the blogroll

I'm addicted to a bunch of writer/editor blogs these days - especially the ones that let you submit your query letters for feedback. And by feedback, I mean they tear it totally apart with sarcasm and snark, and eat your hopes and dreams for dessert. It's educational and entertaining!

Evil Editor - Query feedback and absurd Guess the Real Plot games.
Query Shark - Great query feedback.
The Rejecter - Written by the first line of defense who goes through all the slush, and full of helpful hints.
Miss Snark - Retired, but chock full of great tips and, surprise!, snarkiness galore.

Also, this has nothing to do with writing or publishing tips (though the writer is a journalist), but I'm completely addicted to The Bloggess. The conversation about zombie junk is a personal favorite of mine. Check it out, if you daaaaaare.

the editing saga continues

I'm in the midst of editing, and the strange thing is that scenes that I hated when I wrote them are now not-so-bad-after-all. I just finished going through The Chapter in Which We Encounter the Dragon and The Chapter in Which Pretty Much Everyone is Defeated, and if you recall, I hated writing these chapters. They didn't seem to flow, parts of the dialogue were totally wrong, and I ended up totally rewriting the battle scene, and still wasn't totally happy with it.

Of course, this means that these chapters are the two that have bothered me the least over the course of editing this bdfhwkluawedljasdn manuscript.

Granted, I revamped the conversation between Niko and Merry about whether or not she would tag along. I changed the fact that Niko knew she was climbing onto the dragon's head, because that didn't really make sense. And I switched up the wording here and there. But over all, when I read these chapters I actually feel good about them; as opposed to, say, when I read the first few chapters and want to tear them up into confetti and scatter them in a godforsaken desert. Or something.

...also, Ferdinand K. Jowlfner is driving me nuts. He's got foreshadowing pouring our of his pores, but there's no logical place for him to show up again. Phooey.

i'm already a sellout, and i haven't sold a thing

I realized something last night that made me feel like a HORRIBLE PERSON. Or at least a HORRIBLE WRITER.

I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, at approximately 2:30 a.m. because sometimes I'm an insomniac, and I was thinking about this new story idea that I've been tossing around lately and thinking I might try to write it for JaNoWriMo. This particular story idea involves using classic stories, which is all good cause of this thing called public domain and the fact that whoever wrote 1001 Nights has definitely been dead longer than 100 years. But then I thought, "Well, crap, are the movie rights to The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan and all that copyrighted right now? Could they not put any of that in the movie?"

...that's right. I was worried about whether or not Hollywood could produce a movie of the novel I haven't even written because it included Toto and Tinkerbell. Nevermind that the chances of getting your book made into a movie are basically zilch (if that were my goal in life, I would need to call this blog negative eighty percent possibility, which really doesn't have as nice a ring to it). Nevermind that, I say again, THIS BOOK HAS NOT BEEN WRITTEN, much less accepted by a publishing company to even become a BOOK at all.

I am so lame. *headdesk*

But on the plus side, I had a great conversation via text message today with my best friend when the fire alarm went off in my dorm again:

Me: Out in the parking lot for the fourth time this quarter cause of the fire alarm.

Aimee: Hahahaha. That sucks.
(Editor's Note: Why yes, she's a wonderfully sympathetic friend.)

Me: If someone burned bacon for the third time…

Aimee: Hahaha. You guys need help with the bacon.

Me: Seriously. WHAT ARE THE CHANCES that burnt bacon would set off the fire alarm twice in two months?
(True story. Half of our fire alarms have been caused by burnt bacon. Sometimes real life is weird that way.)

Aimee: Well… People do love bacon…

Me: So they should be extra vigilant so they don’t burn it and waste it.

Aimee: Haha. Maybe their parents own the bacon kingdom and they have as much bacon as they need.

Me: Damn monarchs and their bacon monopoly. They’re jacking up prices for the rest of us. And raising spawn who don’t properly revere bacon and think they can just BURN IT whenever they want.

Aimee: Psh, rich kids. What can you do?

Me: Marry ‘em and control the bacon franchise from the inside. Or win their share in the family business from them in a poker game.

Aimee: Both possible, but I hear bacon princes are jerks. And then you wouldn’t be able to marry Bus Boy. Can you play poker?
(Bus Boy is the love of my life, who rides the bus that I take to campus. I have never spoken to him. I don't know his name. It's destiny.)

Me: Maybe I’ll get a second to win the bacon kingdom in my name. You know, like in a medieval duel.

Aimee: Hmm. Unless your swordplay has improved since I left that might be difficult. Bacon princes are expert sword players. Now, if there is a bacon princess you could kidnap her and demand they name the kingdom after you or you will feed her turkey bacon.
(Sidenote: Bacon princes are also expert harmonica players.)

Me: Hey, yeah, I didn’t even consider the possibility that the heir to the bacon fortune is a girl. Why the heck is a girl burning bacon? WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE SMARTER THAN THAT.

Aimee: Maybe she is an evil princess that is burning bacon on purpose because she hates it and her family.

Me: Good call. Cause why else would a freakin’ princess of BACON be at [my vegan-friendly, hug-a-tree school]? Our DC serves tofu every day, but I have NEVER ONCE seen them serve bacon. Which could be because I’ve gone to breakfast exactly once. But who says bacon is only for breakfast?

Aimee: If it makes you feel better I’ve never seen bacon at [her school] and I go to breakfast sometimes. It would make sense that a bacon princess who hates bacon would go there and eat tofu every day.

Me: …bacon didn’t start the fire. For the record, We Didn’t Start the Fire, either. It was a steak. And you know something? I’m even more offended by a college student who cooks a STEAK in the DORM than I am by that stupid bacon princess.

hundred word stories

...are tough. 100 is a big number when you're dealing with Big Macs or cockroaches, but not when you're dealing with words. To write a complete story in exactly 100 words - no more, and no less - takes some finesse and finagling.

Of course, those of you who are acquainted with one of my favorite "short stories" will argue that 100 words is plenty compared to Ernest Hemingway's story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." That's it; that's the whole story. But in six words, Hemingway tells a full story - not only that, but he tells one that actually makes the reader feel something.

But I'm no Hemingway.

Anyway, a friend of mine is doing a final project this week for one of her classes: she's trying to collect 101 100-word stories. You can go HERE to get in on the action and submit your own 100-word stories - she needs to collect 101 of them by Tuesday, after all. Just remember, no more and no less than 100 words.

Here are my two attempts so far. As I said, I'm no Hemingway, but at least I amused myself for a while with these stories.

The Nightmare Vanquisher

At 4:13 a.m., Henry sat up in bed. There was a sour taste on the back of his tongue and a ringing in his ears: a Nightmare was close. Probably trying to devour the sugar-sweet dreams of little Emily Bishop across the street again, he guessed. Henry climbed out of bed and fished around in the dark for his shoes. His wife – accustomed to this behavior after fourteen years of marriage – mumbled, “Lock the door behind you.” She was asleep again before her husband had found his left shoe; she dreamt of daisies while he kept the Nightmares at bay.

Polychrome, Inc.

Benjamin Bumperee worked at the Polychrome, Inc. color factory, manufacturing Blue615. It wasn’t a stimulating job: Blue614 came down the conveyer belt and he used an eyedropper to add one drop of Blue to each sample. It wasn’t an important job: no one liked Blue615 much. So finally, Benjamin quit. He tossed his company-issued eyedropper into the trash and walked out. But without Blue615, Blue616 couldn’t be manufactured; nor Blue617, or anything down the whole Blue conveyer belt. And as Benjamin Bumperee strolled away from the color factory, feeling proud of his brilliant career move, the sky (Blue873) turned gray.

man overboard!

To quote an earlier blog post:

"So this coming month might either be really productive on the Thistleswitch front, or not productive in the slightest. We'll see how it goes."

As the total lack of updates to this blog for the past month may indicate, the latter was definitely the case. I haven't written Thistleswitch - I haven't written anything - in the past month. I attempted to participate in NaNo, but I didn't feel like writing at all. (Neither did a good friend of mine, so we've decided to make January our National Novel Writing Month. Provided, of course, that we don't have uber-writers'-block when January rolls around.)

We just read Haroun and the Sea of Stories in my comparative literature class, and it's one of my new favorite books. It has a vibe similar to Order of Odd Fish and Thistleswitch, which we all know that I adore. And it made me want to pull Thistleswitch out again and start editing. My major job right now is figuring out the balance for the voice - how to keep the stuffy narrator tone without going overboard. Right now, I'm not only overboard; in some places, the ship has already sailed away without me and I'm about to be shark food. So I need to work on that.

After finals, I've got almost a full month of free time for Winter Break. Hopefully I'll be able to swim to shore and get my bearings in that time. And this ocean/boat metaphor really isn't working at all, so I'm going to drop it now.

