Exploratory Drafts and Revising

Just got back from a lovely visit with my sister and her husband in Omaha. It was a beautiful trip, filled with lotsa caffeine and laughs and green growing things.  Back in the arid land that is home now, alas………

On the roster for me: I'm about to launch into another round of revision for my fairytale novel! Just got notes back from my fantastical CP Jen, and her insights and suggestions are brilliant, as always—I'm continually in awe at the perspective another set of eyes can give you. Ack she's just the best!! :) :)

Revising is so weird, you guys.

I outline fairly extensively before I start writing, and yet at the end of my first (or second or third) drafts, my story structure/character arcs(/and, let's face it, PLOTS) still need a lot of revising. Why is that?

Not all writers' processes are the same, of course, but for me I think it has to do with my need to write through something before I know if it's working or not. It's like I have to explore THIS version of my world/story/characters first of all, even if it's not the correct/final version—maybe specifically BECAUSE it's not the correct/final version. You really do have to start somewhere!

I feel like each progressive draft you explore a little more—delving into this storyline or that storyline, following the threads of your characters and plots, trying to untangle them. You have to keep chipping away at the marble, circling closer and closer to what your story was meant to be in the first place. It's like getting your eyes checked for the first time—you have to reject a lot of blurry lenses before you find the ones that make everything clear.

Anyway, all that to say, I was struggling a lot in Draft 2 with the middle section of my novel. I got through it, but I knew it still wasn't working and I had no clue how to make it better. That's where a good critique partner comes in!! Jen pointed out a few things to do/try, and it's like a lightbulb clicked on in my head! Obviously it's going to take more work (and I'm sure hair-tearing and ice-cream eating and Netflix-bingeing) to iron out these wrinkles and make the material hang like it should (OMG I'm gonna get fired for using so many metaphors in this post). But it's so awesome to realize that it IS possible and you understand what steps you need to take to get there!

To sum up: critique partners are awesome. Revising is weird. :-D

Onward to Draft Three!!

April Sunshine Brings Second Drafts!

Oh goodness, I'm not going to get the prolific blogging award for 2016, am I? :-D

Apologies for the long absence! Let's see if we can get you caught up:

At the beginning of March I had the immense pleasure of meeting Victoria Schwab and Rae Carson! It was a lovely and inspiring evening, and in the signing line my BFF made me pitch my novel to them… which was both terrifying and awesome! I managed to stutter out something resembling a sentence in English—I think!! :-D

My BFF Jenny, Victoria Schwab, and me!

I've had a bad case of project-hopping-itis since the end of January—working on this revision, working on that revision, brainstorming a brand new novel that freaks me out but also fascinates me and I'm not sure I'm at all qualified to write…

But a few weeks ago I finally settled on finishing the revision of my East of the Sun, West of the Moon retelling I drafted during NaNoWriMo 2014. I'd started Draft 2 early 2015, but was very pleasantly distracted by signing with my awesome agent and revising that book with her.

Anyway, I buckled down, unraveled the confusing threads of the muddled middle, and yesterday I FINISHED Draft 2!! It feels soooooooooooo amazing you guys! I know the novel still needs some work, but I accomplished what I wanted to for the second draft, and I'm super proud of it (and super in love with it—it's giving me serious FEELS you guys).

Not sure what I'm going to work on next… there's another weird idea slowly gnawing at my brain that I might pursue, but we'll see.

SO MANY BOOKS TO WRITE, SO LITTLE TIME!!!

And I think that catches you up! Happy April, and I'll see you again soon (you know, maybe!).

The Life and Times

Hey all! Happy Friday! TGIF, am I right? :-)

I have just a brief update post from me today:

First and foremost, I've been an agented author for a little over a month now, which still majorly blows my mind! After much brainstorming and wool-gathering and idea-collecting, I have officially embarked upon a new draft of The Whale and the Tree for my agent*. I'm super excited about it! Been working for a little over a week now and I haven't quite found my groove yet, but I think I'm nearly there. I super can't wait for the shiny new version to exist in reality instead of just my head!!

I have an awesome real-life Pinterest board at my disposal, and have begun rewarding myself with stickers as I accomplish stuff. Bertie has been offering his own ideas for the new draft, which has of course been super helpful.

My writing space and sweet cork-board—slowly filling it up!

Bertie's chapter. :-)

Stickers make everything better!!

Last night I had the immense privilege of attending the Fierce Reads Spring Fling tour at Changing Hands bookstore, and got to meet the lovely Marie Rutkoski!!! There were crazy hats involved—it was kind of the best. I even managed to speak some semi-coherent sentences in actual English. A definite success. :-) It was amazing to hear the entire panel speak about writing and characters and how awful middles are (it's not just me!!) and ohhhhh writers are definitely My People. Whole-heartedly enjoyed it!

Being FIERCE!

Anyhoo, that's what's new with me! I mentioned this in my last post, but if any self/indie-pubbed or querying authors would like to take part in my interview series, please feel free to contact me via Twitter or email, and I'll send you the questions.

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* I feel like one of those girls who gets married really young and makes it her life goal to insert the phrase "my husband" into every conversation at least ten times.

