Things come up

Sunday morning I sat down, plowed through the inbox, and sat down to finish reading Unraveling. I didn't have much left from the previous day, and I figured I'd get to work writing as soon as I finished it. But, things come up.

While I was sitting on the back porch with my kindle, enjoying the lovely weather and the page-turning final chapters, unbeknownst to me my phone was ringing back inside the house. I missed the call, obviously. But two hours later, I checked my messages when I sat down to write. HAHAHAHA! Life interfered.

In case you're not a follower of this lowly blog, I volunteer to raise money for my daughter's girl scout troop and the children's chorus by working a few shifts a week at the local minor league baseball team's home games. And they needed my amazing skills at pouring beer and running a cash register, because they'd sold more than a thousand tickets more than they'd originally predicted. Let's hear it for nice weather!

I got dressed and dashed across town to the stadium, where I proceeded to save the day. At least, I poured enough beer to make several dozen people happy. They'd be happier if it wasn't $7 a glass, but hey, I pour to the rim. Bonus time: I got to have a corn dog for dinner. I don't think I'd had one in twenty years. It was good for the first half, and then I remembered why I hadn't had one in 20 years. Deep fried corn bread is best in VERY SMALL doses. Bleh.

So I came home, showered the beer/grease/sticky off, and sat down to work. I didn't realize how much I actually did until this morning, though. I tweeted last night that I wrote less than I wanted but luckily more than nothing. Heh! Turns out I actually managed about 3500 words, and 11 pages. I'll say that's pretty good for a day I'd given up for lost.

I meant to take a picture at the game, maybe of the crazy-long lines we had to deal with, or even the scoreboard when the home team totally tanked. In all the hubbub, I sort of forgot I had my phone in my pocket. I also sorta didn't want to stick my hand in my pocket with beer fingers. So no pretty pictures today.

I am going to write now. Toodles!

Words: 36,530
Pages: 121

Unraveling, unwinding

I spent ALL DAY (other than a two hour break to take my daughter to a dance) writing synopses (synopsises?) for my first two novels. I actually had a two page synopsis for the first novel, but I'd recently learned that agents might want a shorter, one page synopsis. Ack! Don't they know how hard it is to relate everything in a 350 page book in just two single spaced pages? Now they want it chopped to a single page? Whasa?

So I started with that. I copied the long synopsis that I made during my first round of edits into a new document, and started chopping and rearranging, rewriting and condensing. It took hours, but eventually, I got that sucker to fit on a single page. And then it was on to the difficult task.


I took notes during the first round of edits on the second novel, but I never transcribed them into a proper synopsis. When I reread after the first draft, I make notes of every plot point, character intro, and anything else I think is important to the story. I started by transcribing all fourteen pages of notes. Fourteen pages! Granted, that's fourteen pages of my handwriting in a 6x9 legal pad, so it's not as bad a fourteen pages of typed notes, or fourteen pages of notebook paper. Still, though, I write kind of small...

When I finished that, I had four pages of typed, single-spaced synopsis. It was nearly 2300 words. Too long even for a long synopsis. I got out my chainsaw and started cutting, pasting, and rewriting. I finally got it down to two pages, single spaced. I renamed the file "Long Synopsis", saved it and copied it into a new document. This time, instead of a chain saw, I used a scalpel. I pared everything that wasn't absolutely necessary to coherency and after hours of this, at 12:19 this morning, I finally had a single page that defines Devil May Care. Then I went to bed.

Seriously, it took about twelve hours to do that. I promised myself a reward today if I could get it done. So I'm paying up. I've spent most of the day today reading Unraveling by Liz Norris. It's great! I'm about a quarter through it, so I'm eager to get back to reading now. It's the kind of book you can't put down once you pick it up, and I'm too eager to find out what happens next, and what's up with the mysterious Ben, what Janelle's dad knows about the victims in his case, and what it has to do with Janelle. So....gotta go now.

Oh, one last thing. I was enamored with Lulu's fashion choice this morning:

Stripey!

Cavalcade of Reserach...unfortunately none of it for the actual writing

I've spent a lot of time in the last day or so compiling the list of agents I'm querying, researching their agencies, their client lists, the genres they like, and the ones they're absolutely sick to death of at the moment. It's been a slog. But I'm done with this current batch. Maybe I'll send out some more next week. There was nothing else to do in the "big deep breath" moments after the Liz Norris contest. Now it's back to normal life.

