That's Deep--Real Deep

So, this is NOT a post about my OCD.  I know.  Weird, isn't it?  I've been working from lists all week and I'm not sure if it's the illusion of control or actual control, but I feel like I'm doing better, and I'm definitely accomplishing more.  There is the possibility that lists might become an obsession themselves, but I hope not.

So, while I'm waiting on various editing notes from various sources, I'm working on revision of Good Girls Don't Date Mutants--which I originally wrote nearly three years ago.  It's gone through many, many revisions already.  It had some plot issues--a major plot issue in fact--it had stalking that was just a smidge less severe than Twilight's.  It gained and lost a point of view.  The chapters have gotten smaller and more numerous--which I don't like--and I'm fixing. It's gained epistolary inserts between chapters--which I really like--but I wouldn't be surprised if they get discarded as being too cute or something.

This manuscript started out life in third person--just third person for the most part.  Then, I switched it to first person.  Now, I'm switching it to third person deep.  Typically this would seem like a frustrating set of changes--to switch it back to the original point-of-view makes you just want to shake the characters and ask them why you changed in it the first place.  On the other hand, third person deep will still retain some of the inner dialogue from first person, so it's helped the story evolve. Wanna see?  You know you do...

Okay, this is from Lucas's POV.  This story is set in contemporary society but there are a secret group of mutants living among us.  Lucas is a member of the Strain--his genetics give him super-human powers, and he thrives on bacteria--the same bacteria that would kill "Outsiders" i.e. the rest of the world.  He's studying botulism in his lab.  Botulism is the Strain's version of a narcotic.  His mother is a sociopath and an assassin... and GO:

First, flat third person:

“Hello, my lovely,” his mother said while breezing in.  “What are we studying today, Lucas?”

“Botulism,” Lucas said.

“How delightful… are we studying or partaking?” she asked, sliding onto a stool beside him.

He glared at her… which made her laugh.

Second, its trip through first person where it picked up all the character's thoughts. 

“Hello, my lovely,” my mother said, breezing in.  “What are we studying today, Lucas?”

Damn.  If only I’d put this away and been working on something else.  Prevarication was out—she’d know.

“Botulism,” I said.

“How delightful!  Are we studying or partaking?”  She slid onto a stool beside me.

I glared at her—which made her laugh.  This wasn’t unusual.  She often found my serious nature amusing.


Finally, here we are in third person deep:

“What are we studying today, Lucas?”  His mother stepped up to his microscope and peered in.

Damn.  If only he’d put this away and been working on something else.  Prevarication was out—she’d know.

“Botulism.”

“How delightful!  Are we studying or partaking?”  She slid onto a stool beside him.

Lucas glared at her—which made her laugh.  This wasn’t unusual.  She often found his serious nature amusing.

Another thing that this--rather laborious method of arrival added was that Hallie has a southern accent and during the first person conversion I added accent and voice to her character. Much of that will stay in third person deep.  On the one hand, I might rather sell my soul than switch something from third person to first person and then back again just to gain insight into the characters' thoughts, but I can't argue with the resulting nuances it's added.

Still, don't do it.  It's a misery.

If you have other questions on third person deep--and I have--I asked a bunch on Twitter two nights back actually after I read this post by Liz Pelletier: Demystifying Deep POV Liz is the publisher and lead editor at Entangled Publishing.  That post is really helpful.  She and I exchanged several tweets on whether Hallie should keep her slang in the narrative portions of the story. This post: What is Deep POV on the The Editor's Blog is also useful.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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*

Those Extra Syllables

So, late last night, some folks on Twitter may have seen a slight... we'll call it a writer's crisis. I couldn't figure out how to bring out the voice in Mutants, and it was killing me. I'd fixed the major plotpoints that I'd previously had issues with and which had come up with a few agents when I'd been querying. I'd added a rather beautifully violent scene that I just want to hug. But the voice was flat.

Flat.

Really flat.

Pancake flat.

I was discussing this on Twitter and toying with the idea of switching the viewpoint to third from first, but one of my Twitter friends suggested perhaps I needed to go deeper rather than push myself away through third person.

A little after midnight, I was going through the first chapter while listening to a youtube discussion on the southern accent when it hit me... syllables... I needed to steal syllables from Hallie and make a ton of her dialogue into contractions, something that is common in the South. (There is no "I would have" but it's "I would've.") Then, I needed to add syllables to Lucas's inner dialogue because he wasn't raised there, and he'd self-educated through textbooks. Not only will he say "I would have" but he'd add in adverbs like "logically" or "optimally."

So, this section of the manuscript:

I brushed by my mother. Her perfume wound around me like a snake. It wasn’t subtle. She wasn’t subtle. No boy wants to know that his mother uses her body to get what she wants, but there wasn’t room for doubt on that.

Became:

I brushed by my mother. Her perfume wound around me like a snake. It wasn’t understated. It was cloying and obvious. She smelled lethal and menacing to me. Perhaps that was why I was drawn to Hallie’s simple scent of strawberries. There were no musky sensual undertones which spoke to me of the reality: my mother lured men to their deaths with the perfume. No boy wants to know his mother uses her body to get what she wants, but there wasn’t room for doubt on that. That, of course, wasn’t the only reason I liked Hallie’s scent but, from a clinically objective viewpoint, I couldn’t refute it might be a part.

It's still rough, but it's changed quite a bit. I'm toying with it anyway, and I think I know where I'm going. It's all about the syllables. Lucas will get more and Hallie is losing hers. BAWAHAHAHA! This might end up adding to the length of the manuscript, some of which I just worked hard to delete, but I'll work that out on my next revision possibly or maybe Mutants will end up being 90K instead of 75K like I want.

