Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 117
February 10, 2017
Development vs. Procrastination
Okay, so I didn’t end up starting to write. I was reviewing my notes to remember all the stuff I developed, and then I got to the notes I took from my agent’s input and found there were some things I needed to develop more. Sometimes, research and development can turn into procrastination methods, but then there are also stories that falter because they aren’t developed enough. The trick is figuring out which is which. Considering that the problem with this story is that it wasn’t developed enough on the first go-round, I’m erring on the side of development. I feel like this was validated when I got the e-mail newsletter from a writing instructor whose seminars I’ve been to, and there was something mentioned in a newsletter article I realized I hadn’t quite developed properly that I know needs to be there, so I still have work to do.
Plus, I have a convention this weekend, and I’m not sure that starting to write before being out for three days would be smart. I can using the driving time to brainstorm and be ready to go on Monday, which is supposed to be nice and rainy.
I’ll be at ConDFW in Fort Worth this weekend. To be honest, I haven’t really put a lot of thought into this weekend. It kind of crept up on me, so I’m not that ready. I need to figure out what to read and think a little bit about my panels.
And now I guess I’d better start doing that.
Plus, I have a convention this weekend, and I’m not sure that starting to write before being out for three days would be smart. I can using the driving time to brainstorm and be ready to go on Monday, which is supposed to be nice and rainy.
I’ll be at ConDFW in Fort Worth this weekend. To be honest, I haven’t really put a lot of thought into this weekend. It kind of crept up on me, so I’m not that ready. I need to figure out what to read and think a little bit about my panels.
And now I guess I’d better start doing that.
February 9, 2017
Optimizing Life
I’ve done a lot of research and brainstorming. I’ve reviewed my agent’s notes. I guess that means today I need to start writing. This is a weird situation in that I’ve already written, but now I’m going to be rewriting, but I’m not editing. There’s a little less of a sense of “I’ll ruin this perfect idea once I write a word,” but at the same time there’s the sense of pressure to make it so much better than it was, so I still have that blank page worry. I love this idea so much that I want to make it as good as it can be.
I’ve managed to accomplish more this week because I’ve been able to get myself out of bed earlier. Those mattress commercials in which people spring happily out of bed in the morning because their beds are so comfortable are a huge lie. When your bed is that comfortable, you don’t want to get out of it. Most of my “oversleeping” isn’t sleeping. It’s lying there and thinking and drifting off again because I’m enjoying how comfortable I am. It seems a shame to be asleep most of the time I’m in bed, when I can’t really appreciate the comfort, so I enjoy lying there, especially in the morning when the memory foam has molded to my body. But the last few mornings I’ve been up much earlier, and I don’t think it’s just because I started keeping score and giving myself points for getting up. Part of it may just be the seasonal adjustment, with the sun coming up earlier. I think it also helps that the last few nights, I’ve turned off the TV and computer earlier and have read longer in bed before turning out the light. At any rate, in about a month we’ll have the change to daylight saving time, and that’s where my body clock functions best. But still, I love optimizing things, so I may keep adjusting habits to see what works best.
Speaking of optimizing, I keep going back and forth on the best way to get the house organized and cleaned, so I’ll be in a better position to someday sell this place. One method has been to take a space and get it set inside-out — declutter and organize it, then clean it thoroughly. The benefit to this is that it creates that “place for everything” situation, which then creates a cascading effect on future cleaning, so anything that belongs in that space can get put away properly. But the problem there is that my biggest problem spot is my office. Most of the clutter in the rest of the house is stuff that should get put away in the office but doesn’t really have a good spot, and the office is daunting. It’s also really hard to see results, so I get discouraged and give up before I get anywhere. So I’ve tried the other approach, getting the whole house superficially tidy on the first pass, then digging in deep. I tend to manage the superficially tidy for quite a while, and it encourages me to want to continue decluttering and organizing, except it also tends to create work because I have to go back and re-clean things.
I think half the reason I’d like to move is that it will allow me to start with a clean slate in a new place. I never really developed the skill set to live in one place for as long as I have lived here. I’m used to being able to keep my life managed by moving every three years. Then I can sort through everything and organize it before anything builds up.
Mind you, we’re not talking about a Hoarders situation. My office is a bit junky because that’s also sort of a storage room (one problem with this house), but otherwise the house is just a bit messy. I just happen to be the sort of person who enjoys hotel rooms and am not entirely happy unless my house is like that, but at the same time I’m lazy and the kind of perfectionist who gets discouraged when things aren’t ideal, like there’s nothing between my ideal and “why even bother?”
What I usually end up doing is coming up with a detailed plan, and then ignoring it entirely. The current solution idea is to do a little bit in the office every day while also tidying the rest of the house.
But now I’m going to fall into another book, and I’ve got a convention this weekend, which means I guess I’ll deal with it all later.
I’ve managed to accomplish more this week because I’ve been able to get myself out of bed earlier. Those mattress commercials in which people spring happily out of bed in the morning because their beds are so comfortable are a huge lie. When your bed is that comfortable, you don’t want to get out of it. Most of my “oversleeping” isn’t sleeping. It’s lying there and thinking and drifting off again because I’m enjoying how comfortable I am. It seems a shame to be asleep most of the time I’m in bed, when I can’t really appreciate the comfort, so I enjoy lying there, especially in the morning when the memory foam has molded to my body. But the last few mornings I’ve been up much earlier, and I don’t think it’s just because I started keeping score and giving myself points for getting up. Part of it may just be the seasonal adjustment, with the sun coming up earlier. I think it also helps that the last few nights, I’ve turned off the TV and computer earlier and have read longer in bed before turning out the light. At any rate, in about a month we’ll have the change to daylight saving time, and that’s where my body clock functions best. But still, I love optimizing things, so I may keep adjusting habits to see what works best.