One fun thing we've done was attend the middle school theater class performance last night. Lulu played "Worker #1" in a play loosely based on three fairy tales. The tales were turned on their heads, with the "princess" characters standing up to the bad guy for themselves, while the "handsome prince" characters stood by and watched. It was a lot of fun. Aside from Lulu's riveting seven lines of dialogue, the best part was the fairy godmother, played by a boy. It was hysterical!

Lulu, in the center, with both arms over her head, taking her bow.

The Progress-o-Meter shows just how busy I've been not writing. I plan to remedy that in the next few days. But then that's always the plan. Sometimes the plan doesn't work out. We'll see.

It's technically my night off, but I've been not-writing so much today, I'm spending the next two hours at the keyboard. NOT on The Internets. Hopefully.

Words: 33,098
Pages: 110

Sigh...but amazing nonetheless.

Well, Janet Reid announced the winner of the Liz Norris Pay It Forward Debut Novel Contest today, and it wasn't me. But I could have told you that days ago. In fact, I had the winner picked since the day before I announced my finalist status. She was finalist #3, and was revealed the day before I was. When I read her entry, I basically knew I didn't have a chance to win. Congrats to Cassie Marshall on winning, and getting to go to New York for the Backspace conference! My personal seething jealousy aside, I'm confident her novel, "The Stars Fell Sideways" will be on bookstore shelves in the very near future!

So, what am I doing now that I don't have to pack and plan for a trip to New York? Querying. When I took a break to revise my first novel back in early March, I stopped querying. I resumed for a few days around the time I entered the Liz Norris contest, but stopped again when I was (miraculously!) chosen a finalist. I figured, what the heck, I've got a 1 in 9 shot of winning now, so I'll wait and polish that query again before I head back into the land of writer torture (a.k.a. querying agents).

I spent the entire day today dusting off my agent research, finalizing my query, and compiling emails to half a dozen agents. Knock on wood one of them works! It really is a time drag, but I needed a day off from my WIP. I'm entering the Great Boggy Middle of the novel now, and it's perilous trying to navigate my way through those treacherous swamps. False plot lines threaten to lure me off the trail, while here and there I see a glimmer of light through the trees and hope to dog I'm still walking in the right direction.

The Helper Monkey is about a third of the way through Devil May Care, and so far he likes it even better than Dragon Hunter. And I planned to change the name of Dragon Hunter to Running Down the Dragon, but since I'm claiming "Finalist" status in the Liz Norris contest on my queries, I thought it best to hold on to the original title for a while. At least until an agent requests more material. At that point, I think I will let them know I changed the working title. Just in case any of them ask Janet Reid about my entry in her contest, it would be bad if they used the new title, and Janet told them she never heard of it, and I must be some crackpot. :) So, for now, sticking with the old title, even though I've lost all my love for it.

And I finally found an image that remotely looks like my dragons. Although all the dragons in my novel are black. Whatever. These are the closest things I've been able to find that fit my mental picture of my imaginary friends. Hopefully this helps anyone who read my query clarify what I mean by dragons. Minus the weird otherworldly backdrop. My main dragon lives in Boston, for crying out loud! :)

Thanks again, everyone. Especially Janet Reid, Liz Norris, and everyone involved in the contest. It was a fantastic trip, and I'm grateful to have been introduced to so many wonderful people along the way, even if we're only friends online for now. Someday we'll all be published, and meet regularly at events and conferences, and have yet another great story to tell.

The Progress-o-Meter is kind of stuck lately, but here it is, anyway. I plan to write some tonight. Hopefully. We'll see. Still recovering from the craziness.

Words: 31,473
Pages: 103

Le Chat D'Ennui

I wanted to be able to find this video, so I can watch it whenever I have the urge. Just like my compulsion to view the 33 animals who are extremely disappointed in me.

