Blogcation

I'm in the middle of an internet vacation. Taking time to write, to relax, to reorder my priorities. Unplugging has been an interesting experience.

NaNoWhaMo

I did NaNoWriMo once. It was a wonderful learning experience that I thought I'd never want to repeat. I'm amazed that it's becoming a temptation once again.

That being said, I'm not at a point where I can take the month off from revising in order to write a new set of 50K words. So I have decided to set my own NaNo type goals for this month.

Garlic - revise 2 chapters per day for a total of 60 this month with the hope that the other 2 will get done somewhere in there as a bonus.

Of Mice And Little Girls - write a new chapter per day. 30 new chapters which might only be about 4K words since the first 10 chapters are only 2K words. This is my new experimental poetry/prose project.

I'm already behind. I was behind until the last week of the month back in 2005, so I'm not ready to throw in the towel.

Maybe next year, I'll try writing 50K words in a month, only I'd like to make that goal be 50K good words in an editable novel.

Inspiration

Driving to dinner tonight, I decided to take the scenic route because it passes a certain rocky hill that I love. As we drove past, I got to thinking about the small mountain under the school in Garlic. I want that mountain to look like Stoney Point. And it will be so - tomorrow.

SCBWI-L.A.’s Working Writer’s Retreat Aftermath

The Working Writer’s Retreat is my favorite event of the year. It’s an opportunity to read to, and get critiqued by the editors and authors facilitating the critique groups. It’s an intense creative weekend. And a group of us usually have a chocolate and karaoke party in there somewhere. For me, it means very little sleep, writing until 1 or 2 am, and sometimes getting an editor or agent request for the full manuscript (but not this year).

A good friend and fellow SCBWI’er, Chris asked if I could share critique examples from the retreat. So here goes.

Thirteen Black Cats Under A Ladder
I read the first chapter to Arthur Levine.
On the minus side – it was purposely disorienting which was not to his personal taste. The overall tone was upsetting which meant he wasn’t in the mood to laugh when he got to the funny lines. And there was only one brief mention of the curse which was confusing. He wasn’t sure this should be the first chapter. He’d like to meet the main character in a slightly more neutral way – with a little more clarity for who she is. The line: Just because Marcus broke his leg – in thirteen places – when he turned thirteen… is an ‘as you know, Bob’ statement. This chapter comes across as dark and violent and the overall tone of the book is tongue-in-cheek.

On the plus side – the writing was Gertrude Stein-esque. It effectively conveyed the insanity.

Moving on from here (includes notes from other sources during the weekend): Fixes for this chapter include: lightening it up, making the curse more prominent, rounding out the MC more with letting us get to know who she is, building on the relationship between her and her brother through more dialogue – show that things have changed between them and a hint of what it used to be like.

Garlic
I read the first two chapters to Martha Mihalick
On the minus side – The zit popping might be a little too gross. There are other spices than garlic. The second chapter needs more setting/atmosphere to ground the reader in where they are. The last line: What else did Mother not tell me? is confusing – why wouldn’t his mother tell him?

On the plus side – The characters are well rounded. The zit popping is probably spot on for the targeted reader. The garlic allergy is an interesting twist.

Moving on from here: I woke up the next morning and realized I could fix two issues. The transition from chapter one to two, and the sparse description of setting in chapter two. If I added a paragraph at the top of chapter two that showed him leaving home and how he got to the school, then I could describe what he sees and the transition from home to school is in the book rather than implied. The zits are staying as is, for now. And the last line fix came from another writer in my group who suggested What else did Mother forget to tell me?.

I’ve since gotten feedback that I need to show even more of what he’s thinking. Oy! The transition from 3rd person to 1st person fixed a lot of that, but apparently not quite enough yet.


Of course, now I think I should have switched what I read to which editor. Ah well.

Geo-bouncing

I'm still slogging through the POV edits and have managed to sidetrack myself. You see, my poor Garlic MC is bouncing around a bit too much geographically. That means killing 4 chapters and replacing them with 2 or 3 new ones. And then another edit through the rest of the book to fix the references to those lost chapters. But that also means I'm almost done with major revisions. At least for now.

And no, I did not make the Labor Day deadline. I could've pushed to do it, but it would not be my best work and I'm not ready to shut down an editor by submitting this one too early (again).

Oops

Just realized I only have until Labor Day to submit a revamped Garlic to a particular editor that my friends were urging me to submit to. Eight more chapters edited. Only 44 more to go. Oy!

Changing POV

I started editing then realized I was spending most of my time changing 'he' to 'I', 'him' to 'my', etc. Hours of tedious Find/Replace later, I am finally into real editing. And it's better.

*sigh*

I love being a writer. I love being a writer.

Actually, I do love writing. I wouldn't be willing to do all of this work with no promise of publication otherwise.