Left Turn at Albuquerque

I've switched tactics and decided to focus solely on Jack as the main protagonist of the novel. It's what I should've done in the first place, but I got so caught up in creating Dan's backstory that I thought he was supposed to be the main character.

Blood in the Orchard (working title) began as a short story that I just couldn't get right. I loved the monstrous creature in the short, but had no idea how it came about. I realized finally, after about two months of tinkering with it, that the reason I could never get it right was because my readers had no reason to care about the characters in the terrible situation I'd put them in.

That's problematic, because for me, the real root of good horror is identifying with the character in some way and caring about what the heck happens to them in the story. I started thinking about where that monster came from, and why. What it represented. How it was conjured into being. And suddenly I realized the damn thing was just too fricking long to be a short piece.

So I put it aside for about six months and didn't think about it at all. But then in August... it came swimming out of my imagination again, and I took the plunge. And now here I am, almost a year later. The first draft is finished and my first readers' polished copy's birth is in sight.

Anyway, back to Jack. I realized the story really is about him and how he changes through the book. When we first meet him, he's closed-off and somewhat reserved, especially with his emotions. He feels guilty a lot, about things he can't control. He's only got one close friend and he keeps himself from getting romantically involved with anyone.

Over the course of the story, Jack changes into someone who has to let himself feel, because he just doesn't have a choice. He's fallen in love with his dead sister's best friend, and his brother-in-law has gone insane, and a whole bunch of crazy shit goes down, but at the end he realizes he has to embrace and acknowledge not only his own special abilities but also the great amount of love in his heart for his family, his friends, and his town.

That's the story I want to tell you. Dan is important, yeah. But he's not the main character. At this point, he's not much more than glorified window-dressing, something I can use to make the readers feel sad or scared. I'm grateful for the character - for all my characters - and I like him, but I'm starting to recognize his value as a creative tool.

So, this is where my focus is going... for now. Ever watch those old Bugs Bunny cartoons where he ends up somewhere he shouldn't because he didn't take that fabled left turn? Well, hopefully that's Albuquerque up ahead... because I'm definitely turning left, kids.

Edits and Future Plans

Day two of editing... twenty pages into the original manuscript. This is a painful process. Anybody got an aspirin?

Since I have the liberty of making this up as I go along, I'm thinking time limit instead of page goal for editing. Such as, spending a solid two hours on pages, then taking a break. I'm overwhelmed... there's a lot, I mean a LOT of extra words on these pages. My original first twenty pages has been cut down to twelve. Whoo! On the plus side, I want my manuscript to be smaller, so this is a good thing!

It's pretty exciting to go back over the edited copy. It reads MUCH faster and the clunks are really starting to smooth out. I'm learning so much in this process and it's JUST THE SECOND DAY. How lucky are we to be writers, huh? This is the coolest feeling ever.

Do you guys work on writing new stuff while you're editing your manuscript? It's two very different parts of my brain and right now the idea seems laughable to me. Maybe it'll get easier the deeper I get into the book. I want to at least keep working on short stories to beef up my portfolio. The latest is almost ready to go out into circulation. I've got another two ideas I can work on, and then there's other shorts I've got half-finished that I can polish up. Problem is, after three or four hours of editing I'm zonked. That plus the Clark Kent job is all I can handle at the moment.

But I do want to continue moving forward so even if I can't produce new words I am researching for the next project, little by little. The short stories are fun distractions, but I'm ready to tackle another novel. I don't want to start it until this one has gone through its first big edit, though. I have an inkling of an idea for a book, and it's pretty interesting. I've been researching things like Paradise Lost, the War Between the States, the King James Bible, 18th century writers, Voltaire, British cemeteries, and pirates.

Yes, pirates! Pirate ghosts! They might make an appearance in my next book... we'll just have to see, won't we? ;)

All right... Somebody hand me a machete, I'm going back in...

Ze Clock, She is Ticking!

The end of the month is rapidly approaching, and my mini-vacation is coming to an end. I'm looking forward to it... this has been a great month to do whatever I want, but it's gonna be really great to get back into the universe I created and start moving stuff around. I feel like revision is shaping the raw material I've created. Yes, a good deal of it is pretty clean. But I can make it better... sharper. I want it to sing.

Almost finished with my erotic horror flash. Next I'm going to polish up a short I started a couple of years ago but never finished. I figure it's about five pages from the end. If I can get it down right, I'll have another piece to add to my portfolio. It's pretty exciting to see that expanding, because it means I can group them together into an anthology before too much longer. This isn't unheard of in the horror genre; Joe Hill published an anthology of his short fiction before he published his first novel, and it did so well, he got a contract with Harper-Collins.