Speaking of optimizing, I keep going back and forth on the best way to get the house organized and cleaned, so I’ll be in a better position to someday sell this place. One method has been to take a space and get it set inside-out — declutter and organize it, then clean it thoroughly. The benefit to this is that it creates that “place for everything” situation, which then creates a cascading effect on future cleaning, so anything that belongs in that space can get put away properly. But the problem there is that my biggest problem spot is my office. Most of the clutter in the rest of the house is stuff that should get put away in the office but doesn’t really have a good spot, and the office is daunting. It’s also really hard to see results, so I get discouraged and give up before I get anywhere. So I’ve tried the other approach, getting the whole house superficially tidy on the first pass, then digging in deep. I tend to manage the superficially tidy for quite a while, and it encourages me to want to continue decluttering and organizing, except it also tends to create work because I have to go back and re-clean things.
I think half the reason I’d like to move is that it will allow me to start with a clean slate in a new place. I never really developed the skill set to live in one place for as long as I have lived here. I’m used to being able to keep my life managed by moving every three years. Then I can sort through everything and organize it before anything builds up.
Mind you, we’re not talking about a Hoarders situation. My office is a bit junky because that’s also sort of a storage room (one problem with this house), but otherwise the house is just a bit messy. I just happen to be the sort of person who enjoys hotel rooms and am not entirely happy unless my house is like that, but at the same time I’m lazy and the kind of perfectionist who gets discouraged when things aren’t ideal, like there’s nothing between my ideal and “why even bother?”
What I usually end up doing is coming up with a detailed plan, and then ignoring it entirely. The current solution idea is to do a little bit in the office every day while also tidying the rest of the house.
But now I’m going to fall into another book, and I’ve got a convention this weekend, which means I guess I’ll deal with it all later.
February 8, 2017
Third-Person POV
I’ve been discussing point of view in the last couple of writing posts. This week, I’ll delve into third-person POV. Third person is when the story is told by a narrator who’s not a participant in the story. Therefore, the characters are all referred to in the third person — he, she, they, etc.
Third-person limited POV is probably the most common and widely used in modern fiction. This is when the narrator gets into the head of only one character at a time — usually one character in a scene, with the perspective only changing at scene breaks. While the narrator is in the head of that character, it basically works like first-person POV with different pronouns. We’re in that character’s head, seeing through his/her eyes. We don’t have access to any information that the character doesn’t have. Sometimes the narrative even takes on the flavor of that character’s voice in those scenes. The main difference, other than the pronouns, between third-person limited and first-person narration is that the first-person narrator is aware that she’s telling a story, while with third person, the reader is getting to eavesdrop on the thoughts of a character who doesn’t know she’s a character in a story. That means that the thoughts are less censored. The character doesn’t get to decide what to tell readers and what to leave out. We’re seeing every thought, feeling every emotion. The viewpoint character with limited third has no secrets from us unless it’s such a secret that she doesn’t even let herself think about it.
That means that it’s hard to use limited third for an unreliable narrator or a character who’s keeping secrets. If you’ve got a character with secrets that have to be kept from readers, you can’t use that character’s POV. You have to stick with other characters observing that character and not go into that character’s head. On the other hand, that uncensored perspective makes limited third good for books that involve sex scenes, since it means you can convey all the thoughts and sensations and the character doesn’t have the option of modesty or shyness. Limited third can be far more intimate than first-person narration, depending on the character.
But you still need to keep in mind that you’re limited to what the character sees and experiences. A line like “His brown eyes widened when he read the letter” can only work if you’re in the viewpoint of a character observing this person. If you’re in his head, he’s not going to be noticing his brown eyes, and the way he notices his reaction won’t be to think about his eyes widening. He’s going to be thinking about how he feels.
One benefit of third person is that you can get into the heads of multiple characters, but changing viewpoints can be tricky. If you switch during a scene, going back and forth to make sure the reader knows what everyone in the scene is thinking, that’s generally referred to as “head hopping.” There are very successful authors who do that, but it’s probably best not to try that as a beginner. The danger of head hopping is that it confuses readers who don’t know whose head they’re supposed to be in at any given point, and the constant switching makes it difficult for the reader to settle into any one character’s perspective. The result is that readers will often distance themselves entirely and never really dig into the book. It’s best to let readers have the time to settle into a character’s head before you change viewpoints, and have a reason for changing viewpoints — the next viewpoint character is in a different location or has a truly different perspective. Don’t just change because you want us to know what everyone is thinking.
Having multiple viewpoint characters, especially if they’re in different locations, can be good for maintaining tension and suspense because you can leave one viewpoint character in a cliffhanger at the end of a scene or chapter and then go spend time with another character, delaying the resolution of the cliffhanger. Then cliffhang the new character and go back to resolve what was going on with the first character. You can have one character not knowing what’s going on with the other character, while the reader knows, which creates suspense, but then there’s also the danger that if the reader knows more than one of the characters, it can make the character seem dumb.
