A Triumphant Return

So here I am. :) The busy season has passed. At least until it arrives again (which for me will be January). This year (in my new department) hasn't been even half as bad as the two previous where I was expected to work 14-hour days with weekends and basically go balls to the wall until the summer was gone. I love New Hampshire weather because it has four seasons, but I was skipping one of them and that wasn't as much fun.

I have continued to write, another thing that was difficult in the summer. I have been rewriting Wanted: Chosen One which is now titled With a Crooked Crown. Let me tell you how much work that has been. I thought it would be an up-front slog while I bent the first half of the book like a contortionist and then just some mopping up to clean up the dust. Not so! Change the main character to a person that was a secondary character and that takes a lot of work. More over, change one of the negative characters to someone less negative and you start to realize he had to get his bitch on in every chapter he was in. Every time I say I'm almost done, I have to stop and rewrite entire chapters.

This weekend I did some prep work on my next book. I don't always do character designs and such before I start writing. Often I don't know the characters to be involved and those I think will be of use end up never fitting into the evolution of the story. But I have a very clear picture of this story. Very clear. I already have names for ten characters and that never happens! So that's kind of thrilling and kind of frustrating at the same time because I can't work on it until I finish my rewrite. So close! So far away! (I spent the morning rewriting a chapter and have spent my lunch hour rewriting the rewrite to change the POV to a different character. :)

And I will leave you with this. My wife just read A DANCE WITH DRAGONS, as we are both fans of the series (books--we haven't seen the HBO show yet). By the end of A FEAST FOR CROWS I had picked up on Martin's chapter template: introduce characters, eat/describe what they're wearing, have something important happen. So I would read the first page to see who was around and then the last two pages of a chapter to see what happens. I'd skip all the description because after four books, I got it.

Well, according to the missus, he's actually increased his description of food, which may be difficult to comprehend. Her question was obvious? Why?! To date, I had just assumed it was his style, but then I wondered, is he doing this on purpose?

The answer slapped me like a person that's been sitting next to you on the couch for the entire movie and you didn't even know they were there. Yes he's doing it on purpose. In the very first book Ned Stark says people aren't saving enough for winter. Summer had gone on too long and people forgot how much food they needed to save for winter. So here is all this opulence, all these people feasting and gorging and being all disgusting. Why? Because the next book is named THE WINDS OF WINTER and you want to guess how hungry they're going to be then? It's a 50-calibre metaphor shot through five books so the sixth one can properly juxtapose their situation.

It's the opposite of the soft touch. It's the jackhammer. Or it's just his style. We'll see.

Turning it down from 11

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. You know how they always say publishing is slow during the summer? Yeah, not so much if you work in production. I am currently the busiest I'll be all year (most likely) and while I'm not as crushed as I was in my old department, I am merrily occupied from start to finish. It makes blogging at work a little challenging. But here I am! Taking time out just for you! I missed you so much.

So what's going on with me? Well, aside from having one of the best Independence Day celebrations I've had in my life (swimming, grilling, fireworks, oh my!) I'm still hard at work on a rewrite/revision. AND not only is this manuscript better than it's ever been, but it has a new title as well.

I mentioned WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING a little while ago, saying that I was taking an agent's advice and changing the main character of the story. I cut some 30,000 words and have put back in 10,000. My "scraps" file I use to keep track of everything I cut (in case I want to use it elsewhere) is currently at 175 pages long (double spaced, courier new)! That's HUGE!

My previous rewriting attempt choked on itself. I slashed so deeply that I nicked an artery and killed the story. I realized my error and have rewritten one of the POVs. I can say, without a doubt, this is the best shape this story has ever been in. I'm really enthused at what the end product will be. I may have even started on a quality query. Who knows. (If that's the case, the world is coming to an end. Run!)

I felt that this new direction required a new title as well. WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING was clunky and while the story started tongue-in-cheek, it quickly evolved away from that. Also, whenever that phrase appears in the text, it always begins "HELP WANTED..." So that seemed an appropriate addition. I'd name it HELP WANTED: CHOSEN ONE. That rolled off the tongue better. But then I remembered the very first self-published novel I downloaded (it was thankfully free) named HELP WANTED: HERO. It was atrocious. This not only spoiled the new title, it spoiled the old title as well. I need to remove any kind of similarity between the two. I didn't want any of that stink on me.