I've sent out queries to Weird Tales and Dark Discoveries about the pieces they still have (Weird Tales has had "Knights of the Road" for a little over three months; Dark Discoveries has had "Watched" since January), and I'm hoping to hear back soon on them. In the meantime, I'll have new stuff to send out in the next couple of weeks, and that makes me happy.

Another exciting thing: my website will be up and running soon. I want to get it rolling before I head to KillerCon in August. There probably won't be a whole lot at first, but I can't wait to share it with y'all. I'm taking business cards to the convention with me and I want to have the website ready for who might be visiting...

...but before all that kicks into high gear, I'm enjoying the last week of June. Next Sunday there'll be fireworks; until then, I'm chillin out. So - you didn't think I'd forgotten about Music Monday, did you? Here's one of my favorite "chill" songs for you to enjoy... hope it brings a little calm blue ocean into your Monday.



What's going on in your life? Anything you're particularly excited about? Need to kick back and relax for a couple of days? You're not stressing in the summer heat, are ya? Remember, friends... the comment section is always open.

Have a great Monday!

Progress

A most happy Friday to you, my friend!

I'm nearing the end of my self-enforced hiatus from the book, and I'm looking forward to jumping back in. I'm picking it up on Monday, July 5th after giving myself a complete month off from the project. At first I thought a month wouldn't be enough - hahaha, I was SICK of it after I finished - but now I'm really looking forward to diving back in to the manuscript.

This'll be my first revision of my first manuscript, so it's all new to me. Another adventure, another step in the process to getting published. I'm still writing in the time off, although I'm not pressuring myself to produce very much. I've finished the short story I was working on, and have started a new piece. This one is a flash fiction for the convention in August.

Yep, there's a horror erotica flash fiction contest at KillerCon this year and I've already started working on my piece. You have to read your piece aloud in three minutes or less, so I want to get some practice in before I head out that way. It's a fun little challenge... erotic gore... but I'm definitely up to the task.

The short story came out well, I'm letting it sit for a few days (and taking it to my writing partner) before I come back to it. Now I want to finish this flash and move on to polishing some older stuff I have. It's time to start submitting short pieces again. I still have two out in circulation but they've been out there forever. It's time to beef up my portfolio and send out some more pages.

Hope you all have amazing, if not productive, weekends.

It Is Finished.

On a humid summer evening in August of last year, I sat down and wrote the prologue of my novel. I didn't know it was the prologue until I'd finished it, because I hadn't considered writing a book until only a few weeks before this particular evening. I put a song on repeat and wrote until the images in my head were perfectly recorded, then sat back and read those nine pages over and over.

I can do this, I thought. I can write a book. I know it.

Now, ten months to the day, 428 pages, and 124,000 words later, my first novel is complete.

It's the best thing I've ever written in my life. Even if it never sells, I'll still love it forever and be so proud of my work. I've learned so much with this experience, and I just can't wait to keep on going down the path of my career as a writer. This has been the most exhilarating work I've ever done.

I'm so filled with gratitude that it's leaking out of my eyes a little. I just can't help it.

Thanks, Universe.

And now... I think it's party time, friends. Care to join me?

Pay it Forward Giveaway Winner!

IT IS FINISHED.

This statement applies to many things in my life right now.

Sadly, one of them is not the WIP. However, I'm really proud of the progress I made in the month of May. I've reached 391 pages and 113,000 words, which is farther than I ever expected to go with this scary little story. Since I worked Freedom Weekend Aloft this weekend, I get a couple days off this week (today and tomorrow) and I truly hope to be able to finish it then.

Other things which ARE finished are:

- The month of May
- Spring in the South (Helloooooo, Summer!)
- Freedom Weekend Aloft (thank God!)

Hmmm... what else is finished... OH YEAH!! The Pay it Forward Giveaway! I'm announcing the winner today! In fact... I'm announcing the winner right now!

Before I tell you who won (yeah, making ya wait... I know you hate me), I'd really like to say THANK YOU to everyone who responded to this contest. When all the entries were tallied up, I had over 400 entries from bloggers who tweeted, facebooked, blogged, and used various other means to spread the word about paying it forward. Some bloggers even went on to start their own contests on their own blogs, either using my format or making up one of their own entirely from scratch.

I'm overwhelmed by the response. And so excited to share this wonderful idea with you guys. The blogging community has really buoyed my spirits over the last month. I know I haven't posted every day, but I have been reading and commenting as much as I can, and listening to everything you guys have to say. Thank you so much.