Third-person omniscient narration is when the narrator is outside the story and knows all. I’m not going to try to delve into it because I’ve never tried it, and it’s really tricky to pull off well in modern fiction. It’s most often used today for satire, in which the narrator is commenting on events, or pastiche of 19th century fiction.
Next, I’ll get into how you decide which POV to use in a book.
Third-person limited POV is probably the most common and widely used in modern fiction. This is when the narrator gets into the head of only one character at a time — usually one character in a scene, with the perspective only changing at scene breaks. While the narrator is in the head of that character, it basically works like first-person POV with different pronouns. We’re in that character’s head, seeing through his/her eyes. We don’t have access to any information that the character doesn’t have. Sometimes the narrative even takes on the flavor of that character’s voice in those scenes. The main difference, other than the pronouns, between third-person limited and first-person narration is that the first-person narrator is aware that she’s telling a story, while with third person, the reader is getting to eavesdrop on the thoughts of a character who doesn’t know she’s a character in a story. That means that the thoughts are less censored. The character doesn’t get to decide what to tell readers and what to leave out. We’re seeing every thought, feeling every emotion. The viewpoint character with limited third has no secrets from us unless it’s such a secret that she doesn’t even let herself think about it.
That means that it’s hard to use limited third for an unreliable narrator or a character who’s keeping secrets. If you’ve got a character with secrets that have to be kept from readers, you can’t use that character’s POV. You have to stick with other characters observing that character and not go into that character’s head. On the other hand, that uncensored perspective makes limited third good for books that involve sex scenes, since it means you can convey all the thoughts and sensations and the character doesn’t have the option of modesty or shyness. Limited third can be far more intimate than first-person narration, depending on the character.
But you still need to keep in mind that you’re limited to what the character sees and experiences. A line like “His brown eyes widened when he read the letter” can only work if you’re in the viewpoint of a character observing this person. If you’re in his head, he’s not going to be noticing his brown eyes, and the way he notices his reaction won’t be to think about his eyes widening. He’s going to be thinking about how he feels.
One benefit of third person is that you can get into the heads of multiple characters, but changing viewpoints can be tricky. If you switch during a scene, going back and forth to make sure the reader knows what everyone in the scene is thinking, that’s generally referred to as “head hopping.” There are very successful authors who do that, but it’s probably best not to try that as a beginner. The danger of head hopping is that it confuses readers who don’t know whose head they’re supposed to be in at any given point, and the constant switching makes it difficult for the reader to settle into any one character’s perspective. The result is that readers will often distance themselves entirely and never really dig into the book. It’s best to let readers have the time to settle into a character’s head before you change viewpoints, and have a reason for changing viewpoints — the next viewpoint character is in a different location or has a truly different perspective. Don’t just change because you want us to know what everyone is thinking.
Having multiple viewpoint characters, especially if they’re in different locations, can be good for maintaining tension and suspense because you can leave one viewpoint character in a cliffhanger at the end of a scene or chapter and then go spend time with another character, delaying the resolution of the cliffhanger. Then cliffhang the new character and go back to resolve what was going on with the first character. You can have one character not knowing what’s going on with the other character, while the reader knows, which creates suspense, but then there’s also the danger that if the reader knows more than one of the characters, it can make the character seem dumb.
Third-person omniscient narration is when the narrator is outside the story and knows all. I’m not going to try to delve into it because I’ve never tried it, and it’s really tricky to pull off well in modern fiction. It’s most often used today for satire, in which the narrator is commenting on events, or pastiche of 19th century fiction.
Next, I’ll get into how you decide which POV to use in a book.
February 7, 2017
Book Report: Fun with History
It’s amazing how much more I accomplish when I just get up a bit earlier in the morning. I got up one hour earlier than normal this morning, and I’m at about where I normally am every morning, except I’m not only dressed, but my bed is made, I got the oil changed in my car and a state inspection done, and the scrubbing bubbles are at work in the bathroom. Oh, and I have a grocery list made and coupons pulled for tomorrow’s planned shopping expedition. And I feel a bit more alert. It helps that I decided to try the kind of behavior modification tricks I use on my kindergarteners on myself. I’m giving myself points for various behaviors I want to change. Supposedly, I’ll let myself redeem those points later on something, but I know from experience that this doesn’t really matter. Just the fact of getting points will motivate me, because I’m apparently a child at heart. I should give myself stickers throughout the day when I do something on my list.
I’ve been doing some reading recently, so I have a book report.
First, a book recommended here, Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica. It’s a “portal” fantasy about a person from our world visiting a fantasy world. When our heroine gets zapped into a strange world, she learns a lot more about her own origins and her role in that world’s politics. Plus, she gets intrigued by the biology of that world and how similar and different it is to earth. The fun thing about this story that I don’t think we see in a lot of portal fantasy is that the heroine is an adventurer and explorer. She goes to exotic places to study wildlife, is into diving and climbing, and all that, so she takes to this new world quite easily. She also makes sure to get all the equipment she’ll need when she gets to come back home. I’m hoping there’s a sequel, because I got the impression that the author is going somewhere with the origins of this world.
