Posts

Showing posts from 2016

Stopped, starting

I wish I could say that rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. But there aren't any rumors. I stopped putting words into this white space, and no one noticed. Life moves on. Yet I felt a failure by not coming back around and writing something. I've learned so much in the past few months, but putting it all down here feels exhausting.  I will say this though, I finished the novel before year's end like I planned. I didn't finish it before summer, or fall, but in this latest task I did not fall short. I met my quota of 90,000 words, even went a little over. Come 2017, I will have two unattached works to shop to agents and publishers, and it feels good to be able to say that. Interestingly enough, a random opportunity cropped up to put the already finished work in front of a person that reads for such goals. That was nice, to have been introduced to that person, and it was nice to check the file before I sent it, and discover that the novel to be sent is al

The yolk of suppose

I've been on a bit of a break. Hiatus might be the better word. I imagined that fifty years ago, or a hundred fifty years ago, writing was different. Largely, writing was writing. Even if a poet wrote alone, just for herself, relatives who found her work later could rather easily publish those writings, and make livings off of posthumous efforts. Now, I have to acknowledge that in regards to being a writer, it doesn't quite do anymore to simply write. To say that I've been writing seems to count far less than successfully convincing others that I am a writer. It's an awful, tangled, convoluted mess. I was inspired by an acquaintance who made some progress with her own struggles. Through her I learned a lot about comic books and the process for making them. We had largely talked about fiction but I discovered one of her many passions was graphic novels. She went around to conventions in the region, shook hands, did research, smiled, proved herself driven, did the work

That letter i

Some weeks ago I made a decision about the agent search, which was to swing for the fences. Recently, I was given cause to question that kind of mentality, but the thought hasn't yet fully formed. In the meantime, what came across my mind was to go after the agents of authors whom I admire. Beyond writing in similar genres, with similar (read: derivative) style, I felt like those agents would best understand the talent they represent, and be able to realize something comparable.  This week I finally acted on that. Idle searching of the internet in a sweltering, morning parking lot revealed a name, and a search of the name revealed the title of an agency. A few clicks from there, and I was faced with their submission guidelines: "Send us an unadorned, unaccompanied letter as your first step, whether paper or e-mail. If we're interested, we'll e-mail you an invitation to submit additional materials and instructions on how to do so." I've gotten a lot

A rest-room wall

I had two weeks off from work at the end of Spring semester, and I had it in mind to up the pace on the new project. It started off slowly, but eventually I made good on my goal, and churned out six chapters over the two-week period. It could've been more had I really applied myself, but it turns out chapter 10 was a good place to stop and reassess. This is going much differently than the last fantasy novel, the last novel even. The unreliable narrator has been really interesting to work with. It was unwieldy at first, but then I recognized the possibilities of a story teller that has personality. The only thing about the technique so far that I do not like is how confining it is. Normally, I work with third person, and I like it because it helps to tell a more comprehensive story. Lots of angles from lots of characters, and it afforded me the opportunity to choose the best perches to tell the story from. With this first person idea, I only get the one angle, so the success or

Fire light

Recently, I had the opportunity to do a podcast. It's still being edited, I'm told, but I will not fail to post the link here, and in other places when it's done. My first thought after finishing it was that I will be much less critical of other interviewees in the future. It was a new experience for me, having a conversation and imagining an audience. I didn't think I would feel such pressure to make sense, to answer the questions, to be persuasive and inviting. I wish I could do it over again. I wish I had followed a much earlier thought and jotted down some notes. As it was all I thought to have with me was water. That I learned from the artist talk I did back in Februrary, how quickly I become dehydrated when speaking. At least, I understand where you're coming from, Senator. In other news, the fantasy novel has taken off. In the Wright brothers' sense. It's not touching the ground, but I don't know if anyone in the current era would quite call it

It is not safe

I'm going to have to do something unpleasant to one of my characters. Well, that isn't entirely accurate, but I do have a lead on what has to happen next to improve the short story. It is a personal weakness of my craft that I struggle with writing less likable individuals. Evil, I can do, because I've always thought that evil depended almost entirely on perspective. One woman's trash, or treasure. Heroes can look a lot like villains depending the jersey the beholder is wearing. But for this story, for this character, to capture the perspective I am trying to highlight, I really need to make the narrator wrong-headed. Which is far afield of the person being unreliable. There can be some fun in unreliability. This will probably not be fun. And a particular weakness of mine is that I struggle moving forward with unpleasant tasks. Maybe that's why there was significant movement on the next novel idea. I woke up at midnight a week or so ago, and things all began fal

