The only light in this situation is that I’m more motivated than ever to find another job. But at the same time, I just want to mope before I even think about sending my resumé out again.

Obviously, with the storm coming this way, I probably won’t be able to post Friday. So I’ll come up with something short and sweet on Monday.

Despite all my resistance and reasoning, I couldn’t ignore my doorstop novel. I started editing the first part today. I’m work-whipped. What can I say? Maybe now that I’m working on it again, I’ll soon stop writing random notes for extra scenes, details, and dialogue. I’ve just about filled the shoebox I scrounged up for all these notes; what’s more frightening is that I could possibly fit them all into the second draft. The trick is trying to make this draft no longer than 150K words. insert derisive laughter here

I’ll return to Manuscript #2 soon enough. Maybe I’ll save it for the weekends or late night projects (when the Webcomic hasn’t begged for attention). But something tells me that I have to keep working on Manuscript #1 until it’s ready to be shopped around. And if a project has bugged me for this long, I like to think that it means something.

Sorry for the short post this time, but my brain’s been focused more on the whirlwind of violent air formally known as Earl. It’s like having one of my flatulent long-lost relatives announce that he’s coming by for a day or two. I’m dreading it, preparing for it, and can’t think of anything else besides the potential damage that might result and what to take with us in case of evacuation.

Dammit, one of these days, I will relocate to a hurricane-free zone.

There’s nothing more mentally draining than seeing your corpulent form waddle into the store. You just have this air about you, this arrogance born from stubborn blindness and a staggering refusal to accept reality. You certainly haven’t endeared yourself to us, but I doubt you realize that… or care.

As much as I detest you, the curious part of my brain wants to dissect your personality. It wants to find out how you work, why you’re the way you are today, and just where you think you’re going in terms of your “career.” I think I got part of an answer the last time we met.

I finished a first draft of about 141K words in three months. I didn’t expect that to impress you; I’m not saying it to impress anyone, even though I’m amazed with myself. What’s more amazing is the editing process ahead. With another draft or two, my novel is going to be even better than it was the first time around. Who wouldn’t look forward to writing a better story?

Well, there’s you.

I really should not have been surprised to hear that you don’t like editing your own work. It explains so much. I can understand the frustration and agony that comes with returning to a piece of work. But how can you just leave a first draft the way it is and declare it the final one? How can you say you don’t want to even think about looking over your work? I’ve seen your novels. God, how could I not? They’re sitting on the local authors shelf, glaring at me, tempting me to read them cover to cover and soak up the stupid like I’m in some biblio-alternative version of MST3K.

And I almost did get through the first one. Oh, I tried. But it was like eating a whole pack of lunch meat that’s about to spoil: you know it’s wrong and possibly lethal, and there’s a chance that maybe it won’t do too much cellular damage to your large intestine… but in the end, you toss that sick pack of compressed meat by-products. Because it’s just not worth it. The headache, the killer gas, the violent contractions that eventually end in the expulsion of everything you’ve eaten since you were born… it’s not worth it.

The shit-poor characterization. The sloppily indented paragraphs. The cheesy-ass dialogue. The obvious Stephen Kingness of it all. God, it’s seared into my gray matter, and no surgical tool can ever scrape it away.

No wonder an agent or editor hasn’t signed you on, and it’s no mystery that either never will. If you can’t brave even a glance at your first attempt, then you’re never going anywhere. You’ve been at this for longer than I’ve been alive, and you’ve been self-published. You’re not some undiscovered genius who’s been beaten down by elitist, snobbish publishers and agents and has found sanctuary with an overpriced printer. You’re a wasteland of plagiarizing, unimaginative so-called talent.

Ugh. It’ll be a fine day when you stop coming in, and an even better one when you step away from your keyboard and give up for good.

No love,

Me

That’s right. I’m extending the return to the second draft. And it’s all because of this other manuscript that I started.

Now that I’ve finished one manuscript, I want to finish another in one go. No stops, no hiccups. I can do it again, and with a 50K work novel at that. (I swear that’s the limit. I’m doing my best!)