Drop it like an anchor.

value

In my anthropology discussion this morning, we talked about Marxist critique. (Ooooh, exciting stuff.) Anyway, the TA explained the difference between 'value' and 'price' by giving an example about a piece of artwork. "Let's say this art is being sold for $100,000. That's the 'price', but the 'value' is all of the physical materialist labor that went into producing it: someone worked to build the frame, someone made the paint, someone made the paint brush, the artist put physical labor into painting it. All of that labor makes the 'value' of the painting, which is obviously much less than $100,000." Then someone asked about the fact that the artist had to think up the idea for the painting - didn't that add to it's value? "No, imagination and all of that stuff isn't work, so it doesn't contribute to the 'value' at all."

Probably just because I'm an avid imagination user, I had a problem with that. Not to knock Karl Marx or anything (apparently his opinions are pretty valid according to the world at large...) but I think imagination definitely adds to the value of something. I write stories - I have to put in the physical work of typing up the words, but that's easy compared to the time consuming effort of actually thinking up an idea, and putting it into words, and arranging those words in the best way possible. All of that is intangible, but it's work nonetheless.

Especially in a field like writing, imagination is so important to the value of your work. Everyone is so against anything that's cliche; we're all sick of seeing shelves and shelves of vampire books in the YA Section. People want to read something new, something they've never read before.

According to my TA, every book has about the same value. They're made of similar materials, and they took some time to write down, and someone took time to put them together. But I think if you ask any writer or any reader, they'll tell you that they definitely don't value books the same at all. 1001 Nights has made such an impact on the world - does it have the same value as Captain Underpants? Maybe to a third grader it does, but the idea is the same when it's reversed.

Just had to rant about this. Don't mind me. XD

update

The Thistleswitch Update

I've been editing Thistleswitch obsessively this past week - "obsessively", as in, I can't eat, sleep or breathe without agonizing over every single little thing about the story that doesn't blister me with its brilliance. I constantly have it open on my computer, I constantly reread the beginning chapters and change things, I constantly attempt to reword the purple passages in a way that's easy to understand but maintains the flavor of the story. Yeesh.

The Unnamed Companion Update

Still nothing to update. I haven't touched it in what feels like ages. I'm trying to figure out if I start the story in the right place, or if I started it too early. But that's not really one of my priorities right now.

And, drummmmmmrooooooolllllllll...

The OTHER Unnamed Companion Update

I've mentioned before that I have three different "sequels" for Thistleswitch lined up in my head. Terrence and Jovie's story was the second, and the third is all about Niko's little sister Azalea. For the longest time I didn't know diddly squat about the actual plot of the story (except that she gets turned into a cat, heheh). But the other day I had a dream about the story, and now I know just enough details that I can start to write, and I'm clueless about just enough details that it will maintain a Thistleswitch-y feeling while I'm writing.

Of course, Novemeber is coming up. November means NaNoWriMo (which you should do). I can't decide if I want to try to use Aza's story for NaNo, or if the stressful nature of it will mess with the story's mojo. And, other than Aza, I've got two other stories that want to be written this November. I really can't decide which one to use.

So this coming month might either be really productive on the Thistleswitch front, or not productive in the slightest. We'll see how it goes.

i am a writer

I am a writer. I am a terribly unstable creature. These sentences are synonymous.

One minute, I will ramble to you for twenty minutes about this awesome story idea that I just got, that will totally rock the world and everyone in it. I will laugh at my own jokes with wild abandon, and reread my own manuscript over and over again to revel in the glow of my literary brilliance.

The next minute, I will rant to you for twenty minutes about how my story is the crappiest thing that was ever written, that doesn't deserve to exist in the world and should never see the light of day again. I will weep bitter tears over my keyboard with wild abandon, and reread my own manuscript over and over again while repeated banging my head against something hard to attempt to forget my literary failure.

Though there may be writers in this world who write for their own pleasure and no one else's, I happen to be a writer who lets other people read my work. This is a no-win situation. If you read my story, you will probably point out things that don't work. If you call to my attention something that I already know is an epic fail, I will pound my head against the wall a few more times, because I have certainly already agonized over the same passages countless times and haven't found any way to improve them. If you point out something that I didn't know was a problem, I will become depressed and/or defensive, and either convince myself that there's nothing good at all about the story or that you don't know anything about writing and I should ignore your advice. Though neither of these practices is particularly helpful or polite, I am a writer. It's what we do.

If you say that you like what I've written, I will be bound and determined not to believe you. You're probably just saying that because it's what you're supposed to say, the same way that parents are supposed to tell their kids that they're attractive and friends are supposed to tell you that the giant zit on your face is hardly even noticeable.

When a writer gives you their manuscript, they are giving you a part of their soul. This is very overdramatic, but writers tend to be that way. Our stories are our babies, coaxed out of our brains bit by agonizing and wonderful bit, arranged just so, worked on late into the night. Every ounce of it is our own, and though we may decide to share it with the world, we are predisposed to believe that no one else can understand and love it the way we do. If you don't understand and love it the way we do, we will want to bash our heads against the wall.

I find it amazing that there are writers in the world who are brave enough to publish their work. I find it amazing that I hope to be one of those writers. I also find it simultaneously stupid, foolish, frightening and impossible. Yes, I can feel all of these things at once. I am a writer.

rewrite fail

The first chapter of a book is critical. It needs to grab hold of the reader by the eyeballs and drag them further into the story. It needs to be The Best Thing Ever Written, or agents won't look twice at it.

So why oh WHY does my beginning stink so much?

I've been working on editing Thistleswitch, getting it up to snuff. I rewrote the Switching Spot scene (which I'm still not uber-happy with) and tweaked a bunch of little things, and fixed all the stupid grammar and spelling mistakes. And, rereading the story, I came to the (somewhat narcissist?) conclusion that I still love it. I'm still proud of it. I still think it's good enough.

Except for the dang first chapter.

Each time I read The Chapter in Which We Become Acquainted with a Number of Important Places and People, I die a little more inside. It just gets worse and worse. And I don't know how to make it better. The good thing is that I acknowlegde that it needs to be changed: one of the things that professional writers always seem to stress is that if you're so attached to what you've written that you think it's perfect, you've got a problem. My problem is that I know very well that it's not perfect, but I don't know how to make it even remotely passable.

The Thistlethought Forest was a peculiar place, even as forests go. It did, of course, have all the ordinary oddity of a forest: the constant hustle and rustle through the undergrowth, the resident yellow eyes that materialized in the darkness, and the spine-tingling feeling that something was always watching your every move; because something often, in fact, was. It wasn’t especially exceptional in the fact that fluorescent purple moss was a common occurrence on the trunks of the trees, or in the fact that those trees, more often than not, could stare at a body as he passed. And there was nothing decidedly distinct about the wildlife that inhabited those trees, for the fire-breathing muskrat and six-legged snake were quite abundant throughout the land, from Mistmurder Woods far to the north to the Silentsigh Grove on the shores of the southern ocean.

No, what made the Thistlethought Forest a particularly peculiar place was the Shift.

Does that cut it for a first paragraph? No; that is probably the wordiest, purplest first paragraph that ever existed. Blegh.

Does it make you want to keep reading? It makes me want to skip straight to the next chapter. Which is what I've been doing for the past week. Which is why the first chapter is still just sitting there in all its craptastic anti-glory.

on hiatus

I've come to the realization that The Unnamed Companion is not going to be finished any time soon. When I was writing Thistleswitch, I hit a wall of writers' block a million miles high, and after several failed attempts at scaling it, and decided to leave the story totally alone and stop worrying about it.

You know what? It worked.
After a few months, I was feeling all thistleswitch-y again. I had more ideas, I knew how to get over that writers' block, and I actually managed to finish the story.

So the sequel is on the shelf for now. Not permanently (hopefully). It's just taking a little vacation, just like Thistleswitch did.

In the meantime, I might start seriously editing Thistleswitch and trying to get it up to snuff.

still no development...

Guess what? It's been more than a month since I started writing this sequel. And I'm still stuck on the same part I was having trouble with a week ago.

Of course, part of the reason for that might be that I just moved into the dorms and I'm about to start my college classes, so I've been rather occupied lately. But still, each time I have a free moment and try to write, I come up empty.

Other than the original two ideas I had (to flesh out distinct companion characters or to make them generic soldiers) I've also come up with what may be a happy medium. If I make sort of cool general characters, who don't have to have much personality but have just enough that they're better than plain old soldiers, it might work. Like, I could just have "the Minstrel" - no name, but just enough personality to make him fun for the three chapters that he's actually in. You know?

I suppose we'll see what actually comes out, whenever I do get around to writing again.

developmental issues

I haven't written much in the past few days, partially because I've been busy running hither and yon to get ready for college, and partially because I'm undecided about the bit I'm supposed to be writing. The problem, you see, is that I honestly don't know if Jovie and Terrence are supposed to have companions on their quest or not.

On the one hand, I really don't picture the two of them tromping off into the woods on their own. Not yet, at least - you see, I'm certain that, if other characters come along, there will come a time when the prince is required to become separated from them, since that always happens in fairy tales. You know, "a prince who had been hunting with his guards but had gotten lost stumbled upon the enchanted cottage", so on and so forth. And he'll convince Jovie to come with him, of course, and that's all fine and dandy. And in order to become separated from his companions, he needs to have companions in the first place.

