we are ugly, but we have the music

I think my cup of tea is giving me hayfever. Can you develop a sudden and inexplicable allergy to tea? Oh farkit, if I'm now allergic to tea that's it, it's all over.

Go on without me! I'm done for! Save yourselves!

Ahem.

I have been meaning to post for a couple of days now, but I've also been trying to get my days' words before posting. This hasn't been going all that well, of late. I don't know what's up with the book (or my brain, or some no man's land where the two are attempting to meet), but it's like pulling teeth. Deep-rooted teeth. Bones of the world type teeth.

So today I come bearing writerly links. Given that it's NaNoWriMo, the internet is full of them! The theme appears to be outlining, the reason for which will doubtless become clear if it's not already.

Justine talks about the book in her head vs the book she wrote, which post came as a bit of an epiphany for me.

When I first started trying to write novels that process really bothered me. It drove me nuts that I couldn’t capture what I’d been imagining on the page. I thought it meant I was a terrible writer. But now I know it’s just part of the process and I enjoy it.

I've been obsessed with outlining and planning in advance, lately — a mindset into which I routinely sink any time the current alpha draft hits a snag and I can't figure out what's hobbling me. If only I had planned it out first! If only I were more efficient as a writer! Next novel, I'm definitely doing an outline! If only this, if only that. I need to remember that outliners face inefficiencies too (different ones, obviously) and comparing the two when I only really have experience of the one is foolish at best. Give me however long it takes me to push through this current phase of the blahs, and I'll start another novel without an outline.1 I'm incurable like that.

Glenda Larke explains how she writes a novel:

People ask me how many revisions I do – honestly, I dunno. Some parts that don't work well have too many rewrites to count. Other scenes hardly change at all from the moment I wrote them. One thing I can tell you – for me, writing is not easy. Nor quick. And everybody is different.

I like this post, because it's very similar to my process — and there's nothing I like more, particularly when I'm not happy with the way I'm working, than to hear that my process is not singular. Although I don't, as a rule, go back and read what I've written — because if I do that, I invariably get caught up in revising.

Diana Peterfreund talks about the four-act structure:

I am a fan of the four act structure. I think envisioning your story like that is one of the easiest ways to avoid the “sagging middle.” Even if you do it naturally, going back and making sure that this is what you have done can often help you avoid later complications from bad planning. (I’m a big planner, by the way. BIG.)

And another link from Diana, which I discovered when I stumbled across her post on the four-act structure: plot boards.

That last link is actually to a category page, rather than a single post, but there's a wealth of material in there. The idea of the plot board appeals to me: it's outlining, but it's outlining AFTER the alpha draft, which is about the only time I can do any detailed outlining. Plus, all those post-it notes and bright colours speak right to my stationery-loving, obsessive-compulsive soul. This is one of the reasons I wanted Scrivener, back when I didn't have a Mac, because the corkboard feature lends itself beautifully to this. The faerie novel isn't up to a full plot board yet, obviously, but I'm trying to be virtuous and fill out those little plot cards as I go. It's going to make starting those revisions so much easier!

And, if you have any links on outlining you think might help me in my efforts to procrastinate from the darn faerie novel ;) share away!

  1. Although I do have a nebulous idea of what the story will involve in my head before I start, and I usually develop a nebulous approximation of an outline during the writing of the alpha draft. [↩]

Chelsea Hotel (Regina Spektor)

3 November 2009 @ 7:02 |

why didn't i think of this before?

Ugh. I am suffering all kinds of inability to manage my time this week. This has not been helped by a decision to revisit all my account passwords and make sure there isn't any critical overlap happening. I have A LOT of internet accounts.

Neither has it been helped by Australia Post's fine efforts, which included directing me to the wrong branch to pick up my parcel, the staff at the wrong branch first telling me the parcel had not yet arrived and please to come back tomorrow and then, when I came back tomorrow, belatedly informing me to please head elsewhere. At the right branch (an expedition to find which involved maps, no less), the guy behind the desk spent a good five minutes staring at the docket and sucking on his teeth, as if committing one name and address took a prodigious effort, and at last ventured into the (closet-sized) back room (which held all of three packages) with an expression like a man looking for a needle in a haystack.

