Tag: Revision Xibalba

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Revision Xibalba: The End

If you heard the screams early this evening, it was me!  I finally finished the second major pass of the Maya fantasy, Night Sun Rising!  (title subject to change)

I want to try and capture some of my feelings and thoughts here for later while the memory (horror) is still fresh in my mind.

When I say revision I don’t mean edits.  In my mind, there’s a huge difference.  Doing edits (for me) means I print the manuscript out and evaluate word choice, flow, sentence structure, inconsistencies, typos that I missed online, etc.  Some sections might have considerable notes, but usually this stage doesn’t require massive rewrites.  I may throw out one or two particularly bad or awkward scenes and rewrite, but not chapter after chapter.

A revision means rip apart and re-VISION the story.  See it in a new light.  Tackle it from a different angle.  I did some cut and paste, but the order was fouled up.  For example, in the first draft, I had Jaid’s father’s POV — and although I eliminated his POV in the second draft, there were some cool details of Xibalba that I wanted to include.  I had to rip those sections out, change the POV entirely, and put them in a brand new place in the manuscript.   Other sections (many!) I had to simply write from scratch all over again.

This wasn’t simple “edits” but a complete rewrite.  Hands down, this was THE hardest revision I’ve ever done.  There were a few contributing factors.

  1. NSR was my first NaNoWriMo novel (2007).  So yeah, it was written fast, without a lot of prep work done in advance.  However, I don’t write slop, not even to “win” NaNo.  This was a solid draft with a beginning, middle and end.  Yes, there were mistakes and dropped threads, etc. but I didn’t do dumb stuff like insert song lyrics just to hit my word count. 
  2. My writing has matured a lot since 2007.  Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of opening up a file and seeing nothing but an editor’s red (Track Changes) and comments on five (six counting this week) manuscripts!  I say this honestly and not facetiously — I’ve learned an incredible amount from my editors, and learning is one of my all-time favorite things.
  3. Since it was a NaNo novel, I hadn’t done a light “edit” pass to fix sentence structure or fill any holes.  Why bother, when I knew it was way too short and needed considerable work?  So even if a section was “mostly” useable, I still had to make all the edits and clean-ups as I went.  It will also need a hard copy pass, because I’m sure I missed a lot.
  4. The first draft was only just under 64K.  This draft clocked in over 92K.  I added two major subplots, each with new POVs.  Whoever said they’d rather add than cut — I don’t quite agree.  It’s really, really hard for me to add nearly 30K to a story to make it work. 
  5. The “new” story threads took place in Texas (mostly near Dallas) and the other (existing) was in Guatemala.  I had to time them so that in the climax, everything came together and made sense.  Even though the showdowns happened in separate locations, they were connected.
  6. I changed genres from paranormal romance to romantic contemporary fantasy.  The crux of the ending changed completely.  I think it’s heartbreakingly romantic but not HEA.  It’s definitely a cliffhanger.  (No, I have no idea what happens in the next book.)
  7. One POV was eliminated; two were added.
  8. Nearly a dozen new characters were added, with brief histories, goals, etc. all preworked.  I had a private WordPress blog for this information, because I couldn’t keep it straight on paper.  
  9. A brand new antagonist entity was added.
  10. The plot was much more complex in the second draft, easily the most complex and complicated plot line I’ve written. 

The biggest consideration, though, is definitely elapsed time.  I started the revision in 2008 (June 12th according to my spreadsheet).  I have a number of excuses:  releases, another NaNoWriMo, illness, etc.  but a lot of it was mental reluctance.  This revision was SO HARD.  I just didn’t wanna work on it sometimes.  I’d much rather draft a new story from scratch that didn’t require so much work!

What’s really scary is that as hard as this revision was, RHP will be even harder.  :cry::shock:

 

RHP is my “Fast Draft” story from March, 2007.  50K+ written in 11 days.  I’ve got an entire large 3-ring binder of notes and research and lists of things to try and fix…yet just thinking about beginning that revision makes me ill.  It will make the Maya revision look like a walk in the park.  It will be massively complicated by the genre:  historical (Regency) fantasy.  I’ve done tons of research.  I own dozens of Jane Austen manners books, What Charles Dickens Ate, etc.  I even read Passions (loooooved it).