But it really just isn't sitting well with me. If the story is going to pan out the way I think it will (and, okay, when has that ever happened, but still) Terrence and Jovie really won't be doing much before they ditch their companions. So is it worth it to introduce three totally new characters, have them around for maybe three or four chapters, and then send them off without anything important to do before the reader even gets a chance to grow attached to them? These are characters who have no purpose, as far as I know, other than to be left behind. That doesn't give me much to work with.

And then, to top it off, the characters themselves have absolutely no presense in my mind right now. I sit down to write about them and come up empty - I can't picture what they look like, how they talk, what mannerisms they use, what makes them unique and lifelike and fun. And, as I mentioned earlier, they shouldn't even be in the story long enough for them to even develop all of that. Unlike Thistleswitch, Jovie and Terrence aren't going to travel for years before they reach the object of their quest; they're heading for a girl in a tower, and they're going to find her pretty quickly, as far as I know. The main chunk of the story happens after they find the girl in the tower, which is after they've left behind these companions. And then I'll be introducing new characters, who are actually important to the story...so does that mean I'm throwing in characters just for the sake of having them?

The other option is to have some generic Henceforthian soldiers go along for the ride, I suppose. Just make up some guys, call them all soldiers, and send them on their way. Maybe there's even some thistleswitchy comedy hidden in that, in a unit of interchangeable soldiers who are sort of on the daft side. Then I don't have to develop a bunch of characters who are never going to be seen again. Of course, that also means that everything I've written this week is pointless - Jovie and Terrence have been interviewing applicants to go on their quest with them, and there are so many great ideas in that:

There are certain sorts of individuals that one should never bring with them on an important quest. If a shady character on the side of the road offers his services while making veiled threats about stealing the golden horse you’ve rightfully acquired, it is advisable to let him hitchhike with someone on a less extravagant mount. Tone deaf people who insist on singing very loudly at odd hours of the morning are best left behind. Except for under very particular circumstances involving magical instruments and blackmail, thieves are a bad choice. And under no circumstances should any chatterboxes, germ factories, rumor mills, whippersnappers or whiners be admitted into the questing party. Even if a quest seems on the short side, there is no guarantee that you and your companions won’t be forced to wander the globe for years in search of whatever it was you were seeking, and being trapped with an annoying airhead or headcase for any lengthy amount of time is not good for your quest or your health. While it’s not necessarily necessary for you to like your companions, it is imperative that you can all tolerate one another.

Maybe I can keep all of the bit about interviewing people, but then state that Jovie and Terrence realized that there was simply no good applicant in all of Afalanphra, and that they decided to bring along some run-of-the-mill soldiers just to make things simpler. It's anti-climactic, certainly, but I tend to do that a lot in these stories. I condensed a year-long journey into a paragraph of unexciting exposition in Thistleswitch.

And then, of course, if my original plan is going to be followed (though it very well may not be) I sort of need one of the characters that I decided would be traveling with them. The doctor and the chef with his dog assistant are expendable (though I really did like Sunflower, the canine chef with the killer apple cider recipe), but the assassin of assassins is kind of important to the story right now. Do I throw him in with the unimportant soldiers? Throw him in somewhere else? Ditch that whole idea altogether?

Bah.

This has been a brainstorming out loud rant by Jessica. This message will not self destruct, though the author certainly might.

leading lady lookalikes

Now, I'm a big believer in letting readers envision characters and settings however they want to, which is part of the reason that movies based on books sometimes don't cut it for me. (Like the casting of Twilight, for example...coughEmily Browning is my Bellacough.) However, I've found people who look somewhat like a few of my leading ladies, and I figured that I would share just because.

Katie A. Keane is the closest I've ever seen to Merry Songchaser. You may have seen her as Audie in Ruby and the Rockits (which was cancelled, which I'm not particularly torn up about). She's got the red hair and the right smile, anyway. So, if you imagine her as a fourteen-through-seventeen year old girl, you're sort of getting the right idea.

Megan Dodds is completely Jovie, to a T, whatever that expression means. Other than the fact that she doesn't have brown eyes, I guess...but it's a black and white photo, so you can imagine the brown eyes. She's the evil stepsister in Ever After, the Cinderella movie with Drew Barrymore (one of my personal favorite movies). Now again, she's definitely older than eighteen years old, so she can't really play Jovie in the inevitable movie of The Unnamed Companion (HA), but you get the general idea.

And then there's this one...yeah. First of all, no one out there even knows who Surrey is, much less what her story is or what she's supposed to look like. Surrey, you see, is the female main character of, not the third, but the fourth sequel idea that I have. Yup. And, though I'm well aware that this picture is not of a, um, real person, persey, the Witch Princess from Harvest Moon DS is a Surrey lookalike. Whatcha gonna do?

quotes on writing

I just felt like sharing some of the fantastic quotes on writing that I've come across over the past few years. I've already shared a portion of my favorite quote of all time, from Diana Wynne Jones, but there are several others that have either made me laugh, nod my head in agreement, or gape in surprise at the idea that someone else in the world has been able to put my own feelings into far more eloquent words than I ever could.

“Don’t let the frustration get you down. We all go through the 'It’s a piece of shit' stage." Hallie Ephron

"What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish." Thomas Wolfe

"My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip." Elmore Leonard

"I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark." Henry David Thoreau
(I definitely do this all the time...though my paper is next to my bed instead of under my pillow.)

"We don't write what we know. We write what we wonder about." Richard Peck

"Moving around is good for creativity: the next line of dialogue that you desperately need may well be waiting in the back of the refrigerator or half a mile along your favorite walk." Will Shetterly
(Also true for me, though my next line of dialogue is usually hiding in my shower.)

"Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type." Anne Lamott
(Um, HELLO, I've also talked multiple times about the characters living in my head, and though I thought this was a somewhat strange notion, apparently Anne Lamott knows exactly what I'm talking about. Merry and Niko couldn't tell their own story, so I had to do it for them.)

"Often I'll find clues to where the story might go by figuring out where the characters would rather not go." Doug Lawson

“You have to write whichever book it is that wants to be written." Madeleine L'Engle

"I always stopped when I knew what was going to happen next. That way I could be sure of going on the next day." Ernest Hemingway
(I've started doing this is as well. That Hemingway really knew what he was talking about.)

"So this is always the key: you have to write the book you love, the book that's alive in your heart. That's the one you have to write." Lurleen McDaniel

second soundtrack

The book soundtrack for Thistleswitch's sequel is coming along swimmingly. Unlike the music that inspired the first one, which was a lot of Vitamin String Quartet and kind of quirky, bouncy fiddle stuff, the music that makes me think of this second one is a lot more...not "dark", really, but certainly less happy. More dramatic. I don't know. That's not to say that the story itself is, but there you go.

Standing the Storm by William Joseph is definitely the theme for the overall thing. I've been listening to it on repeat for the past few days. The part that begins at 1:28 is Jovie and Terrence's relationship in music form. Beyond that, Requiem for a Tower by eScala is another overall theme song (a lot of eScala's songs are, actually), and For the Lambs by Michele McLaughlin is sort of Jovie's theme (and, to be honest, a lot of her songs make the playlist as well). The other songs are:

Adagio for Strings - eScala
The Swell Season – Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Palladio – eScala
Haunted Dancehall – The Sabres of Paradise
The Defeat - Wavorly
Christofori’s Dream – Best of David Lanz
Big Love Adagio – Bond
Hoppipolla – Vitamin String Quartet
The Reel – Secret Garden
Rain – Silvard
The Music Box Angel – Michele McLaughlin
The Eternal City – Michele McLaughlin

Whoosh.

exposition

In the show "Urinetown: The Musical" (yes, that's what it's called - awesome, isn't it?) the opening number is called Too Much Exposition. As you may guess, the song sets up the show, introducing the audience to the main characters and setting, as well as the central conflict (a water shortage has made private toilets a thing of the past, and now people have to pay to pee - seriously, it's an awesome concept). The narrator, Officer Lockstock, informs Little Sally that "nothing kills a show like too much exposition".

I was talking to a fellow writer today about just that, though our subject was novels rather than musicals. In all stories, writers have to "lay the pipes". That's the fancy writing jargon for setting up the basic situation and characters in a way that the reader will understand. This makes sense if the character that narrates the story is actually telling it directly to the reader, i.e. Sherwood Smith's Crown Duel, where the heroine Mel is recording her memories for future generations to read. The very first line of the book is, "I hope any of my descendants reading this know exactly what the Covenant and the Code of War are, but there is always the chance that my story has been copied by the scribes and taken to another land that will consider Remalna distant and its customs strange." Obviously, exactly that has happened, since at least this particular reader had no idea what the Covenant or the Code of War were upon reading the prologue. It therefore makes sense for Smith to explain things in detail that might be common or well-known to the narrator herself; even though she knows who all of the characters are, she actually knows that her reader doesn't, and so she has a legitimate reason to lay it all out on the table.