Meanwhile, I'm still stuck in the awful head-space of trying to fix the holes in the faerie novel, spurred on partly by the fact that I seem to have 70,000 odd words of (dreadful) alpha draft and no actual narrative impetus yet. This has been worrying me a bit, because if that's the 70% mark then I should be getting that rushing toward the end feeling, which has been decidedly lacking.

The solution, it turns out, is simple: obviously the novel will be about 120,000 words long and thus, I'm only just over halfway and THAT's why it feels like I've only just hit halfway. Genius! So genius that, even if it's not true, which it very probably isn't, I'm going to run with it anyway. Any lie to keep the writing going, after all.

8 October 2009 @ 18:12 | 2 Comments

my plan is to go (quietly or not-so-quietly) mad

Can you believe it's only Thursday morning? This has been the longest week known to mankind. Ever. No, really.

Perhaps it's because the weekend is staring me in the face, my already-double-booked weekend with no days to myself, and I am pre-emptively weary.

More likely it's the fact that the faerie novel hates me — no, wait, I hate it. We hate each other!

I've hit the patch in the alpha draft where it's all just an enormous muddle in my head, and I feel like I can't possibly wade forward with the words until I actually see if there's a cohesive story structure hidden beneath the detritus that is the draft so far. On the other hand, if I stop, and attempt to find said cohesive story structure, I know I'll either find myself convinced there is no story, or else convinced there is a story and if I just START AGAIN I'll find it. Or even both, which is not a marvellous headspace in the least, and I don't recommend it. At all.

I tried, on Sunday, to "quickly" scan through what I'd written so far. Not stopping, not plotting, just a read-through to jog my memory as to what happens in each scene so I know what's been set up (or failed to be set up) and what needs teasing out and what needs wrapping up. And, yup, sure enough: I want to simultaneously push onwards and FINISH THIS SUCKA and also go back to the start and write something, I don't know, SALVAGEABLE.

The solution to this dilemma would be ever so much easier if I had any idea what to write next.

1 October 2009 @ 11:29 | 2 Comments

you had and lost the one thing you kept in a safe place

The triptych window in my living room gives me a view of the sky, glancingly pinned to the earth at the bottom of the frame by an apartment block rooftop and the sparse canopy of a nearby gum tree. I forget, sometimes (because when I'm home it's mostly at night and the blind is invariably down) just how perfect it is to lie back and watch the clouds slip on by.

Right now, I'm watching the thick, grey rain clouds draw across the sky, marching the last of the day's light away. There's one that's hanging lower than the rest, a great reaching quadruped of a cloud, like a hungry dragon scouring the land below for sustenance as it passes by. Already it's crossed from the first window frame to the last — they're moving deceptively fast, these clouds.

I have action scenes to write in the faerie novel, and watching this sky is leaving me in a languorous mood entirely unsuited to writing them.

Dammit, she said half-heartedly.

Star Mile (Joshua Radin — We Were Here)

19 September 2009 @ 18:01 |

i am getting shameless in the cadging of free rides

Okay, who noticed that I used the word "warning" no less than three times in my previous post? Worse, said usage occurred not just in the one post, but in the space of two sentences. The shame! This is why editors are worth more than they are paid — because when I get tired, or even just pressed for time, I will re-use words like a dog with a nervous twitch.

Sadly, this blog has no editor, and thus you all must suffer through my nervous twitches. Sorry 'bout that.

(But not sorry enough to be bothered going back and fixing it.)

Actually, I've had a pretty lacklustre week, as far as the writing goes. This is partly because of the rain on Monday making the library exceedingly unappealing of an afternoon, partly because I took Wednesday off to go to a gig (TOTALLY worth it, I've been humming the songs from that set list ever since), and partly because there was a sort of challenge thrown down at the dayjob and I've been breaking myself in an attempt to best it.

