When I first envisioned THE FOURTH CHANNEL, the original incarnation had a vampire element to it. I tossed and turned over this aspect for a long time because the vampire theme is overdone. I must confess I’m getting a little tired of vampires, too. On the other hand, THE FOURTH CHANNEL isn’t about vampires — it’s about necromancers and there happen to be vampires in the story. So that should be okay, right? I decided it was, but continued to be bothered about it nearly every day.

That should have told me something, but I guess I wasn’t listening to my intuition.

This rewrite of chapter 17 has forced me to revisit the issue in a major way. To vampire or not to vampire? That is the question.

After a bit of soul searching and wikipedia-ing, I had to be honest with myself: I cannot write vampires to be more interesting than what has already been done by other authors.

Does that make sense? There are many other authors who make the vampire element interesting but I’m just not one of them and, if I can’t make it new and exciting to the reader, then it doesn’t belong. End of story.

So what did I do with this group? I made up something that works a lot better.

I’ve been doing research on starting and conducting a good writing group, as well as on the critiquing process. Things are really coming along and I can’t wait to announce it at church. I won’t be able to do that until next weekend, so my thought is to start late September and run it every other week.

In the midst of that, I kept thinking to myself that I need tell Tom about this. This morning it dawned on me that he reads my blog so he already knows and has probably guessed where the meetings will be held, at least for the first couple of meetings. Our church is currently in the midst of construction on another building where our midweek functions will be held. Until that happens, it’s going to be Chez Kirchner.

Sorry, honey.

Writing groups are all conducted in different ways and, after reading some of the suggestions, I was worried that our time as a group would not be spent wisely (or fun). Some groups like to get together and do writing games where they pick a theme and then write as much as you can off the top of your head for a certain amount of time, then go around the circle and read what they produced. I’m not really into that. Instead, I’m taking a nod from some of the websites I perused and have everyone prepare material beforehand, print enough copies for the group, and then we’ll do the reading and critiquing together. I also liked the recommendations for people not to constantly be late and, if they haven’t prepared enough for the week, then don’t come. We’ll see how well I stick to that, considering how great I am at conflict and laying down the law.

Stop laughing!

After some diligent Googling, I was able to find two websites that helped me determine guidelines for the upcoming group. The first handy website is a list of what NOT to do and the second one is a list of what to do. Very helpful reads for me.

Because I’m such an eager beaver (har) I found a pretty good website that gives guidelines on how to critique and the questions each person should be asking as a piece is being read. The only portion Dorothy disagreed with is the bullet that talks about not voicing your opinion on content. I have to say that I agree, since what I needed help on recently was a content issue.

My guess is that we’ll start meeting on Mondays, every other week. The question is the starting date. I’m not sure on that yet. That’s a discussion that will involve Tom’s actual input, as opposed to reading all about it here.

Last night I went out with Dorothy, one of my very good friends who has been reading my novel, The Fourth Channel, and has become quite a big fan of the book. However, when she read chapter 17, she was a bit bothered by one of the scenes and, since we’re friends, she was reluctant to tell me.

Luckily for me, I had put enough chocolate and coffee in her to loosen her up, and she confessed that she had a hard time reading chapter 17. Now, a few things happen in chapter 17, but I knew exactly what she was talking about because when I wrote the questionable section, it bothered me. I couldn’t think of another way to illustrate something so I compromised myself and wrote something that I wasn’t comfortable with, either. I had no one to really bounce it off of, so I just stuck it in there and hoped for the best.

Dorothy’s a fellow artist and art teacher of many, many years, and has a lot of experience in the art world, so I let her talk and tried not to interrupt. I could tell she was uncomfortable because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, but it was a good chat and in the end I was really glad she said something because up until then I didn’t have anyone like-minded to talk to about the issue.

So on one hand, it’s good to know that I have to rework an aspect of the novel and make it truer to who I am. On the other hand, it’s frustrating that I have to come up with a new solution. The good news about that is that the new ideas are usually better but it’s still frustrating to have to redo stuff. I woke up last night at 4AM and ended up tossing and turning for the next two hours because I was thinking about it. But it will be okay — better than okay. I’m already feeling really great about the changes and they reflect who I am a lot more than the way it was originally written.

Then she brought up another good point — if I had a writers group, then I’d have people to pose these conundrums to. Our church needs another homegroup and we have a small group of writers emerging in our church. Now, I am not a leader in that sense so it couldn’t be me heading it up, but I wouldn’t mind helping to organize. Besides, I don’t even know what a writing group does. Does one just show up and start blabbing ideas to a bunch of strangers? I don’t know. I’m skeptical. Does anyone know how an effective writing group works?

For me, the first writing of chapter one is always an excruciating process. I have so many ideas jumping around in my head that it takes FOREVER to get some of the words out and, no matter how hard I work on it, I feel a little bummed knowing that I’m just going to rewrite it later.

That’s why I’ve taken to the “intentionally write badly” school of thought. I’m a To-Do List kind of a girl. If I write badly, I can get out all my ideas and then organize and rewrite them later.

Usually that means the 90% of the chapter is rewritten, but whatever. It’s better than sitting in a chair for hours on end and only having 100 words to show for it.