Pipe-laying also generally works with "I fell down a rabbit hole and ended up in another, strange land" stories, because the character is discovering everything right along with the reader. Harry Potter lives under some stairs with an aunt, uncle and cousin who hate his eleven-year-old guts - that's really all the exposition you need to jump into the beginning of The Sorcerer's Stone. It's not until owls start throwing letters down the chimney that some sort of further explanation is required, but because Harry doesn't know anything himself, the reader has a chance to learn about it in a believable way. Hagrid tells him that he's a freakin' wizard; Ron tells him that Dumbledore is headmaster of Hogwarts. It makes sense for characters to spout random bits of knowledge like that, because Harry doesn't know them himself yet.

But the majority of the time, exposition is just silly. In a first person, stream-of-thought sort of book, there is no reason for the narrator to think expository thoughts. "I decided to go find Ted, my oldest brother." The narrator, whoever they are, already knows that Ted is their oldest brother. The only reason for that little sidenote to make an appearance is to acquaint the reader with a basic sense of who Ted is, and how he relates to the main character. The same thing goes for, "We decided to meet at the Spot, a hollow log where we had been meeting secretly since we were ten," and, "In two weeks we would leave for Florida, where Joe, my dad's best friend, lived." Yes, readers are used to that sort of thing. I'm not exactly complaining about it. But really, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I just read Incarceron (a great synergy of fantasy and futuristic scfi that I highly recommend) and one thing I actually paused and noticed was the lack of exposition. The story literally throws you into the center of it with no explanation - you know that Finn is the main character, but that's kind of it. He doesn't go into any explanations about who he is, what he's doing, or why he's doing it. There's just a lot of action that leaves you guessing. And then when the other main character Claudia was narrating, she didn't go into detail about her life or the people in it right off the bat, either; the thing that really jarred me was that she thought about a character, Jared, and didn't offer a sidenote about who he was. For an entire chapter, I was left wondering about who this Jared guy was and how she knew him. Not because his identity was a big secret, or because the plot revolved around him; just because Claudia had no reason to qualify her own thoughts.

I can't help but wonder what it would be like to write an entire story without any awkward exposition at all. Would it be impossible? Would the story make any sense? Could readers infer enough, and put together pieces on their own?

Of course, this is somewhat of a moot point when it comes to Thistleswitch. As the third person omniscent narrator, I know all, including the fact that my readers don't know anything unless I deign to tell it to them. The Thistleswitch style hinges on the fact that readers don't know anything about the world, and the narrator has to explain it. (On a slightly related tangent, I hear the narrator as a slightly snobbish British man. Make of that what you will.) In fact, I just recently finished giving a rundown of all seven princesses of Afalanphra, which was about as much exposition at one time as I could handle. How did I deal with it? In proper Thistleswitch style, of course! I plopped this smack dab in the middle of it all:

Perhaps you are growing weary of what seems to be countless paragraphs of exposition on a seemingly endless number of princesses. If this is that case, I shall humbly remind you that nearly all great works of literature require a few explanatory clauses; point out that you are more than halfway finished; and call to your attention how much more tiring it must have been for a single parent to go about raising a seemingly endless number of princesses, rather than simply reading about them from the comfort of a living room couch, queen-sized bed, or wherever you happen to be at this particular moment in your life.

irvine's guide to success!!

Today, we feature another delightful link in the Random Helpful Links for Aspiring Authors series. Published author Ian Irvine's Guide to Success is another great resource that I've collected in my blog/website travels.

What I love about Irvine's site is that he doesn't take it too seriously. So many resources about writing and publishing make me downright depressed, with all of their, "The percent of people who actually get their novel published is .0000000001%," and, "You will have to edit your piece-of-crap manuscript so many times that you won't even recognize it by the time it's 'finished'," nonsense. Irvine gives real advice, but does it in an upbeat way that leaves me saying, "Yeah, I can do 10 rewrites! No problem!"

Probably my favorite tip from him is the very first one: Be original but not TOO original. I feel like so many writers these days complain about things being cliche, while Irvine hits the nail right on the metaphorical head: "what ordinary readers want is more of the same, only a little bit different." Go into your local bookstore and you can find at least twenty different vampire-forbidden-love books, because vampires are the most popular thing since sliced bread. Yes, it's overused, and yes, the non-vampire-obsessed crowd is sick of the genre, but they get published and they sell because vampires are "in" right now. "Cliched" stuff is cliche because it works, and I think it's important for folks to remember that.

Alright. Enough of my ranting for the day.

nanowriwha?

I've recently realized that over the past month or so, I've mentioned NaNoWriMo casually in conversations, and that the people I was talking to probably thought I was babbling gibberish. Ah, well.

For those of you who don't know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Their shiny website is here. Basically, NaNo is an organized event that takes place over the course of the month of November, in which people from across the country try to write 50,000 original words in 30 days. It's meant to help people in that previously mentioned 80% of people who think they'll write a novel actually finish one and become part of the two percent who do. Apparently 50,000 words is an average length for a novel.

Anyway, I'm a big fan of NaNo; it forces writers to stop lollygagging and lazing about, and actually try to meet goals and deadlines that they set for themselves. Even notoriously anti-deadline writers like yours truly. NaNo focuses entirely on quantity, rather than quality - to succeed, it's best to remove the Backspace key from your keyboard entirely. Most people agree that once you've finished your 50,000 words and read over your new manuscript, you'll find that approximately 45,000 of those words are utter crap. But 5,000 of them will be completely wonderful, all the more so because you wrote them yourself. And, in order to edit a novel and get it to be great, you have to have a novel written. Which is why NaNo is so helpful to struggling writers.

I've participated in NaNo for the past two years, and hit over 50,000 words both times. I fully acknowledge that most of what I wrote deserves to be drenched in lamesauce - I've actually snorted in disdain while rereading some of it. But, as any good writer will tell you, practice is the key to becoming a skilled writer. The first thing...the first fifty things...you write won't be the next Pride and Prejudice or Jurassic Park. But each thing you write will get you one step closer to it.

I fully encourage any author-hopefuls out there to take part in NaNo this year. It's loads of fun, and loads of help. If you succeed, you'll be on top of the world. Even if you don't, you'll accomplish something and get writing practice along the way. It's two months away - start brainstorming now. Just remember - you can't write any of those 50,000 words until November 1st.

word cloud

Just for kicks, I felt like making a word cloud for Thistleswitch. A word cloud is a, um, cloud of words...you put whatever body of text you want in, and it creates a graphic that shows the words that appear the most; the more times its used, the larger it appears.



So Merry, Niko and Aries are the most popular words. Who'd have guessed? And then we've got hero and princess, and Riddle and Quicken, and of course, Shift. Looks pretty much how I expected it would. But it's fun to do, nevertheless.

how to format a manuscript

Pretty much just what the title says. We're celebrating my stepmom's birthday, so I figured I would just share another handy link.

How to Format a Manuscript, for your viewing pleasure. Granted, I'm not positive that this is the correct way, but it comes recommended by...some author. I forget which - I've been perusing several blogs lately.

build your own fantasy world

Another post in my Random Helpful Links for Aspiring Authors series. (That I have just christened this moment.)

Fantasy Worldbuilding Questions at the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website is one of those fantastic things that you can spend hours reading and thinking about when you really don't want to go to sleep or do your calculus homework. It's comprised of approximately a million questions to help you figure out all of the specific little details about your very own fantasy world, to make sure that it rings true to readers. How does magic factor in? What sort of government does it have? What's the proper way to set the table?

Though I didn't discover this site until well into the Thistleswitch process, I think it's fantastic. It forces you to think about things that may not even actually matter to the story itself, but that flesh out the world for your own mind. And it's a pretty dang fun writing exercise to decide on the answers. The entire process is based on your own imagination and creativity - if you can think it up, it can exist in your world. Not that this isn't the case when you're not using a handy dandy online outline, of course; but the outline saves you the trouble of thinking up the questions, and lets you focus on the answers themselves.

It makes me want to make up a bunch of fantasy worlds - ones that I don't even have a story for - just so that I can flesh them out and make them unique.

myows

Over our Spring Break vacation this year, I read several issues of Wired and Popular Science - not only were they really the only things to read in our rental house once I finished the books I'd brought, but I'm a science geek at heart. Anyway, in one issue of PopSci, they mentioned the MYOWS, or "My Original Works" website.

MYOWS is a site for proving copyrights, basically, in a world where more and more created material is accessible online. You upload your stories, computer graphics, music, or whatever other digital media you've created, and it gets a date and time stamp that can be cited if any stinky people somehow get a hold of your work and try to pass it off as their own.

I checked up on it today, and other than PopSci it's been recommended by quite a lot of people and publications. So, since I've been letting people wander amuck with copies of my story while they read it (not that I don't trust my friends, mind you, but still) I decided that I might as well make an account and prove to the online world that Thistleswitch was mine as of August 19, 2010. I've been thinking about sticking some other writing, or maybe some of the stuff I made in computer graphics class, on there as well.