Anyway, that's my Wednesday writing plan. Today, I'm going to be very busy, so I won't get as much writing time as I'd like. Le sigh. Maybe I'll manage it tonight. I'm feeling the drive to fix this, the rush of the step beyond creation. Sometimes, manipulation of something you've created is just as satisfying as the original success. This feels this way.

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.

The First Cut is the Deepest

I know... I'm all about weird little pictures lately, huh? I've been working on winding down from that revise and quick sketches seem to help. Maybe for tomorrow's blog I'll sketch a sad panda because I might be sad by then.

Why might I be sad?

Dude, I have to cut the entire prologue from Curse Me A Story. (See picture above) The agent that requested this second revision wants it gone... and her reason is really good... and I agree, but... (See picture above)

On the one hand, I kinda wondered if it would need to be cut when I wrote it; which, of course, begs the question: Why did I write it?

I don't know!!! I'm just the writer. Do you think I know these things? I don't!

This agent probably thinks I'm a bit of a dork because when she suggested that I add the information back in later... I'd never even thought of that on my own. It was either prologue or no prologue... there was no try or something like that. One of my betas didn't like the prologue but I just blew off her prologue hate because I kept thinking, "Uhhh... what am I going to do? Just cut it off?" *cue laughter* Who is laughing now? Huh? Huh? (See picture above.)

There isn't a "ton" of information in the prologue but it's not totally extraneous either. I've heard of some people just cutting prologues or first chapters without it making any difference. Err... this is not one of those. (See picture above.)

I'm also going to run each chapter through edit minion as I finish its revision to check for repetition and all the stuff that'll make an agent cringe. What is edit minion you ask? What??? *cue gasp of shock* (See picture above... no... just kidding this time.) www.editminion.com I saw it on Twitter a couple weeks back and it's been popping up in other writers' blogs. It's a fun little beta program. I've been trying to use editor by Serenity Software, but... I can't seem to wrap my brain around it... so edit minion it is.

My sister already finished beta-reading Secrets of Skin and Stone for me. I know. That was fast, right? I think I'll still let it gel until Monday. Then, I need to do a Kindle revision on it and hopefully remember that one point I wanted to address but forgot. Then, it'll go to the agent that is also waiting on Curse Me A Story revisions. (She received many random and chatty emails from me this week. I think she may have realized this was some weird vetting process and she didn't run screaming... yet.) If the agent isn't interested in Secrets of Skin and Stone, I may still try ABNA just to say that I've tried ABNA.

I did send off the YA mystery short story to a contest today. Yay! Huzzah! Hail, the conquering hero... and all that. I'll hear back on that in April.

I'll also officially hear this weekend whether I'm in a zombie anthology.

But first... *sighs* Maybe this'll teach me to think good and hard before adding a prologue. (See picture above.) The first cut is the deepest...

*prologue screams... and then... silence*

Let's not talk about this again... shall we. Everyone leave quietly one at a time and forget this ever happened. Wait! Except for you... yes you! You're going to help me bury the body... and maybe the prologue... but first the body. (See picture above.)

Listening to the Voices in my Head

So, today will be another revising day... even though I finished the revision of Secrets of Skin and Stone last night and sent it off to betas. I've got a short story I need to revise and enter it into a contest, and I may get started on the agent-requested revisions on Curse Me A Story. She wants me to ditch the prologue and add it in throughout the story. So, all you prologue-haters can get in an 'I told you so' now. ; )

I'm really happy with the revision on Secrets of Skin and Stone but I'm wondering if I need to add more of a dialect to one of the voices. I don't know... I'll think about it.

It'll be nice to be done revising for a space so I can work on something new, but so far my brain hasn't really focused on a single project yet. I keep waiting for that night to come when I can't sleep because one of my WIPs is keeping me up. Instead, it's just the revisions that are still in my brain when I'm trying to sleep. That's probably good.

Speaking of sleeping and nights... my insomnia jag broke but my kids woke me up early to get them ready for "pajama day" at school and the massive windstorm outside is giving me a headache. I'm going to go take something to make my head weigh a hundred pounds less and crash for an hour.

So, my old friend, we meet again

I got a revision request from an agent on Curse Me A Story. I'm excited and nervous about it. I'm, by nature, extremely pessimistic and cynical. (The world is a hostile place to those with OCD--so we're always waiting for that other shoe to drop.) So, I'm still trying to convince myself this is a step forward and not just more treading water.

Anyway, she wants me to bump it up to a strict YA audience (it was flirting with MG) and flesh out some of the characters. I did a reread last night and marked a bunch of points in my Kindle that I think I need to deal with. The previous revision on it... really kicked it up a notch. I like when I have my expectations exceeded from my memory of a manuscript. (With how bad my memory is... this happens more often than you'd think.)

Unfortunately, I'm exhausted. This insomnia jag isn't relenting like they normally do. If I've slept more than four hours on a night--that is the exception rather than the rule for the last three weeks.

I still want to tackle this revision... because, let's face it, I'm perpetually sleep-deprived, but I think it might take a bit longer than normal.

When I'm done, I'm hoping to con some of those that have read it before into a reread. *shiny eyes*

Okay, I have cleaning to do and some stew in the crockpot. Later, gators.

Oh... I read Paranormalcy by Kiersten White last night... in like three hours. If you haven't picked this book up... for shame. It was so thoroughly addicting that I didn't put it down the first time until it was too dark to see. I'd only intended to glance through it when it came from Amazon yesterday. Instead, I forgot to eat dinner and the kids got my C game for the most part.

Seriously... go get this book. It rocked. Also, follow Kiersten on Twitter because she is super, super, super nice.