Writing

I was checking today how long it's been that I've been working on Sarah's story (on and off, of course)... to discover that I put the first of the submissions to editors and agents in the mail on Sarah's fourth birthday... the exact day.  Weird!  :-) 

I won't go into detail about what a wild ride these last four years have been, or all the lessons I learned while writing Sarah's story, other than saying "wow!" 

Happy belated birthday, Sarah. 

Now if I could only get you to Shut Up! life would be a little simpler... but you're staying true to form, and the next story is likely to be just as wild a ride as the first.  :-)

A couple weeks ago I was talking to myself (something that I regularly do, having only teenage boys in the house) and told myself that it's going on eight years that I've been divorced and it sure would be nice to have somebody in my life.  Myself replies that before I go looking for somebody I need to fix "X", because even if I found somebody today, I wouldn't want them if they are willing to accept "X" as it stands.  I agreed with myself, that I indeed need to fix "X" before I go looking for somebody.  But since I'm not particularly interested in fixing "X", I put the topic aside and think no further on it.

This weekend a character pops up and starts demanding: "write my book, write my book".  I tell the character to shut up, because there are about 10 books in the queue before I can even think about a new book.  Said character quickly acquires a sidekick, and instead of shutting up, they demand even louder: "write our book, write our book". 

Being very unhappy about the added chaos in my head, I grouse about it to a good friend who knows about "X" and who's also a writer.  The friend replies, "you know... writing their book would go a really long ways toward fixing 'X'."

Fudge!  Good, bad or otherwise, writing the book would indeed fix a lot of "X", plus further analysis reveals their book ends up needing to be written before several other books on the list, as events in this book impinge on events in the other books.

Fudge!  **sighing in resignation**

At least the smug little bastards have shut up now that they know I have to write their blasted book.  **grumble, grumble**

Yesterday, I put the snail-mail submission package in the mail... which was an experience given that the clerk at the post office hadn't done an international return coupon in a long while.  At one point they had three gals working on trying to figure out what had to be done for one.  :-)  But it's off.

And today, I sent off two queries.

The hurry-up-and-wait submission process is underway.

But the even bigger news is that yesterday I cleaned off my desk.  :-)  I know it doesn't sound like much, but believe me, it's major.  :-)

Jara's story is still cogitating in the ether, while I try and get caught up with stuff around here.  Now that Sarah is off, Jane is starting to pester me.  Which is good, as hers is the next book that I "should" be writing.  But since I rarely listen to "shoulds", I'll not push her faster than she wants to be pushed.

So, today is work on paying work that I should have been doing yesterday, but I broke the website and need to try and figure out "why" when there aren't any people on it.  Plus a ton of stuff to do around the house.  Never a dull moment.  :-)

Good, bad, or otherwise, the cover letters, blurb and synopsis are declared done, and the first three chapters were given another copy-edit and declared good enough.

And... three submission packages have been emailed, and the final one is printed and in an envelope on my desk.

Sarah is done... for the moment.

Kind of a scary thought.  She's been my constant companion for several years now.  It'll be interesting to see if Jane is as good a friend.

I'm trying to get the submission packages ready, and it's driving me buggy.  And to make it all worse, I clicked on a copy of the manuscript that I submitted a couple years and several versions ago, and suddenly I was full of angst.  OMG, is the old one better?  Did I screw it up by trying to fix it?  Should I go back to this old version, or maybe one of the other versions is better, or some combination?  What should I do?  What should I do?

Well, what I really need to do is take a deep breath and hit the send button.

But not until tomorrow.  I need one gal to take a 2nd look at the synopsis and cover letter.

However, I do promise to not touch the manuscript itself.

The submission process isn't any fun at all.  :-(

This morning, when I had paying things to be doing, I ended up writing down blurbs for two maybe-someday stories based on all the Láadan work I've been doing lately (http://laadanlanguage.org/pages/).  I don't have much new on the Láadan site, but tons of backend stuff is getting done and the topic is on my mind pretty much constantly lately.