Anyway, just in the interest of including anything that might possibly be helpful to any other author-hopefuls out there, I thought I'd mention it.

toot, toot

Is it lame to laugh at something you yourself wrote? Not that I don't acknowledge that I'm lame for a variety of reasons, but this one seems almost conceited. Like tooting my own metaphorical horn. I laugh far too much when I reread Thistleswitch. Ah, well.

In other news, I tried to write a synopsis for the basic plot of the Unnamed Companion, and failed miserably. In further news, I still have no name for the Unnamed Companion. At the very least, I wish I had a clever working title, but I've got diddly squat.

At least the story itself has started taking shape. It's strange - there are parts of it that I really, really want to write. I've been dreaming about them, even. And then there are sections that I have no ideas for, that I'm wary of attempting. We'll see how it goes once...I'm about three-fourths of the way through the prologue right now, and I think I know where I'm going with the first part of the first chapter, at least. After that...the magic that is Thistleswitch will need to get my creative juices pumping.

synopsis attempt #1

I had a go at writing a thistleswitch-y synopsis for Thistleswitch. I'm still not happy with it...but at least it's something, I suppose.

Aries Phoenixflight is a hero, though not strictly speaking the hero of this story. While on a quest to marry the most beautiful princess in the world, he encounters a witch who smells of moldy goat cheese, a palace of peerless pulchritude, a thief-turned-fiddle-player, and an award-winning Chicken Marsala recipe.

Merry Songchaser is the heroine of this story, though not a hero in the professional sense. When Aries Phoenixflight travels to the town of Tipsidy in search of a remarkable fiddle – Tipsidy being the town where Merry was born and raised by her pa, a celebrated cabinet- and fiddle-maker – Merry tags along with the hero and his disgruntled assistant in search of adventure. She soon finds herself dealing with fruit flinging pistols, fire-resistant firewood, card games without any rules, golden goose-egg omelets, and much more adventure than she actually anticipated.

And, on top of the death-defying drama (for all but Aries, who, as a hero, cannot die until his quest is completed), happily ever afters (for those characters lucky enough to marry royalty, that is), and complete disregard for the fourth wall, is the thistleswitch itself; which, beyond its function as the title of the story, causes a whole lot of trouble for everyone.

In other news, I've officially started work on the sequel.

half a start

Attention: I have written half of the first sentence of Unnamed Companion to Thistleswitch. Be amazed. Be excited.

And, while I do mean for those commands to be taken sarcastically, I actually am amazed and excited. Half of a sentence may only be - well, half of a sentence - but it's still a start. Starting is half of the battle, my friends. Seeing as nothing I ever thought up seemed to be good enough to be the opener for a Thistleswitch book, a start that I'm happy with is fantastic.

Maybe I'll actually finish the sentence today! Wouldn't that be something?

scary stuff

I wrote the majority of Thistleswitch without any prior knowledge of where the plot was going or what was going to happen next or what anything meant at all. The remarkable fiddle, the Whisperers, the thistleswitch itself...I didn't have a clue of the importance of any of them when they first made an appearance. I didn't plan out how many quests Aries would go on, or choreograph the battle scene, or decide that Kaye and Quicken would exist beforehand. I just wrote. And it worked.

So now that I just finished writing an outline of a giant chunk of the still-unnamed Jovie and Terrence story, I'm kind of freaked out. Writing without a plot works well for me. To put it into the words of Diana Wynne Jones, someone far more experienced than I (who happens to share my feelings exactly on this point): "I know how the story begins and how it ends, and I also know, in great detail, at least two scenes from somewhere in the middle. When I say great detail, I probably mean precise, total detail. Colours, speech, actions, and exactly where the furniture or outdoor scenery are and what they look like, are all with me vividly and ineradicably. Often I am quite mystified as to how you get from the beginning to one of these scenes, or from one of them to the end. Part of the joy of writing is finding out. And I deliberately do not ask more when I start to write, so that the book has room to keep its flavour and pursue its own logic."

Part of the reason that I was so thrilled to find this quote was that it seems to be agreed upon by the majority of authors out there that you should have your story completely planned out before you even start writing it, to make sure you avoid plotholes or contradictions. So, theoretically, I should be a good thing that I know so much about the story I plan on writing next.

But it doesn't feel like a good thing.

Thistleswitch had no plan, and it worked. I finished it, for goodness' sake. So if I deviate from the process - even in a way that most people seem to think will expedite it - will it change the outcome?

Logically, I know that I don't have to stick to this outline. I made decisions ahead of time for Thistleswitch that I later realized were lame or confusing, and I threw them to the wind without a second thought. Logically, I know that the story will take on a mind of its own once I actually get into the swing of it. So there's no reason to be scared of an outline.

And, as if that weren't enough, I'm also scared of The Chapter in Which We Become Acquainted With a Number of Important People and Places, which served as the prologue for Thistleswitch and will fulfill the same role for this new story. The first time around, I popped out that chapter so quickly and unexpectedly that it was like I was reading it as I wrote it. I had no idea where the idea came from or what story would follow, but I immediately fell in love. There was no pressure, because it was an entirely new thing. It was just fun.

Now, there's nothing but pressure, because, heck, this is the prologue, and if people don't like it than what the heck will make them want to read the second chapter? How will I get out all the information I need to in a sensible fashion? How will it all connect? What if I can't make it suitably thisleswitch-y? What if this whole novel thing was just a one time event?

I'm overthinking things. I realize that.

But that knowledge doesn't make a second full-length novel any less frightening.

i have not been writing...

...because I have been indulging in two rather admittedly unproductive pasttimes: the Sims and fan fiction.

First, the lesser of the two evils. We just got the new "Ambitions" expansion pack for The Sims 3, and I've been having a blast with it. I stayed up until three a.m. playing last night, which is an hours-straight-on-the-computer run worthy of competition with some writing nights. See, you can actually play your sim at their job in this one, so it's obviously awesome. Or something. And having a dad working as a fireman all day and saving lives, while mom takes care of two toddlers and two babies who time their poops so that she's changing diapers all day...this is computer gaming at it's finest.

Second...fan fiction. Yeah. Occasionally I'm guilty of indulging a bit in what I consider the lesser side of writer-dom. Not to rag on any fan fiction writers who may be reading this (there aren't any, because no one reads this). You may very well be one of the fantastic writers who make me read fan fiction at all. The problem is that you have to sift through about forty stories that are full of misspellings (or worse, textspeak...omg lulz) and mostly just focus on romantic fluff (which, okaaaay, that's basically why people read fan fiction in the first place, but plot is good, too) and have zero literary merit, just to get to the two stories that are awesome and written in the tone of the original author and completely worth reading. But I digress...the point is that, yes, I've been wading through the swamp of fanfiction.com in the past few days, just looking for good stories to read. And, drumrollllll....

I found one. I found a story that I wish was a completed, published novel, because then I could truthfully call it one of my favorite "books" instead of one of my favorite unfinished stories. A Girl Called Mouse is a take on Cinderella (which is why it's in the 'fairy tales fan fiction' section, you see) but it's so completely original and well written...it's sort of reminiscent of Cameron Dokey's style, which I love, but so far I love this story muuuch better than Dokey's version of it. I even considered making an account on fanfiction.com (gasp!) just so that I could review the story and tell the author how much I loved it. I haven't (yet?).

And all this time, what's become of Thistleswitch? I printed out a complete rough draft. It's beautiful, with its black inky words and papery smell and hefty weight and neat little paragraphs. Though, perhaps I'm biased. I've been figuring out some stuff (finally figured out a bit more about the elusive Switching Spot!) and correcting the spelling mistakes that Word lets slip. And I finally named the kingdom that Aries, Niko and Merry are from! On top of that, I started a document for Jovie and Terrence's story, finally. I haven't written any of the story itself yet...but I'll get there. Soon. I can feel the thistleswitch-ish inspiration flitting around the edges of my mind, not quite close enough to use but certainly close enough to sense. And when it finally does make a solid appearance - probably by waking me up at four a.m. and DEMANDING that I write something RIGHT THIS INSTANT - I'll have a document all ready for it. And, to top it all off, I've come up with another story idea that I love and will probably use for NaNoWriMo this year, and I've added a couple ideas to my snippets document (though, I'm always adding stuff to my snippets document, so I shouldn't report that like it's something snazzy).

So, between the fanfics and simming spurts, it's been a successful week.

home again, home again

So...it's been a while. Exactly one month since I finished Thistleswitch, in fact.

It's not really my fault (she justified to her non-readers, who probably didn't care in the first place). We've been on vacation. I went to Europe, baby! And, while I didn't use a computer at all in those two weeks, I hopefully gathered up some life experiences that will help out with my writing.

I haven't done any "real" writing, yet. For some reason, starting a new document for my next story is kind of a stressful idea to me. It freaks me out to picture another blank document that I have to try to fill up with non-crap. So I've been adding bits and pieces of new ideas to my brainstorming document, and that's about it.

Maybe I'll write soon.

