The Plan and an Impromptu Contest

Here's my philosophy about planning: Dream Big. Bigger than that. BIG, I say.

This picture came up in the fotosearch under 'thoughts'. Any ideas on what he's thinking? I think I'll mail a dollar to the person who comes up with the best caption. Yes. Let's do it. Impromptu contest, starting now. You have until Sunday midnight, eastern time zone to enter. Winner gets a dollar.

I over-schedule, run run run until I drop, then rest and do nothing but read for a few days, then run run run all over again. It might sound a little manic, but I like having busy times and slow times much more than having all medium times.

When I write, this means I write in spurts, though I write some almost every day. My goals are always impossible, though they sound reasonable to me when I set them, but they don't account for this circadian rhythm in my energy levels. So, keep that in mind and recognize that behind these grand ideas lurks a procrasinating bum.

My plan is to write a thousand words a day for the next 80-90 days and get my rough draft for book 2 knocked out by the end of October, or thereabouts. Next phase- brainstorming and the outline for book 3 Nov/Dec with some editing of book 2 mixed in. Then maybe a rough draft for book 3 in Jan-Mar, another edit on book 2, some brainstorming for book 4... repeated to infinity. I'd like to get two book written by the end of 2011 and have another in the works.

Don't forget, I am still a procrasinating bum.

That's why it's lucky that it doesn't bother me at all to miss my own deadlines. I've got three kiddoes in elementary school and one in preschool, and I'm a fairly laidback person anyway, so I go with the flow. I mainly use schedules to motivate myself- as a reminder of what might be accomplished if I were to be totally gung ho. I'm usually quite happy to hit my goal in twice the alloted time. It's still progress.

Some people use goals as absolute measures of success, and I can see how that would be motivating, if you were able to accomplish your goals. But then you have to have reasonable goals, and where's the fun in that?

When (note the positive self-talk!) I get an agent, I don't think this self-deception will be a problem because I like to work under pressure. I've never had a problem getting papers in on time, so I think my brain files other people's deadlines are in a different, inviolable category.

I also set my clocks ahead an undetermined number of minutes ahead, so I'm constantly having to add subtract minutes to figure out when we really have to leave, and we'll still late quite a bit.

Which reminds me- I got the kids to school on time today for their first day back. I miss those noisy kids, but their teachers seem fantastic and they have gotten tired of hanging out with each other all the time.

And my son kind of embarrassed me at the meet-your-teacher event earlier in the week. He intro'd me to his teacher and told her I was a writer, and she promptly invited me to come teach the kids about where to get ideas and how to write. I told her I wasn't published, but she was extremely enthusiastic anyway. I could be a total hack!

I went to bed thinking about what basics fourth graders can use to improve their writing. I'm not even sure if Teacher was serious, but I think it would be so fun to brainstorm with a group of kids and write an outline on the board, talk to them about how to choose words to reveal character, etc. I was thinking about how many different forms of 'walked' there are, and what skulked would say vs pranced. Anyone have any great ideas?

Okay, done rambling. Back to the point-
Do you get crazy with your goals, or are you ever-so-realistic?
Glutton for Punishment?

Courage to Play

The beginning of my novel has a problem. I've felt something not quite right about it for a long time, and have tried adding characters, new scenes, greater conflict, and those were good things to do, but the problem remains.

I've heard at least ten times from readers- "Once I got into it, I loved it." and "After the first few chapters, it's like reading a different book." But the first few chapters have information that the reader must have, and the tone is going to be different because the world is different.

Mr. Agent's only criticism of my writing (that he informed me of, at least!) was that he didn't connect with the tone. So. There's a problem.

I was fiddling around with the idea of making a prologue, something that would let the reader know that there is a serious love story ahead, I've foreshadowed, but it wasn't enough. Then I read FIRE, by Kristin Cashore, and realized that flashbacks would fit the situation better. I know. Flashbacks have a bit of a stigma, they're confusing, they break up the tension, they're pointless- why not just show the action in real time? But I tried that, and it messes up the tone of the beginning of the novel, when readers are deciding if they like where the book is going.

But what if the difference in tone, each world having very obviously different setting and characters, made it easier to separate what story line we're in? Then it would be an asset to have such different tones.

In 'Fire', all of the flashbacks are focused on the main character, Fire's, relationship with her psycho but loving (to her) father. In the present, the reader knows he's dead. In the past, he's alive. Having a cue like that made it very easy to follow.

So, I've set up my scenes in parallel. For instance, when Lara, my MC is interrogated by the FBI, they ask her about a missing girl, and she flashes back to ther last time she saw her, when Lara was essentially interrogating the missing girl. Both scenes are stronger for being juxtaposed like that. I think.

Yesterday, I reordered my scenes. And though I have a word processor and it's just a matter of cutting and pasting and spending a few hours (like ten) checking for continuity, it felt like the riskiest thing I've done in months. I was giddy and excited to see if it would work.

I'm think it's smoothing out the speedbump of the first few chapters- which were engaging and interesting already, just separate from the rest of the book. If they were awful scenes, then switching up the order wouldn't help, but I think it was just too much at once. Regardless, I won't make a final decision until I've had some trusted readers look over it.

So, if something isn't working, don't be afraid to try something a little different. It might even make things better. And the worst that can happen is you backup your file, mess around and have to revert to the previous version. Oh well! It's worth a try!

Writing a novel is supposed to be creative! Have fun with it and don't be afraid to lose a few hours to an experiment. In an amusing twist, reordering things will make my opening scene the arrest scene, which was my opening scene in my first draft. Hmmm. Full circle?

How do you find courage to try new things? Are you like me and wait until it is completely obvious that something needs to be done? Thanks for reading!
Glutton for Punishment?

Reversals

I've made the sudden and jarring switch from triumph to apprehension. It was as easy as dropping my submission packet in the mail.

How can the high of three days ago be so quickly forgotten? All it takes is a few unaswerable questions.

What if I missed something really obvious? What if he hates ? What if the action is too actiony? Or the romance too romantical? What if the world building is overcrowded? What if he just requested pages out of pity? Do agents do that? I hope not.

I read through and smoothed out my first 50 pages. Then I printed them, marked them up, had my mother-in-law go over them with me (she had the brilliant idea to change dribbled to trickled, much better word choice. This was a big deal at 11 PM last night.), cut a thousand words!!! (how did I miss the excess the other 15 times I've gone through this thing?), inputted all my changes by 2:30 AM and then printed it out again this morning, popped it in an envelope and sent it off.

I felt a little nervous, but not nearly as bad as I did before my pitch. Mr. Agent likes my idea. He likes my writing enough to ask for 50 pages. I've done my best. If he doesn't want to represent me, then I'll find someone else who will love my book.

This is me letting go. I will enjoy this process. I will, dang it! How do you let go?
Glutton for Punishment?