Then another book recommended here, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. My library had this shelved in children’s fiction, but I think it’s closer to YA, and is very adult-friendly YA. Basically, it’s almost like my Fairy Tale series set in Tudor England. Queen Mary exiles a young noblewoman to a mysterious manor that may be the last gateway to the fairy realm in England, where she finds that the caretakers of this manor have been working with the fairy queen, and this has led to tragedy for the family that owns it now. This is a very spooky and atmospheric read laced with bits of the Tam Lin legend and with a rather nice romantic subplot.
I guess I was on a Tudor kick (possibly because of Secrets of the Six Wives on PBS), because my next read was My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows. This is a very difficult book to describe. It’s an alternate history fantasy with a very quirky touch. It tells the story of Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for nine days after the death of Edward Tudor but who was then ousted by Mary (aka Bloody Mary) and then executed. Except in this version, there’s magic — some people have the magical ability to change into animals — and this, rather than Protestantism and Catholicism, is the cause of the divide in the land. People like Mary and her supporters think this is evil. Jane is a scholarly girl who’d really rather be left alone with her books, but her cousin the king is persuaded to name her as his heir, and she finds herself in an arranged marriage with a young man who spends his days as a horse, and then suddenly she’s queen in very fishy circumstances. And then history gets thrown right out the window because it works out very differently. It’s all told with a very modern tone that incorporates lines and references from Shakespeare, Monty Python, and The Princess Bride. I have to say that I found this a very satisfying read because the story of Lady Jane has always struck me as so tragic and unfair. I loved the movie about her starring a very, very young Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, and I was traumatized when the History Channel (back when they had history-related content) did a thing where they’d show a history-based movie and then have a panel of historians discuss it. The movie is romantic and moving, and then the historians talked about how fake it was and how they actually hated each other (though further reading on the subject indicates that the historians weren’t entirely correct about this). Anyway, it’s a fun read if you’re into history and think it would be better with magic and jokes.
I’ve been doing some reading recently, so I have a book report.
First, a book recommended here, Child of a Hidden Sea by A.M. Dellamonica. It’s a “portal” fantasy about a person from our world visiting a fantasy world. When our heroine gets zapped into a strange world, she learns a lot more about her own origins and her role in that world’s politics. Plus, she gets intrigued by the biology of that world and how similar and different it is to earth. The fun thing about this story that I don’t think we see in a lot of portal fantasy is that the heroine is an adventurer and explorer. She goes to exotic places to study wildlife, is into diving and climbing, and all that, so she takes to this new world quite easily. She also makes sure to get all the equipment she’ll need when she gets to come back home. I’m hoping there’s a sequel, because I got the impression that the author is going somewhere with the origins of this world.
Then another book recommended here, The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope. My library had this shelved in children’s fiction, but I think it’s closer to YA, and is very adult-friendly YA. Basically, it’s almost like my Fairy Tale series set in Tudor England. Queen Mary exiles a young noblewoman to a mysterious manor that may be the last gateway to the fairy realm in England, where she finds that the caretakers of this manor have been working with the fairy queen, and this has led to tragedy for the family that owns it now. This is a very spooky and atmospheric read laced with bits of the Tam Lin legend and with a rather nice romantic subplot.
I guess I was on a Tudor kick (possibly because of Secrets of the Six Wives on PBS), because my next read was My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows. This is a very difficult book to describe. It’s an alternate history fantasy with a very quirky touch. It tells the story of Lady Jane Grey, who was queen for nine days after the death of Edward Tudor but who was then ousted by Mary (aka Bloody Mary) and then executed. Except in this version, there’s magic — some people have the magical ability to change into animals — and this, rather than Protestantism and Catholicism, is the cause of the divide in the land. People like Mary and her supporters think this is evil. Jane is a scholarly girl who’d really rather be left alone with her books, but her cousin the king is persuaded to name her as his heir, and she finds herself in an arranged marriage with a young man who spends his days as a horse, and then suddenly she’s queen in very fishy circumstances. And then history gets thrown right out the window because it works out very differently. It’s all told with a very modern tone that incorporates lines and references from Shakespeare, Monty Python, and The Princess Bride. I have to say that I found this a very satisfying read because the story of Lady Jane has always struck me as so tragic and unfair. I loved the movie about her starring a very, very young Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes, and I was traumatized when the History Channel (back when they had history-related content) did a thing where they’d show a history-based movie and then have a panel of historians discuss it. The movie is romantic and moving, and then the historians talked about how fake it was and how they actually hated each other (though further reading on the subject indicates that the historians weren’t entirely correct about this). Anyway, it’s a fun read if you’re into history and think it would be better with magic and jokes.
February 6, 2017
Other Worlds
I’m in heavy-duty brainstorming and development mode now, where the world is really taking shape in my head, and I’m questioning my earlier plans and assumptions about it.
I haven’t written too much “secondary world” fantasy — where the story (or parts of it) take place in another world rather than in the “real” world — so it’s kind of fun to really get to play, but I also have to learn to forget my instincts to make everything align with the real world. I can base my world on a particular era in history, but I’m then allowed to deviate from that. If I like the women’s clothes of an era but not the headgear or hairstyles, I can change it. That was my big lightbulb moment when I got an idea over the weekend and then was looking it up and found that there were some things about the era I was looking at that I didn’t like. I could change it because I’m not writing about England during that era. I’m writing about an entirely different world that has some elements that are kind of like England in that era, but it’s still a different place.
