From the Mixed-Up Archives of a Youthful Novelist with Aspirations of Grandeur

So I have a box in my closet that looks like this:

 

It's stuffed with miscellaneous writing projects, the earliest of which date back to when I was short and little and didn't need to wear glasses to see things more than six inches away from my face. Yes, folks. We're talkin' THE EARLY NINETIES (oh, the horror!).

Today, I thought I would inflict you with the first story I ever wrote, complete with illustrations. This dates to second grade, that illustrious time when I was reading a ton of Bobsey Twins. Here goes:

 

And with the immortal line "The four mystery solvers

walked down the road," a career was born.

As you can see, this was before the day the

concept of spacing meant anything to me.

Or capitalization, for that matter.

Because everybody wants a shed!

 Not really sure what the big deal is about the chalkboard…

"The four grils" heeheehee

 Gotta love the Bad Man's evil laughter. :-D

I love that I misspelled "right" as "wright."

Who DOES that? :-)

Things I love about this page:

1. The Bad Man is wearing an ape suit.

2. The Bad Man is giving out balloons.

3. Anna wants a balloon even though

they're being handed out by the Bad Man

4. HER MOM GIVES HER PERMISSION.

There's a lot of note passing in this story.

Also, glad to know our heroines could take the time

from mystery-solving to eat some ice cream!

For obvious reasons, I never finished this story.

I like how I managed to rhyme the last couple of lines.

And now I will demonstrate why I gave up on illustration:

The Bad Man in the infamous ape suit.

Clearly there is LOTS of happiness. And food.

So there you have it. The very first (unfinished) story I ever wrote. I like to think I've come a long way since then… :-)

Thoughts on NaNoWriMo 2010

So I have this thing about first drafts.

I LOVE THEM.

I love brainstorming and outlining them. I love writing them. I wish I could write first drafts every single month of the year!!! They're so SHINY! So INSPIRING! So EXCITING!

The only problem being first drafts aren't perfect. They need revising. And revising takes a lot of effort, and isn't as much fun, and is really really HARD.

After a while, those first drafts really start to pile up.

Let's review.


Summer 2005:
I discover the existence of NaNoWriMo, and am inspired to push through to the end of a floundering draft and actually FINISH my very first full-length novel, On Journeys Bound.

NaNo 2005:
I discover that it is possible to write an entire first draft in a month, and complete my very first fantasy novel, The Rose Queen.

Spring/Summer 2006:
I wrestle with revisions of The Rose Queen, and manage to wring out a second draft. I also start Draft 2 of On Journeys Bound somewhere in there.

NaNo 2006:
I discover that it is possible to write 100k in a month, and complete Draft 1 of The Whale and the Tree.

Spring/Summer 2007:
Third draft of Rose Queen, more work on Journeys, and possibly a bit on Whale. 

NaNo 2007:
I discover that I have Very Big Ideas, and write only half of the 209k tome later to become Draft 1 of The Fire in the Glass.

Summer 2008:
Second draft of Whale.

NaNo 2008:
I don't really discover anything groundbreaking, but I do write over half of the 190k tome later to become Draft 1 of The Silver Crane.

Summer 2009:
Attempt at revising Fire. More revision on Whale. Queries sent out. A pitiful attempt at another revision of Rose Queen. A bit done on Journeys. First draft of a not-all-that-short-story (18k), Seraphine.

NaNo 2009:
I discover that sometimes my ideas are not as great as I thought, and write 40k of the as-yet-unfinished The Last Garden, and 50k of the as-yet-unfinished The Blind King, which is a sequel to On Journeys Bound.

Spring 2010:
First draft of Seer, completed early March. Revisions commencing a few weeks later. Much procrastination.

Summer/Fall 2010:
Still floundering in revisions for Seer, poking at Journeys 'cause it won't leave me alone.

Which brings me to some Stats:

Completed first drafts—6
Completed revisions—2, (but they're not REALLY completed—both Rose Queen and Whale need re-drafting. Again.)
Revisions in progress—2 (though Journeys is more a rewrite than a revision)
Incomplete drafts—2
Unrevised novels—2

All that to say, and the data is pretty clear—I have yet to successfully figure out HOW TO REVISE. Or at least how to FINISH a revision. Kind of frustrating.