And now... without further ado (there has been far too much ado already, thanks)... the winner of the Pay it Forward Giveaway is...

Karen G of Coming Down the Mountain!

Congratulations, Karen!! Let me know if you prefer me to purchase one of your books (I see that you have two for sale on your website) or if you'd prefer the gift card. Also, be sure to let Curt and Shane from Mooks in the Movies know how you'd like your name to be used in their next script!

Also, I surpassed 125 followers, so I added a MYSTERY PRIZE to the pot! The winner of the mystery prize is...

Hart Johnson, the Watery Tart!

Congrats, Hart! The mystery prize is...

Your very own copy of Issue #3 of Fissure Magazine - the literary magazine that published my short story "Avenue of Dust" - autographed from yours truly to you, personally. AND a mix CD, of my own devious devices. Email me your mailing address and I'll get them out to you! Surprised? I hope so! :D

I hope you guys had as much fun with the Pay it Forward Giveaway as I did. I plan on doing another contest in the next few months, and as soon as I have the details figured out, I'll let you know. In the meantime, please don't stop doing little kindnesses for your fellow humans, just because the giveaway is over (for now). Each of us can make the world a little better for someone else. One of these days, the avalanche is gonna kick in.

Have a fantastic Tuesday and let's do everything we can with June! Who's with me?!

Breathing Room

I'm nearing completion of the WIP MS, and as I do, I find myself longing for some breathing room. I feel like I've been holed up in my room forever, turning down social engagements and trying to crank out pages. My head is so filled with this book, it's all I can do to write a damn grocery list, let alone even consider any other project. All I can see is this story and the characters in it, what they're doing to each other and what the heck is gonna happen when everything collides together at the end.

Part of my timeline for getting this novel produced is letting the manuscript rest for a few weeks between completion of the first draft and the first editing run-through. I plan to use those weeks to work on some short stories, sort of as a mental palate-cleanser. I've been in my fictional town of Bulton for nine months now, almost ten, and it's time to see new things and new places in my mind's eye.

Getting the first draft of this huge project off my desk is going to be a relief, and I don't want to start something that long again for at least a few months. I know, too, that I'm only nearing the end of the first step; there's going to be a thorough revision process, and I need to get my head wrapped around that concept before I start another lengthy piece of work, and figure out how everthing fits into a new timeline.

Now that I've worked writing into my everyday(ish) schedule, I don't want to stop. I used to take long breaks between spells of writing - sometimes months would pass before I would pick up something and tinker with it - but I can't even begin to imagine living that way now. I'm delighted at the idea of using the time my MS needs to take a few shorts for a spin. Imagine, a tiny little piece of writing, with hardly any commitment at all! A perfect study of the abbreviated scene, the focus on action, the striking images needed to ensnare a reader in 6,000 words. And something I can add to my portfolio to boot! Man, that sounds like fun!

When you finish a long project, what do you do to give yourself some breathing room? Do you jump right into the next long project, or switch it up a little for variety?

Update on the Novel, Take 2

I'm sequestering myself away from the world today. Only stepping out into the internet for a couple of moments, to post on Facebook and give you guys, my amazing group of blogfriends, a much-needed update on the progress of the novel.

For those of you that aren't aware, I've been working on my WIP for several months now, and am nearing its completion. It's been an exhilarating and exhausting experience. This is my first full-length novel and I'm scratched and bruised but have escaped serious injury so far... and I'm having the time of my life. I've learned a lot of things about myself as a writer with this project. Like the fact that I'm not really a short story writer and have been long-distance writing all this time without even knowing it. Or the fact that I'm an extremely linear storyteller and want to plow through the story scene by scene instead of skipping around to write the parts I'm excited about. And the knowledge that my characters have stopped being words on a page and have started being thinking, breathing creatures which I created with my own mind and determination... now that was a killer realization (no pun intended, heh).

I set my book in the South, because I live in South Carolina and I'm frickin in love with this place. It's got a deep mystery which has barely been hinted at in fiction, and I thought it would be the perfect place to set my horror novel. The story is about a man who's trying to reach his dead wife through an old woman who has supernatural abilities. There's a lot more to it than that, of course - like the telepathic cop who's the brother of the dead wife, the peach orchard which was a second home to the bereaved husband, the mysterious murder of a local on a stormy summer night, and the dark entity which manipulates and influences the old woman to stir up a horrifying situation - but that's the basic gist.