Then again, I just got nine new books at Borders. So...maybe I'll write "soon".

my downfall, the synopsis

Writing stories? No problem.
Finishing a novel? Barely broke a sweat.
Writing a synopsis? ...I'm absolutely terrified.

According to the author and agent blogs that I stalk, a synopsis is critical when you're trying to get your story published. You need to be able to sum up all of the plot and mention each important occurence in the novel, so that the agent and editor can see that you can do plot, and handle character progression, and all that jazz.

I don't think I can do it.

Any time I've been asked to sum up Thistleswitch, I come up empty. "What's your story about?" leaves me speechless, because it's not really "about" anything. It's about the characters, and it's about the setting. It's not really about a plot, because the only weak plot it has is "A hero goes on a quest to marry the most beautiful princess in the world, and encounters obstacles and hilarious shenanigans along the way." Would I pick up that book? Maybe if the cover was snazzy. But a synopsis in a letter to an agent doesn't come with a cover, snazzy or otherwise.

Not only that, but you apparently need to have synopses of different lengths. Your "short" synopsis is one to three pages long. Your "long" synopsis is somewhere in the six to ten range. And every published author or agent who talks about this seems to think that writing a synopsis that only takes up three pages is hard, because there's so much to go into it. Now, I think I'll have a problem with a three-page synposis, but it's because I don't know if I can fill it up.

Granted, I haven't attempted it yet. Maybe when I actually try to write this synopsis, I'll face the former problem rather than the latter. But I don't particularly want to write one, because I've been completed freaked out by all of the blog posts I've read about how vital a good synopsis is and how completely screwed you are if your synopsis stinks.

I thought that writing a 70,000 word novel was the hard part. Why is one page so horrifying?

fifty fairy birth gifts

I took a day to savor the fact that I actually completed a novel. But, as mentioned in this previous blog post, when publishing a novel an author has a MUCH better chance if they have more than one book in the works. And, frankly, I've got six different main characters bouncing around in my head now that Merry, Niko and Aries have finally gotten their story told and relaxed - I've got three different stories that I desperately want to write. Can you blame me for wanting to get started?

I haven't actually "started" my second book, yet. I already had a brainstorm document going for it, and I've spent the majority of the afternoon figuring out some of the characters. Since the main character, Jovie, is one of the seven daughters of the king of Afalanphra, that means that I have to actually name and acquaint myself with all seven of those daughters. And, because a big part of the story centers around fairy birth gifts, I've been figuring out five unique personality traits for each princess, plus the three princes that are involved in the story. This site has been fantastically helpful.

Sometime in the next few days, I might write my little prologue chapter for this as-of-yet-unnamed sort-of-sequel to Thistleswitch. Or I might take just a few more days to savor not writing before I jump back into another 70,000 word novel.

Yikes.

I wonder what percent of people who say they're going to write a second novel actually do it? Less than two percent?

the end

69,506 words.
That's how many words it took to tell the story of Thistleswitch. At least, to tell it at first. I know I have plenty of rewriting and revising and editing to do now, which will whittle down or jack up the word count. But right now...69,506 words.

I can't quite comprehend that it's done. But it is. I made a list of the order of events back when Aries, Niko and Merry first reentered the Thistlethought forest. It talked about the tangle tree, the skyders, the dragon, the ending. But I never really felt like I would actually get to write all of those scenes. I didn't feel like I would ever actually get there.

But I did. I wrote all of those scenes, without skipping to them and leaving parts out of the middle of the story. Thistleswitch is a complete, beginning-middle-end story. I've never written a complete story before on my own.

My senior English teacher used to tease us crazy kids about how often we used the word "epic". "Wow, that was an epic party last night!" and "Did you see The Hangover? That movie is so epic!" It got on her nerves, because she said that what we considered epic wasn't really epic at all.

But I have to say...this feeling, right now...finishing a novel...

It's pretty dang epic.

chewy explanations

I'm at the end stretch of Thistleswitch, which means I'm at the point where I have to wrap up all of the little bits of the story. And, of course, one of the more major bits is the thistleswitch itself. I've just finished writing The Chapter in Which the Witch Explains the Switch, and I can't quite decide if I did a good job on it or not.

On the one hand, I think I explained everything that needed explaining. Why the Shift happens, how it happens, what the Whisperers have to do with it...all of that is in there. But, as with any situation where things are being explained to the reader, I can't tell if I got the pacing down or not. I feel like I shoved it all down the readers' throat in a couple of chewy paragraphs, which doesn't sound good at all. Then again, I don't really know another way to go about it.

And then there's the characters' reactions, which are important for obvious reasons. Sometimes I really have trouble balancing Aries, Merry and Niko, and making sure they're all present in a scene. Looking back, this bit is more like a conversation between Grandma Anine and Merry, with Niko and Aries apparently standing in the background and staring at their shoes.

I don't think I'm going to rewrite this chapter right now, because it's doing its job. This'll be one for the rewrite - finding out a way to explain everything that needs explaining, and include everyone that needs including, without making the chapter the most wordy thing in existence.

Do people ever stop learning how to write? Because I never have.

number crunching

I hate math (seems like most of the time, liking math and liking reading and writing are mutually exclusive) but yesterday I voluntarily did some calculations. Nothing you would find in a calculus class - though I did get a 4 on my AP calculus test, by the by, so I'm no slouch - but still.

See, I was trying to guesstimate how long Thistleswitch should be when it's finished. Apparently the normal word count for novels, at least according to Google, is 80,000-120,000 words. I figure a book for young adults, since I think that's my audience, would be 60,000-100,000 or so, which I've just hit the tail end of. But I was trying to see if that was a reasonable number of words, based on other novels that I like to read.

I used Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Golden by Cameron Dokey - both excellent books that I recommend to fantasy-lovers. The former is about the length I'm shooting for, while the latter is quite a bit shorter. I wanted to find out about how many words each book consisted of, as well as how many words were in each chapter and how many chapters they had, just so I would know if I was going overboard or not.

I counted the number of words on an average page. I multiplied that by the number of pages, and then subtracted about 1,000 to account for all of the half-pages at the beginning and ending of each chapter. I also multiplied it by the number of pages in the average chapter. So here are the stats.

Howl's Moving Castle
Approximate Word Count: 80,000
Word Count on One Page: 246
Number of Pages: 329
Number of Chapters: 21
Approximate Words Per Chapter: 4,000
Average # of Pages Per Chapter: 16

Golden
Approximate Word Count: 41,000
Word Count on One Page: 234
Number of Pages: 179
Number of Chapters: 19
Approximate Words Per Chapter: 2,000
Average # of Pages Per Chapter: 9

Thistleswitch
Word Count Thus Far: 62,639
Number of Chapters Thus Far: 18
Approximate Words Per Chapter: 3,000

So far, Thistleswitch is fitting right in. Which, for once, is a good thing.

EDIT: Just doing some more recon, and I found this great blog by Chuck Sambuchino that seems to cover pretty much anything about literary agents. He had a post about word counts for different forms of writing, which also seems to demonstrate that I'm right on target.

Perhaps more than any other, YA is the one category where word count is very flexible.

For starters, 55,000 - 69,999 is a great range.

The word round the agent blogosphere is that these books tend to trending longer, saying that you can top in the 80Ks. However, this progression is still in motion and, personally, I'm not sure about this. I would say you're playing with fire the higher you go. When it gets into the 70s, you may be all right—but you have to have a reason for going that high. Again, higher word counts usually mean that the writer does not know how to edit themselves.

A good reason to have a longer YA novel that tops out at the high end of the scale is if it's science fiction or fantasy. Once again, these categories are expected to be a little longer because of the world-building.

Concerning the low end, below 55K could be all right but I wouldn't drop much below about 47K.

deadlines

As if it wasn't obvious enough before, I have officially proven that I don't do deadlines well. I've always been wary of becoming a "professional" author because they have deadlines, and I didn't think I would be able to write if I had to. And this past month has only demonstrated that.

At the beginning of June, things we going swimmingly. I was writing at least 1,000 words a day, sometimes churning out whole chapters. I knew that if I kept it up, I would be done with the whole thing by the end of the month. And so, stupidly, I told myself that I could finish by June 30th. That was the plan. That was the goal. That was the deadline.

And having that deadline made it absolutely impossible for me to write anything but crap drizzled with lamesauce. I would sit down to write, and my head would be blank. Or, worse, I would know what was sort of supposed to happen but be unable to find any words to explain it. I didn't even feel like writing Thistleswitch anymore, and I didn't even care that the June 30th deadline was approaching.

Skip ahead to June 30th, 10:00 p.m. I finally open up Thistleswitch after a two week lull. I tell myself that I'll just give it another try, and if it doesn't work out it's not the end of the world. I really didn't even care if I just ended up deleting everything I wrote for the dozenth time.

And I wrote. And the next day, July 1st, I finished my first chapter in a month. Just like that.