So...we need a new title! Brainstorm, brainstorm, brainstorm. Come up with a bunch of crappy options. I have four characters, an underlying theme that doesn't work well as a title, and plenty of secrets. In the end, I decided to take inspiration from the end of the story. The new title is WITH A CROOKED CROWN, which I like a whole lot. (Google tells me this is a song by Bonnie Raitt, which means the last three titles I've chosen have been named after a song or a music album--I think there may be a blog post there.)

I'm only 81 pages into the revision. I've finished most of the rewriting. There's a collection of chapters coming up that will need some realignment to conform to this new approach.

The biggest work I've done so far? Changing the early plot path for my two prophets. Their introduction and the beginning of their quest leads in the same direction but is handled in a much more succinct manner. More importantly, one of the characters has seriously mellowed out. Now, he got shoehorned into this whole thing and didn't want to go. He has all kinds of secrets he doesn't want to come out and was frequently obstinate. Okay, he was a dick. But in an attempt to speed things up and change focus to the new main character, my original rewrite turned him into a HUGE dick.

And unless you're reading about porn, no one wants to read about a huge dick. I wrote the thing and he was pissing me off. He went up to 11 and he needed to be around a 6. So this new rewrite he got a serious overhaul. I don't think anyone would have read past page 50 in the previous iteration of this manuscript. He was that much of a jerk. Now I'm enthusiastic. I certainly hope others like it once I start querying. Current pace says that'll be at the end of July or so. Ugh. This thing is so big! (That's what she said.) It'll be worth it once it's done. (That's what he said.)

Why Oh Why? Oh Me. Oh My! (...times seven)

It's hard to keep track of topics when you're on a variety of soap boxes. I've written in two different live journals, hosted a podcast, and now how this blog/journal. Sometimes you think you've written about a topic when you haven't. Or, you think you've written about it in one place when really it was in another and no one is going to see it. Today's post may or may not be a redux. I'm not copying/pasting, but I know it's at least a topic I've covered on the PodgeCast, so we'll call it a redux nonetheless.

I have been pondering the rewrite of HELP WANTED: CHOSEN ONE for awhile now. An agent who read the manuscript suggested I change the main character from Nashau to Bastin, the latter being more energetic and overall more likable. I was unsure of this, because the story I was telling was most certainly Nashau's, but since I already had multiple POVs, it seemed a better way to hook the reader into the overall story. Once I made some cuts, I saw that he was right.

But something happened when I changed the main character. All of a sudden motivations I never had to explain to the reader became necessary. And those motivations seemed pretty thin. You might get away with a second character coming along because of a curiosity or amusement or the adventure of it all. Main characters need more depth than that and Bastin was my main character. So I needed to articulate the reasons he was doing what he was doing.

Now, keep in mind, I'm not making up excuses for why he's doing what he's doing. If you get to that point, your plot is too thin and you need to back up and really take a hard look at things. You should never make excuses for your characters. They do things and they do those things for the reasons they do them. You may feel it, like they do, but given enough time, you should be able to adequately articulate the psychology behind it without making an excuse. If you ever say "just because," you are required to slap yourself in front of a mirror. If your reasons make someone's eyes roll (especially our own), you have to let that person slap you.

But you don't want to be slapped! Neither do I. So it's best we find a way to articulate our characters' motivations. How do we do that? you ask. We ask the Why Tree.

The why tree is not some ancient being of untold knowledge, it is the question "Why?" asked over and over and over again. (I generally recommend seven times for those people that need a rigid number to properly implement such a stratagem.) Write the question why then draw a line to possible answers. Draw a line from those answers to another question why and so forth seven times. The ever expanding list will take on a Christmas tree-like shape. It's a Why Tree.

Bastin is my main character
Why?
Bastin will participate in the quest the prophets claim he is chosen to complete
Why?
To make amends to his adoptive father
Why?
Because he betrayed his adoptive father
Why?
He was young and dumb and didn't trust anyone
Why?
His mother was a prostitute and he ran with a street gang
Why?
His mother died, leaving him on the street
Why?
She had no family to care for him and didn't know who his father was


This has given me all the information I need. When the prophets coming looking for the descendent of a famous count, I have a con man who also doesn't know who his father is. He may or may not be the actual chosen one, something to reveal at the end.

