2013: A Singular Endeavor

I don't normally do a year in review because my pursuit of publication has been an ongoing effort for over four years now and that story has only changed somewhat. Write a novel -> query, write a novel -> query, start new year, repeat. That was 2009 through 2011. Then came 2012, the year of the great rewrites. I was asked by three different agents to revise and resubmit four different manuscripts, and the entire year disappeared while working on those stories.

And here we are at the end of 2013. It started much like it did every year before it. In February I started and finished the first draft of my most recent novel, FAMILY JEWELS. 28 days almost to the minute. I didn't feel proud. I didn't feel excited. I felt like I had been there before and it wasn't working. 2012 had gotten me "this isn't your best work" plus "this is so close but not for me" plus "I can see how another agent would love this, try sending it to X and Y" plus "This is an amazing story, but it can't be your first novel on the market" all of which equalled being in the same place I had been at the start of the year. Obviously I was improving at my craft, but I still didn't have representation and I still didn't have a book deal, and that just wasn't good enough. And so, we begin 2013, the year of the singular endeavor.

I finished the first draft in 28 days. I spent six months on the second draft. I spent another two on the third draft. And another two on the fourth draft. I did other things in between. I joined a roller derby league. I learned how to skate. I learned how to officiate. I became the head non-skating official of my league. I injured myself repeatedly. I joined a group dance studio with my wife. I wrote the first chapter of my next novel. You know, I lived life. I took all that advice I had always said didn't apply to me and I applied it to me.

And here I am at the end of 2013 and guess what? I still don't have an agent. BUT, I've written the best novel I've ever written since I started taking my writing seriously. It's not my favorite story I've written (that still belongs to WITH A CROOKED CROWN), but it is lightyears better than anything I've put down on electrons. I read Donald Maass' prompts on Twitter and gave more thought to characters that would have otherwise been cliches. I got AMAZING feedback from my beta readers and I applied it to fill all the holes and fix all the failures in logic. I asked myself, what more is there to my character and then I tried to find it and offer it up in the story. (Sure, I've done all that before, but not with the rush I've felt before. It was always, "I don't have any more time to make this better" and that was a mistake. This time, it was going to be better until it was the best it could be.)

How do I know I accomplished that? Well, I started querying this past Saturday (with the twelfth draft of my query) and by Monday, I had two full requests. That's right, kids, FULL requests. Not partials. Stick that feather in my cap, why don't I? I think I will. My query is strong. My synopsis doesn't read like a shopping list. My novel rocks. Even if this doesn't get me an agent, I know that what I'm doing now is what works for me, what makes me the best I can be, and I'm confident that if this novel doesn't have an agent calling me up and saying, "Let's take over the world together," the next one will. Or maybe the one after that. Let's keep going until we find out how many licks it takes to get to the center of this Tootsie Pop.

So happy new year to you, ladies and gents. I hope your past year has been as rewarding as mine and that your forthcoming year is filled with hopes and accomplishments.

Sex Scenes and Sexuality

I have, in my time, both acted as and utilized beta readers. With that, I've found that different authors have different policies in how they treat their beta readers. I have rules on how I deal with them. They are unpaid volunteers that are doing me a great service without any promise of return. I gain nothing by arguing with them (a trap too many authors fall into, in my opinion) nor do I gain anything by trying to change their minds.

My Rules (a list that may or may not be expanded on later as it wasn't the actual focus of this post)

1. Say thank you
2. Understand you don't have to keep everything they say, but neither should you ignore everything they say.
3. Do not explain your story to them before, during, or after they've read it. If they don't understand it from what you've written, you weren't clear enough (or they read too quickly, which does sometimes happen *cough* my wife *cough*).
4. Do not argue with them. You don't win beta reading by proving your point. You win it be receiving valuable feedback.
5. Don't be afraid to ask questions. They know your story now. They are a resource. Especially if it pertains to their professional field. Don't waste time being scared that it'll make your job harder. The goal of beta reading is to revise another draft and make the story better
6. Do not seek approval. Seek constructive criticism. "I like it" is never good feedback unless it is following by a bulleted list of what could be done better (numbered lists are also acceptable).

With those rules in mind, I'm going to bend #4 because I received feedback that really gave me pause. I don't want to argue with the reader (well, I do, but I'm not going to). Instead, I'm going to respond to the statement in general terms and explain why I respectfully disagree.

In my current novel, I have a gay male character who has sex with another gay male character. The sex is not the point of the scene and it occurs in only a few sentences. The point of the scene is fear, the two men are soldiers and they know they're going to die soon. They take comfort in each other's company before that inevitable time should come.

The comment I took issue with was that the scene "if you can call a few sentences" sounded like it was written by a straight white guy. It needed to be more graphic to demonstrate that I was genuinely okay with two male characters having sex. I can certainly see that interpretation, but I think that interpretation reveals the bias of the reader and not the writer. If the characters had been male and female and the two had been heterosexual, I would have written the moment exactly the same. The sex wasn't the point. Comfort was the point.