Tumblr is a Time Sink

That's right. I was writing. "Was" being the operative word in that sentence. I happily edited the last ten pages or so I made last night, and picked up writing where I left off. And then I took a break and checked the Tweeties. There was an interesting link to someone's Tumblr. I tried to resist clicking, but I had to see the damned picture. So I spent the next forty minutes dancing through Tumblr posts. Gah! That's why I don't use it more often. I'd waste my whole life reading through everyone's mental meanderings and random photos. What is wrong with me? I have important work I need to be doing!

I had to take Lulu to the mall today to buy a pair of plain black flats for her chorus concert in a few weeks. They rejected her current pair because they have little metal pyramid studs across the toes. So I spent 30 perfectly good dollars on a pair of shoes she'll probably wear once. Crap. At least we got soft pretzels. The mall is good for something.

We also got new slippers. Two pairs for $10, and they're as soft as little pillows. I have a slipper obsession. I don't have any idea why, but I wear them constantly, and they wear out almost as fast as I can buy them. I think I'm on my fifth pair since the new year. My slippers are black with little purple bows, and it took me ten minutes to realize there was no "right" or "left" slipper. They're like little glorified ankle socks, with cushioning sewn into the sole. Delightful! Lulu's are rainbow stripes.

So now I finally get a chance to sit and write, and what do I do? Waste half the night on Tumblr. I give up. I'm going back to work now. Fooey on the Internet for being such a tempting diversion.

Words: 30,157
Pages: 99

Writey McWriterson is back

Finally, a day where I accomplished a substantial block of writing, despite my many attempts to procrastinate. Since writing is essentially boring to anyone but the writer, I figured anyone reading this post might be more interested to know what I did during breaks to avoid going back to work distract myself for a few scant minutes at a time.

I needed to get in a holiday mood this morning, because my WIP takes place three days before Christmas. It was in the upper seventies here today, and sunny. Not exactly getting me in the mood to write this particular tale. I hauled out my Jack Skellington mug and made some hot tea, thinking it might help the mood along. While it brewed, I cleaned the kitchen a bit, and then found a great project to stall for a while occupy the few minutes before I had to get to work.

We keep a flower pot full of pens and pencils on the counter by the phone. It was overflowing with crayons, markers, and all manner of things, and you couldn't get half the pens into the pot anymore. I dumped it out on the counter, and tested each pen before placing it carefully back. By the time I finished that important task, I was almost done with the tea, and figured I should get to work.

I threw out about a dozen non-functional pens, and still the pot's full to bursting.

My next distraction came a few hours later. The kid has a little stretchy man made of yellow rubber, and she was throwing it up into the air in the living room. It stuck to the ceiling, about fifteen feet up.

He's the little speck in the middle of the shot. Sorry it's hard to see, but it was about ten feet above my head.

The Helper Monkey got the broom and retrieved the little guy for us.

Safe and sound...for now

Of course, this prompted a round of running around the house finding other surfaces he might stick to. You see, he's not sticky, he won't stick to the painted walls, or the fridge, or the stove, or the light fixtures, or anything else in the house. So we started throwing him up against the ceiling again.

On the ceiling of the hall

This, as you might imagine, was insanely fun. We found a ceiling we could reach ourselves, without the Helper Monkey's assistance, and spent the next ten minutes making him stick, before knocking him down with a broom again.

All this highly intellectual activity was exactly what I needed to inspire me to go back to work. Actually, it was the shame at how hard we'd been laughing at Sticky Yellow Guy's trauma that eventually drove me back to work.

Nevertheless, I still managed to get quite a bit accomplished today. I'm stunned how this project is turning out to be completely different than the last book in this series, just as that one was completely different from the first. This one is much more of a mystery, with my two main characters following a bunch of twisty-turny clues to solve the crime. I'm dashing everything down in my usual Pantser fashion, but I know this book is going to require a lot more in the editing department than the others. Continuity is a bigger issue here than it was in the others, since it's freaking hard to keep track of who knows what about the mystery. Can't have anyone reveal something too soon, and can't have people oblivious to something they should have known already. Gah! So confusing! So in addition to all the new words I've written today, I've spent an inordinate amount of time skipping back in the narrative to make sure the continuity is....continuous. Ahem.

Back to work again, while the word factory is still open for business in my brain.

Words: 28,261
Pages: 93

Afterthought: What's with the new Blogger interface? I'm lost. Please bear with me until I get used to it.