Also, looking at pictures of 19th century fashions late at night after a day in which you ate horribly and didn’t exercise can lead to horrible nightmares about putting on a dress, looking in the mirror, and then realizing that you’ve got one of those massive mid-1880s bustles, only you aren’t wearing any of those frames. I guess it’s time to get back into walking daily.
I’m getting some wonderful mental images of my world, but now I wish I had some kind of artistic or photoshop skills to be able to depict it visually. Then again, not having a reference picture will force me to come up with ways to describe it.
I haven’t written too much “secondary world” fantasy — where the story (or parts of it) take place in another world rather than in the “real” world — so it’s kind of fun to really get to play, but I also have to learn to forget my instincts to make everything align with the real world. I can base my world on a particular era in history, but I’m then allowed to deviate from that. If I like the women’s clothes of an era but not the headgear or hairstyles, I can change it. That was my big lightbulb moment when I got an idea over the weekend and then was looking it up and found that there were some things about the era I was looking at that I didn’t like. I could change it because I’m not writing about England during that era. I’m writing about an entirely different world that has some elements that are kind of like England in that era, but it’s still a different place.
Also, looking at pictures of 19th century fashions late at night after a day in which you ate horribly and didn’t exercise can lead to horrible nightmares about putting on a dress, looking in the mirror, and then realizing that you’ve got one of those massive mid-1880s bustles, only you aren’t wearing any of those frames. I guess it’s time to get back into walking daily.
I’m getting some wonderful mental images of my world, but now I wish I had some kind of artistic or photoshop skills to be able to depict it visually. Then again, not having a reference picture will force me to come up with ways to describe it.
February 3, 2017
Digging Deeper
I’m experiencing yet another case study in why you don’t just jump on that shiny new idea. About this time last year, I got an idea. I got excited about it, but I had other books to write, so I put it aside. Last fall, I started doing some research and development on it, spent a fair amount of time on fleshing it out, and wrote a proposal. During the holidays, I looked at my agent’s notes on it and realized how shallow my thinking was, and did some more development.
Then yesterday I pulled out some writing books that have exercises in them and used those to do more development, and I was surprised by how much depth came out of that. It really makes what I wrote in the fall look shallow and trite.
I was so excited about what I came up with yesterday that I’m eager to get back on it and see what else I can come up with to figure out my characters, their relationships, and their world.
Then the trick will be to work all that insight into the story. I’m almost at the point where I think I’d be better off scrapping what I wrote and taking a fresh stab at it. It’s not so many words or pages that doing this seems too daunting. I once heard a speaker at a writing workshop say you should do this with every book — write a draft, then put it aside and write it again, since once you know the story and the characters you can really write the story, and if you look at the words you’ve already written, it will be hard to separate yourself from those words. I’ve done that with scenes, when I knew the scene needed to be changed but I found that I was just rearranging words (the rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic metaphor applies). To really get the new scene I needed, I had to start fresh and rewrite it entirely. I think maybe to get the proposal I need, I’m going to have to start fresh and rewrite it entirely.
But this is why it’s really good to let those shiny new ideas sit for a while, then think about them, then let them sit some more, and then really dig into them.
Then yesterday I pulled out some writing books that have exercises in them and used those to do more development, and I was surprised by how much depth came out of that. It really makes what I wrote in the fall look shallow and trite.
I was so excited about what I came up with yesterday that I’m eager to get back on it and see what else I can come up with to figure out my characters, their relationships, and their world.
Then the trick will be to work all that insight into the story. I’m almost at the point where I think I’d be better off scrapping what I wrote and taking a fresh stab at it. It’s not so many words or pages that doing this seems too daunting. I once heard a speaker at a writing workshop say you should do this with every book — write a draft, then put it aside and write it again, since once you know the story and the characters you can really write the story, and if you look at the words you’ve already written, it will be hard to separate yourself from those words. I’ve done that with scenes, when I knew the scene needed to be changed but I found that I was just rearranging words (the rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic metaphor applies). To really get the new scene I needed, I had to start fresh and rewrite it entirely. I think maybe to get the proposal I need, I’m going to have to start fresh and rewrite it entirely.
But this is why it’s really good to let those shiny new ideas sit for a while, then think about them, then let them sit some more, and then really dig into them.
February 2, 2017
Research
I’m back in research mode for another project. I do a lot of research for just about everything I write because I think it’s important to ground fantasy in a good dose of reality — if everything but the magic part feels authentic, then readers are more likely to buy the magic stuff.
With the Enchanted, Inc. series, it’s mostly location research. I made several trips to New York to research the locations, and with each book, I spend a lot of time with maps, Google Images and Street View, etc., to make sure things are as close to real as I can get them. That’s because the conceit of the story is that all this stuff is really happening behind the scenes. I love it when I get e-mail from readers about being in New York and finding themselves looking for things from the books, almost hoping to catch a gargoyle moving.
With the Rebels books, it gets a little more complicated. I’m trying to create an authentic-seeming Gilded Age New York, even though it’s a very different one from what happened in our timeline. That takes a lot of research, a historical atlas and timeline, a calendar for that year, lots of historic photos, etc. I’m also trying to create a revolution that works and makes sense, which means researching the real American Revolution, as well as other uprisings, both successful and unsuccessful. At least with this series, when something doesn’t quite match reality, I can say, “But, magic!” It’s a totally different timeline where magic exists and technology developed differently, so if I need a bridge to be in a place where there wasn’t actually a bridge until ten years later, I can put a bridge there.