Perhaps the flaw isn't that I did not write it graphic enough but rather did not make it comforting enough. But I would challenge anyone that would suggest graphicness somehow proves acceptance of a sexual act to swap the sexuality of the characters and see if the same scene works. If so, it has nothing to do with the writing but the reading.

I am waiting for more beta feedback to come in before I fully revise the draft, but I have gone back over the scene and don't see a positive in adding more graphic content. Perhaps a little more lyrical description, but any more would undermine the pacing of the moment.

Where Did All My Free Time Go?

Wow, it's been a long time since I posted. Mea culpa. I tore a tendon in my shoulder and the recuperation (ongoing) has really thrown my routines for a loop. I've been working from home a lot or not working and going to physical therapy a lot. It may have been a good habit to write on the train every day, but once I stopped taking the train, writing became a lot harder. I also waited longer before starting a second draft. It was helpful, but dear lord I finished the first draft at the end of February and here it is back end of April and I'm not done with the second draft yet. What the hell? So lazy! :)

With the shoulder, I'm not allowed to roller skate. The risk of a fall may move me from physical therapy to surgery, and that's not something I want to risk because I watched a YouTube video of what they do in the surgery and hell no I don't want them perforating my collarbone so they can tie my tendon in place. Screw that! The silver lining in that situation is that I had to come to terms that this most recent attempt to start a men's roller derby team in southern New Hampshire has flopped. For that reason, I volunteered to officiate for the very successful women's roller derby league. Come out to a match! I'll be the guy in a pink shirt they announce as Charles Dickins.

Board games are really big in the Northeast, I've mentioned before, and I have a group that meets every week to play. But that was my big group activity. Usually I worked, I wrote, and I spent time with my wife. Now that I've added roller derby to the mix, my time has evaporated. It's amazing how popular the sport is and how much people need help. If you're at all interested in seeing what the modern derby is like, head to the Googles. It's a safe bet something is going on near you.

Now that I'm going back into work more frequently, I'm writing again, and the second draft is coming along. The first few chapters were a slog, but I've whipped them into shape and the next chapters have gone much faster. I'll give them another pass before sending them out to beta readers. Gonna get this thing to its fighting weight.

Because I'm commuting, that means I'm on the subway, which is where I traditionally read. I broke from my comfortable genres (fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, or biography) and went with literary fiction, something I never read because BORING! I know I'm often told I write literary fantasy (another way of saying, your work is slow moving and focuses too much on character, where are all the explosions?), but I don't write literary literary because I don't want to focus on language and emotions and god aren't I see emo, tear. Or so was my perception of literary. But then I read Jamie Ford's HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET and holy shit, people, you have to read this book. It has cemented itself as a contender for my favorite non-fantasy/sf book of all time. I kept gushing on Twitter because it was just SO good. Even when it slowed down, I didn't stop reading, I just yelled GODDAMMIT FORD, WHEN DO THEY KISS? at my nook and kept on reading. If you're looking for something new to read, you HAVE to read this one. Have to. That's an order.

And once you're done with that one, keep an eye out for Jason Hough's debut sf THE DARWIN ELEVATOR. It comes out in July (I already pre-ordered), and I was lucky enough to get an eARC, which I'm reading right now. I'll offer my thoughts at greater length once I'm done.

For now, go read HOTEL and/or play roller derby. You'll thank me later.

Novice Juggler

I know it's been a while since I posted. I've been meaning to for a while, but some "things" happened. I hate things. Rarely does one converse about things and speak of good news. Good news is "events" or even "news". "Things" mean shit's gone down.

For me that's my labrum. What's a labrum you ask? Good question. We all hear about rotator cuffs because pitchers tear them all the time. They're what make you rotate. The labrum is the tendon that sits inside your shoulder socket to let your bones do their thing without grinding together. I tore mine in 1997 but thought it was only a bad muscle pull, so I let it heal naturally. This was stupid on my part and made my shoulder for shit ever since. Well never fear, it's torn again so maybe this time it'll get fixed for real. Of course that means drilling holes through things and tying things and being in pain until all that happens. I've been on vicodin, which, I don't know why anyone would want to be addicted to that shit. Your brain is fuzzy, you can't comprehend, you're tired ALL the time, and you can't poop! And people take this shit willingly? No thanks. If I'm going to be fuzzy headed, it'll be from the pain. At least I won't be tired.

But I have accomplished some things. The first draft of FAMILY JEWELS wrapped up at the end of February. I spent my writing time finishing Peter V. Brett's THE DAYLIGHT WAR. If you're reading his Demon Cycle, I expect you've already picked this one up. If you're not reading his Demon Cycle, you're missing the best epic fantasy being written in the market today, so go pick up THE WARDED MAN (in the US, THE PAINTED MAN in the UK). Normally after that very brief break, I would jump right into a second draft, but I'm considering a revision to "The Rules" and as such am trying new methods to see if they improve my process. I started the second draft but immediately stopped. I'm going to write a short story instead. One with mermaids! And not the Disney mermaids either.

What I don't know is how my typing will be affected if they drill holes into my bones. I go for an MRI on Monday and things should become more clear after that. Until then, mermaids and future private detectives and lots of Aleve because my head remains clear on Aleve. Screw you, vicodin.