Posted on by — 1 Comment

MayNoWriMo: final prep

I ended up editing all of my character sheets again yesterday, as well as creating a new one for the secondary character I mentioned.  I also revised the setting sheet for the castle to give it more character and detailed its long, impressive history.  I clarified the conflict between the two major groups of magic practioners.  I tracked all the new little themes and details all the way through the outline in multiple passes, making notes by hand on the pages.

Today, I will sit with the outline and daysheet open, and then make the final pass.  I’ll transcribe all my notes into the main file, and sync it with the daysheet to reflect any new scenes I decided to add.  I’m sure to break 100 sections for this story. The outline is sitting at 12,327 words right now (including the section heading on each page detailing POV, setting, etc).  I bet it’ll break 15K by the time I add all the notes I’ve made this week.

After that, the only thing left to do is print everything out and update my binder, and try to hit the sack early tonight.

I’m setting the goal of finishing this revision by June 30th.  I know that’s probably at least 100K in two months, but my production always goes down in the summer.  I need to get this story done and then sit back and relax through July and August, working at my leisure on worldbuilding the new sci-fi stories and polishing Arcana, getting it ready for submission.  I did finish Return to Shanhasson for NaNoWriMo by Christmas (I think 104K), so this should be doable — if a bit insane.

Yes, I started sleeping in my wrist splints again and have a nice stash of Caribou Coffee.

Posted on by — 4 Comments

Arcana Revision Hell: Preparation

Dig a little deeper in the Well, boys
Dig a little deeper in the Well.
If you want a good cool drink of water
You gotta dig a little deeper in the Well.

One thing I remember really struggling with as a beginning writer was “deepening” a story.  What did that mean, exactly?  I had a story in my head.  It was “the” story.  I didn’t know how to change it.  If I changed it, then it was a NEW story, wasn’t it?  If the character wanted to be different, wouldn’t he/she have shown up in my head that way?

I’ve been deepening Arcana and its characters today.  Gregar has been bellowing that song above in my ear all night.  Deeper, dig deeper, ask why, make this WORSE.  In many ways it’s like the tip of the iceberg.  What I know or see is so little compared to the details that lie beneath the surface.  I don’t necessarily need all those details on page, but knowing them adds a whole different dimension to this story.

I have to say, I have NEVER been so prepared to start a story.  The scary thing:  I’m not quite finished with these preparations yet, either.  I modified 5 character sheets tonight and realized I need to create a new one or I’ll end up with another cardboard secondary character.  (Yes, I was originally going to kill this character, how’d you know?  Now this character is sticking around indefinitely for me to torture.)  I’ve got a map of my castle drawn, but I’ve decided it needs a history.  This castle should have its own personality on page, very much a “character.”  This story could not be set anywhere else, and I need to reflect that down to the finest detail.

The character sheets are incredible.  They really are.  Why did I forget I had this template thingie?  It combines every little thing I’ve picked up over the years that help me get to the heart of my characters.  I’m not talking favorite colors and eye color here (although if there’s something important in physical description, I do have a spot for that) — I’m talking greatest fear, darkest secret, why the hero and heroine should NOT be together, etc.  I have paragraphs or more backstory for each character.  I have meticulous historical dates where needed.

It’s crazy.  Why isn’t this story written yet?  Oh, yeah, I covered that whole fear aspect already.

And even though I have a NINETY-SEVEN-PAGE OUTLINE (boggles), I’ve already gone through with pencil once and added details, then started another pass with a few new angles I thought of.  I’ve added a few scenes — bringing the list up to around 100 scenes.  It should be a nice meaty book when I’m done.  I’m going to make a third pass through the outline with character sheets in hand to make sure I cover scenes where the characters’ fears and secrets should come out or affect the emotions.  Heck, I might even make a fourth pass just for EMOTION. 

Then I’ll type up everything, print out fresh copies, and be ready to go on May 1st.

The biggest changes so far have been making things worse.  More people die or pay some cost to achieve what they want.  The cast is a little bigger — and the overall themes are more complex than I originally envisioned, which are all good.  I have something more to say than I originally thought.  The general theme is balance vs. chaos and how the various characters all reflect different degrees — but there’s another new subtle layer underneath that just came to me today.  I definitely want to spend some time ensuring that shadowing exists in the outline.

More importantly, though, I eliminated some of the “fluff” elements.  This is a flaw of mine.  When I originally thought “Regency Fantasy” with a little “Romance,” I let a few standard tropes creep into the story, especially the ending.  Tonight, I axed every single one.  My heroine is going to be a bit subversive.  Her sister is excessively subversive, but she will pay a steep price for that independence.  I’ve done my research to the best of my ability, so I understand the consequences.  I think.  :wink:

 

There is a “Regency Romance” buried beneath the magic and fantasy, but it’s not going to end with a wedding, baby, and title, if you know what I mean.