Yet that story sits on a shelf because I’m intimidated by it.  Well, guess what.  I will face that fear, and soon.  I know RHP will topple NSR from its place as hardest revision, but it’ll be worth it.  I want to conquer the fear, and…well, I admit.  RHP is likely the highest concept thing I’ve come up with.  It’ll definitely be in my best interest to get cracking on it and soon, before something frighteningly similar comes out.

I thought the Maya story was high concept until Jessica Andersen’s Maya series came out.  :sad: 

And no, this won’t be the last post on “Revision Xibalba.”  I’m still tinkering with the beginning, I have a list of things to go back and expand/tweak/fix, and a few [notes to myself] that require a bit of research.  Then I’ll have a hardcopy pass to complete.  Then, the Great Agent Hunt will commence once again.

Please send chocolate.  I’m going to need it.  And lots of red wine.  Or is that whine?  :mrgreen:

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Revision Xibalba

Yes, I’m still slowly grinding away on the project that will not end.  I lost Friday night thanks to a lovely visit with Aunt BB and Uncle J — it’s always nice to see them.  Just hard on my writing schedule.  Saturday we had 3 hours in the car, and I actually got quite a bit done, but then I slept in really late on Sunday and visited with my Beloved Sis all afternoon.  We had a blast, baked cookies, made a Cherry-Diet-Coke Chocolate Cake, and realized we have exactly the same black Sketchers in the exact same size…but we didn’t write! 

I didn’t get up quite as early as I needed today, but I finally managed to finish up one section this morning and another (short) one tonight.  NSR is just shy of 90K (88,965).  According to my spreadsheet, I only have 5-6 sections, depending on how the resolution of two major story threads ends up.  That’s it!  Yet it feels like miles and miles away.

We’re hoping to do a mini-vacation trip for the monsters this weekend (they’re on Spring Break), so it would be most excellent if I could finish the revision and reward myself with the books I’ve been promising myself on the drive to St. Louis.  I also have first-pass edits to complete on Dear Sir, I’m Yours, so that might be wishful thinking to get both of them done before Friday.

We’ll see what I can manage.

Snippet:

In the center, a black stone rose up from the floor, sticky and wet.  A living, beating heart oozing fresh blood sat on top of the stone.

One Death gestured grandly.  “Behold the caged heart, some of our greatest magic.  Only the heart of a king can last so long, except possibly…”  His head turned slowly, his glowing red eyes latching on to her.  “A cursed priest’s who cannot die.”

She shuddered at the thought of Ruin’s heart ripped from his chest, magicked into beating for the Xibalban Lords’ pleasure.  They must gain a great deal of power from the constant beating of the heart and its fresh flow of blood.

“The greatest wonder is that we need do nothing to keep it beating.  Only the king’s great emotion keeps his heart caged and alive:  his love, hatred, and fierce desire for revenge.  Ah, such sweet, delicious emotions.  I’d forgotten what human emotion felt like until he came into our hands.  He’s given us much to savor.”

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Revision Xibalba

I’m truly in hell.  Jaid is now in Xibalba, but that’s not what I mean.  For the first time I can remember, I *dread* working on a project.  I mean, I’d rather do anything at all.  Clean toilets.  Find the carpet in the monsters’ playroom.  Of course, check e-mail, loops, blogs…  ANYTHING.  Just don’t make me work on the next section!

Seriously, I’ve never faced such reluctance.  Once I begin and I get into the story, I love it.  The plot is incredibly complex, the characters are vast and complicated, the mythology is cool.  But UGH, getting there, making myself BEGIN, every single day, is the hardest battle I’ve ever faced.  Indeed, I do believe this is the hardest revision I’ve ever done.  Harder than murdering Shannari and beginning Rose over for the third and final complete rewrite from page one.  Harder than throwing out the initial plot for Beautiful Death and streamlining a few characters that I still miss (Phillip).