Now I'm to the most important part of the book - the next three or four chapters are going to be pivotal and critical to the story. To be honest I'm intimidated by them. There's so much I have to put out there, and I want to get every bit of it right. (Perfectionist much? Sigh.) Really, I just want to make sure I do the story justice. This is the point which people will have been reading the whole book for, and I want it to be as scary and as riveting as it is in my imagination. I'm hoping I can carve out quite a bit of it today and tomorrow during my little writer's retreat in my bedroom - no TV, no phone, no internet, etc - and if you guys get a chance today, send me some positive vibes, ok?

I have 290 pages and 84,000 words. My goal is to reach 100,000 by the first of May. I still think I can do this. I don't believe the story will be finished by 100,000 words, though - I think it'll surpass that by at least a few thousand words. The initial goal I set was to have reached 100K by May 1st, though, so I'm not going to worry too much about whether or not it's finished on the first. I will have it completed sometime in the month of May. And believe me, there will be a PARTY when it's done. All of you are invited too. Hell, I just might throw a contest as well.

Thanks to all my blogger friends who're continually offering support and encouragement through this crazy project. You guys keep me going and you're invaluable. I wish you the best and major success with all the projects you're working on.

All that being said... happy Saturday, y'all!

Happily Ever After

Being a horror writer, I specialize in situations that are less than ideal for my characters. Scary, creepy, spooky, downright terrifying? Great. I can do any of those, no problem. But I also have scenes that are drawbacks; I talked a couple of weeks ago about romance and how it's a stumbling block for me, something that I hesitate to write because I don't want to seem too cheesy or corny. It is a part of life, so it needs to go in the book, just like everything else.

I've worked through the romance block and am handling it pretty well, I think. Of course that's something I'll have to review when the first draft is completed and has had a chance to breathe. But there's something else I've been thinking about, something that's been on my mind a lot recently as I've been edging towards the ending of my horrific little tale. I've hinted at some of the elements of the story: ghosts, peach orchards, telepathy, an old woman who may or may not be a witch. But I don't think I've stressed enough that this story is basically a tale of good vs. evil.

Up until this point, I haven't allowed myself to think about who will be the victor of this battle. I've been concerned with getting the story to this point. I'll be hashing out the details in the next few weeks of what actually happens, and now I'm wondering what each of my readers will (hopefully) be pondering when they get to this point in the book: Who's gonna win this one?

I don't know yet. I'll find out as it's written, I guess... but I'm wondering. And it makes me think of the horror novels I've read, and the way I feel about the way the stories end. I've mentioned that Stephen King is my writing hero. I've read almost everything that man has written, two or three times at least. And more often than not, the good guys win. Terrible things happen, but evil is vanquished. It. Desperation. The Dark Half. Needful Things. Misery. There are endings which aren't so great for the characters, but still, evil is defeated. Firestarter. The Dead Zone. Duma Key. Cujo. Christine. The Shining. Salem's Lot. And then there are the ambiguous endings... where you're not sure what happens to the characters, but you've got a feeling they'll be all right, like in The Tommyknockers, Delores Claiborne, and The Stand. Evil does triumph sometimes, but it's rare - the only one I can think of right now is Pet Sematary. I guess Thinner technically counts in that category, but that's a Bachman book, and Stephen King has said that Bachman is much darker than he usually is.

I don't know who's going to win, but it's going to be an epic battle. I can tell just by the lead-up I've created. I think I know who it's going to be... but we'll just have to see. And I'm wondering, which would my audience prefer? Would they rather have all the loose strings tied up in a neat little package for them, with a traditional Happily Ever After-type ending? Or would they rather it be dark and gritty, but a little more realistic? Or somewhere in between?

Which do you prefer?

Eating the Elephant

My entries lately have been of the go-go-go-cheer-yay-write variety. I hope I'm not becoming repetitive. I don't plan many blogs; even the A to Z challenge is mostly off the cuff. So my entries naturally gravitate towards what I need/want to hear as a writer. And right now I need all the encouragement I can get. I feel like that person who's been hiking for 87 miles on a hundred-mile trail. Sore. Tired. Starting to wonder why I'm doing this in the first place. Good things too... grateful. Inspired. Proud of the work I've done so far. But it's close to being done, and I guess we all go through this in one form or another at different points in our individual writing processes.

Which brings me to the old adage: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. I have to keep reminding myself of this metaphor lately. I want it to be DONE. I'm ready to get it into its proverbial bottom drawer and let it breathe. I love the universe and characters I've created, but my brain is yelling for a rest, and then something new. I'm committed to getting this finished, and I don't want to set it aside now - the story's hot, and I'm afraid if I stop now and come back in a few weeks I won't be able to finish. But working on the book plus all the rest of the stress in my life is really starting to wear me down.