Have I mentioned that I get a little competitive when there are goals and targets in sight? If only I could harness this power for good. Or even evil world domination. I'm not picky, at the end of the day.

29 August 2009 @ 22:57 | 2 Comments

a thousand words a day – or you'll never write again

Today I learned that my understanding of the applicability of the phrase "nature abhors a vacuum" was, in fact, completely and utterly misguided. At least according to wikipedia. And we all know what a veritable wealth of reputable information wikipedia is.1

After my sleep-deprived week, I enjoyed a stupefyingly, blissfully quiet weekend which, quite frankly, I wasn't ready to be done with. I demand a recount, damnit! Then I caught up with some writerly friends last night, during which I once again felt ogrishly unproductive by comparison. (You would think I would learn to stop with the comparisons, but apparently I'm a bit slow on that particular uptake.) Oh well. These things happen. I would claim it helped me keep my backside in the library chair this afternoon despite my desire for a nap, but in truth it was the rain which started shortly after my arrival at the library which kept me there.

That rain, and the soaking it gave me on the trudge home, will make going to the library tomorrow afternoon an uphill battle. Rainy days always test my resolve.

But right now, if you'll excuse me, I may or may not be about to eat my own bodyweight in crepes for dinner.

  1. Although, to be fair to the wiki: if the topic is at all related to pop-culture references, I'm not going to argue with it. On science it can get shaky, but on The Simpsons, wiki is da man. [↩]

24 August 2009 @ 20:51 | 2 Comments

the atlantic is not a damn girl

Let it be known that live music is good for the soul.

Now, I'll grant you that seeing Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Tex Perkins in the space of two nights, one of said nights being a school night no less, may have been more than my bio-rhythms were prepared to cope with, and I would have far preferred to get more than 9 hours sleep in the last 57, but…eh. It was worth it. I REGRET NOTHING.

Of course, as a consequence, today has so far been spent playing catch-up on the chores. And, er, lolling upon the couch. Which is how I intend to pass the rest of the afternoon. Although, in the interests of being a somewhat productive member of society, said lolling will be accompanied by words on the faerie novel, and edits on "Shaping Lily". At some point.

Honest.

22 August 2009 @ 15:42 |

just your typical glamorous day, really

All week I was promised: 20°C on Saturday. And now Saturday is here, and I'm sitting on the couch wearing my fingerless gloves and wrapped in a throw rug, because it is very clearly NOT 20°C. No doubt when I leave the house this afternoon, the wind will sweep itself and all the clouds away to the south and Melbourne will start to bake and I, I will be overdressed and thus I will suffer. This is the natural way of things.

So far this morning, I have managed to wake up at 6:39 (and this is despite not getting to sleep until about 02:30 and where can I lodge a complaint about my bio-rhythms, anyway?) and pick my way through maybe half of the copyedits on "Shaping Lily". Suffice to say I've had better days as far as focus is concerned. Ah well.

Now I think it's time for breakfast.

Before I dive back into wrangling that effing car-crash of a narrative the faerie novel.

ETA: Since the A-format of Shadow Queen should be hitting bookshelves soon, it occurs to me now would be a good time to remind visitors to the blog that you can read the first chapter online for free.

15 August 2009 @ 12:15 |

just keep going, dammit

Last Saturday, a friend of mine said he might take a break from the novel for a bit, because he wasn't sure quite where it was going, and he didn't like it very much at the moment. And I told him that meant he was most definitely Not Allowed to put the novel aside for a bit. Put a novel down when you don't like it very much, and you run the very real risk of never picking it up again. And the only way to be quite sure of where the novel is going is to actually write it, and see where it takes you. Plenty of time to assess whether it went in the right direction once you've gotten there.