I’m at home today, working on the new book. Things are going okay (kinda). I took some time out to do Wii Fit; hopefully all my nervous energy is out now and I can be a little more productive.

I’m still working on finishing the final touches of my novel, THE FOURTH CHANNEL, as well as working on a query letter to send. I can’t believe how fast it’s coming together, and soon it will come to an end.

Last night, Tom and I had a chance to sit down and talk about my next writing project. This will be more of a throwback to Tolkein/Forgotten Realms. It takes place in an alternative world with wars and elves and dwarves and evil gods and destinies(!) — but it will have my spin on it. This morning I typed out the first few sentences, which means that the new project really has begun.

He wasn’t in shackles, but he wasn’t free. They led him out between four guards, through hastily erected huts of chopped timber and dirty canvas. The camp hadn’t stood longer than a few weeks but had already outlived its use; everything leaned as if it might collapse at any moment.

Earlier this year, I talked about my hope that everyone is challenging themselves to do something new — if there’s something on your “bucket list” or if there’s something in your heart that you’ve always wanted to do, I hope everyone is working on accomplishing at least one thing this year. Finishing this novel is the most amazing feeling. I’ll always remember that moment of finishing it — Tom was yelling at me to come eat dinner, and I just wanted to get those last few sentences out! I brought the laptop with me and I just couldn’t pull myself away until it was done. And the feeling that I had right after, just knowing that I had accomplished it… Indescribable joy, immeasurable personal satisfaction. I often hear people on TV say that they need to become rich and famous and have a bunch of fans in order to feel that their art is justified –

That’s crap. I know that firsthand now. Even if the book isn’t published, I’ll still feel great for writing it.

What are your aspirations? Are you working on them? Do it, I say! You’re more than a 9-5 crone working in a maze of cubicles. It’s time to show it.

EDIT: Okay, Tom wasn’t really “yelling” at me to come to dinner… It was more like nagging.

My book is pretty much done. And this time, I mean it. There’s very little that I have left to do (write the prologue and finish the edits) so I am writing a query letter to submit to literary agents.

I’m so nervous that I’m shaking.

To reach out to an agent, I have to submit an email/letter that encapsulates the writing style and story — oh, and it can only be a single page with no attachments. If I can’t pique anyone’s interest in this very short letter, agents won’t ask to read any of the actual story. So, as you can imagine, there’s a lot riding on this query letter.

I won’t be submitting the letter until the book is completely finished, but it’s so close… I really don’t expect an overwhelming response from agents. After all, this is my first book and I am an unpublished author with no credentials. I think the book is an entertaining read with interesting, engaging characters, lots of sarcasm and fresh elements for the science fiction market, but I don’t know if that will be enough.

I’ll let you know when I finally do send out the letter; right now I’m just tinkering around with what ideas will go into it, and will send it out when the book is 100% finished.

Beyond a doubt, plotting was my original Achilles heel in novel development. While writing The Fourth Channel, that issue was painfully apparent after I had to write the damn thing from scratch three times. The LoO story was planned the same way (not at all – like a really bad episode of “LOST”) and now I have some new thoughts about how I can attack a new novel properly and with better efficiency.

Granted, this is just what works for me and that isn’t necessarily going to work for everyone. But here are my thoughts, as inexperienced as they are, thus far.

First of all, when I get an idea, it’s usually about a character or a scene that I think is interesting. But that’s all I’ve got. There’s usually no plot involved, just an interesting scene with an interesting character. At that point, I start writing. Three entire chapters will roughly be involved before I really get to the nub of the story, that is, the plot. I think it doubtful that anything written in those three chapters will even be incorporated into the story: All that comes out in those first three chapters is most likely the characters’ backstory. If I had realized this with the LoO story and started that way, I would be much more likely to finish it. I really didn’t get around to figuring out what the plot was until about the 4th or 5th chapter, which is too bad because I really liked where the story was eventually going — but that word “eventually” makes a novel a rather painful read. If I could go back and write the LoO story over, I would, and I know exactly what I would change.

Also, when working on the initial few chapters, don’t concentrating on writing well. Don’t stop to think about what the exciting first sentence(s) you need to grip the reader with. Chances are no one will see what’s going down. Just write and, if you must, intentionally write badly. The intent is to get the initial creative juices flowing, not to be poetic.

After the three initial “trash chapters” or “backstory chapters” are written, it’s time to put them in the ol’ back pocket for reference and start over with a real chapter 1. To do that, I like to mull the story around for a bit first. I’ll think about a scene or a character and let different options roll around in my head. And then I still won’t write it. I might jot ideas down somewhere, maybe not. More often than not, I’ll just keep mulling it over. I’ve stayed awake for hours, lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, just thinking things over. I get so entertained by thinking things over that before I know it, it’s the middle of the night and I have no clue where the hours went. (Like last night. Oops!)

When I’m ready to start jotting things down, I like to use a wiki. Tom maintains an online wiki for me so I can keep names and locations that’s accessible from anywhere. A running list of names is helpful so I can compare all of them and, if I have too many that look similar or start with the same letter, I change them so a reader doesn’t keep mistaking one person for another. Also, the wiki is also helpful for me so I can keep a short synopses of chapters that I can refer to later. I think the synopses thing is just a me-thing. It just helps me solidify my ideas and keep everything organized in text format.