It also gives him the motivation to pursue this quest if you throw in a well-placed "How?"

For all the whys, the HOW? is the really important question. How does all this stuff influence Bastin so he decides to go on this quest? And that's what was stumping me on this rewrite. What was Bastin's motivation that he would risk his life? Amusement? Boredom? May play for a secondary character, but you need something better for a main character. And that's when I keyed on to his adoptive father. I already show Bastin trying to make amends, repaying the money he stole that landed Jin in debtors prison where he eventually died. The thing Bastin can't do, however, is restore Jin's reputation. But here he is being offered a chance to participate in a prophecy. All he need do is tell people it was Jin that did the deed instead of him and all of a sudden, boom! reputation restored. The one thing he cannot do he now can. This doesn't just offer him motivation, but the level of emotional attachment to brave dangers without quitting and an end goal that is worth the risk.

Get excited!

Why?

Because this story is gonna rock your face!

Do I Still Count?

When was the last time I wrote something original? I'm trying to remember and quite frankly, I can't. I edited the TRIAD SOCIETY then I revised JEHOVAH'S HITLIST then I started rewriting WANTED: CHOSEN ONE and now I'm doing yet another pass on JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. Somewhere in there I wrote six chapters of THE 7TH SACRIFICE but I honestly can't remember when that was. It must have been January because I remember finishing JH right before Christmas.

It's been two months since I wrote something for a brand new story. The last time that happened it was the beginning of '09. It feels weird to have that absence, like I've given up being original and just dwelling on work I've already done. But that can't be, JH is a brand new story! It's never been queried. But I finished it in December. Hell, I should be 2/3 of the way through a new draft of a new story!

This is so outside my normal method of writing that it doesn't feel like I'm writing at all. I write [edit] every day but it doesn't feel like I'm doing anything at all.

Rewriting is HARD!

I revise. I rarely rewrite. In fact, the only thing I've tried to rewrite is 7TH SACRIFICE and I scrapped the entire incomplete manuscript, so that should almost be called writing, as there isn't much "re" involved.

Coming on a year ago, I finished the manuscript for WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING. I got feedback from an agent who said he would have preferred the story if Bastin and not Nashau had been the main character. This was similar to feedback Elizabeth Poole gave me. But I didn't want to rewrite with Bastin as the main character. Bastin's story's been told before. Nashau's story hadn't. So I tabled that feedback and went on with my other works.

Then THE TRIAD SOCIETY was a near miss. Some of the feedback was there was a particular section that seemed to ramble. In truth, that section had been a shout out to WANTED. The stories are in the same world even though they're not in the same kingdom or with the same characters. I wanted to show the world evolving based on the impact of the stories. Now, I could cut this section, but there are other parts in that section that play directly to the ending (which I don't think the agent ever got to), so I'm averse to cutting it for the moment.

My plan had been, and why I kept that section in there, was once the agent said she wanted to rep TRIAD, that I had another story in that setting that would do well to come out first (yeah, I know publishing doesn't always work that way, but it couldn't hurt to try!). She passed on TRIAD, though, and this was devastating1. I didn't quite come to terms with getting so close and coming up short like I usually do (granted, I don't think I've ever been that close). So I begin scheming, as hobbits are wont to do. If I can't use TRIAD to sell WANTED, maybe I can use WANTED to sell TRIAD2.

I go back and ponder--yet again--what WANTED would be like with Bastin as the main character. But I don't just ponder, I start rewriting it. I delete the first four chapters and look at the story anew.

...

Holy crap, this is better.

...

Holy crap, this is so much better. So I began the rewrite. WANTED wasn't bad before. But in hindsight, it had some water weight to shed. It's the difference between being chubby and being svelt. I've cut 21,000 words so far (actually more than that, but I've written a few thousand new words). My final word count will drop from 150k to something more around 125k maybe 130k. While the reduced word count has diminished the world building slightly, it's a much tighter story in all.