Receipt received, repeat

I received the first email about agent-finding. I say first because at the bottom was a thoughtful "let me know when you're ready for more." This first email has a scroll bar. I'll confess that I haven't looked at it as hard as I could have, but that stops this week. I'd been waiting on it, and using that lack as an excuse, but now that it's here I am working on not looking for another reason to avoid doing something I assume will be very unpleasant. And I couldn't even say why it is, really. From a distance, it's very simple. Agents are just people in the business of making connections, and for the sake of proficiency, they tend to make their trade specific kinds of connections. Literary agents tend to work with certain kinds of work, and certain kinds of authors. I just have to find my type, based on their record, which is generally public information. When I say it like that, it's easy. It's over there, on the other side of the room,

The point points

I'm back to writing again, and the positive feelings and negative ones are mixing well together. I feel good in a vague sort of way, as if letting the words lie on paper lightens my spirit. I feel more energetic and excitable. Activity and smiles come easier. And I feel bad, right this moment between the first and second draft where I doubt the project's purpose, or my ability to execute it. It seems like a great idea to delete it and never mention it again to anyone. It isn't necessarily surprising, but I had forgotten that particular side effect of the first drafting. It's complete, and yet it is in its roughest possible state of completeness. No one can fault a sculptor for the look of a rough block of material, but after they've worked on it for awhile, if it still looks like nothing, doubt isn't far behind the confusion. But, I'm back to writing again. Since finishing the sci-fi novel rewrite, I've been on a bit of an involuntary hiatus. One of t

Part II

I've had a couple friends ask me how things went. "You did an awesome job... you were natural and engaging. From experience you know that's a lot with that age group." "You did an excellent job. The students really enjoyed your talk." This is what I'm told, and I guess nothing particularly disastrous happened. I arrived on campus on time, but between locating the front office, signing in, waiting for someone to walk me to the right location, all I had time to do was greet my contact, and walk into a room with a large group of restless teenagers who suddenly decided they would all stare at me. Going in, I had planned to show them the next books in the series. I took them, thinking it would be a great opportunity for marketing, to talk to them about the first book, and then be able to physically show them that the series continued, what the covers looked like, the words therein, etc. In practice, the books stayed in my bag. I was alone on a makesh

Part I

I found myself awake at 5:30 this morning, lying next to Nervousness. Tomorrow is the author talk at a local high school. All last week I had wondered if maybe I had grown socially, if my stage fright of years, which led me to speak in front of audiences and then afterward remember little of what I said. No, was the whisper, I'm still here. I got an email with some questions that would likely be asked, and that was a great comfort for two reasons. One, it means that they will likely ask questions, which indicates at least some level of interest. I won't be sitting in front of a group of people who were forced to stare at me. Secondly, I know what some of the questions at least will be. I am very focused on doing a good job, being insightful, which is to say helpful, for the sake of these young people. I think I have an idea of where they are sitting, and I don't want to be the latest in a long list of unhelpful adults. Still, even though I am hours removed from that qu

A N.Y. thing

Been awhile since I updated this, and as usual I have no excuses. It's also been awhile since I wrote consistently, but that's going to be changing soon, as well. Two weeks until the artist talk at a local high school. I don't know what to expect, and I think that's okay. I believe the point is to use it as a learning experience, gather what information I can and then draw conclusions after the dust clears. I was also told about a writing workshop in the area, where people pay non-trivial amounts of money to sit in on various sessions with professionals in the industry, and pay moderately less money to even pitch to an agent. I'm considering how much such an experience is worth to me, never having had it previously. Sometimes I guess one has to make decisions in the midst of the sandstorm. Navigating these things has been confusing and strange. So far as I can tell, there are a variety of doors a person can use for an in. "It isn't what you know, but w

Full of pauses and nothings

When I sat down to commit to the sci fi novel rewrite, I did so somewhat purely. And by that I mean I had no plan for where I would submit it, how, why, etc. The story wasn't strong enough, I felt, primarily, so thinking about places to send it was moot. But I did assume that once I was done, I would have somewhere to submit it. I finished the rewrite. It fell 5,000 words short of my initial goal of 90,000, but even then it is still almost half again as long as the other books I have out in the aether mingling on virtual shelves. I felt good about that fact. I felt good about a lot of things, especially the new ideas that started flowing after I had this project out of the way. When I sat down to finally look for publishers to submit my work to, my eyes were opened again. According to this website , the landscape has changed. Some places, known for years for producing entire series of door-stop novels, are only taking short stories, for the foreseeable future, it seems. Other