Hard.

Needless to say, getting up Dark & Early — knowing I have to work on this project — has been difficult.  I did make it this morning.  Thankfully, I had started the current scene last night, briefly, so it wasn’t all out dread I felt.  It took hard, solid work, but I finally finished one section.  ONE.  At this rate, it’ll take me every single precious free moment for the rest of the month to finish this revision!

I refuse to give up, though.  Even if I can only manage one step up that steep, unforgiving Mountain, I’ll take it and count the day a victory.

Revised:  1,497

NSR:  83,916

Snippet:  Upon arriving in Xibalba, Jaid has a little talk with One Death, the head demon.

“When someone is sacrificed with the White Dagger, what do you do with the heart?”

“What an amusing question.”  Louder, the scratchy voice came from the right.  Fighting her instincts that demanded she tear off screaming in the opposite direction, she huddled low in the water.  “Personally, I prefer to eat it.”

Her hopes plummeted.  If she couldn’t retrieve Wrack’s heart and free him from the Xibalban demons, then Ruin would forever be trapped.  His brother would always be the chain that prevented him from ending the demons’ plans. 

The demon continued casually, as though he were merely musing aloud.  “Some of my brethren adore the smell of roasting meat and so burn the offering.”

“But what about your greatest enemies?  What do you do to honor them?”

The demon cackled.  Finally, she realized why the voice distressed her so much.  It sounded like millions of armored beetles clacking their bristled legs together.  Her skin crawled, and it was all she could do not to swat at her body to brush invisible bugs away. 

“No great honored ones come here.  They die in battle and go directly to rest in the shade of the Great Ceiba or hang themselves and Ixtab, Rope Woman, shines upon them as they walk the White Road.  Only the dishonorable travail in the bowels of Xibalba, or the stupid, or unlucky.  Which are you?”

“All the above,” she muttered.

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Revision Xibalba

I admit, the day started out pretty rough.  Just so nobody thinks my head is getting too big, I got a rejection on a short story last night that bummed me out so bad that I had a pretty nasty talk with Gregar, my sadomasochist muse.  

I said something like, “If I had any other muse, then maybe my stories wouldn’t be so dark and full of pain all the time.  Maybe I wouldn’t be throwing severed hands around or chopping fingers and thumbs off, or, in this last case, corrupting an innocent into killing a holy person!”

Gregar laughed so hard he bent over and slapped his thighs.  “If you had any other muse, then you wouldn’t have me.”

“Well,” I retorted.  “What else but blood and violence can I expect from an assassin?”

The Shadowed Blood went ominously quiet.  Goose bumps raced up and down my arms, but I didn’t back down.  I was too upset.  

He stared at me until flames began flickering in his eyes (which if you’ve read the Shanhasson books, you know that’s a really bad sign).  Finally, he said, “You created me, Lady.  You hid me in Shadows.  You placed my ivory rahke in my hand and whispered to me of blood.  Every time you write, you throw me to the bottom of your Well and trust me not to let you drown.  You need me exactly the way I am.”

I knew he was right but damned if I would admit it.  “Why can’t we write something happy for once where no one dies or suffers?  You know, sunshine, bunnies, light…”

But I knew the truth.  One of my favorite lines from The Road to Shanhasson is:

THERE IS NO DAWN WITHOUT NIGHT, NO LIGHT WITHOUT SHADOW, NO LOVE WITHOUT HATE, BUT LOVE SHINES BRIGHTER IN THE MIDST OF DESPAIR.

“Sunshine and bunnies?”  Rolling his ivory rahke back and forth across his palm, he stared at me blankly.  “What fun would that be?”

So after that little chat, I whined a bit more, made a few silly oaths (something like never reading another submission call, EVER), and then just shut up and got to work on the Maya story.  Of course, the first scene I needed to work on involved demons and torture.  Gregar didn’t say a word, but he couldn’t help smirking every chance he got. 

