Miss Macchiato

All too often I fall victim to insecurity. It’s a powerful enemy. Eventually it drags me down to the point where I can’t even look at my projects (i.e. novels) with an unbiased perspective. Rose colored glasses turn to crap glasses, and it’s hard to pull myself out. But in the end, I often do.

And it’s not because my awesomeness is so inspiring.

Ultimately what pulls me back from the brink is that the projects I am creating are things that ultimately make me happy. I write stories that interest me. Maybe they won’t interest everyone. Maybe not everyone will “get it”. That’s okay. Ultimately, they are stories that make me happy, and that’s what reinvigorates me when I get too down on myself. No, I’m not a published author, but that’s not what validates me. I write what I enjoy, and that’s what keeps me going.

A couple of months ago I announced that I was working on the new book, which really wasn’t new at all, but the original novel I had started back when I decided I was going to become a serious writer. That was more than three years ago and, all this time, I’ve been noodling it around in my head.

That’s a long time to live with an idea. In fact, it’s no longer an idea — it’s a fully fleshed out book waiting to be put on paper. Unfortunately, it’s also not an original idea: Elves and dwarves and evil and good and a princess who needs rescuing! I’m in love with the characters and so I really wanted them to come to life on paper, but I got to chapter two and my enthusiasm completely fizzled. In fact, I felt so negative about the project that I thought my stint as a writer was over.

With my writers group kicking off at my house in two days, that was NOT a good thought.

After some consideration (including a strong cup of Gimme Coffee! and breakfast with my sweetheart) I dumped the elves. Completely. I have exchanged them for a futuristic, post-apocalyptic, demon-infested Earth. The story follows a small military troop commanded to rescue a John Doe. The troop does as ordered, without question or care, until they realize their John Doe is the one responsible for the state the world is in.

Obviously that’s not the whole plot — I haven’t really had a chance to figure out the whole thing yet, but I think that’s a strong start. And, for a teaser, here’s my first draft opening sentences:

Crawling on their bellies, they followed the screams to the edge of the crag and looked down. At the bottom was a swarm of red and black serpentine creatures coming in and out of a Door. In the center of the activity, suspended in the air and dangling upside down, was the rookie. His helmet was off and he was screaming unintelligibly at the top of his lungs.

It’s a little clunky (that second sentence needs to be rewritten for sure) but the excitement of writing has returned!! I can’t wait to share my new ideas with the writing group tomorrow night.

I also baked butterscotch blondies for the event. If I can get my camera fixed (I think there might be something wrong with the memory stick) I’ll take some photos and share the recipe later.

It’s pretty, it’s weird, it’s exciting, and it’s fun to eat: The single bite that indicates all that is to come.
Photo courtesy of Kitchen Connaisseur

Contrary to popular opinion, where to begin the tale is not always intuitive. A reader’s attention is only so long so it’s imperative that the story starts in the perfect place with the perfect characters and the perfect scene. Talk about pressure! If only that scene and all its specifics was obvious. My recommendation is one I have heard from many accomplished authors and writing professors: “Start right where the story begins.”

The important thing to glean from such excellent advice is this: Don’t include a bunch of backstory that no one cares about. The wall of text that describes your character’s hatred of carrots isn’t necessary unless it is quickly discovered that the protagonist is locked in a battle to the death with a vegetable farmer.

When I start out writing a brand new novel in a brand new world, I find that the first three chapters of my initial draft is all backstory and doesn’t need to go into the novel. My advice is to write it anyway and then, after going back to rewrite, leave all that backstory out. Start at chapter 3 or 4 or wherever something interesting happens. And when I say “happens” I mean action — the one event that sets of the series of dilemmas for the character. Don’t start describing someone’s long, flowing golden locks unless in the next three or four sentences someone unexpectedly comes along with a hacksaw and cuts it all off.

The first couple of paragraphs should be the amuse-bouche of the story: A tasting of what is to come. Whether an author likes it or not, the first 100 or so words of a story indicate to the reader what the rest of the book is going to be like. So don’t start out with a yawn.