BUT (you knew there would be a but, right?), REWRITING IS HARD! Sure revision is hard, but rewriting is HARD. You have to approach characters fresh. They might not be the people they were before. You need to remember to incorporate the details that your brain is telling you you've already included. You need to not repeat yourself, keep the new plot straight compared to the old plot (chapter 32 is now chapter 12, that impacts everything in between). ANNNND, you have to come to terms with you're writing a first draft of a completed manuscript. How hard is that? You're going to be upset when the stuff needs more polish and you're all like, but I already finished this damn book. It shouldn't be sucking.

But it does suck my friend, because rewriting is hard. Breathe, count to 10, and put your nose to the grindstone. In the end you'll be a noseless author with a rewritten manuscript and a bloody grindstone.


1 Whenever you're sad after a rejection others tell you that it happens to everyone and to keep on going. This is absolutely true in every sense. BUT, do not think that does not mean you're not permitted to feel down. Absolutely feel down. It's called disappointment for a reason. But you're only allowed so much time to feel down. After that, either start writing or start scheming. I recommend the former.

2 Look, remember that part you thought was rambling? Make sense now?3 Wheeeee!!!!

3 It would have made sense before if you had finished the damn manuscript. *pout*4

4 Stop pouting and acting like a child. Go write your fucking book.

Holy Balls!

I have been pondering it for months and I finally made a decision. An agent gave me feedback on WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING. He wanted Bastin to be the main character rather than Nashau. I've discussed that here before. Bastin is clearly the most likable, charismatic of the group, but the story was Nashau's and I didn't want to give that up.

So after a lengthy amount of pondering, I finally saw the story as Bastin's while keeping Nashau's subtext. Thus, I chopped off the initial four chapters (which were all Nashau and Podome) and condensed them to a single chapter 2. I kept the alive/dead juxtaposition that I loved in the original draft (something you won't understand unless you've read it, but take my word for it, it's awesome) and have moved on through chapter three.

You know how people often say they can't go back and read their own work? That they find it embarrassing? Not me. I LOVE this story. LUVRE IT! I wrote the damn thing and after watching Bastin hoodwink Farmer, I was just bouncing up and down on my seat. Holy balls this is a good story!

I will revise Podome/Nashau's story and hopefully inject more of Bastin's early energy later into the story. And then the hardest part: I'll need to write a new query for it.

JEHOVAH'S HITLIST will be the next story I query once I get beta reader feedback, but this one will follow shortly thereafter. I consider it a significant enough revision that requerying is appropriate. I have tentatively changed the name to FLIMFLAM just so I can keep the two stories separate. Not sure if I'll keep WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING as the final title. It seemed to turn some people off.

(This means I'm suspending work on 7Sac for the moment. I'm having a crisis of confidence following my rejection and can no longer manage the pacing. I'll need to get my feet back under me before I can continue on that one.)

The Waiting Game

So you've written your novel, you've revised it, you've received feedback, you've revised it again, you've written a query, you've revised it, you've received feedback, you've revised it again, you've queried, you've paced madly worrying about rejection, you've been asked for a partial manuscript, you've revised the partial in fear of it not being good enough, you've submitted it, you've paced madly worrying about rejection, you've checked your email obsessively, you've paced madly worrying about rejection, you've been asked for a full manuscript, you've revised the full in fear of it not being good enough, and you've submitted it.

What happens now?

You wait. And wait. And wait and wait and wait and wait.

It's a common enough topic among writing blogs. Don't wait for a response on your current work. Move on to the next one. Publishing is a lot of hurry up and wait. You'll revise your entire book over the course of a weekend to make it as perfect as you can and then nothing.

It can be hard to deal with. The closer you get, the harder the rejection is, and the harder it is not to make it back to that level again. If you come close to touching the sky, nothing short of reaching your hand up into heaven will do. It's maddening to not achieve your goal no matter how hard you try.

But wait you must. Good things come to those that wait. ...crappy things too, I can attest, but nothing good comes from something rushed (just ask my previous girlfriends).

The first time I had a full manuscript (BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE), I was told to expect a twelve-week response time. I was mortified when twelve weeks passed, thirteen, fourteen. Were they JUST about to get to my manuscript? If I asked for an update when they hit delete and tell me to sod off? Was it all a test to see if I would be a low-maintenance client and not pester them a thousand times a day with inane questions?