 After-Afterthought: I finally named my WIP. It's called BLACK SHEEP, for future reference. I hate naming my novels. In fact, I'm thinking of renaming DRAGON HUNTER. I was thinking RUNNING DOWN THE DRAGON sounded better. Any thoughts?

I'm suffering from Writer Brain.

More accurately, the Helper Monkey is suffering from MY Writer Brain. Since he works night shift, and gets only one night off a week, we tend to use that night to catch up on a ton of recorded TV shows. We watch a lot of mystery/police/detective type shows, and my severe case of Writer Brain is starting to infringe on his fun. We've been noticing that, since I started writing, I've gotten better and better at spotting the twist in the plot long before it's revealed.

When I spot it, I swear I try to hold my tongue, but I get too much of a thrill showing off my hard-won Writer Brain. And Helper Monkey is getting used to me pausing the show, sometimes as early as fifteen minutes in, to reveal what I've figured out about all the characters. It's happening so often now, he's actually started congratulating me on it, rather than being peeved for ruining the show.

I think Writer Brain is a side effect of writing. I spend hours every day trying to craft these kinds of mysteries. When I see a simplified version of a mystery (like an hour-long cop show on TV), I can't resist applying my own writing process to the action on screen. It's become a game for me to see how early in the show I can spot the upcoming AHA! moments. It's sort of like writing in reverse.

Having said all that, it's back to actual work for me. Since I've confessed I spent most of last night and today watching TV with the Helper Monkey, I haven't written much. Here's the update, though:

Words: 24,272
Pages: 80

The big lumpy thing under my hat. AKA: Squee! I'm a Finalist!

Wowie wowzers! I'm a finalist! You are? Yes, yes I am! *insert maniacal laughter* I can't even believe it. But there it is. See? It's right there---> http://jetreidliterary.blogspot.com/2012/04/finalist-4.html

When Janet Reid emailed me to notify me of my finalist status, I thought there must be some mistake. There was no way my silly little novel would be a finalist in anything. I had an attack of the vapors, eventually recovered, and decided to play along with the pleasant delusion. I sent off the list of answers to the Finalist Questions, and tried like heck to forget about it. Maybe if I played along and kept reading about the other finalists, and their amazing novels, I'd come to my senses. I doubted it until the second I saw the post online with my name on it next to Finalist Number 4. In fact, I still don't really believe it.

When it posted this morning, I was actually at my daughter's school. I showed her the post when she walked by me trying to pretend she didn't know me. It actually merited a thumbs up and a smile. From a pre-teen girl in front of her friends! Wow! Now I'm Really Someone!

I was a chaperone on the drama class field trip to the local high school. We saw "Once Upon A Mattress." All through the play, I fidgeted. It was a great production, and I totally loved it. Other than the fact I was dying to stand up and shout the entire time.

The Helper Monkey works night shift, so he's all tucked away sleeping now. I'll have to squee at him when he gets up. In the mean time, thanks for all the great comments! This has completely made my day! :)

Thank you!

Fun with Sock Puppets

I just got the kid from school, and she's started a new project in her Life Skills class (think home ec.). They are using their new-found sewing skills to make sock puppets. I love this.

Today they had to sketch out their designs. She brought it home for me to see. I love my kid. This is what she designed for her sock puppet:

It's Doctor Who!

Yes, she's making a Doctor Who sock puppet, complete with bow tie and Fez. And even a wibbly wobbly timey wimey thrown in for good measure.

Her second choice design is a little more disturbing:

Creepy weeping angel.

If you've never seen the "Blink" episode of Doctor Who (or any of the subsequent episodes featuring these monsters), this might seem cute. Trust me, it's one of the least cute things I have ever seen. *brrrrr*

I'm glad she went with the Doctor.

So this is what we're teaching her.

Writing has been going sort of well. I managed to make new words, and get the bills paid, and balanced the checkbook, and dealt with idiot people on the phone. If I've spoken with you on the phone in the last few days, please know that you, personally, were absolutely NOT one of the idiot people. That was someone else. You were absolutely delightful (unless you're with Verizon or Citibank. Then, you stink.)

Chorus tonight, which means two hours of semi-uninterrupted writing time. Huzzah!

Since the last update:

Words: 20,512
Pages: 67