(For those planning-type writers out there, that last snippet of advice is going to sound heinous and dreadful and like telling small children they should totally just run out into the middle of a busy road without looking first, everything will be fine, and for that matter strangers present no danger whatsoever and while we're at it, in the interests of making sure you fit in at school, have you considered smoking? I can only say I'M SORRY, but I don't plan my stories in advance. In fact, writing them in linear fashion is still kinda new to me, and something I'm struggling with, and if I could come up with a substitute analogy for you pre-planning types I would. Honest.)

Anyrate, the point of all the above is this: I have totally spent the past two weeks avoiding my novel. Because I'm not sure quite where it's going. And I don't like it very much at the moment.

I've had all sorts of reasonable and legitimate excuses. Edits on a short story needed to be done.1 Then when those edits were done, there was no point picking up the novel again because edits on Pledged should be landing on my desk soonish, and if I picked up the novel again I'd only have to put it down again. So I picked up a short story instead, because I don't have any finished short stories to submit and perhaps I could work on that. Only I've just hit a point in the short story wherein I'm not sure quite where it's going, and I don't like it very much at the moment AND ARE YOU SENSING A PATTERN, PEOPLE?

Because I sure as heck am. And, quite frankly, I don't like it very much.

The thing is, the middle of a story is always hell. (I have even heard the pre-planning types opine this, although presumably for different reasons.) This is partly why it's not-very-affectionately known as the muddle, among other names.2 And every single time I attempt a story, without fail, I have to learn this lesson about the muddle anew. Every single time I have to remind myself that it's not okay to put the thing down, the key is to get past this section, however I can. Slog through the words until I find a way out; leave a note "And then something genius happens!" and skip ahead; consume some stimulant of choice and stay up all night; try whatever trick has worked in the past and even a few that haven't, because every story is different, but whatever you do: just. keep. going.

So. Time to figure out a trick that will work for the novel.

  1. Okay, that one actually is quite reasonable and legitimate, but in the interests of full disclosure I'm including it. Because it was the excuse I jumped on to start this whole avoidance caper rolling, after all. [↩]
  2. My novels always earn themselves appellations like THAT EFFING CAR-CRASH OF A NARRATIVE around this time. For full impact it must be delivered through tight lips and with narrowed eyes and followed by the phrase WE'RE NOT TALKING ABOUT IT ANY MORE. Which is promptly followed by brooding silence and then, just when my friends have tentatively moved on to another subject, interrupting them with an angst-ridden yawp and the desperate plea MAKE IT WORK WHY IS IT BROKEN PUT IT BACK TOGETHER FOR ME! [↩]

29 July 2009 @ 17:55 | 6 Comments

everyone needs somewhere to run to

I've finished the first round of edits on "Shaping Lily" and sent them winging on their way back to the editor — who will doubtless send them straight back with a "Good work! You fixed exactly a drabble of the stuff that needed fixing…here's the stuff you didn't fix back again so you can have another go at that, and while we're at it here's some more!" Because edits are never done in one pass, and fixing one niggle always makes other jagged bits stand out. Writing is in the re-writing, as someone (actually probably various someones) famous has already opined.

Last night, instead of turning back to the poor oft-abandoned faerie novel as I should have done, I worked on a short story. Poor faerie novel: it has been picked up and put down so often it's surely going to have some serious continuity issues. And probably a good few narrative drive issues into the bargain. (Poor me, who will need to fix them!) All my stories get abandoned at some point, because my brain likes to switch to a different problem when I hit the middle of the story.1

Tonight… tonight I cannot decide what to work on. And I am getting distracted by Apple Dictionary only being in American English. Why is there no Australian English dictionary? Or at least a British English dictionary? I DO NOT SPEAK OR SPELL AMGLISH, APPLE.

  1. The one story which was written without any periods of abandonment, even minor ones, is Shadow Queen — although it did have its periods of stalled work while I grumbled and glared at it and muttered under my breath about recalcitrant plotlines. [↩]

23 July 2009 @ 18:10 | 2 Comments
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