Finally at fifteen weeks, I emailed to confirm the file had been received and asked if they needed any additional material. That's the polite way of asking, "Hey what the fuck?" They confirmed that they had received the manuscript and apologized for the delay. The assistant was super awesome and I like her a whole lot. She was never anything but professional with me.

In total I received an eventual pass 7 months after I sent the materials off. They offered feedback which was awesome. I never expect feedback on a query. I don't expect it on a partial (though it would be nice). While I don't expect it on a full, after waiting so long and having invested so much, it certainly would be nice for even a paragraph of feedback. But hey, we're not entitled and that's not a statement of how things should be. I got it on my first two manuscripts, though, and it was incredibly helpful.

I thanked the assistant and the agent for the pleasure of working with them and the feedback. I then said I had finished another novel while I was waiting and asked would they like to see it? Sure it was a dig, but only a little one. I really had finished a second novel (and not first draft, the thing was done and in the can). I queried the second one (HELP WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING) and we went round and round again.

They passed and I think it was for the best. This agent wants a manuscript ready to shop as soon as it's submitted. While I hope to be able to produce such a manuscript eventually, it doesn't seem like I'm producing them yet. I'd like an agent who not only points out what (s)he thought was weak but how that could be improved.

Which brings me to the current manuscript (THE TRIAD SOCIETY). This is with a different agent, one that I think is exactly the person I would want to work with. When they asked for my full, they said to expect a turn around time of two months. This is a third less than the previous agent but nothing says it won't be another seven months. Except for my experience with this agency. I queried (twice) my first two manuscripts (for a total of four queries) and they were prompt and always beat deadline. Two months is up Saturday. Of course, that two months covered Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and the general winter holiday.

This brings us to what I'm calling Injury Time (watch soccer to get that joke). Given the number of holidays that occurred during that stretch of time, I really don't think the two-month mark hits until February 5th, three weeks later. If they replied to me within that time, I would still consider it at or less than two months.

Now like I said, that's just an estimate. Things come up, emergencies with existing clients, illness, family emergencies and the like. If it takes seven months it takes seven months. I have finished the second draft of JEHOVAH'S HITLIST and sent it to beta readers for feedback (could use a few more if you're in the mood for adult, dystopian, alternate-history science fiction). I'm also working on the first draft of THE 7TH SACRIFICE. I've got plenty to do. No resting on my laurels here.

BUT, like I said earlier, this folks have always come in before their deadline. The arrival of injury time means that it's likely I'll hear back from them soon.

OH MY GOD! *PACES MADLY WORRYING ABOUT REJECTION*

You can tell yourself not to obsess, not to worry, but really, I consider all this anxiety part and parcel to my ambition. I want this and have wanted it for decades. This is my life's goal and I've taken as many steps as I can take without an agent. That's the next step. That's the next step in my publishing plan. I could query publishers directly or self-publish, but there are other blogs for that kind of thing. Here in the Inkwell, we follow the traditional mode of publishing and we plan on ruling that bitch with an iron fist!



I won't even begin to tell you how many times I've checked my email just writing this post. Granted I have a smart phone so all I have to do is glance at it and see if it's blinking at me. That only enables the obsession.

I started actively tweeting and blogging about my writing before I was published not only to build platform but to document how hard it is to try and achieve your dreams when you can send off a completed manuscript and not hear anything for months and months and months. When I'm the flipping Clint Eastwood of fantasy, aspiring writers will read these early posts and see all this desire and anxiety and worry and think to themselves, Clint Eastwood? Really? I would have gone with John C. Reilly.


OH MY GOD! *PACES MADLY WORRYING ABOUT REJECTION*

Wind Sprints

I wrote the first draft of THE TRIAD SOCIETY. I didn't like it. It wasn't bad necessarily. It just wasn't the story I set out to write. The story I had planned was this huge intricate intrigue that spanned the politics of the university, the city, the kingdom! And in the end, a meeting made at the beginning of the book would afford the hero an opportunity to make his case and win the day.

In the first draft, he fills out the paperwork for the meeting and then it's never mentioned again. The story took a MASSIVE left turn and finished in half the word count I originally expected. After what I felt was the success of WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING (in terms of story even though I never landed an agent), finishing THE TRIAD SOCIETY with such a mediocre offering really brought me down.