To put one first draft novel on hold while I return to a second draft sounds mildly insane. Why not keep going until the very last word? I’ll have completed two novels in one year (if this second one is, in fact, finished before the end of the year), which is a mega confidence booster, and it’ll give me two finished projects to look forward to in 2011.

Assuming this second novel takes two more months to write, it’ll be around November when I’ll return to Evan & Ronny. Perfect. Fall puts me in the mood for writing. (Yes, “autumners,” that’s the word I’ve grown up using and I’ll keep using it, eff you very much.) It’s especially fitting since E&R takes place in the fall/winter season. Shorter days, longer nights, and all that nice, cold air to help put myself in the characters’ muddy, pocked shoes. Boots, I mean.

Next time: actual content. I’m going to tear into a local author.

Yet as I brainstorm and research for the second draft of my novel, I’m beginning to see a lot of things I missed the first time around. And, frankly, they’re embarrassing as all hell.

• More emotional scenes dealing with secondary characters. Some of these secondaries bond with the protagonist. Now, I can’t add every moment that comes into my head–tempted as I am–but I really need to add a few high-impact moments, especially those that deal with the younger generation looking to the older for guidance. Considering Evan’s ultimate goal, this would be fitting.
• More cultural bits. I have Canadian and Quebecois characters, yet I haven’t noted accents, included random French words and phrases (at least those that my English-speaking protagonist would recognize right off), or cuisine. Someone needs to bring up poutine and maple treats. The best I’ve got is a slur and mentioning Boxing Day.
• A better, longer ending. Yes, it’ll probably add 15-20 more pages to the manuscript (and that’s a conservative estimate), but Christ! I put these characters through over 100K words of angst, pain, tears, and general testosteroniness. I pretty much sped through the ending, focusing on only the two main characters because I was more concerned about word count. I need good-bye scenes, promises to keep in touch, a time for the remaining characters to reflect on their experiences together before the Great Big Good-Bye of Much Tearfulness. Buttered hell on a stick, I should have known better.
• A better anti-villain. That’s all I’ll say.

The beginning is okay but needs some tweaking, especially since the history of the galaxy has drastically changed. The middle needs a lot of work, for reasons mentioned above and unmentioned. The ending needs an entire overhaul.

I’ve even gone and changed a character’s entire personality. Half the story needs to be rewritten by that alone.

You should see my card file. It’s full to bursting with notes I’ve written since… well, since I finished the first draft. And I’m writing more every day. I know I’ll eventually have to stop and mourn the loss of ideas I’ll never use, but it’s definitely easier said than done. My English Comp & Lit professor was right: “You need to force yourself away from the piece or you’ll keep working on it forever.”

This is the most work I’ve ever put into a project, but damn, I feel alive when I think about opening that file and typing away. If I could spend every day writing and thinking about writing, I’d say that I found a profession worth keeping.

Holy crap, this thing is going to be even longer than the first version.

Began: Christmas 2009
Finished: Spring 2010

I’ve got to be honest with you, I read a lot of reviews for this trilogy. Back in Christmas 2009, this was one of the more popular sells, and being the contrary soul I am, I sought negative reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.

Major complaints included shades of Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayers, and Harry Potter. After reading the first book, I could pick out the Star Wars and a bit of Harry Potter (it seems that any fantasy novel will immediately be compared to HP, won’t it?), but I’ve only watched the first season of Buffy, so I can’t say for certain if Clare did borrow from the show. (And frankly, I don’t plan on watching any more; it’s just not my thing. Yeah, yeah, go weep to your god, Joss Whedon fans.)

I’ve also heard stories about Clare from the HP fandom. Nasty stories about plagiarism lying. Yes, she was a fanfic writer, and one of the few to make it to the bestseller lists, if I’m not mistaking.

I picked it up anyway.

And I liked it. Not enough to become a raving fan, but just enough to buy the whole paperback set and keep it on my bookshelf. And the covers are pretty, too. (I’ve downloaded wallpaper for my laptop.)

