August 24, 2007
Well, so far my novel has been rejected by four agents, and not responded to by two other ones (one was a long shot anyway, but the other one asked to see it, so hearing nothing was kind of a bummer).
It's a first novel, it's clumsy in places, but I think it's pretty good. However, it is rather unfocused. I can't describe it in one sentence. So, today, while I was mowing the lawn, I suddenly realized what the theme of the novel is.
And to keep it focused around that theme, I'll have to do some more rewriting.
I don't want this to be yet another never-ending novel project (you've all heard of them). Still, I haven't quite given up on this one, and the other mainstream novel I've been writing (slowly) is still percolating. So, for now, I'm taking down my novel excerpt, and may put it back up once I finish rewriting it.
March 28, 2007
From early October until late February, I had a contract tech writing job that kept me very busy. I wrote a lot at work, so I really didn't write that much outside of work.
Now that the job is over, I went back and rewrote some of the novel. Part of the revision was to pare down and refocus parts of the novel. For a first mainstream novel, it is a little long. I deleted about 15,000 words and added about 2,000 new words. It's a little tighter than it was, and some of the more peripheral characters were cut back dramatically.
A friend of mine who read the whole thing gave me some feedback. My initial response was "Well...ahhh...no," but as I thought about what she said over the next few days, I came to the conclusion she was right. So I had to make a major change to one of the characters. This change required carefully looking through the whole novel, making a number of minor changes, and adding one new scene. If you've read the excerpt before, take a look to see if you can figure out what I changed. If you haven't read the excerpt before, see if you can figure out what I changed... ;->
In helping my husband, Jim, plan Program for Boskone, I suggested doing a panel called "Finishing the Damned Novel Even if It Doesn't Sell." The panel consisted of Tobias Buckell, Judith Berman and me. Toby taped some of it (it appears about midway on the Buckellcast video at You-Tube). I'm the one at the far end of the panel who's moving around a fair amount; Judith is in the middle and is pretty much invisible.
December 16, 2006
Well, I risked my fictive writing life and limb and submitted the hook of my novel to the the now famous Miss Snark Crapometer. It was a learning experience.
I'm not ready to give up on this project yet, but I can certainly see her point. Of course, most writers prefer to think that their characters, plots and writing rise above cliche, and I think the novel generally does.
July 16, 2006
I've gotten a few comments on the early chapters, mostly positive, a few negative. I have shown the whole novel to two random readers, both of whom said some nice things about it. Thanks to you both - you know who you are!
I'd like to say that I've been writing steadily since I finished the novel. The truth is, I haven't been. I spent the spring packing for a move to a new house and then unpacking from that move and doing more work on the old house to get it ready to sell. I have read through the novel a few times and found a bunch of stupid typos and dropped words (the sorts of things spell and grammar checking can miss), so I have two pages of notes on corrections. I also rewrote Chapter 11 - again. I wasn't going to do any major revision to the novel until I heard back from the editor who'd agreed to read it. However, Chapter 11...needed a little more "oomph."
Drama vs. Melodrama...some thoughts.
While I do not have an agent, I can guarantee it will not be one of the Writers Beware List of the 20 Worst Agents. Thanks to Making Light for bringing this to my attention!
I took the Original Mary Sue Litmus Test for my two main characters, Claire and Al. I've always been a little concerned about the potential "Mary-Sue" nature of Claire; she is a fair amount like me (well, I was writing what I know). Answering the test for Claire scored a 23 and Al scored a 31, which landed them in the "borderline Mary Sue" category. I'm kind of surprised that Al had a higher "Mary Sue rating" score than Claire!
In honor of "International Embarrass Yourself as an Artist Day," I put up the beginning of a story I'm pretty sure I'll never finish.
March 15, 2006
I finished my novel today. After many fits and starts!
After many months of just tinkering with it, I've been writing steadily since early February. While not all the words proved to be keepers, many were. I've long predicted I thought this book would come in at about 140,000 words. It's weighing in at about 138,700 words, which would make it about a 300 page book, give or take. It's not tiny, but it's not overly bloated either.
I finished this at a good time because Jim and I are in the process of buying a new house. Given that I'm unemployed, I'll wind up doing most of the packing. The house we're working on getting a mortgage for is a brand new house out in the country, and has a lovely loft. And trees. And no traffic. While close to the airport, we don't seem to have too many planes overhead.
I will start my Scottish horror novel tomorrow, but I will limit myself to two hours of work on it every day while I'm packing. I want to get out of the habit of tinkering, and try to stick to the habit of writing.
December 9, 2005 update
Things have been happening in fits and starts lately. Between a job that went from full time to part time to a day a week to nothing faster than I expected (ahh, the joys of contracting!), to dealing with writer's block for the 400th time... it hasn't been a very productive fall, novel-wise. So much for finishing the novel this year.
Except that it is still possible.
I've had a long debate with myself over whether this is one or two novels. I've gone back to thinking that it's two. If that's the case, it should be done pretty soon. I've also figured out that "Book II" needs a different narrator. Once I figured that out, I started to make progress again.
So my current goal, barring any unforeseen circumstances, is to finish up the Book I, and write some of Book II, wrap them up (along with an outline for the rest of Book II) and send them to an agent. All by the end of the year.
Happy Holidays!
October 18, 2005 update
Honesty is the best policy. In July 2005, I said:
The novel's very close to being finished, but I had some delays in July which means it probably won't be done until late August. I've bought the latest version of Writer's Market and am starting to research agents. As of late July, after deleting some chapters and writing some new material, I'm back up to 95,000 words. I think it'll run about 110,000 words total.
Before I went to Scotland for Worldcon in late July, I was looking over the book and realized that while I was doing a good job of "showing, not telling" through the first 20 chapters or so, much of the last 20,000 words was "telling, not showing." That's a problem. In non-fiction writing, you do just want to explain things directly. In fiction writing, you want the reader to pick up the clues and figure things out for him/herself. But I was compressing the text because I didn't want the book to go on for too long.
So, after thinking it over, I've decided my novel is either two short novels or one long one. The first short novel had a very natural ending at the end of Chapter 19. The themes came together very well there, and while there are a few loose ends, it stands on its own.
9/13/2005 After thinking about it even more, it probably needs to be one novel rather than two short ones. So I'm not close to done. Worse, I've my chronic writer's block has returned. *sigh* That was one problem I'd hoped I'd beaten!
While I finish the rest of it, I'd like to do a little promotion of the book(s), even before I have an agent or a publisher (hence the "novel experiment"). I will avoid being one of those obnoxious self-promoters. Sorry to the folks who think this Web site already crosses that line. I definitely will not self-publish this novel. The publishing process is a useful vetting process - it's always astonishing how horrible many self-published books are.
I've had a general purpose blog since 2002. From time to time, I've written about the progress I've been making on my novel (or, at times, the lack thereof!).