Now, maybe I psyched myself into being unable to write for the month of June. Maybe it was my own dang subconscious, refusing to work under these conditions and laughing in the face of deadlines. Maybe it was the story itself, telling me that it calls the shots and I'm only along for the ride. Whatever it was, it's made me all the more certain that I can't be an "author" in the career-sense.

romance, and why it's a pain in the butt

There's an odd conundrum associated with romances in "young adult" fiction. You see, the author can either have the obvious pair get together in the end, or not have them get together in the end. It seems like an easy enough decision - either you choose one, or the other - but there's no way to make either of them really work.

Pick up pretty much any teen read and you can pinpoint the main character and the love interest pretty much right off of the bat. The main character is the one narrating, or the one that the narrator follows; the love interest is nearly always one of the first five important characters of the opposite gender introduced to the story. The rebellious princess we meet in chapter one has a conversation with her old, fatherly tutor and the relatively unimportant filler male character who shines her shoes; has a playful argument with the boy she's known since childhood, who it is explicitly stated she only thinks of as a brother; and then meets the mysterious, brooding stranger who's secretly going to assassinate the princess, whose good looks are described in great detail and who immediately has some sort of confrontation/out-of-the-ordinary encounter with the heroine. I'm guessing you can figure out who will be making out by the end of the book.

The problem with this scenario is that you can figure out who will be making out by the end of the book. Real life isn't that clear cut, and it means that readers already clearly know at least one point of the story. There's no discovery involved, except for the expected discoveries that the characters make about each other to make them fall in love with one another at all. (I.e., oh look how gentle he is with that small, injured animal! He's dangerous and compassionate! Swoon!)

Then you have the stories that understand the First Five Rule, and either scrap it entirely or use it to trick the reader. Though the handsome assassin is described in a drool-worthy fashion and makes the princess feel all weak in the knees, she really ends up falling in love with the stablehand we meet in chapter eleven, because he understands the real her and isn't being paid to murder her. Bet you didn't see that coming, reader!

The problem with this scenario is that you didn't see that coming, reader. Throughout the story, a good reader is making connections between characters and predicting what might happen next. This means that once the reader has decided on the fact that rebellious princess and brooding assassin will be the story's romance, they file it away in a secret, unchangeable part of the brain. If this romance doesn't pan out in the end of the book, it will leave that reader with a little unsatisfied nagging feeling in that part of their mind. Don't get me wrong - some authors pull this off perfectly well. The example that comes to mind is, once again, the book I just read: Fire. At the beginning, I was dead set on the heroine ending with Mr. A; by the end, Kristin Cashore had convinced me that she belonged with Mr. B. But I find, at least personally, the chances that I'll be content with a different pairing than the one I originally wanted are slim. The stablehand could be the nicest guy in the world, and fit with the princess perfectly, but it won't matter to me in the end: he's not The Original Guy, so he's not The Right Guy.

Personally, I prefer the former approach to written romance rather than the latter. 99% of the time I read for entertainment, and I don't want to get to the end of a novel only to be disappointed that the "right" characters didn't fall in love. It's gotten so bad that occasionally I'll flip through the back of the book, just to make sure that there's a happy ending back there in my taste. I have nothing against writers who go with the second approach - a surprising romance is certainly one way to make a story stand out from others. But in my own little world, being cliche (goodness, I feel like that word is batted around too much these days - maybe that will be the subject of my next blog)...anyway, I don't think that being cliche is all that bad. Yes, I can predict that the rebellious princess and the brooding assassin will end up together. Yes, it's a slightly obvious plotline. But, well, it's cliche because it works.

I realize that this is my own opinion - I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who scoff at all that is cliche and much prefer an unexpected coupling. But, heck, this is my blog. If I want the princess and the assassin to live happily ever after, they dang well can.

reunion

I wrote more words.
Almost 2,000 of them.
July, I like you already.

productivity

I just glanced over at my word counter on the right side of the page. I haven't updated it since June third. That's a long flippin' time. Not the longest I've gone without writing Thistleswitch, don't get me wrong. But it's the first time I've actually been keeping track.

It's sort of depressing.

Part of the problem is that I've been reading. And reading a good story makes me want to write, so badly that I can't quite decide if I'd rather finish the book or pull out my laptop.

"But, Jessica, isn't it helpful that reading makes you want to write?" you're probably thinking. And the answer, my friends, is NO. Not at all. Because when I read a fantasy story like Fire, my latest good read, it makes me want to write a story like Fire. Well, not like it in a copywright-infringement sort of way. Like it in a genre sort of way.

Thistleswitch and it's world are certainly not serious. There's alliteration bursting out of every sentence, and songs about toads dancing around blankets, and general mockery and tomfoolery. That's the way it's meant to be. It makes it a pleasure to write, don't get me wrong. Hopefully it will also make it a pleasure to read. But sometimes I'm just not in a mood for tomfoolery. At all. Sometimes I want to write something more romantic, or more bump-in-the-night, or more edgy. That's when I find myself working on other stories, even those that will never see the light of day, instead of the one that I actually plan to finish.

So, actually, I have written quite a lot since June third. I've written bits and pieces of at least three different stories that currently reside only in my head. I've written about characters like Audrey and Kella and Maddox, who it's possible that no one else will ever meet. I've written from the point of view of a doll, and the point of view of a teenage boy who cusses much more than I do. I've added two scenarios to my snippets Word document, full of random bits and pieces, odds and ends, plot possibilities and countless character traits.

Thistleswitch has been elusive, yes.
But it's been a productive month nonetheless.

why I want to be shot

A part of me really wants to be shot.
Yes, shot. With a gun. Somewhere that won't do any lasting damage, or leave me dead.

What the heck is wrong with you, Jessica?, you're probably thinking right now. To which I reply that the only thing wrong with me is a love of literature.

You see, when I read stories, I picture what's going on. It's like a full length feature film playing in my head. I empathize with the characters, feeling what they're feeling as much as I can. But when a character is shot, I come up empty; I've never experienced it, so no matter how eloquently the author explains the shooting pain and burning sensations, I can't quite get a handle on it.

The same goes for when I'm writing. I can't write about a character being shot, with a gun or bow and arrow or slingshot or anything, because I've never experienced it for myself. I don't know what words to use to evoke the right response in a reader.

So when I say that I want to be shot, it has nothing to do with any psychotic tendencies or death wishes. I just want to know what it's like, so that I can picture it when I read about it and translate it when I write about it. It's the same reason that, even though it freaked me out, I'm glad that I passed out last year. Now I know just what it's like to pass out, so when a character loses consciousness in a book I'm reading, or when Merry loses consciousness in a book I'm writing, I know exactly what's what.

"Write what you know" isn't necessarily a motto I live by - I do write fantasy, after all - but knowing as much as you can is a major asset.

And, just for the record, I know at least one other avid reader who agrees with my reasoning and wants to be non-lethally shot as well. So at least I'm not the only crazy one.

laughing gas

Today I got my wisdom teeth out. All four of them. They were all impacted, which is some fancy dentist way to say that they were growing sideways in my mouth, and had to be removed through invasive surgery that involved giving me laughing gas, knocking me out with anesthesia, and then going to town with novocaine in my mouth. Now my cheeks are swollen and kind of resemble a droopy chipmunk, I'm only allowed to eat cold liquids (which, granted, means lots of pudding cups and ice cream, but also means I can't eat any hot and yummy comfort foods) and I'm a bit loopy on Vicodin.

When I went in this morning, I was pretty nervous. Not about the actual surgery, because I knew that they were going to put me under - I was really anxious for them to just put me out, actually, so that I wouldn't have to think about it anymore and it could just be done. But, for whatever reason, I was kind of afraid of how I would react to the laughing gas.
Like, would I start chatting to the nurse about my (nonexistent) personal life, or showing off my (nonexistent) dance skills? I wasn't sure, and I was kind of doing that panicked-smiling thing...I don't know if you've ever been so nervous that you just started grinning like an idiot or giggling, and you know that it's NOT a time to be smiling but you can't help it? I get that way, mostly when I talk about the time I passed out. It's something unknown, which I don't particularly like, and so it makes me nervous.

Anyway, I was doing my little giggly freak out session, and then, sitting in the dentist chair and staring out the window at the waxy leaves of a magnolia tree, I decided to think about Thistleswitch. I told myself to make myself useful and brainstorm while I was sitting there waiting to get the drug-induced chuckles. And so, once again, Merry and Niko and Aries saved the day.

...you know, I'm kind of wondering if writing Thistleswitch right now, when I'm a bit hazy with a dizzying mixture of pain and painkillers, would make for a perfectly odd chapter. Heck, maybe all of this writers' block will be magically fixed by dentistry and drugs.

I can always hope.

master plan, my butt

Ha, did I really think I was going to finish this by June 30th?

Summer is a double-edged sword, my friends. On the one hand: FREE TIME. Full DAYS of NOTHING...nothing except writing, I tell myself in the morning. I can wake up at 11 and sit in bed working on the story, only stopping to pee and eat junk food. I can stay up until 3 working on the story, because I can sleep until 11. There is no school eating up eight valuable hours of my life every weekday.