Clare can spin a gorgeous sentence, and there were a few instances where I felt envious of her talent. But what pissed me off were the characters. You have a group of elitist, isolationists called the Shadowhunters–the Big Damn Heroes–who have been entrusted by The Great Angel Whose Name I’ve Conveniently Forgotten with protecting the human race and all the mystical people in between. Thing is, they don’t like humans. They call them Mundies, which sounds more adorable than derogatory. Their attitude seems to be, “Oh, hell, why do we even bother? This is such a bore. Everyone that isn’t us sucks. But we must uphold justice because the Angel told us. GODDAMNED HUMAN COCKROACHES!” These aren’t heroes I want to cheer on. These are characters I want to fall–and fall fucking hard.

But Clary did endear to me, despite not being totally fleshed out. I absolutely loved Jocelyn and Luke, and cheered them on to the end. Magnus was a hoot, and I eventually did warm up to Alec. But my favorite character has to be Simon. God, poor Simon. He gets a raw deal in all three books, making him prime Butt Monkey material. I just hope the fourth book is kinder to him.

As for the love triangle… didn’t believe it. I didn’t believe in the couple that eventually rose from the confusion. I don’t care for Jace. He’s a dick, and I’m glad that Sebastian chewed him out in the third book. It was only for a few sentences, but gods, I was clapping.

All in all, they’re decent reads. Nothing monumental, no matter what the bestseller lists say. But I plan on keeping the books, and reading the fourth one and the prequel trilogy.

Now for something you might find funny: I plan on reading the original trilogy again this Christmas. I’ll admit that there are warm, pleasant memories attached to these books as I started reading them during one of the best holidays I’ve had in years. So there’s my reason.

As for Clare, I think she has talent. It’ll take a while to hone it, but I believe that she’ll be able to turn out some fantastic fiction in the coming years.

But that’s just me.

But like any good writer, I’m still working, keeping to my schedule and writing as much as I can given other obligations and distractions. Among these projects is a little Webcomic I’m hoping to release soon. My main concern is how often to update; do I try for three strips a week, or upload a slew once a month? I guess I’ll decide once I’m done inking the first ten strips.

Anywhoodle, here’s some concept art to keep you entertained for a few seconds.

Now run off and do something productive, like tweeting about that double-mocha-whateveritis you shouldn’t have had this evening. I GOTS DRAWIN’ TO DO.

I cried on and off for about an hour. I even texted my husband at work to tell him. After years of wondering if I was ever truly capable of finishing another novel, I finally proved myself.

Now for a well-deserved break from sci-fi, and onto light fantasy.

But this project will twitch and nip at my brain. So long as I plan to work on it again, it’ll whisper to me, suggesting new ways to describe the world, as well as pieces of dialogue I forgot. I’ve already amassed a stack of editing notes, and they’ll probably continue to grow up until the moment I have to shut off the part of my mind that doesn’t want to let go of this story.

Stories can go in so many directions. I’ve always known that. But I haven’t realized until now the different paths my characters could have taken; the insane stunts performed to achieve their goals; the relationships they’ve forged and destroyed; and the backstories never revealed because of constraints or lack of interest. Some things are best left to readers’ imaginations–and other things can be divulged on blogs and in official guides–but I can’t help feeling that I left out too much.

Gods, there’s still so much that needs to be written.

I want to describe this world in minute detail, but I’ve got to trust the reader to fill in the blanks; let them create the world with me, even if it isn’t what I myself had imagined.

This is, at its heart, the first complete novel of my adult life. As scared as I am to share it with the rest of the world, that was the intention all along. I do want to publish this.

But first novels don’t always make it to the editor’s desk.

Oh, there have been exceptions. First-time authors like Stephenie Meyer and Diana Gabaldon had their firsts published–and they’d never intended to make these stories public. Meyer’s was written for herself (and it shows); Gabaldon’s was written to practice for the mystery novel she’d dreamed of for years.