What’s fun is finding out after the fact that something I made up is actually true. I put the governor’s mansion about where the Cloisters museum is because I figured that if I were a wealthy nobleman who ran America back in the time when land was still just being developed, that would be exactly where I’d put my home. It’s a spectacular spot with amazing views. Then with the book I just finished, I needed to be a little more certain of what was going on in that area in that timeframe, not just the governor’s mansion, but what would be nearby. And it turns out, there were mansions there! There were a number of castle-like mansions on estates. The reason they aren’t there now is that Rockefeller bought them up, tore down the buildings, and donated the whole thing to the city for the park that sits there now. There are still remnants of those estates in the park — some terraces, retaining walls, and outbuildings. It is possible that I saw a photo of these at some point that buried itself in my subconscious, because my mental image of the governor’s mansion was almost exactly the image of the mansion that once stood in that spot.
Yesterday, I was doing some reading to dig a little deeper into the main character of the proposal I’ve been working on. She’s a princess who’s been trained and educated in preparation for becoming a queen. I thought it might be a good idea to look at what that really might be like, so I got books on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, and it turns out that what I had in mind was very close to what they actually did. I’m sure I’ve heard enough about it over the years from non-fiction books, novels, and PBS that facts stuck, but it’s always fun to have reality prove me right. I did pick up a few little details that might make things more concrete.
With the Enchanted, Inc. series, it’s mostly location research. I made several trips to New York to research the locations, and with each book, I spend a lot of time with maps, Google Images and Street View, etc., to make sure things are as close to real as I can get them. That’s because the conceit of the story is that all this stuff is really happening behind the scenes. I love it when I get e-mail from readers about being in New York and finding themselves looking for things from the books, almost hoping to catch a gargoyle moving.
With the Rebels books, it gets a little more complicated. I’m trying to create an authentic-seeming Gilded Age New York, even though it’s a very different one from what happened in our timeline. That takes a lot of research, a historical atlas and timeline, a calendar for that year, lots of historic photos, etc. I’m also trying to create a revolution that works and makes sense, which means researching the real American Revolution, as well as other uprisings, both successful and unsuccessful. At least with this series, when something doesn’t quite match reality, I can say, “But, magic!” It’s a totally different timeline where magic exists and technology developed differently, so if I need a bridge to be in a place where there wasn’t actually a bridge until ten years later, I can put a bridge there.
What’s fun is finding out after the fact that something I made up is actually true. I put the governor’s mansion about where the Cloisters museum is because I figured that if I were a wealthy nobleman who ran America back in the time when land was still just being developed, that would be exactly where I’d put my home. It’s a spectacular spot with amazing views. Then with the book I just finished, I needed to be a little more certain of what was going on in that area in that timeframe, not just the governor’s mansion, but what would be nearby. And it turns out, there were mansions there! There were a number of castle-like mansions on estates. The reason they aren’t there now is that Rockefeller bought them up, tore down the buildings, and donated the whole thing to the city for the park that sits there now. There are still remnants of those estates in the park — some terraces, retaining walls, and outbuildings. It is possible that I saw a photo of these at some point that buried itself in my subconscious, because my mental image of the governor’s mansion was almost exactly the image of the mansion that once stood in that spot.
Yesterday, I was doing some reading to dig a little deeper into the main character of the proposal I’ve been working on. She’s a princess who’s been trained and educated in preparation for becoming a queen. I thought it might be a good idea to look at what that really might be like, so I got books on Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II, and it turns out that what I had in mind was very close to what they actually did. I’m sure I’ve heard enough about it over the years from non-fiction books, novels, and PBS that facts stuck, but it’s always fun to have reality prove me right. I did pick up a few little details that might make things more concrete.
February 1, 2017
My Independence Day
The book is off with the copyeditor, and now I’m jumping on the other stuff I need to take care of. I have reference books to look at for the next thing I’m working on, we’re doing some reformatting of some of my older books, and I’m working on some branding/marketing stuff.
All very appropriate for the 15th anniversary of my time as a self-employed writer. It was 15 years ago yesterday that I got laid off from my last job. I spent that day reeling. I had very mixed feelings. I’d tried to quit a couple of years before that, but my boss talked me into staying and worked out a way for me to reduce my hours (and pay) and telecommute so I could write more. And then I ended up barely writing because I was finally happy at my job. Then the bosses who’d worked that out for me left, the economy went haywire after 9/11, and I became much less happy. I’d come up with the idea that would become Enchanted, Inc., and I wanted to delve into it, but wasn’t sure I had the time. Things got even weirder at work — we were having to re-pitch our biggest account, the one that took up almost all of my time since I lived near their offices and they’d grown dependent on me. I was even writing the CEO’s speeches. But for some strange reason, they shut me out of all the meetings to prepare for this pitch, at one point even shutting the door in my face when I went to the office to supposedly help work on it. They didn’t take me to the meeting to re-pitch the account. Then they lost the account and laid off most of the staff who’d been working on it, including me. I saw it coming and had all my files already off my work computer, but it was still kind of scary. I had to drive to the office to turn my stuff in, and then I came home and read Harry Potter.