Dig a little deeper in the Well.

Posted on by — 6 Comments

Arcana Revision Hell: The Plan

While reviewing my notes last night and this morning, I thought I’d made a dreadful mistake.

As I’ve mentioned, I have a huge binder full of notes.  The first draft was finished as a Fast Draft (ala Candy Havens) back in March, 2007, and ever since I’ve been overwhelmed at the prospect of revising it.  Literally, I’ve been unable to comprehend how I can possibly complete this project. 

While I’m glad I attempted a Fast Draft (and succeeded), the lesson I came away with is that draft is an OUTLINE, not a foundation on which I can build a story.  I can’t open that file and begin revisions — I have to start FRESH.  The first draft doesn’t contain all the story threads I decided to add later (when I realized I only had “half” a book), and the characters are two-dimensional, again, because I wrote the blasted thing so fast.

It’s a fantastic story premise, though, and well worth the work, if I can decide how to tackle it.

About a year ago, I bought Karen Wiesner’s First Draft in 30 Days because of its revision chapters.  I cut the first draft apart like she recommended, made notes for each section, did tons of worldbuilding and new character development.  All good work.  But when I started the revision, I quickly became overwhelmed again.  I was afraid.  I got it into my head that I’d never be a Regency writer — which is true.  I’m a FANTASY writer who wants to write a Regency-based fantasy.  I lost sight of that and allowed myself to skip off onto a new project.

My fear beat me a year ago.

So determined to conquer this fear, I reviewed everything and found many incredible notes.  I also found something sadly lacking.  While I had 3 spreadsheets outlining the scenes, I couldn’t find any DETAILS about those scenes.  Now a year later, how the heck am I supposed to remember what a section title of “Somedays….” means?

After building up my mental reserves to tackle this revision, I sat here this morning sick to my stomach.  Had I really been that stupid to spend so much time outlining and planning — only to never create any kind of outline?  Usually I create notecards for each scene and jot a few notes.  It doesn’t have to be formal — just enough to help me remember what that section title was supposed to mean.  Was I so afraid that I’d wasted all this time on “planning” and “research” only to subconsciously sabotage myself?

I went through all my secret drawers, looking for a baggie of notecards.  Nadda.  I decided to go through my laptop files one more time.   Maybe I’d done something different that I couldn’t remember.  After all, I was using FD30D documents.  Maybe…

With a huge sigh of relief, I found a document called “Capsule Outline” — a glorious 97 page outline, one page for every single section in my day sheet.  WHEW.  I was really sweating bullets here, people! 

So now this week I’ll read my outline, review each character’s biography (yes, I have that much detail!) and make sure they’re tightly tied to the premise, and make any revisions to my notes that I come up with.  Then hold onto your butts, because May 1st, I’ll start the second major re-VISION draft of Arcana (RHP).

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Storybuilding

If you heard any cursing this afternoon, I nagged begged That Man into putting up some corkboards for me in my office.  I bought some cool new animal print ones at Target the last time I picked up some Caribou Coffee, and I had a larger corkboard I bought months ago and he never put up.  The old one had itty bitty screws.  He only dropped them twice in the carpet.  The tiger print board is a little crooked, but it’s up, and I’m already putting them to use.

The vision is starting to come together, and it’s so big, I really needed a wall so I could see the connections.  These stories all started out as individual ideas, but with some give and take, and new inspiration, I think they’re all in the same connected world:  the science fiction Regency spoof, Seven Crows, and a really old untitled idea that keeps rearing its ugly head.  This time I think I finally found the right world and characters for it.

I’m still worldbuilding and figuring out the themes, main conflict, overall story arc, etc. so I don’t know what to “write” right now while I build this other world.  Oh, I have a story I could work on.  I’m just scared of it.

It’s the Fast Draft story from 2007.  I’ve done as much research for that story as the Maya one, if not more.  I’ve replotted it with three spreadsheets and have filled a three-inch binder with notes.  Yet I still haven’t been able to write it.  It’s going to be WORK.  Hard, gut-wrenching work.  Harder than Revision Xibalba.  Harder than anything I’ve done before. 

I know what needs to be done.  It’s just getting my mind in the right place to tackle the work.  It would be so much easier and more fun to tackle a bright shiny new idea…

But you know me.  I’ve never much cared for the easy path.