Which leads me to my point (I do actually have one):
I don't think I have any business starting a Brand New Novel for NaNo when I have SO many more projects to work on that I feel are more important to furthering the Hope of being able to hop back on the submission wagon again sometime this century. I know I can write a book in a month—it's super fun and I adore doing it, but I need to prove to myself that I can FINISH a revision, not just a first draft, which leads me to the conclusion that I should sit out NaNoWriMo this year. :-( :-( :-( :-(

HOWEVER.

If I finish my second draft of Seer by the end of October, I have decided to issue myself the following challenge (reward??) :

To write the second half of On Journeys Bound AND the second half of The Blind King during the month of November, thereby joining the frenzy that is NaNo (albeit as a self-declared rebel), and finishing two projects I've been meaning to get to for YEARS.

And those are my long, rambling, and conflicting thoughts on participating in NaNoWriMo this year.

Why I Hate Revising (a poem)

It started out so perfect,
Inspiration in the night,
I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat,
Compelled to write and write and write,
And then I reached the climax,
And then I typed "The End"
And then I found the awful truth—
The REAL work had yet to begin…

I realized that my plotline
didn't make a lick of sense,
my characters were too cliché
my adjectives too dense,
The beginning truly terrible,
The ending really cheap,
The middle pretty awful too
(But there was a paragraph—it's true—
on page one hundred thirty-two,
Quite beautiful and deep.)

First I took the pages
And shuffled them around,
Then I tore my heart out,
And trod it on the ground.
Then I ate some chocolate
and stared blankly at the wall,
Pondering the reason
I had started this at all.

Then I watched some Netflix
to forget about my woes,
Then I baked some cookies
and put polish on my toes,
Then I did some laundry
and made a cup of tea,
And sat staring at my MacBook screen
and wrote a word (or two, or three).

I deleted a whole chapter,
I wrote a brand new scene,
I went to wash the dishes
'cause I saw that they weren't clean,
I visited the Blueboards,
in search of inspiration,
then killed the MC's mother
(to give him motivation).

I moved a scene from chapter one
into chapter four,
I really didn't think
I liked this novel anymore.
Frustration quickly settled in
and morphed into despair,
There was no way in the whole world
This horrid thing could be made GOOD
I didn't even care!
I was a hack, I was a fraud,
I'd never find a way—
and then I had a brilliant thought
and plowed on through my problem spot,
and finished for the day.

So maybe after all there's hope
And this isn't just some cruel, cruel joke
And this book will finally be The One—
But this really isn't any fun
And why on earth am I not DONE?

A long bank of cloud

So I guess I did sorta drop off the face of the planet. Or at least the blog-o-sphere. Or something.

I have been writing. Okay, not so much this last week, but I've definitely made progress since the last post, and I did pen two whole scenes today. I'm currently in the middle of Chapter Thirteen, and am struggling to get the middle bits of my novel to make some sort of coherent sense. The last two chapters I've found myself straying from my revision outline because the novel seemed to demand it, so that's thrown me off a bit. But I think it's for the best. Hopefully. Currently Draft #2 stands at 82,256 words, which is 12k longer than Draft #1. I'm kind of thinking it's not going to get a LOT longer than that, as I'll be deleting as well as adding material in future chapters… But as always, I really have no idea. I just want it to be over already. Did I mention how much I hate revising? 'Cause I do.

… Which is why every once in a while I sneak off to work on On Journeys Bound, which I still really, really want to finish. I'm all the way through Chapter Twelve now, and up to 55,796 words. Long ways to go yet, but I'm definitely flirting with the middle now.

On the reading front, I recently finished Rosemary Sutcliff's Dawn Wind, which is a gorgeous historical fiction set in Britain in the Sixth Century AD. I really love her storytelling and characters and her talent of letting you hear and see and feel the things in her books. Her prose is quiet and lyrical and compelling, as shown by the opening paragraph:

The moon drifted clear of a long bank of cloud, and the cool slippery light hung for a moment on the crest of the high ground, and then spilled down the gentle bush-grown slope to the river. Between the darkness under the banks the water which had been leaden gray woke into moving ripple-patterns, and a crinkled skin of silver light marked where the paved ford carried across the road from Corinium to Aquae Sulis. Somewhere among the matted islands of rushes and water crowfoot, a moorhen cucked and was still. On the high ground in the loop of the river nothing moved at all, save the little wind that ran shivering through the hawthorn bushes.