It's times like this I remind myself of Lester Burnham's words in American Beauty:

"Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it. And then it flows through me like rain. And I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life."

Right?

I've gotten here one chapter at a time. One page at a time. One paragraph at a time. One sentence, one word, one letter at a time. It's not going to materialize on the page by itself. I need to make it happen. But it's going to happen in its own time. This elephant has been vanishing bite by bite. Now I've got a little bit left... it's daunting, but I'm determined to finish the whole damn thing.

What do you do to remind yourself of how far you've come? How do you sustain your enthusiasm for a long-term project? What kinds of things do you do for yourself to encourage completion of a long WIP?

Beating Self-Doubt

It took me a long time to decide to write a book.

I've been writing for most of my life (since I was four or so). Over the years, especially in my school career, I've written more short stories and poems than I can remember. I went to Governor's School in 1991 and 1993, and went to college on a writing scholarship (a fun but short-lived higher education experience; I left college a year and a half after I started). After college, I kept writing, but didn't get serious about it for several years. When I finally started writing again in the spring of 2000 - this time for an online writing contest at the ACW Club, I wasn't sure if I still had the knack for making things up and writing 'em down. I won the first contest I entered, and two more after that, so my confidence was bolstered and I kept writing stories here and there, never considering sending them out for serious consideration by writing markets.

Until I met my fellow writing compatriot and Reedy River Rat Gail Gray, I'd only gotten the courage to send one of my stories out for publication. I sent it to ten different markets and got rejected ten times. After that I gave up submitting for a while, until Gail convinced me I should try again. The self-doubt was overwhelming, but I finally did it... and to my surprise, the piece was accepted.

What a rush! The self-doubt got beaten back into a corner, squealing in pain (but still alive, oh yes, it's almost impossible to kill - like some kind of mental cockroach *shudders*). I started sending out more pieces, and found a few more homes for my stories. This bolstered my confidence even more, and I realized one day about a year after the first acceptance that I was writing all the time. Short stories and poems, mostly, but still good stuff. I was attending a regular writers' meeting and the quality of my work got better and better. "You should write a book," they told me. "It would be amazing!" Every time I'd bring a new short story to the table, Gail would tell me, "You could turn this into a novel." (Seems like I've been long-distance writing my whole life and didn't know it, heh.)

But still the self-doubt remained. I never finish anything long-term, the self-doubt said disparagingly. I'll just get so far into it and quit. Or that's just too long of a project, the self-doubt would whisper. Why work on something that'll take at least a year to finish and then never get published?

The prologue of the novel came to me one night in early August, and after composing it in a white-hot fever of creativity, I sat back and read over those first few pages, wondering to myself, can I keep this going? Can I actually write a book? Is there enough in this story to make it believable and entertaining? Is this something I...

"Oh, quit it already," I said to myself. "Just do it, for God's sake." For a wonder, the self-doubt shut its mouth and I kept on writing.

Since then, it's crept back over and over again, but I keep beating it back with the biggest stick I can find. I show it all the pages I've written, the encouraging notes from writers' meeting, the way the plot has developed and taken on a mind of its own. When self-doubt whispers that I'm not (flourish of trumpets, please) a REAL WRITER, I remind it to look my writing credits, my query letters for short pieces, and my blog and the people who follow me, because all those things prove that I am what I say I am. I show it my timeline for getting the novel completed and published, and I remind it that I'm using the Clark Kent job as a means to an end to get where I need to be.

I tell it, in no uncertain terms, to f&$k off.

And sometimes - MOST times, at least lately, while I'm riding the high of creating this crazy novel - it does.

What do you do to beat your own self-doubt? How do you remind yourself that you are exactly where you're supposed to be?

Pacing Yourself

I talked last week about my timeline for my work-in-progress novel, from finishing the first draft to editing to distributing the pages to my First Readers... and all the other steps on the way to publication. The most important step to me (right now at least) is finishing the first draft. Without a completed first draft, I can't make any more forward motion on the project. I know you can go back and edit things which are already written, but to me it seems pointless to do steps out of order, especially if you never get a finished product to send to a publisher or agent. After all, we're trying to get a book published and out to the general populace, right? The public won't read your pages if they don't have them in their entirety, so... why should you go back to revise and polish something that's not complete?