The first shitty draft of a short synopsis for the Maya story is done.  Copyedits on Dear Sir, I’m Yours are sent back to Angie.  Storybuilding is chugging along on a new world (or rather, galaxy).  So I guess all that remains is to drag out my binders and spreadsheets and come up with a plan for RHP.

Let RHP Revision Hell begin.

Posted on by — 4 Comments

The Care and Feeding of Your Artist

So I’ve been working really hard the last few months at getting my “morning pages” done as recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way.  I do really good Monday – Thursday, but then not so good over the weekend.  But I am staying more “open” and alert, watching for inspiration no matter where it comes from.

Earlier in the week while preparing for the funeral, we stopped by Payless Shoes to get new dress shoes for the monsters.  (Middle Monster is so hard on her shoes that her Easter ones are already scuffed up.)  They have the buy one, get one half price thing, and with three monsters…yeah.  I ended up looking.  I really needed black dress shoes, but I didn’t like any of them.

Then something caught my eye.  Black and red.  It was in the wrong area — in the casual shoes.  They were also a little big, but I pulled them out anyway and nearly squealed like a girl.  They were old-fashioned black “basketball shoes” with red ribbon laces.  I adore those ribbons!!  The shoes also had hearts and skulls on the sides.  *giggles*

Anyone who knows me is probably scratching their heads.  This is sooooo not my style.  But the artist in me was jumping up and down with a lollypop in her hand, demanding I get those shoes.  They’re perfect!  Black and red and hearts and skulls! 

Sometimes, we get in a rut.  We don’t want to look silly or immature.  But Julia says our inner artist is very much like a child.  It’s important to feed that child, to give her little presents just because.  I rarely ever do anything frivolous, especially for myself.  The shoes were cheap–hello, this was Payless!–but I still almost put them back.

I bought those silly shoes and I’ve worn them nonstop ever since.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Bad Blogger

Sorry for my absence.  I guess the funeral really took it out of me.

On the drive up, we passed through our old home town and took the “usual” route to Sedalia that I drove the summer between my junior and senior year in high school when I attended summer college.  It was weird to see how much was still the same, even after 20 years.  We even timed the trip so we could have dinner at our old family favorite, El Sambre.  That was *the* place to eat when we were kids, and I swear, it tasted and looked exactly the same as I remember.  Food was wonderful.

I made three passes through the copy edits for Dear Sir, I’m Yours on the drive.  Did you know I used “damn” on average once every four pages?  *dies* 

I even found the place where Mom’s car blew up on me and left me stranded alongside the road for three hours.  A farmer drove by and took me up to his house so I could call for help (this was the dark ages before cell phones).

In Marshall, we met up with all of That Man’s family for family night.  We haven’t seen most of his cousins since the last funeral (his uncle who passed away from cancer about 3-4 years ago).  Middle Monster made a new friend — That Man’s aunt who has horses.  She’s already begging us to take her to the family farm so she can meet the horses. 

We had a late night and a very early, stressful morning, but it was a lovely sunny spring day.  The service was nice, Grandma looked really good.  She was 90 years old with many great and great-great grandchildren present.  Afterwards, we went to a little country church (that Grandma and Grandpa had attended before their health prevented it) for an old-time potluck spread. 

Then the long drive home.  I slept most of the way and got a terrible crick in my neck.  I tried to read, but I just couldn’t stay awake.  I’ve been sort of out of it since, in “survive until Friday” mode.  However, this weekend isn’t going to be all sunshine and bunnies.  In fact, we plan to do some serious cleaning.  The monsters have agreed to clean and organize the basement, as well as give away a bunch of toys (to make room for new ones, obviously).  Not their idea of cleaning, which means pick up everything — dirty clothes, books, shoes, toys — and shove it into a container; Mom will be supervising.  As their reward, we plan to take them to the Hannah Montana movie.

It’s going to be a really, really long day.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Drollerie Press Blog Tour

Our theme this month is “poetry” in honor of poetry month.  The master list of participants can be found at Drollerie Press.  Please welcome Cindy Lynn Speer, the author of the lovely The Chocolatier’s Wife!  My post can be found on her blog here.

I have a strong connection to poetry…I was drawn to it early, partly because it was something that felt accomplishable.  I could finish a poem in one sitting if I felt the words, and it was an outlet for all those jumbled, impossible emotions we feel in our teens, a place to say things about the things I’d seen, to remind me of what I’d felt, of what I’d experienced.   Sometimes you can’t use an image in a story, but it still means something…the abandoned warehouses, the fallen in barns, the boy on the bus with the smile that means a thousand things.
 