So, I broke my routine. Normally, when I finish a manuscript first draft, I will take a few weeks off and read a book or three. Then I'll go back and revise. This time, I read a couple books, but then I started work on JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. I usually start a new manuscript while the previous ms is with beta readers. I'll then stop and revise for the third draft. This means I'm only about 12,000 words into a manuscript.

Instead, I wrote 32,000 words before even starting on the second draft. What happened, though, was THE TRIAD SOCIETY went from mediocre to solid. I still like WANTED's story more, but Liz tells me that she likes TTS better. After struggling to find my rhythm and pacing, I wrote another 25,000 words on JH before revising TTS again.

So now we're done with TTS and it's ready to go to agents in its awesome state. The longer break, I think, saved an average manuscript from remaining average. HOWEVER, it's also affected the newer manuscript in a negative fashion. It's hard to bounce between voices, especially when one is a bureaucratic fantasy and the other is an anarchic sci-fi. It's even harder to do it twice!

If writing is sunshine, revising is sunshine bent through a magnifying glass that burns the ant in the driveway. It's a complete immersion in a manuscript where you question every word choice, sentence structure, and plot point. You can't just revise an entire manuscript and then go back to another manuscript that's 2/3 finished. At least, I can't.

So once again, I find myself without momentum on JH. Maybe I really should stop and try something else for awhile. In addition to breaking the rules, it feels shitting to stop working on a manuscript that is 30,000 words from the end. What I really need is a jumpstart. I'm not having trouble writing JH. I know what comes next. But the motivation is gone. I feel like I should still be working on TTS or even (in total violation of the rules), it's sequel THE RED SOCK SOCIETY.

That is when I thought of a new exercise. Wind sprints. Run, stop, run, stop. Get your heartbeat up before basketball practice where you'll have to run up and down the court and Joe is a chubby little kid and sucks at running, so he needs all the warmup he can get.

I have a number of stories on deck: THE SEVENTH SACRIFICE, WHAT'S BEHIND THE CROOKED DOOR?, THE RED SOCK SOCIETY, and THE HOUSE ON SANDWICH NOTCH LANE. Plenty of things to dabble in. And dabbling is exactly what we're going to do. I'm going to write the first chapter on all or some of these but not commit to writing any of them. Basically, I'm doing writing wind sprints. I need to get my writing heart rate up so finishing JH doesn't seem so laborious. And, it lets me create some new things with new voices and just revel in creativity for creativity's sake.

Two posts following this one will have chapter 1 of 7Sac and CROOKED. I may post more later if the need arises or I may hop back into JH and finish that thing off.

I'd like a #3, super sized.

LurkerWithout reads a billion books a month. This is why I value his feedback as a beta reader. He reads a book a day, so I consider him a measure of the purchasing public. He's the target audience I'm aiming for, people who like to read fantasy. I have no delusions of being the author that makes fantasy sexy or being some phenomenal cross-over hit. I just want to grab the fantasy niche and make it mine. (If that niche gets bigger because of me, I won't complain, but it's not getting the attention YA, urban fantasy, or paranormal romance are, so let's be practical.)

Lurker just finished his read of THE TRIAD SOCIETY and he commented that Otwald's decisions as the story's protagonist are not driven by any fundamental virtue, but by noblesse oblige, his sense of noble duty. While I did not necessarily set out to make it so and it certainly doesn't hold any subtext on class structure, I can tell you that I am bored.

I'm bored with the same people being heroes all the time. We've created McDonald's heroes where you can order off the value meal menu. #1 gets you Captain America, the forthright and virtuous son of virtue who virtuously fights villainy. #2 gets you Deadpool, the wisecracking anti-hero who does what's right because of a pervading sense of guilt or convenience1.

I wanted to make a protagonist who didn't relegate the world into good and evil (or varying shades of kryptonite). And I didn't want a slippery snake oil salesman. I wanted someone who had chosen a path and walked it regardless of how difficult it was. Nobility has a specific meaning and he would be an example of such. That might not always sit well with other nobles as no one likes to have someone demonstrate their own shortcomings.