That was around the time I’d really gotten into the series. I’d read the first three books and had finally come to the top of the wait list at the library for the fourth. I’d been planning a reading weekend for that book. It just came a bit earlier than I’d planned. So I came home and did the stuff I’d been planning for the weekend. The next day was when I was officially unemployed, and I was going to spend the day reading, but then my phone started ringing. My old client, the one that had moved to another agency, spurring the layoff, wanted to talk to me about working for them directly. I heard from other clients. That was when I started thinking that maybe I wouldn’t have to find a new job. I could work for myself, and that might give me time to write fiction. Fortunately, I had a lot of money saved up, so I had a cushion. I earned maybe just enough to live on during those first two and a half years. The basic bills were paid, and any extras came out of my savings. Then I sold Enchanted, Inc. and things got better for a few years before I had another dip, and then things got better again.
But it’s been fifteen years since I’ve worked for anyone else, and for more than five years I’ve been strictly writing fiction, having finally dropped my last freelance marketing communications client. It’s not always easy, and I’m probably not where I’d have been financially if I’d kept working full-time, but I wouldn’t have been nearly as happy. I can’t think of anything else I’d want to do. That makes for good motivation for writing. I have to keep making this work because I can’t imagine trying to find a regular job again at this point.
All very appropriate for the 15th anniversary of my time as a self-employed writer. It was 15 years ago yesterday that I got laid off from my last job. I spent that day reeling. I had very mixed feelings. I’d tried to quit a couple of years before that, but my boss talked me into staying and worked out a way for me to reduce my hours (and pay) and telecommute so I could write more. And then I ended up barely writing because I was finally happy at my job. Then the bosses who’d worked that out for me left, the economy went haywire after 9/11, and I became much less happy. I’d come up with the idea that would become Enchanted, Inc., and I wanted to delve into it, but wasn’t sure I had the time. Things got even weirder at work — we were having to re-pitch our biggest account, the one that took up almost all of my time since I lived near their offices and they’d grown dependent on me. I was even writing the CEO’s speeches. But for some strange reason, they shut me out of all the meetings to prepare for this pitch, at one point even shutting the door in my face when I went to the office to supposedly help work on it. They didn’t take me to the meeting to re-pitch the account. Then they lost the account and laid off most of the staff who’d been working on it, including me. I saw it coming and had all my files already off my work computer, but it was still kind of scary. I had to drive to the office to turn my stuff in, and then I came home and read Harry Potter.
That was around the time I’d really gotten into the series. I’d read the first three books and had finally come to the top of the wait list at the library for the fourth. I’d been planning a reading weekend for that book. It just came a bit earlier than I’d planned. So I came home and did the stuff I’d been planning for the weekend. The next day was when I was officially unemployed, and I was going to spend the day reading, but then my phone started ringing. My old client, the one that had moved to another agency, spurring the layoff, wanted to talk to me about working for them directly. I heard from other clients. That was when I started thinking that maybe I wouldn’t have to find a new job. I could work for myself, and that might give me time to write fiction. Fortunately, I had a lot of money saved up, so I had a cushion. I earned maybe just enough to live on during those first two and a half years. The basic bills were paid, and any extras came out of my savings. Then I sold Enchanted, Inc. and things got better for a few years before I had another dip, and then things got better again.
But it’s been fifteen years since I’ve worked for anyone else, and for more than five years I’ve been strictly writing fiction, having finally dropped my last freelance marketing communications client. It’s not always easy, and I’m probably not where I’d have been financially if I’d kept working full-time, but I wouldn’t have been nearly as happy. I can’t think of anything else I’d want to do. That makes for good motivation for writing. I have to keep making this work because I can’t imagine trying to find a regular job again at this point.
January 31, 2017
Listening to Stories
I guess I wore myself out with my deadline push because I was utterly useless yesterday. Well, maybe not entirely. I searched some stock photo sites for potential cover images, did some reading from a book on writing craft, took care of some business things, and did some minor housework. Today I need to get back in the grind and accomplish the to-do list that piled up while I was frantically writing. It’s funny, for the past week, I’ve desperately wanted to clean house, but had to put it on hold to write. Now I really need to clean house, and all I want to do is write.
A lot of my recent “reading” has been on audio, but not regular audio books. After I listened to the audio drama of Stardust, I found the other things they had online to listen to. I got through Northanger Abbey, then discovered Persuasion, and that was where I realized that a regular audio book just doesn’t work for me. It has to be a full-cast drama with sound effects, music, etc. Persuasion was done as part of the BBC’s “Book at Bedtime” series, which is just a narrator reading a book. This was a book I like, read by an actress I like, and I kept zoning out and couldn’t follow it. So it was back to the dramas. There was one from a novel by Julian Fellowes, the writer of Downton Abbey (and including some of the DA cast). And then there was Madame Bovary, narrated by John Hurt (RIP) and with a cast of familiar voices.
Last night, I found a production of Les Miserables in their archives (it seems to be from about 2001). It’s a dramatization of the novel, not related to the musical … except there’s one bit of cast crossover. Roger Allam is playing Jean Valjean, and he played Inspector Javert in the original London cast of the musical. That’s one of the recordings I have, and he does the best version of the “Confrontation” scene. There was a bit of cognitive dissonance during the opening scene of the audio drama, which was a scene between Valjean and Javert, and the voice I associate with Javert was Valjean, so it took me a while to be able to keep the characters straight.