For years, I’d be walking around, or doing work, or whatever, and I’d hear a line in my head, over and over again, like a song.  I’d write it down, and sometimes, the lines would follow, spinning like a web.
 
I used to read my poems out loud, to audiences.  Sometimes people would ask for copies.   One of the most popular was this, inspired by a line from Dante.
 
Nor in memory held

It is dark and cold.
I sit on the heating vent in my kitchen floor,
thinking only of
the smoothness of the glass I hold,
the hum of the refrigerator…
mundane, I know,
cut to the chase.
You see, nothing major happened today,
I didn’t have a friend die of AIDS,
or wreck my car.
But the feeling I have
is incomprehensible…
It’s the feeling you get when your husband’s
no longer your best friend,
or you realized that the girl you thought
was your sister in college wasn’t ever going to call,
or write, or even remember you.
Nor in memory held,
you sit in the darkness and feel sorry for yourself,
happy for the warm air across belly and breasts,
for the dusky bitter taste of orange juice,
and the frost defracting into jewels on the window.
That is why I cry,
for beauty not…
Nor in memory held.
 
 
This was me, just before graduating from college…before I was married, before I found out that there may come a time when your “Husband is your husband’s no longer your best friend, or you realized that the girl you thought was your sister in college wasn’t ever going to call…”  It turned out to be prophetic.  I divorced my college sweetheart…and I found that I no longer heard the words in my head.  No lines came to me like a refrain, and any images that came seemed to fit better in a short story or novel…they had their own music to them, but not that kind.  It was as if the part of my mind that wrote poetry had died.  You’d think not, since poetry had been such a huge emotional outlet for me, but maybe it’d gotten overwhelmed, blown a circuit, or just decided to go on strike.
 
Sometimes, I try again.  I found a snippet of a poem I started, long time ago, sitting in the back of a soiree, waiting my turn to read.  It was about the time I started getting interested in fairy tales again, and so I decided, later, to finish it.   I don’t know if I will ever be able to call myself a poetess again, but maybe, sometime, to paraphrase a line from Anne Sexton, the music will swim back to me.
 
The Piper’s Children
 
“…and they were never seen again.” – from The Pied Piper
 
The woods are dark and deep,
but the blackness,
and bleakness,
bother me no longer.
It did when I first entered them.
I was seven and the music,
that lovely sound,
gentle and coaxing like a warm river,
lead us all.
We were leaves,
spinning and turning on that magic current…
But without warning
the music was gone,
leaving us empty,
abandoned and hopeless.
I found a wide stream
and I waited
for the music to come again.
If I wait long enough,
maybe he’ll relent,
lift his pipe to his lips
and that beautiful tide will return.
It will rise and flow
and take us home.

Posted on by — 6 Comments

In Memory

Grandma K — That Man’s grandmother — has always been “Grandma in the Hospital” to Littlest Monster because as long as she can remember, Grandma K has been in the nursing home.  Well, she’s not in the hospital any longer; she’s dancing in heaven with Grandpa K and her son who passed away a few years ago from cancer.  We’ll be traveling Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday to attend the funeral.

“May the thunder of the Great Wind Stallion’s hooves carry you home to His Clouds.”  Kae’Shaman touched the brand to the wood, and the flames leapt eagerly.  “There your hooves never tire; your body never falters.  You will gallop across the sky at Vulkar’s side, and we who remain shall hear your thunder, and remember.”        ~ The Road to Shanhasson

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Maya Blurb Retake Retake

I think I’m really, really close.  Thank you to Rene for her question — I think this one is even stronger.

Called “Ruin” because he destroyed his entire civilization, the Gatekeeper is sworn to kill anyone who tampers with the Bloodgates – portals to the mystical realms of the Maya gods. When Dr. Jaid Merritt’s partial translation of a codex accidentally sends her father to Xibalba through one of these Gates and releases demons from the Maya hell, the “Un-Indiana Jones” is forced to face her fears and travel to Guatemala on her first dig in twenty years. To save her father, she must survive the Gatekeeper’s wrath and help Ruin reclaim — and relock — the Bloodgates before the bowels of Xibalba empty into our world.

Aside, Kait asked about whether I should be using “Mayan” or “Maya.”  According to my references, “Mayan is used to refer to the language; otherwise, the adjective or noun Maya is used.  Mesoamericans today speak many languages (not “dialects,” as they are often called erronenously), as did their Precolumbian predecessors.”  From An Illustrated Dictionary of The Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. 

If you’re interested, other research books I used for this project include:

  • Popol Vuh
  • The Ancient Maya
  • The Code of Kings
  • The Blood of Kings
  • Reading the Maya Glyphs