 Lovely, lovely stuff. The kind of writing I aspire to!

I'm also about halfway through Heroes of the Valley, by Jonathan Stroud (author of The Bartimaeus Trilogy), which I like a lot so far. It's kind of about Vikings, which is awesome.

Let's see, in other news, BBC's Merlin is back for Series Three, the first two episodes of which were Epic and Awesome and Lord of the Rings-esque. I can't wait to see how the storylines and characters are going to develop over the rest of the series! Going to be interesting, for sure.

And that will about do it for now. I think I'll go work on my novel… or read… or goof off on the internet… one of those. :-)

The Girl Who Was On Fire

I know, I know, haven't blogged all week! But don't worry, I'm not about to drop off the face of the planet again. :-)

Finished reading Mockingjay last night at midnight, but didn't go to bed until one-thirty, as I found I needed some processing time. I'm still processing. Not going to say anymore because I refuse to spoil it for anyone, but look for a review sometime soon-ish.

On a side note, I'm never pre-ordering anything again. My Mockingjays weren't in at Borders on Tuesday like they were supposed to be, so I ended up buying two different copies so's me and the roomie could actually read them on release day! The other copies still aren't in yet, and I'm not looking forward to the fun ordeal of returning them when they do show up. *sigh*

You'll be shocked to hear that in amongst devouring Mockingjay, I actually did some writing! About halfway through Chapter Seven, and it's going well. So far I've added nearly 9,500 words to the novel in Draft #2. This is frightening. I feel like Draft #3 is going to be all about finding things to cut cut cut cut cut. And here I was all excited that I finally wrote a short novel!!

I will leave you with a couple pictures taken in the new abode's LIBRARY. Yes. It's okay to be jealous. :-)

My bookshelf against the freshly painted walls!

Tea in the library! And yes, that's a TARDIS teapot. :-)

Hanging in my comfy green chair, about to get some noveling done!

It's Frrriiiidayyyy!!

And to celebrate you get a smorgasbord of random links:

First up, the YA Fantasy Showdown, where characters from YA fiction are being pitted against each other in fictional battles, the outcomes of which are decided via voting. Currently about to delve into round four, my beloved Eugenides (from the Attolia books) and Howl (from Howl's Moving Castle) are still in the game!! I will be awash with glee if they both make it into the final round, although I'll have no idea which one to vote for…

Next up, the plural of "octopus" is explained.

Next up, I was invited by the lovely Irene Pynn to write a guest blog, and after some deliberation penned my heartfelt—albeit entirely unscientific—thoughts on How a Book is Like a Piano.

Next up, Nathan Bransford's excellent How to Write a Query Letter.

Next up, Gail Carson Levine discusses POV shifts in her latest blog.

And last but not least, author Maggie Stiefvater noodles on a childhood that shaped her as a reader and writer.

Have a good weekend everybody!!

P. S. I FINISHED CHAPTER SIX!!!!

In Progress

Look at me, three posts in a row! :-)

Yesterday I:

• Worked a bunch on the elusive Chapter Six of my novel—it's soooooo close to being done now! SO CLOSE! Ideas are spilling out, and words too, and it feels absolutely marvelous to be back working on it again!
• Finished The Silver Branch which I quite liked, though it wasn't quite as inspiring as Eagle of the Ninth. I want to read the third book in the loosely-connected series (The Lantern Bearers), but the library doesn't have it, so I see special ordering in my future.
• Started re-reading The Hunger Games in anticipation of Mockingjay next week. I find that when you read two books in the space of four days, not-quite-a-year later some of the details tend to fade, so I intend to remedy that. I'm just about to start Chapter 6.

Today I will hopefully:

• FINISH Chapter Six of Seer.
• Read more Hunger Games.
• Drink lots of tea.

I've already gotten one cup in on that last item.

Happy Wednesday everyone, and keep up the good work!!