Finally, at the end of this last day of vacation, the Maya story is sitting at:  82,419 words.  I have 9-10 sections left to revise (including the new ones I finished yesterday), so the story length is right on track for 90-100K.  Revision Xibalba is far from over, though.  I’m going to have to make another pass and watch for continuity problems.  It has taken me too long to get through this project to remember some of the finer details.

So back to the Evil Day Job tomorrow.  I don’t know if I’ll manage Dark & Early yet or not.

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Revision Xibalba Part One

Day One of vacation from the Evil Day Job:

Made it to Kaldi’s this morning and began working on the next section shortly after 9 am.  Two cups of coffee and one section down.  Moving into Quinn’s POV next.  I think I might need one last brief “tie up” resolution section after that, a sort of breather after the high action.  I’m not sure how the sections will fall into place in the existing first draft yet, but I’ll figure that out in revision.

Short and sweet section, only 655 words, but high action.

Snippet:

The front of his shirt moved and wiggled like a rat had crawled down his collar.  He screamed louder, higher, and the pulsing mass rose sharply from his chest.  Firecrackers went off and a bucket of hot, thick fluid splashed her face. 

Gagging, she wiped her eyes and spat, trying to get the thick, foul stuff out of her mouth.

It tasted…

Her brain chittered like a birdcage of frantic, fluttering birds.

With horrible fascination, she turned and watched the lump float into the creature’s hand.

Throbbing so hard it jerked and fought the creature’s grip, the hunk of meat still squirted red from dangling veins.

A yawning pit of darkness opened beneath her feet, and this time, Tara flung herself into oblivion gladly.  I don’t want to be conscious when it takes my heart.

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Revision Xibalba

Modest progress today.  I didn’t finish all of the new scenes as I’d hoped, but I’m pleased with the 2,225 words I managed to work out.  All Dallas threads have converged and the big showdown is iminent.  According to my spreadsheet, I only have one more new scene to write, but I think I’ll need 2.  I hope that’s it.  I’m really not sure what happens other than a vague “bad guy arrives and all hell breaks loose” sort of note to myself.

I made a note about needing to research flamethrowers.  Ah, I love this writing gig.  When else would I get to find out what kind of gas is used, if it’s pressurized, and whether it’s feasible to have one as small as a foot-long steel pipe?  If one doesn’t exist, I need enough details to show the possibility of one as a “secret” R&D sort of government weapon.

I have a few static traits that I thought I’d use — but they haven’t proven important yet.  I’m hoping they will magically unfold in these final pages.  If not, I’ll either have to axe those traits or tweak my plot until it’s tight and seamless.  Quinn might be using a flamethrower, but Tara’s only weapon is an expensive ink pen and she’s severely handicapped by fainting at the sight of blood.  Still, I know in a deep gut sort of way that she’s going to play a huge role in the final scene(s).

Plan tomorrow:  get the monsters off to school and drive up to Kaldi’s, the coffee shop I used in November, where assuming I end up with an outlet, I’ll write until I finish the new scenes. 

Snippet:

Mr. Linkyn slammed his fist down on the table between them so loudly she jumped.  “No cross-reference, no boring details, we don’t have the time.  Use this one.”

He pointed to a symbol which she’d identified as Ix Chel.  Dr. Tennant had said she was the rainbow goddess of fertility and medicine.  That didn’t sound so bad.

“We need two,” she said slowly.  “We can’t–”

“You know which one,” Mr. Linkyn growled out. 

Larry started to tremble but he nodded.  Meeting her gaze, he whispered, “All we need is a little blood.”

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Revision Xibalba

Oh, dear, it’s been so long since I worked on this project that I forgot my own characters’ names!  Not the major characters, obviously, and this story does have quite a large cast (with three major POV threads), but still, that’s not a good sign.

I decided to start by refreshing my memory (since it was so poor!) and tracked both subplot threads from start to finish as far as I’d written.  Or so I thought — I got ready to start the next section and realized I’d written another one, but couldn’t find it.  Doh!  Found it — I’d forgotten to put it in the main draft.  Of course I had to edit it, too, and then edited a few other things, one thing leading to another…

Finally, I sat down with the next scene solid in my mind, but the words came slooooowly.  Partly because I’m sick–AGAIN–Princess Monster shared her crud with me.  It took much longer than I care to admit, but I finally got that first draft section finished. 