On the other hand: NO FREE TIME. Because summer = vacations. Lots of 'em. I've been home for three of the past nine days or so, and I've spent over 24 hours driving. Besides all of the issues I have with that butt-wise, it's also really unhelpful for writing.
Though I did just get a new Gateway computer that is NOT a netbook because it has a full keyboard (HUZZAH!) but is still a dinky little 6-hour-battery (supposedly) machine. Hopefully I can bring it in the car and get at least a bit of writing in, buuuut...

All of this vacationing is pretty distracting. Which means each time I wake up at 11 and sit down to write Thistleswitch, I can't focus on the story. So if I try to write it, I end up spewing a bunch of really awful word barf all over the page, which I just have to delete. Which means I haven't even been trying to write for the past two weeks. Which is, for obvious reasons, not part of The Almighty Master Plan.

Since I'm leaving at 7:00 A.M. for another eight hour car drive tomorrow morning, I can hopefully write some tonight. And some in the car tomorrow. Maybe. Possibly.

Inspiration, I'm ready when you are.

surprise, surprise

As predicted, I'm completely rewriting the battle chapter. Except for the end, which I knew about well before I tried to write the dang thing in the first place.

Also, as is to be expected, I got about half a dozen ideas to make the fight particularly Thistleswitch-y while, you guessed it, in the shower. I really should figure out some sort of pen that I can use to write on the shower wall, so that I don't have to try to rush my otherwise lengthy showers and get to the computer before I forget all the ideas that are swimming around in my head.

Anyway, here's how it went down. When I finished singing the mandatory showtune or two that accompanies all showers, I told myself, Alright. Niko gathers firewood. Then what happens? At which point, Terrence and Jovie (the characters from the barely-formed sequel, who are already dancing around in my head like they own the place) started clamoring for me to work on their story. I calmly informed them that this wasn't an option at the moment, and told them to go make out in the back of my brain so that I could think about the fight scene. At which point Niko complained that he would much rather go have a make out session than battle a dragon. I told him that there would be no making out until the dragon was defeated, and then told the whole lot of characters in my brain to get their ideas churning, because I sure as heck have no clue how to defeat a dragon.

And then, of course, they told me bit by bit exactly what had to happen, making all of my former plans look a bit like smeared bird crap on a windshield.

And that's pretty much what it's like to have characters living in your brain at any given moment. They're usually only distracting and unhelpful (for instance, when you really have to sit down and do your calculus homework, they'll start to whine like heck that you aren't paying enough attention to them) but then, when you really need them to come through for you and tell you what on earth is supposed to happen to them next, they've usually got the perfect solution for you.

If you think that I sound slightly schizophrenic with all this "characters living in my head and talking to me" stuff...I'm really not sure what to tell you. That's just how it is when you're dealing with someone like Merry Songchaser. When they know that they only exist in your mind until you get them out onto paper, they're pretty annoying.

Anyway, hopefully The Chapter in Which Pretty Much Everyone is Defeated seems to be suitably Thistleswitchified now. Hopefully it stays that way.

them's fighting words

I hate writing battle scenes. H. A. T. E.

When the action is unfolding at a mile a minute in my mind, like there's an action movie being projected in my brain, it's especially difficult to find the words to relate exactly what's going on. If there are four things happening simultaneously, or even just two, I need to take the time to explain each one in enough detail that the reader gets a sense of it; but those explanations take time to read, which slows down the action and makes everything seem slower than it is. Even with all the practice attempts I've made, writing battle scenes is still that elusive skill.

So now I'm trying to write a battle scene in Thistleswitch. They're fighting a dragon, for goodness' sake. There needs to be action.

But then, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. This whole chapter has that rank, icky feeling of wrongness that usually means I'm trying to force something that just isn't supposed to happen. Which probably means I should ditch this particular plan and figure out what the story actually wants to happen. Which means finishing up the end isn't going to be quite as easy as I expected. Sigh.

the end stretch

I think (let me emphasize that, because I never really know with this story: think) that I know how the rest of Thistleswitch is going to work out. I mean, I think I've got an idea of every chapter and scene that happens from here to The End. That's...a weird sensation, I have to admit. This story is all about unexpected stuff, both for the reader and for yours truly. For me to have an idea of what's happening three chapters from now, rather than just going with the flow, is strange.

This isn't to say that I really planned anything out. I've gotten bits and pieces of what's coming up at different times and written them down, just kind of knowing that they had to come at the end at some point. And actually, I've known the actual end itself for quite a while. But to know how everything fits together - like I planned it from the beginning, which I definitely didn't - is pretty strange.

Actually, I take that back...there's one bit that I'm not too certain of. And that's how our heroes are reunited with good old Quicken and Kaye and their noble steeds. That's a dang important bit of story right there, but I'm not sure what happens to lead up to it. Basically, I'm not sure of the whole bit where they travel back to Grandma Anine. So I guess there is one part of the story where the unexpected could happen.

And, in all honesty, the unexpected could happen at any time. Just because I think I have it planned out doesn't mean I really do. If I'm typing merrily along and somehow my fingers decide to add in that Aries needs to go and do his fourth quest, I guess I'm just along for the ride.

But, at least tentatively, I know where I'm going with this. Which is pretty great, if only because it means I can type up 3000 words in two hours, no problem. Funny how the words just flow when you know what the destination is.

one is the loneliest number

I've been thinking about sequels lately. Most published authors give advice to looking-to-publish authors through websites and blogs, and an important point seems to be the need for sequels. Here's the gist of what I've learned: publishers get a thousand hundred billion manuscripts a day from hopeful authors, and they can only publish approximately one. So they have to narrow it down to make it easier for them, since they certainly don't have time to read a thousand hundred billion manuscripts. If it wasn't submitted by an agent, it's probably out. If there's no cover letter, it's probably out. If that cover letter isn't well written, it probably means the manuscript isn't either, and so it's probably out. And if in that cover letter, it doesn't mention that the author is hard at work on a second novel for their publishing pleasure, it's probably out.

The thing is, books are what make authors popular. I know, it was a surprisingly revelation for me, too. But the key letter there is the 's' hanging on at the end. Books, as in plural, as in many of them.

If an author writes one book and it's received well, that's great. For a bit. Until people forget about that book and that author. Then the book ends up on the back shelf of the bookstore, probably hidden behind a bunch of Twilight books. And no one buys it any more, and the author is very sad, and the publisher is even sadder because they're the one that just shelled out all the money to publish the book in the first place.

But if that author then releases a second novel, there is lots of fanfare and hoopla, and people will buy it. People who bought the first book and liked it will buy the second book, maybe even if they don't know what the second book is about. People who bought the second book and liked it will find out that there was a first book and buy that too, making sales for the original book go up again. Rinse and repeat to keep authors, and publishers, happy and not broke on a street corner with a cardboard sign that says "Will Write for Money".

So publishers are looking for authors who are going to publish more than one book. It doesn't necessarily have to be a sequel, but most of the time it has to be something in the same genre as the first book - they're looking to attract the same readers again and again, after all.

So I've been thinking about sequels. Originally when I heard about this, I got depressed. I'm only writing one book. It's stand alone. There's not a sequel for this thing. Guess I'm a failure.

And then, in usual Thistleswitch fashion (i.e., out of the blue and completely unexpected) I realized that I could write more. Not more stories about Niko, Merry and Aries - their story is being told here. But I can definitely write more stories about the world that they live in, where castles on glass mountains have elevators to reach them, heroes can never die, and people can Shift into tapdancing spongecakes on a whim. And once I realized that it's the world and the style that needs to continue, I realized that I had at least three ideas for stories.

Of course, writing sequels implies writing sequels. I've kind of been nervous about finishing just one novel, and even though it's going well, I still feel hesitant. Once I tell someone, "I'm writing another book," it becomes something that I can't change my mind about. If I get bored, or I hate it, or the whole thing makes me want to sob and throw my computer out a window, I still have to keep writing it, because that's what's expected of me. I don't know that I can do that - writing was never really a feasible job option in my head, because of that. If I have to force the story, it sucks, and there's nothing I can do about it.

So then I think, well, maybe I can finish Thistleswitch and get a second novel about half (or more) done before I try to publish. That way I'll probably be okay with the second one, I'll know I can finish it, and I'll at least have two books to offer. Though that means it will take a bit longer to publish, I think it'll be okay. Better than having publishers just toss the whole thing in the garbage can.

As of now, the hope is to get to the end of Thistleswitch by June 30. I figure that's about 30,000 more words, which is about 1,000 words a day, which is (theoretically) completely doable. After that, I'll pass out a couple copies of the full thing to people so they can read it and do a killer nitpicking of it. And I'll go back through and fix stuff and change stuff and what have you. I'm not sure if I'll start work on the second book during this stage or not - I think it depends if I think I can carry around two stories in my head at the same time without exploding. We'll see.

Meanwhile, I've already got my sequel brainstorms document in Word for all my ideas. And I've already gotten my uber-vivid-you-must-write-this-story scenes for one of these ideas. And I already know the main characters for one of these stories as well as I knew Merry and Niko when Thistleswitch first appeared. So, as of now, I think I can do this.

Sequels. Yikes.