My favorite way of plotting is by use of visio charts. Some well known, established authors allegedly use huge rolls of butcher paper with sticky notes that they can move around. As much as I love sticky notes (and I do <3 them) visio works out a lot better for me.

Here’s an example of the next book I’m going to start working on as soon as the current one is finished. I’ve made the picture really small so you can’t read the text (no spoilers, omg!):

Visio makes everything very malleable, so if I want to move the boxes around, I can. I’m not totally hooked on Visio as a brand, it’s just what I have in front of me. One of these days I should try an open source version. Maybe I will with the next book.

Anyway. Now since this book is in a conceptual state, the scenes/plot points are in the solid boxes. Additional notes and themes that I want included with those chapters, but I don’t want to forget about, are connected in the dotted boxes. The protagonist is on one side of the orange line, and the antagonist is on the other. Because this is written in third person, I will be periodically showing both sides of the story, and I want my visio chart to reflect when I do that. Yes, it helps me to determine that beforehand, and the visio boxes allow me to decide when I want to switch over and show how I’m moving the antagonist’s story along.

As you can see, I’m still kicking around how the last 1/3 of the book is going to go, so I’ve got the one blank box down at the bottom waiting to be completed. And I can do that easily. I don’t have to commit to it now, it just shows that it’s waiting to be finished and pushes me to start thinking about how I’m going to end this thing.

As I sit down to write the story and the plot solidifies, the visio chart will become much more streamlined; the dotted boxes will go away and text will become much shorter.

Here’s a small version of where The Fourth Channel is now. The plot, in its first stages, took up two visio tabs and extended all across the page — which was awesome, because I could visually see that the book was getting way too long and needed to be cut back. (Make room for sequels!) Now The Fourth Channel plot is just one side of a single visio page.

The new book is definitely coming along, and I am really pleased that I’ll have an immediate project to dive into as soon as The Fourth Channel is wrapped up.

More thoughts later.

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve updated my blog. I’m around and have been working away like a busy bee, but haven’t really felt a strong need to blog. I want to get back into it and I do have lots of food photos to share.

I’ve also been working on my first novel. Oddly enough, I posted exactly a year ago saying I was almost finished with this book. And I was. Sort of. Because this is my first novel, I really wanted to take my time and do as good of a job as I could. Nearly every day, as Tom can attest, I’ve worked on this thing. It’s been written 3 times — last year when I posted, I had only written it twice. Every time I rewrote the story, I learned a ton about writing.

This final version is the final and best version, and I am going to submit it to some agents to see what happens. I feel stressed, but what do I have to lose? The worst (and most likely) outcome is that they will say no. If that happens, I’ll go another route – self publishing or internet or whatever.

At the time of this post, I have two chapters left to write and then I need to go through and finish my edits. The first three chapters are pretty much done and I’ve been passing them around. I even already have fans in my church, if you can believe that. It’s a weird feeling to know that I have fans, but it’s really encouraged me.

The book is called “The Fourth Channel” (sorry, I don’t know how to underline in HTML) and if you’re interested in taking a peek at the first chapter, post a comment below or send me an email.

I’m very excited about having this book done. Already my brain is churning over the next book, which is actually the practice book I had been working on before this one. A few days ago, I woke up at 3AM, and the first chapter just hit me. The idea is an exciting new and gritty start to the story, giving it a whole new flavor and tons of possibilities, and I’m excited to get going. Now that I’ve learned so much working on this current book, I expect new projects to go a lot faster. At least, I hope.

In gaming news, I’m sure it hasn’t escaped anyone’s attention that I disappeared from WoW yet again. Sorry. I’ve been playing a PS3 game called Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. It’s a strategy game, which appeals to me because I loved Final Fantasy Tactics. Disgaea is similar in that it’s a strategy game, but it’s like FFT on crack. So when I’m playing games, I’ve been playing that. Maybe I’ll get back into WoW, but I think I’m nurturing a healthy fear of Sabe hitting level 80 and, if I invest a couple more hours into her, that’s what she’ll be.

And yes, she’s still dressed like the Ghost of Arenas Past.

My sound room is also done. In my spare time (har) I’ve been working on elements for a music project that is going to be coming very soon. Not much to say about that yet, but soon.

More to come, and hopefully some food related topics! Tom and I have a lot of cookouts and BBQ’s on the social calendar so I’ll have a wealth of photos and recipes to share… So stay tuned.

I had the best day that I’ve had in a long time, for no reason other than it was just so productive. I spent my time finishing up my term paper (DONE!), got started on the art project portion of the term paper, came up with the idea for my next book, and am really cruising through the editing of my current book. I even finally came up with the name for the book: The Fourth Channel (italicized because my web admin is lame and didn’t give me a button for underlining, haha). All day yesterday I tried so hard to get things accomplished, but no luck. Today was my day! There’s just something about having the house to yourself that makes for a most productive day. I can’t explain it.

The hardest part about learning to write is learning to be OK with yourself.