I wish I had known that before I started some of my earlier projects because they would have all gone a lot differently, not to mention better.

Once that initial action has been decided, there’s more decision making to do! Hooray! What character, who is involved, and how to present that one action? A couple of scene ideas will probably come to mind. The way that works best for me is to write two or three best ideas out. Chances are good that only one or two pages of scene will need to be written before I know whether or not they’ll work. Choose the scene that makes the most sense and make sure it’s what you and the reader will both enjoy.

Literary agents all expect something different. When an aspiring author is sending a query letter, research has to be done in order to tailor the letter specifically to what each agent likes. They all want and expect something different.

I only follow a couple of literary agent blogs and I only follow one agent on twitter because she doesn’t have a personal blog. My dream has been to send a query letter to either her or the head agent at her agency, so I was pretty curious today when she posted a tweet about her query process: If she reads a manuscript and loves it, her second step is to research the author’s web presence.

I asked her what that meant. Lots of work on twitter and facebook, tons of followers and friends and a blog that was blowing up with traffic? If I wanted to do the hardcore promotion on my own, I’d skip the idea of traditional publishing altogether. She responded saying that a “professionally done website was best.”

Okay. I get that. However, just before she responded to me, she announced a new novelist that she is representing and linked his website. Curious to know what her definition of what a professional website was, I clicked the link.

My initial reaction was, “Did he actually pay for this?”

I think we can all agree that Tom would rather gouge out his eyes, cut off his arms and cast himself from the top of our gigantic lawn rock before creating a website like that.

I’m not trying to be petty, so let me explain where I’m going with this. I think I understand what the agent is saying: These days, it’s important for authors and aspiring authors to have a web presence so fans can find them.

I get that. The problem I have with that philosophy is that I have nothing really for fans to become fans of. They can read my current manuscript of THE FOURTH CHANNEL, but that’s what I’d eventually like published so I don’t want to throw it out there to anyone other than potential agents, my writing group, and my two actual fans (who, by the way, quote my novel to me – it’s wild).

But I get her perspective. For people who are starting out and want to get into the traditional publishing game, it’s probably a good idea to get a website in your name (firstlast DOT com). I’ve been encouraging my writers group members to all get blogs of their own, at least to give them a reason to meet the recommended “500 words a day”. I can’t stress enough how much blogging has helped my own writing. Of course, when I go back and read things I wrote 3 – 4 years ago, I cringe. But it goes to show that it helps. Websites are cheap and easy to come by, and a blog can be very easily linked. My blog probably would count as a professional website if it was listed as my name and not under a silly pseudonym.

I know, I know. I should have picked MissParslei DOT com instead.

I’m about to do something daring. Guide to Literary Agents is holding a contest for novels of paranormal romance or urban fantasy. All we have to do is submit our first 150 – 200 words. The top three winners receive a critique of the first 10 pages of your work by an agent judge.

Writer friends (and my writers group) — get in on the action! If paranormal or urban fantasy isn’t your thing, I recommend subscribing to GtLA on your reader because this is apparently a recurring contest that calls for different genres. Since I’ve only been subscribing to the site for the last month or two, I hadn’t heard of it until now. I’d love to hear what a professional thinks about my work, and how I can improve.

Writer friends, get on it!

Who hasn’t dreamed of being the ultimate winner? It’s the fantasy where, somewhere, in another universe, you’re gorgeous and talented and famous and you’re dating a supermodel. It’s the place where you’re good at everything and bad at nothing. Bad times never befall you. Struggle never happens. Conflict? If there’s any of that, it’s because someone who isn’t you has caused it and it doesn’t matter anyway, because your general awesomeness is an impenetrable barrier around you. You’re untouchable and impervious to the pitfalls of life. It’s like being the Old Spice guy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The thing is, a novel about the perpetual winner is BORING. There is no drama because the reader feels no stress about the story. There’s no point for investing time just to find out what we already know to be true about the book: Will the winner win? Yep.

Boooooring! Let the winner fantasy remain in your head, and give your main character a good dilemma or two to work out.

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.