It seems that not expecting a certain outcome would be the key to actually achieving it, right? I mean, someone makes a YouTube video of himself singing, and within six months, he’s signed on for a three-album deal and creates his own label. A Webcomic artist gets his work published by a big name comics company. A writer passes her story around friends and family who tell her to get it published, and, surprise of surprises, she does.

But not always. People intend to succeed in something, and many of them actually do. Stephen King intended to publish Carrie, but threw it into the trash after numerous rejections. His wife rescued it, looked it over, and recommended a few changes.

I hear that he dedicates every book to her.

But getting back on topic… I want all this to mean something. The three months spent pounding out a first draft, the coming months filled with painful edits, the tears I’m feeling now as I write this post.

Of course there’s such a thing as a “practice novel,” but I don’t want E & R to be practice. Ugh, that sounds so whiny and petulant. But I’ve had stories fall apart on me simply because they didn’t work, or I didn’t feel anything for them after all. The fact that I stayed with this novel to the bittersweet end means that I cared about it. I didn’t want to leave my characters stranded in the action; I wanted to bring them back home and let them heal their wounds with their loved ones.

And the story didn’t stop. I never once thought about leaving it for another. It flowed like a river. A river with rapids, beaver dams, and huge rocks capable of splintering a fleet of kayaks, but it kept flowing.

But now I’ve got to let it rest and go on to other projects. For one, I have some characters to kill off in this Webcomic.

Let’s see some numbers…

WIP: “Evan & Ronny”
139,411/ OH FUCK IT Words

Damn you, story, resolve yourself already! You better hope that agents will still want to read doorstep novels by the time you’re polished off.

I was pretty damn generous with an extra 5K words. Now it’s going slightly over 140K. It’s all this description and the need to showinstead of tell. But I swear, the end is near. I just need to wrap up a few loose ends and get my characters home. And organize all the editing notes I’ve been scribbling for the past month for the insane editing spree that will ensue after the three-week break. Then I can collapse in a fat cloud of happy.

I’m excited. I’m finishing a novel! After years of starting projects only to drop them months later, this is a major accomplishment for me. I feel like I can finish any project I start now. Crap, if I can pound out a workable 140k-word first draft in three months, I can finish anything!

And then there’s starting a new project. I’ve gotten into the habit of writing five to six days a week, and I refuse to stop while I’m giving this project a three-week break. I have too many projects on the back burner now; it’s a real fire hazard sometimes. (My other project is learning how to create better metaphors and analogies.)

So I chose four stories that I’ve been dying to write, wrote their titles on slips of paper, and threw them into a hat. I wasn’t satisfied with my first choice, so I decided that the best number out of 10 would get the spotlight.

Hey, it’s a perfectly good way to make a decision! It gives you more options than tossing a coin. Besides, this YA light fantasy novel actually looks fun. Best of all, it’s not a tearjerker, and I can finish it between 30K-50K words. It’d be nice to write something shorter.

In the meantime, please enjoy a reference photo for Ronny (click for a better selection of sizes on the original site):

Mmm, I love me some freckles.

Nowadays some books have info on the type of font the design guys decided to use. Try it, especially with one of those young adult fantasy novels. Notice how most of these people go against Garamound, Times New Roman, and Helvetica? Goddamned Times New Roman… it’s such a bully, I swear. It just crams itself into whatever paper you need to write for class, or a manuscript for a publisher, and nnnrrrgghhhh suckmynonexistentballsTimes.

I probably won’t be able to submit a manuscript in anything but Times, nor will I have a say in how my finished book should look, but I can always dream. This is a nice place to start: Alternatives to Your Favorite Serif Typefaces.

I say dream because a lot of these cool fonts aren’t very free. They’re, like, hundreds of dollars more expensive than free. And some of them cost Euros, which is fine for you European types.

Now I’m off to search for free Times New Roman alternatives. Free still exists on the Internet, right? Right?! Dammit, I will NOT be confined to a tyrannical typeface!