I'm shooting to be done with the first draft by the beginning of May. For the last month I've been pacing myself to make sure I'm going to hit the 100,000 word mark by that date. I was at 55,000 words at the beginning of this month. I counted the weeks between then and May and realized if I can crank out a solid 5,000 words per week I'll be golden by the time my deadline gets here. I've created a calendar for myself in Publisher and every Monday I report in on my progress. I've watched the word count steadily rise over the last four weeks and it's truly exhilarating.

Last week I mentioned this pace to someone, and was greeted with a scoff. "5,000 words a week?" she asked, laughing and shaking her head. "When I did NaNo, I was doing close to that a day."


All right. So, I'm slow. Slower than those who work at the breakneck pace of NaNoWriMo, at least. But that's all right with me. I'm working at my own pace, budgeting my time between the 40+ hour-a-week Clark Kent job, creating my writer's platform, and birthing this book. Not to mention all the other things that take up our time as functioning members of society.

I've set a pace that will get me to my goal, and I'm sticking to it. If I get more than 5,000 words a week, GREAT. But all I'm wanting is the bare minimum goal from myself right now. So far I've made the goal every week, sometimes with a surplus of 2,000 + words, sometimes with only 80 or so. And all the while, my novel is marching towards its completion, delighting me, thrilling me, amazing me. I'm sucking in the experience and loving every single second of it. I'm savoring the time my book and I have together, because we've worked hard to get here. And I'm not questioning my goals, even though they may seem small to other people. After all, the race is yet to be won.

What are the pacing goals you set for yourself? Do you have to work by a schedule to get your first draft finished, or do you just work on it until it's complete?

Timelines

I think one of the most important things that's kept me motivated in writing my first novel is setting a timeline for the things I want to accomplish in this endeavor.

When I made the concrete decision to sit down and give this whole book-writing thing a serious try, I was dubious. I've mentioned before how I have trouble completing long-term projects (a hallmark of attention deficit disorder, I still need to contact someone about the royalties for all those posters I should be on). When I knew I was serious about giving this a try, I sat down and planned out a loose timeline for what I wanted to accomplish.

I decided to give myself nine months to complete the first draft. My writing hero, Stephen King, says in his book On Writing that he finishes a draft of 100,000 words in three months - that's cranking out about 2000 words a day, every day, with no breaks. Of course, Mr. King only has one job - making things up and writing 'em down. He doesn't have to deal with another full-time job like I do. Also, he has this whole book-writing thing down to a science. Since this is my first book, I decided to give myself more time than he recommended, mainly so I wouldn't kill myself with my own project.

After setting a date for first draft completion (the first of May), I looked at what else I wanted to do with the book. I want to give it four to six weeks to rest in the proverbial bottom drawer after it's complete, so I can go back to it and edit all its pages with a fresh eye. So that puts me in early to mid June before I can even look at it to begin the second draft (but it's all right, I have a few short stories rolling around in my head to keep me out of that bottom drawer for a few weeks). I'll give myself about a month to go back through and clean it up, add in the things I want to add (there are several bits of foreshadowing which need to be put in, to sort of spice up the story), change what needs to be changed.

So around July 15th, I'll get a few spiral-bound copies of my manuscript printed, and I'll be handing them out to a few dedicated First Readers. I've picked out a handful already, each of them with a different skill set for looking at the book. One of them, of course, is my writing compatriot and fellow Reedy River Rat Gail Gray, who has offered invaluable advice and direction during the process of creating the first draft. The other readers I have lined up are from varying backgrounds, education levels and mindsets. Each of them has been chosen to read for one reason or another - one person I want to focus on theme, one on setting, one on that terrible issue of romance I talked about yesterday... and they're all excited as hell to read my book.

I want to give them a month to read, then start gently prodding for returns (hopefully with lots of notes in the margins). So, mid-August will be the beginning of the third draft and subsequent revisions. I'll give myself another two to four weeks to get those done, and then start drafting query letters for agents and publishers. By September 15th or so (a couple of weeks before my birthday), I want to have a finished package ready to send out where it needs to go.

And then a month later, the South Carolina Writers' Conference will meet in Myrtle Beach, SC. There will be agents and publishing houses represented there, so I'm going down there to shake hands, network, and hopefully meet someone who can help me get my foot in the door to get my baby - now grown into a big, strapping, stand-on-its-own novel - looked at by a publisher. Gail and I are already planning our trip, and I'm excited about it!

When I saw all this laid out on a timeline back in August, the structure of the plan made me feel as if I had a real chance of finishing this project. It's something I return to on an almost daily basis to help remind myself of what I'm working towards. I need to get this done in a timely manner, so I can ultimately take it where it needs to go in October.

And so far, it's working.