Playing “who’s that voice?” is part of the fun of these. In some cases, they list a full cast on the web site or the announcer gives the credit at the end. In some cases, there’s no cast list, or they just list a few key names for each episode. So many of these actors are people who are familiar from various British TV shows, Masterpiece Theatre, etc.
I’m finding that these work pretty well as a way to wind down and get to sleep, a transition between reading and sleeping. I read for about half an hour, then put the book down, put on my headphones, turn out the light, and lie still while listening to a 15-minute drama episode. Usually, I can then slip off the headphones, put the tablet down, and go to sleep pretty quickly.
Though with British voices running through my head as I fall asleep, how long will it be before I pick up a British accent?
A lot of my recent “reading” has been on audio, but not regular audio books. After I listened to the audio drama of Stardust, I found the other things they had online to listen to. I got through Northanger Abbey, then discovered Persuasion, and that was where I realized that a regular audio book just doesn’t work for me. It has to be a full-cast drama with sound effects, music, etc. Persuasion was done as part of the BBC’s “Book at Bedtime” series, which is just a narrator reading a book. This was a book I like, read by an actress I like, and I kept zoning out and couldn’t follow it. So it was back to the dramas. There was one from a novel by Julian Fellowes, the writer of Downton Abbey (and including some of the DA cast). And then there was Madame Bovary, narrated by John Hurt (RIP) and with a cast of familiar voices.
Last night, I found a production of Les Miserables in their archives (it seems to be from about 2001). It’s a dramatization of the novel, not related to the musical … except there’s one bit of cast crossover. Roger Allam is playing Jean Valjean, and he played Inspector Javert in the original London cast of the musical. That’s one of the recordings I have, and he does the best version of the “Confrontation” scene. There was a bit of cognitive dissonance during the opening scene of the audio drama, which was a scene between Valjean and Javert, and the voice I associate with Javert was Valjean, so it took me a while to be able to keep the characters straight.
Playing “who’s that voice?” is part of the fun of these. In some cases, they list a full cast on the web site or the announcer gives the credit at the end. In some cases, there’s no cast list, or they just list a few key names for each episode. So many of these actors are people who are familiar from various British TV shows, Masterpiece Theatre, etc.
I’m finding that these work pretty well as a way to wind down and get to sleep, a transition between reading and sleeping. I read for about half an hour, then put the book down, put on my headphones, turn out the light, and lie still while listening to a 15-minute drama episode. Usually, I can then slip off the headphones, put the tablet down, and go to sleep pretty quickly.
Though with British voices running through my head as I fall asleep, how long will it be before I pick up a British accent?
January 30, 2017
Needing Some Dynamite
I think the book is pretty much done. There are a couple of things I want to check and tweak, and then it’s off to the copyeditor. And then I will collapse/clean house and then get to work on the next thing. I’d like to get a proposal revised and back to my agent before I get the copyedits on this book back.
In tracking the time I spend writing/editing or otherwise actively working on a book, I’ve already spent as much time so far this year as I had by mid-March last year. If I keep it up all year, just think of what I could accomplish!
Meanwhile, the house I was kind of dreaming over at Christmas that was then taken off the market and put out for lease is now back on the market. I’m not any closer to being ready to buy/sell/move than I was a few weeks ago, so I’m going to have to think about what to do. The seller must be pretty desperate. They’re not giving it a lot of time. It was on the market for only a few weeks before they panicked and tried to lease it, then it was up for lease only a couple of weeks before they dropped the rental price, and then a week after that they put it up for sale again — but didn’t drop the asking price from before. I may check in with my Realtor friend and maybe see about at least looking at it, and I guess now would be a better time to be taking action than at the beginning of the month, since the book is done.
On the other hand, these are rather uncertain times, and I’m not sure I want to be making a huge investment right now. As with so many things in my life, it often takes a stick of dynamite to force me to make a move once I’m feeling settled and comfortable. It’s especially appropriate to remember that on the eve of the anniversary of getting laid off from my last job, which was what forced me to be a full-time writer.
Now to go run a search on a couple of words and then muck out the house.
In tracking the time I spend writing/editing or otherwise actively working on a book, I’ve already spent as much time so far this year as I had by mid-March last year. If I keep it up all year, just think of what I could accomplish!
Meanwhile, the house I was kind of dreaming over at Christmas that was then taken off the market and put out for lease is now back on the market. I’m not any closer to being ready to buy/sell/move than I was a few weeks ago, so I’m going to have to think about what to do. The seller must be pretty desperate. They’re not giving it a lot of time. It was on the market for only a few weeks before they panicked and tried to lease it, then it was up for lease only a couple of weeks before they dropped the rental price, and then a week after that they put it up for sale again — but didn’t drop the asking price from before. I may check in with my Realtor friend and maybe see about at least looking at it, and I guess now would be a better time to be taking action than at the beginning of the month, since the book is done.
On the other hand, these are rather uncertain times, and I’m not sure I want to be making a huge investment right now. As with so many things in my life, it often takes a stick of dynamite to force me to make a move once I’m feeling settled and comfortable. It’s especially appropriate to remember that on the eve of the anniversary of getting laid off from my last job, which was what forced me to be a full-time writer.
Now to go run a search on a couple of words and then muck out the house.