Noblesse oblige is used sardonically with growing frequency, but at the root of the phrase is the classic "power/responsibility" relationship, something that Otwald takes to heart more than anyone else in the story (except for a very minor character who gets a larger role in later stories.)

I like Lurker's assessment. I like Otwald. I don't find him to be a value meal hero, and that makes me happy.


1 This is why I didn't want Bastin to be the main character of WANTED. He's a #2 protagonist, the charismatic flimflam man who feels responsible for the death of his surrogate father. SEEN IT!

Fried Ocher

I was talking to Elizabeth Poole yesterday who had been absent for a week because she thought she deserved to vacation in another state rather than hang out and talk to me over IM. Silly girl. Anyway, she asked me for an update on JEHOVAH'S HITLIST. I didn't have much to report. I had invoked and then rescinded rule 2a. I had decided to embrace the crapitude. There were certain things I was stuck on. I felt that Jehovah accepted the Hanged Man's orders too early. That I hadn't properly established what a great threat the HM was or why Jay would fold so quickly. I still had (and still do) have issues with the climax and how I use elements I really enjoy (like Jesus Street) that currently just seem to be there for set dressing.

But mostly, every time I thought on JH, I would immediately think of THE TRIAD SOCIETY. I've never received beta feedback only on a partial before. I'm in third-draft mode trying to work on a first-draft story, and that's difficult. VERY difficult. What's worse, I'm not just thinking of TTS. I'm thinking of THE RED SOCK SOCIETY and the whole Reliarachic1 Societies trilogy.

There is another rule I did not include in my list of ten because it only applies while I'm not published. Rule NP1 is don't work on sequels. What's the point of writing TRSS if TTS never publishes? You can't have an Empire Strikes Back without Star Wars2. I think this is good advice even though there is plenty of anecdotal evidence of authors selling their series in multi-book deals3. I don't care. I have plenty of other stories I want to tell, so what's the rush to dive into a series? It's why I'm focusing on individual novels rather than my ginormous series of trilogies, The Third World4. There's a catch, of course. When I finish one manuscript, I usually have a few false starts before I find another to work. When I finished WANTED, I had a few false starts before finally starting on TTS, which some might think is a sequel. It's set in the same setting, but on the opposite side of the sea. You can read one without the other, so I don't consider that a sequel. TRSS most definitely is a sequel. It worries me that I keep gravitating back to this world. I have other stories I want to tell, dammit!

ANYWAY, so last night I'm reading SHARDS OF HONOR, the first half of the omnibus CORDELIA'S HONOR by Lois McMaster Bujold, my favorite author. I read CORDELIA'S HONOR once a year, not intentionally. I just get in the mood for that story again. Specifically SHARDS OF HONOR, which is my favorite of the entire Vorkosigan Adventures series. There is a scene where Cordelia is returning to Beta Colony, a desert planet, and a cloud is described as ocher. I'm horrible at non-standard colors and even though the context tells me what the color is, I want to know the actual definition. Easier than you might think when one reads on an e-reader. It includes a dictionary. Aside from not having to lug around paper books, having a dictionary on hand is my second-favorite feature. I read the definition of ocher and it's like a stick of dynamite set next to the crack in my creative dam.

There are mistakes in JH. I rushed Jehovah agreeing to work for the Hanged Man. The climax needs some work. But who gives a shit? First draft. Embrace the crapitude. You know what the next 30,000 words are supposed to be so what are you waiting for?

It was the end of the NaNo'd chapter. It was too sucky. It was so sucky as to only reinforce my poor opinion of NaNo. It needs to be fixed.

The entire setting is in a refugee ghetto called the Nation. 53 blocks representing the 53 states of the United States of America when that nation collapsed and refugees were ferried to Africa when the waters were rising. The city is built beneath a giant platform city, one so large as to block out the sun. Instead, there is a giant array with lightbulbs to make it bright as day. The move in stages, increments of 30 minutes. First and second position, the first hour of day, are considered dawn. Jehovah arrives at the DMZ at dawn and I NaNo'd the scene.