Reading and Writing and Pitching, oh my!

Good afternoon, my lovelies!

It's been a semi-eventful couple of weeks since my last post.

Firstly, and possibly MOST exciting, I pre-ordered The Winner's Crime, and my amazing indie bookshop called me up FIVE DAYS before it's technical release to tell me it had come in! So I managed to score the bestest book of 2015 early!

Reading at a tea shop in Flagstaff 

Five days early!!

I had a busy weekend (went up to Flagstaff with the hubby and found SNOW and wore SWEATERS and it was so so lovely) and only managed to read in snatches and pieces, but finished on March 3rd with my heart shattered and my mind blown and a major book hangover.

I cannot WAIT for book 3 but I have to, alas.

In the meantime, I kind of had to make up an ending in my head so I would be okay with the horrendous cliffhanger.

IT WAS REALLY SERIOUS, YOU GUYS. My word. But the book as a whole was exquisite and beautiful and heart-pounding and frustrating and shocking and AMAZING. I can't wait to reread it when I've recovered a little. And then maybe I'll be able to write a proper review. For now all I have to say is: READ THIS SERIES. You won't regret it (okay, you WILL, but only because it's just that heart-wrenching).

I'm still revising revising revising, and making fairly good progress with my fairytale retelling. My word count has swelled now to 74,688, and will probably grow even more by the time I'm done. I've had to add another whole chapter; now I have 24 instead of 23. Currently I'm in chapter 11, so nearly halfway. Struggling to build the relationship between my main character and an enchanted creature right now… I think I'm slowly getting there!

My self-inflicted finish date is April 23rd—I want to get this thing off to beta readers before my husband and I leave on our trip back east. I think I can do it!

Participated in the Twitter pitch contest PitMad yesterday and got……… nothin'! But that's okay. My book seems to be more of a traditional querying type creature than a contest one (I've certainly garnered more attention querying than I have in the spatter of contests I've entered over the last few months!). And in any case, it led me to develop what might be my favorite pitch for THE WHALE AND THE TREE of all time:

Talia was supposed to become empress—NOT get banished from her homeland, betrothed to a random boy, and drawn into the mythical saga of nine gods and an immortal tree.

So there you have it! What do you think?

Hope you all have a fabulous weekend! I'm off to see my new little niece on Sunday. Can't wait.

Happy writing! :-)

Laundry laundry, so Good to Me

Well I wanted to get an early start on writing today, so obviously I got up after nine, started laundry, ate breakfast, chatted on Facebook and Twitter, and made two cups of tea. I wish I could say I drank both cups of tea, but Bertie stuck his face in the first one so I had to brew anew.

In any case, just wanted to post a quick update before I do more laundry finally get started with my writing.

I'm plugging away on the second draft of my fairytale retelling. I rewrote the epilogue and last chapter, and have now returned to the beginning and started working my way through chronologically. I'll probably just continue linearly unless I have a brainstorm for something later on in the book. We'll see! I'm currently halfway through chapter two, and hoping to at least get partway into chapter three by the end of the day. Of course, that will depend on how much more laundry I decide to do. :-) After that, there's only twenty chapters left to revise!

Guess I'd better get to it.

Cheers, all! Happy writing!

Return to Revision-Land!

Well, I've officially taken the train back to Revision-land!

Thanks to feedback from my awesome critique partner as well as my own notes, I know (mostly) where I want to go with Draft #2 of my fairy-tale retelling. To my astonishment, I only have one scene slated for deletion—the other changes are new scenes or rewrites of existing ones. I'm not really rearranging much of anything either, which is really weird to me!

I usually work chronologically when I'm drafting or revising, but this time I'm trying something a little bit different, and I started with the ending! I expanded my last scene today—and lost a couple of hours in the process!—and I LOVE IT SO MUCH!! Sometimes you have to run with an idea when it comes to you, and that was definitely the right choice for me today!

I'm not sure what I'll do next. I might work backwards, I might attack the middle, I might return to the beginning and go chronologically from there. We shall see! But in any case, I'm back working again and it feels great!

Cheers, all. Happy writing! :-)

A Tale of Four Drafts

And now, ladies and gents, I give you SEER: A Tale of Four Drafts

The Four Drafts, from bottom to top, in all their glory.

Initial Idea: December 23rd, 2009

Outlining: 10 days (January 7th—17th 2010)

First Draft: 7 weeks (January 18th—March 7th 2010)

Word Count: 70,018

Revision Outline: 3ish weeks (March 25th—April 18th 2010)

Second Draft: 6 months and 3 weeks (April 19th—November 8th 2010)

Word Count: 81,937

Third Draft: 4ish months (January—April 2013)

Word Count: 88,819

Fourth Draft: 2 months (March—April 2014)

Word Count: 70,242


So. Four years, four drafts. The word count rise and fall is really interesting to me—I ended up about where I started, adding and deleting completely different words along the way.

(For anybody wondering about the long gap between November 2010 and January 2013, I was busy working on other projects, querying, and falling in love and getting married. :-D)