*** Book #1 **************
Mackinac Island, with its summertime population of thousands but a wintertime population of barely 500, seemed the perfect contained location for a social engineering experiment to test how language affects a people.

Now, a generation later, rumors abound that behind the gaudy exterior of fudge and tourists, the worst kind of cult has arisen.

Reporter Dan Argosy is determined to discover the truth.  Armed with a false background and hidden cameras, he braves the snow-swept island.

Will he find the horror he excepts, or an unexpected love?

*** Book #2 **************
Five years ago Connie Argosy's son, Dan, left to investigate the rumored cult that lay hidden behind Mackinac Island's cheery exterior of fudge and tourists, and never returned.  He claimed he found love and happiness, but Connie knows better.

Now, Dan is dead, the result of a supposed boating accident, and Connie is determined to rescue her grandchildren.

Carrying papers demanding custody of the children, and with expensive lawyers only a call away, Connie braves the cold winds of the Mackinaw Straits.

Will she find the depravity she expects, or a place of comfort unlike any she has ever known?
************************* Read more

Last night, instead of doing paying work, I updated the synopsis for the done book so I can start sending it out to other agents, since the one agent I sent it to never got back to me.

And, yes, I know not to send it out to only one agent and then wait, but life's been a little busy for the past several months, so I was content to leave it sit there for a while.  So, now it's time to move on and submit to more places, but I had to re-do the synopsis first. 

I actually did most of the synopsis work back in early December and sent it to a couple people to review, but then life got busy again.  It also didn't help that the beginning was really dry... which is not how I want to start a synopsis.  Then on the trip back from the funeral in Kansas, one of the many tangents I went off onto, while driving alone for 10+ hours, was the a new first paragraph.

So I fixed the beginning and polished the rest of the synopsis. 

Then I sent it off to the first agent (after asking her if she wanted a copy), and maybe I'll guilt her into actually giving me an answer on the manuscript.  :-)

Now I just need to polish the 1st few chapters of the manuscript again, now that I've learned more copyediting-stuff, then I'll send the whole package off to other places.

I've been playing with Jara's plot, and this morning I finally pinned down the black moment.  I knew it on some level, but today I finally put it into words.  Which is going to help because now I know where I'm going... which is going to make it easier to get there.  :-)

But I'm mostly caught up with last minute Christmas stuff, so I may not have time to do much with this for a while.  We shall see.

There are many things I should have been doing this evening, one of which could have been making some money to help pay the bills this month, but just as I couldn't face that task this morning, I couldn't face it this evening, so I did something else that desperately needed doing... I wrote the first draft of Sarah's synopsis.

The full manuscript has been off to an agent for several months now, without a reply, so it's long past time to send it on to other people, but before I could do that I needed a synopsis.

I'd written a synopsis long ago, for the second draft of the book, but the beginning of the book changed so dramatically that I needed a new synopsis.

I've been putting off this task forever because I have only vague clues about what editors and agents are looking for in a synopsis.  I've asked fellow authors, and they've graciously answered me, but I've yet to be able to translate what they say into terms and actions that I understand. Read more

Today is "do anything but work" day.  I'm mad at myself because I need the money, but I honestly can't face work today.  So, instead, I did a task that has been hovering over my head for a week or more.

I'm teaching a critique class at one of the local community colleges, and last week's lesson was on show-don't-tell.  After I got home, everybody's characters started yammering at me, insisting that I "show" the authors what I was trying to "tell" them with the critique I'd given.  Reluctant to step on people's toes, I finally emailed them, asking if they'd like me to do so.  They all replied "yes", so now I was committed.

All the way down to Texas and back, a couple of their characters yammered at me, but I didn't get a chance to write any of it down.  So today, instead of doing what I should have been doing, I spent all day so far rewriting a couple paragraphs of each their stories. Read more