Ocher is the key. Dawn shouldn't go to full brightness. It should be at half-power. There would be a dull yellow pall over everything. Ocher. Capital Center at Philadelphia Park shouldn't be a big crater. The crater should be on the inside. From Lazarus Street, he should see the front of the Offices of he Judiciary and walk around to the Offices of Refugees Advocate Authority when he sees that a big fucking bomb went off right in the middle of it all. It was all backward. It was too short. And it was the wrong color.

I revised the end of the NaNo'd chapter into non-NaNo being. I'm about to finish that one and start the next chapter fresh, to which I expect to successfully write the next 30,000 words without stressing on the final gun battle between the Kansas City Park Family and the deputies or of how I can tie Jesus Street back into things, because I honestly don't know if I can.

For now though... #amwriting. Bam said the lady.


1 I originally chose the word Reliarachic while writing WANTED as a means of showing just how overly-complicated that society was. Its own adjective was hard to say. Now that I have a novel set there, though, I'm thinking I might need to change it to something like Reliarish or something similar.

2 You thought to yourself "You mean 'A New Hope'" and you are wrong. There are only three Star Wars movies and they were named Star Wars, SW: Empire Strikes Back, and SW: Return of the Jedi. This whole renaming and numbering thing is crap, made only more crap by the absolutely horrendous prequels that would have existed if Lucas had ever been dumb enough to make them. Thankfully for all of us, he left the original trilogy untouched and unchanged5.

3 Pat Rothfuss sold his books as a trilogy, having written all three over the course of ten years. Given that original effort, he's still spent almost half that time over rewriting the second in the series because the original offering was so bad (per his own description).

4 Seeing what happened with the Wheel of Time and how long it takes Martin to produce another Ice and Fire book, The Third World is a setting explored in trilogies. There is a trilogy of stories with a meta-arc, and each trilogy's meta-arc combines to build an epic arc. That way if I ever die, at least the trilogies are complete. You can imagine why I'm not rushing to write something of such tremendous scope considering I haven't even been published yet.

5 Han shot first.

The Hard Part

I got a pass on WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING today. This particular agent has looked at BLACK MAGIC AND BARBECUE SAUCE as well and is very good about giving feedback with rejections. What struck me today is that his comment was very similar to a comment Elizabeth Poole gave me when she beta-read the story.

Bastin is a more likable character than Nashau or Podome. This isn't disputed, trust me. Bastin is your classic high charisma, high energy flimflam man you find in many fantasy novels. That was one of the reasons he wasn't the main character. I've seen him before. Or at least, I've seen other characters with that attitude (Bastin keeps himself out of the cliche gutter, I think). And regardless, it wasn't his story I wanted to tell. It was Nashau's. It is a story about unemployment in a fantasy setting. I saw the story I wanted to tell and I told it.

But here is the feedback, this story would be better with Bastin as the main character. A story may be better with Bastin as the main character, but that story wouldn't be this story. And there's the hard part.

Completing a novel is difficult. Revising that novel is challenging. But rewriting the novel? That's flipping hard.

Revising makes a story better. It fixes flaws, improves weak structure to make it stronger. It's an essential element of professional writing. Rewriting is taking the fundamental aspects of a story: it's plot or theme or characters or setting, and telling a whole different tale.

Now, the agent did not say "If you rewrite this with Bastin as the main character, I will represent you" which saved me a lot of hand-wringing. But the implicit statement of "I'll look at this again" was (I think) there.

Since I received that email, I have pondered and pondered and pondered whether or not I could tell WANTED: CHOSEN ONE, NOW HIRING with Bastin as the sole main character rather than 1 of 4 (with Nashau being the primary main character of the group with Jara being second). The first half is easy. There's a lot of stuff early on with Nashau and Podome that could be cut. If they're not main characters, those chapters are unnecessary. But that leaves me with stuff later...well, those chapters balance because of the foundation I built with those early chapters. I don't think I can revise my way to a Bastin-centric story. I'm too attached to the story I told and still believe it is better the way it is.

What happens when this happens later? What happens when it's an editor and I'm contractually obligated to deliver and they say something like this? I'm terrified. I've always known it's a possibility, but was able to ignore it because I'm still looking for an agent. It's hard to stifle that gut reaction of, "No, it's better this way" just because that's the way you told it. Really, rewriting is asking for a different story than the one you've told but with the same stuff included. Ugh! That's so hard!