A Fine Romance, With No Pages...

It's important for every writer to know their strengths and weaknesses. Play to your strengths, try to improve your game on the things you're not so good at. Or, steer clear of those things, unless they absolutely have to be used. It's important to own up to the things you're not so good at, so you can work on getting better at them.

In that light, I'd like to admit to you, friend, THAT I SUCK AT WRITING ROMANCE.

It's not that I'm not a romantic person. I am! A hopeless romantic, sometimes. (Or, as Joan Wilder, the romance novelist, says in Romancing the Stone, "hopeFUL romantic". Hey, don't make fun of my referential movie choices, it was the eighties, and we all loved it, ok? I was only nine, after all.) I'm just more of a thriller/action/horror-type writer. Give me a lunatic with a dozen sharp objects or a murderous mud monster to throw at my characters any day, and I'll mop the floor with it. I'm great at description, grammar, language... but. But. BUT I just can't write the gooshy stuff of people falling in love. I feel cheesy and stilted and like I'm forcing the whole damn thing. I wish they'd just get it over with and get it on, because...

Sex! Sex is easy. Sex is action, with a little emotion thrown in. But to describe a person falling in love and make it seem real? Sigh. I've realized this about myself as I've come to the slight bit of romance in my book. My protagonist, Jack, has realized that he's fallen for his dead sister's best friend, Ashley. It's very important to the story that this happens, because I need to showcase how he feels to compare and contrast another character's actions and feelings... plus, it's important to me for the reader to like Jack, and be worried for him when he goes into a dangerous situation... and one of the best ways to form an emotional connection with someone is to read about how they're human, just like you, falling for someone, just like you probably have, and aren't sure how to deal with it... bingo, just like all of us do at one point or another in our lives.

The romance is minimalist right now, because I'm downplaying my weakness. I don't want to break the reader's illusion by forcing the love-and-romance angle and making it seem false. It's very tentative right now, very small. But it's there. And every time I get to it in the book part of me squirms. Get to the gore, my brain moans. Do we really have to concentrate on all this gooey love crap? it asks. And the answer is, YES, we do, brain, come on, let's get it down so we can get ON to the delicious murder of an unsuspecting redneck (who just happens to be one of the regular bowlers down at the Clark Kent job). It's important to the characters, the plot, the story, THE WHOLE DAMN THING. So quit your whining, will ya?

And I do. I pick it up and go and plug through the ooey-gooey bits as best I can. I'm getting better at it, I think... practice, practice, practice, right? I'm drawing on my own life and experiences for this, infusing my memories of adolescent awkwardness and emotional turmoil over falling for someone that I really shouldn't (because, come on, who hasn't felt that way at least once in their life) with Jack's sensibility and near-Eagle Scout mentality.

Poor guy. I hope he gets that girl. He's crazy about her.

Update on the Novel

For those of you that aren't aware, I'm writing my first novel, which I expect to be completed the first of May. I've never attempted writing a book before, and I've found this to be the most exhilarating writing experience I've ever had.

It's also the longest experience I've ever had - this is definitely the most prolific thing I've written. I've composed many shorts over the years, and had a few published, but this project left those stories in the dust, length- and content-wise, months ago. It's intimidating to go back over those pages. Sometimes I look at all of them and say, "did I really write all this stuff?? When did that happen?!" It took me a long time to commit to writing a novel because I wasn't sure I had one in me. Now I feel like book-length manuscripts are all I want to write!

Composing a novel-length manuscript is its own emotional roller coaster ride. I've never experienced such amazing highs (and lows) concerning one particular project. I started writing in August of last year, and gave myself nine months to complete the project. It might seem weird, but chose the nine month mark because I feel as if I'm giving birth to something. I kind of think of this book as my first child, and I want to give it enough time to grow and mature and change into whatever it's going to be.

Recently (after hitting 50,000 words last month) I've realized the book has finally become its own entity. Knock out all the supports and props from underneath it and it still stands - shaky, grappling for purchase sometimes, holding on to whatever it can to steady its steps - because it has become its own creature, which lives and breathes through me. Soon it'll be ready to unleash upon an unsuspecting world.

I currently have 217 pages and 63,000 words. My goal is 100,000, and I feel sure I will either meet that goal or come close enough to rock-throwing distance of it by the first of May. I've reached the beginning of the real action in the story, leading up to the climax, and it's so exciting! I can't stop writing. The story has taken me over.

I've also learned so much about my own novel writing process with this project. I'm sure the next baby will be born after less than nine months... and it'll be an easier delivery, too.

