harddrive failure... in which case... *knocks on wood*

I hope you guys are having a good weekend.

Speak... and don't ever hold your peace

So, Sarah is at BEA (BookExpo America) this week which is a huge publishing conference for those non-writers out there. I asked her what I was supposed to be working on this week while she was gone. (Yes, I did get her the summary for Book 3, all you doubters out there. I'll have to write a post about that at some point. It was an interesting and worthwhile exercise--not just because I proved that I CAN do it.) She told me I could take a break. *Wendy laughs* A break! That's funny. I like that. A break. Yeah, but really... what am I supposed to be working on?

So, I'm working on the revision of Curse Me A Story this week. Sarah wanted me to drop the prologue and polish it. Well, after my recent focus on the Hidden Creek series, I just think this story needs its voice oomphed.

I know, I talk about voice a lot.

Honestly, voice is what makes or breaks a story for me. If I can't "hear" the voice of the characters in my head while I'm reading a story, I typically feel "meh" about it.

With Secrets of Skin and Stone, the turning point for me was when I realized I needed to add a southern voice to the book. That changed everything for me. Then, I really could hear their voices. In fact, I've had a hard time getting them out of my head.

Curse Me A Story is a fairytale retelling in a medieval setting so that's not the way I'll go this time of course. This story began as a first person POV story, and I switched it to third person. I'm wondering if that was a mistake. That's such a tough call with some stories. With others, it's never even a decision... it's obvious. Secrets of Skin and Stone was that way. Of course it was meant to be in first person. OF COURSE! With Curse Me A Story, I'm less sure.

Anyway, so this week's project is to breathe voice into Curse Me A Story and rework the beginning so it stands without a prologue. Wish me luck!

What's in a name... besides EVERYTHING!

Okay, so *deep breath* Sarah the Wonder Agent wants me to write up a summary for the third book in the Secrets of Skin and Stone series of books. The film agent with the agency feels like the plot for the first book might not be big enough for a film, so she is currently reading over the second book, Promises of Light and Dark, along with Sarah. Since producers sometimes combine a series of books into a single film... they'll need to know the plot of the third book.

The third book.

The one I haven't written... other than about 500 words which wouldn't let me sleep.

So, I'd be writing... wait for it... a plot summary.

*Wendy runs screaming across the internet clutching her pantsy nature to her chest*

Everyone I told this too has reacted with mad laughter and even some snort laughing. I've gained a bit of a reputation as a straight pantser among my betas... especially since everyone finds it unreal that I don't know how a book ends until I get there and I'm breathing down its neck. My husband suggested I'd have more luck just writing the entire third book before the Sunday deadline.

He might be right.

I'm determined to try, though. To that end, I need to settle on a name. (Not that it won't ever be changed... but I like to have a name in place so that I can make sure I tie it in nicely throughout the book. I hate when a book doesn't fit its title.)

Okay, so it's the third in the series and I like the structure I've got going with the other two:

1) Secrets of Skin and Stone

2) Promises of Light and Dark

So, for the third, I've picked two different names but I'm open to suggestion if you all think these are stinky.

Whispers of Sin and Salvation

Whispers of Good and Evil

Do you like either of those? Or do you have suggestions?

Thanks, everyone. *blows kisses to all of you*

ETA Amalia suggested something with "Fate" and I'm liking:

Fate of Flesh and Spirit

What do you think?

ETA AGAIN: HOLD THE PHONE... actually my good friend on Twitter and beta reader @TechSurgeons came up with the right title (of course, he's cheated and read the two previous books so he had a head start on most of you.) This works on a few levels that only beta readers might get, so it's perfect for my working title.

It'll be titled:

3.) Betrayals of Blood and Spirit

Thanks, everyone who played along for the short burst of time I was working on this. *hugs all around*