Only 3 more to go, then I’ll have a complete “first draft” and can piece the new sections into the revision as I edit the rest.  I think that’ll keep me from stalling each time I move from “revision” to “new” sections.

This stop and start, stop and start, and problems with my organization (or lack thereof), have really caused this manuscript’s revision to be more painful than it should have been.  It ranks as the toughest revision I’ve ever done, and sadly, it’ll probably need another pass before I can submit.  The opening page(s) still need some work.  I’m not happy with them yet.

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Those Genre Fences

I did some soul searching with my accountability partner, Jenna, and I think I finally realize why I can’t get any momentum built up on the Maya story.

I can’t decide what genre the story should be in.

You might be asking, how on earth could you have written 70+K in a story and you don’t know what genre it’s in?  I find myself asking that same question. *wg*  It comes back to Romancelandia, the tall white-picket fence I tend to sit on, and which side I think this story’s going to jump down to become.

I’ll always write a “romantic” thread, sometimes smoldering and boundary-pushing, but other times, quiet and gentle.  In the first draft of the Maya story, I tried to make the romance smoldering, and it came out forced.  I *despise* forced.  I’ve toned things down considerably so it is more natural.

It’s not a traditional romance “thou shalt have hero and heroine met on page one” kind of story.  In this second major draft, a lot of plot is going on around and in the main story line.  The hero and heroine don’t even get on page together until around the 86th page.  The focus of the story is NOT them getting together.    They don’t even have relations *cough* until after the 200 page mark, and then just the one time, a feat for me.  (I dare you to go count the sex scenes in Rose, say, or Beautiful Death, or even Survive My Fire, a mere 20K!)  The romance is much less “in your face” than I would typically write, but I didn’t do it deliberately — it just happened as I worked through this draft.

Now the ending…it’s so crucial.  I have two paths.  The path I know is “romance.”  The path I don’t know is “not.”  I don’t want to take the easy path, whichever way that is.  Part of me says take the path less traveled, explore that new way, but then I wonder:  is this just me wanting to kick the genre fences down?  I do get that way sometimes (while according to the Chinese horoscope I’m a dog, I feel a lot of empathy for horses which don’t like to be penned in stalls).  I don’t want to make a choice just to be obstinant, n0r do I want to play safe.

I think the more compelling ending would be the non-romance path with a cliffhanger.  It would lend extreme urgency to the next book (although I have no idea what that plot might be).  Yet is that the *right* thing to do?

I have to make a decision.  Today.  Because I have two days off next week and I’m going to bust my metaphorical balls to finish this revision before I go back to the Evil Day Job on Wed.

Opinions?  Discussions?  Would you rather see a “happy ever after” or “cliff hanger” type ending?

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RX 3/5/2009

I’ve got a lot to get done this week beyond Revision Xibalba, some that I forgot about.  Like E-Book Week.  So I’ll be working on that frantically this weekend too.

Meanwhile, I did finish the next section in the Maya story.  It was more than a simple polish, since a major side character’s motivation changed, but I finally broke 70K (72,659 words now).

To do list by Monday:

  • Write new Quinn section for the Maya story.  If I’m on a roll, write Tara’s section too.
  • First pass edits of Road.
  • Final blurb/tag line doc on Dear Sir (Letters).
  • Polish The Shadowed Blood and pull together a pdf to give away next week.

Snippet: 

He stood close enough that she got a whiff of his vest.  It smelled… she couldn’t even form the thought in her mind.  The color was fleshy, tanned, some kind of leather.  Still… wet.  She swallowed hard, the bile burning her throat.  Something dripped from the inside of the vest, dark and wet.  Blood.  The vest was…

She gagged, turning away quickly, her hand over her mouth to hide her reaction.  He was wearing skin.  Human skin.  Her mind clamored and her jaws ached to keep back the shrill scream that roared in her throat.