It's a strange piece of horror I'm composing, one that includes ghosts, telepathy, peach orchards, red clay, witchy women, death, insanity... all tied together by the dark undulating ribbon of Southern culture. I can't wait for it to be done.

Priming the Pump

I've been wrestling with a block for the last few days. It's not that I don't know what to write about next, because almost the whole novel is in my head now. It's more that I either don't have the time or the energy to forge ahead in the story. My Clark Kent job has been kicking my ass the past few days, as it is wont to do every now and again. When I get home, all I want to do is vegetate.

But there's a job to be done... (cue superhero theme music here) ...and no one to do it but me. Let me tell you, being a self-motivator is difficult for me. Especially when I have things working against me like exhaustion and burnout and that all-time champeen of time wasters, Mr. Attention Deficit Disorder. I've been a disorganized time waster my whole life. My study habits (when they existed) used to make my mother, an elementary school teacher, clutch her head and moan miserably. So like everything else in this artistic adventure, I'm making up new habits as I go along.

Last night and the night before I forced myself to sit down and start plugging away at the block. Last night was marginally easier than Monday, but both nights were difficult. I hadn't been writing for almost a week, and the consistency of the story - a warm, silky liquid when I'm going fast and strong - had gooped up to the point of being almost solid. It took me a while to get the first few sentences right. I tore about half a page out and reworked it before I could stop rolling my eyes at myself. But then last night, the story loosened up around me and I was suddenly back in my fictional town of Bulton, sitting with Jack and Bertram at the picnic table behind the orchard's fruit stand, listening to their worried conversation about Dan. I fell back into it, and the feeling was bliss. But I had to "prime the pump" - an expression that Brian K. Ladd and myself use frequently to describe the act of working the cooling story from something thick and viscous into a liquid river of fire running right through the center of our brains.

One of the most pleasurable sensations in the world.

I was transported last night, taken from my bedroom in the dark recesses of 1 am to a sunny summer morning in a little Southern town, just outside the beautiful reaches of a huge peach orchard. It was so real I could almost smell the trees and the thick curls of Bertram's pipe smoke. I was lost for hours, and happily ignorant of the time. But before I fell through the "hole in the page" (a phrase I humbly borrow from Stephen King), I had to push and work and shove and mentally sweat my way through clunky dialogue and halting character action. I had to persevere, keep pushing against that block which had taken up residence between my fingers and my brain and wait for the story to start breathing again. Eventually it did, and the sound of its labored breath smoothed out after a bit and became fluid and loose. Until then, though, the priming was all I could do, and I pumped that story until my arm damn near fell off.

It's a valuable lesson, one I keep learning over and over, which amounts to one we all learn when we're small, barely old enough to hold a fat red pencil and make our straggling first letters of the alphabet: Never give up! Keep trying, it'll come eventually!

Gotta keep that at the forefront of my mind.

Important Milestone

Friday night I hit 50,000 words in the novel.

I started writing the book in early August. When I realized I was actually going to try to write a full-length novel, I set a goal for myself of 100,000 words (or about 350 pages, double spaced) to be completed on May 1st. I gave myself nine months. Creating this book will be like giving birth, I thought to myself then (and still do now, the labor pains will be coming in the next month or so, and I look forward to them with a mixture of exhilaration and terror); I need to give myself ample time to make it come alive.

And so it has. The characters have started breathing and thinking and speaking of their own accord, and I'm just following them around trying to take down as much as I can before it's forgotten. They're moving around and doing their own things, and I'm just observing. It's great. And insane. But all writers are at least a little crazy, right? It's par for the course.

I held back from trying to write a book for a long time. I've never been good at follow-through, even from the time I was a child, and I didn't want to build up excitement and expectations for myself and then let myself down. Short stories were a medium I could get into because they required only a few days' commitment - then the story was done and editing could ensue. Quick like a flurry of punches or stolen kisses. I knew my propensity for starting things and never finishing them, and I didn't want that to jinx a long project.

But no long project is completed if it's not started, and back in August when I finally realized the short story I'd been writing deserved to be its own novel, I knew I had to try. Now or never, my Mamaw would've said, time's a-wastin. And that was the truth. I realized it was time to make it happen. So I started, and gave myself a goal, and kept pushing against the invisible wall that stands between reality and fiction.

Now I'm at 50,587 words and the story is developing at a much faster pace than it has been over the last six months; it's like the book has hit its stride and is ready to whisk me along to its conclusion, for better or worse. I know I'll finish, or at least get to my goal by May; right now I'm just grinning like a fool and hanging on for the ride.