writing

revisionland

I realized I have been rather bad about actually blogging the current writing/agent search situation. Maybe because I’ve been talking about it nonstop and working so much that it just seemed like that would have shown up on the blog by osmosis or something.

But oddly, things only show up on the blog if I actually type them up and post them. So, this is the state of the novel-querying nation. In as short a form as possible, since it gets confusing:

I had an offer for my novel, but it came contingent on a pretty major revision. I alerted other agents that were reading and got some more input and suggestions and after a lot of thought decided not to accept the original offer outright, and instead I’m working on revising independently based on all the feedback I’ve received. I have three agents waiting to see the revised version when it’s finished.

So what does this mean? Mostly, it means I still don’t have an agent BUT THAT’S OK. Really, I’m happy with how things are going, it’s giving me a chance to look at my manuscript again and push it further and have the ball back in my court for the moment. It’s nice to have some control again, to have something to work on actively instead of sitting around waiting. Not that I didn’t have other things to work on, but the circus is warm and fuzzy and familiar and I like being able to play in it again.

And probably most importantly: I am 100% sure I am making the story better. I have a long list of suggestions/problem points/issues to address and I’m having a wonderful time working on it. Seriously, it’s like I’ve been given permission to have more fun with it. For about a week and a half I’ve been mulling things over and taking notes and saying “What if I did this?” to the boy (who has read every draft) and he’s responded with varying degrees of “That would be AWESOME.” Which is rather happy-making.

I’m still writing down notes and trying to get all the new ideas to fit with what’s there, figuring out what needs to be added and removed and changed. I’m starting to see the new version, or the idea of the new version, and while I still have a lot of work ahead of me I’m pleased with how it’s going so far. This week’s phase is combing through the current version with a purple pen to mark it up for surgery.

Though today I have mostly been writing snippets of new scenes and turning this photo of Tessa into postcards from the gods: bastet, which should be up on Etsy later today.

bastet tessa

So that’s where I am right now. Revision-o-rama. I’m hoping I’ll be done by mid-September, so I can hand it off to a couple of beta readers before sending it back to agents. And then I can figure out what to write for this year’s NaNoWriMo. It may finally be the year for Edwardian Boston Pirate vs. Ninja. Maybe.

By erin, ago

on uncertainties and crystal balls

I finally updated WordPress (thanks Paul!) and now the shiny new interface is freaking me out. I am easily distracted by shiny things.

This has been rather a crazy week, and I’m kind of surprised it’s Thursday already. Lots going on in the great literary agent search but nothing I can really talk about yet.

(There should be So You Think You Can Dance for agents. I have nowhere to go with that thought that doesn’t end up someplace weird involving sequins and spandex, so maybe I just want an option for call-in agent voting. And a panel of judges to critique everything for me. Wouldn’t that be great, for every decision you ever had to make to be able to consult a panel of experts that would give you advice and pithy remarks and scream a lot when something exciting happens? I’m going to close this parenthetical before it gets out of hand. )

Anyway, everything at the moment is kind of uncertain and I’m still playing the waiting game, though I do have a sort of vague time line now. I really don’t know which way things will go from here, but it should be somewhere interesting.

I think this is the point where I would ask longingly for a crystal ball, were it not for the fact that I could easily walk down the street and purchase one if I wanted to. I’m not very good at scrying of any sort, though.

I could get one for decorative purposes, though. They are pretty. And I do have that weakness for shiny objects. This one was sitting in the window of a shop on Essex Street.

crystal ball

I think I’ll stick with my tarot cards for now. Queens are being painted at the moment, in deserts and oceans and mountains and night gardens. They should be finished sometime next week.

By erin, ago

birthday

Today is my birthday.

I have been working on a birthday present for myself, and for sharing. It officially starts on Friday, but it is being unwrapped today to be more festive.

flax-golden tales is an experiment in words and pictures.

For awhile now, the idea of doing short stories based on images has been percolating around in my brain. Something akin to Chris Van Allsburg’s brilliant The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, only with slightly longer tales.

But I didn’t know what kind of images I wanted to use.

And then I was looking through my friend Carey’s photographs, and something clicked. She finds marvelous things with her camera, capturing images brimming with story.

Carey granted me permission to use her photos, so I started writing these tiny stories and stole an appropriate title from a Shel Silverstein poem I have always loved.

And thus, flax-golden tales is born. Please wish it (and me!) many happy returns.

Each Friday, starting on July 10th, I will post a photograph of Carey’s with an accompanying ten-sentence story.

Stories will be posted here on the blog, collected on their own page, here, and cross-posted to the flaxgolden community on dreamwidth. (Thanks to someone absolutely lovely, there is now an LJ-feed over here.)

I’ve had a lot of fun planning this, and I hope it will continue to be a lot of fun both to write & read as it goes along. Comments, questions, concerns & birthday wishes welcome!

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer…
If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!
— Invitation, by Shel Silverstein

By erin, ago

attempting to be zen

The past week or so has been all up & down in various ways. More rejections, more requests. And lots and lots of rain. Strangely, the up & down makes it easier to be zen about the whole querying process, and I’m trying to just go with the flow and be patient about the whole thing.

I have plenty to distract myself with. Paintings to paint, carrot ginger soup to make, kittens that need tummy rubs. I forget sometimes that I feel better when I keep myself busy, and that it’s a very good way to keep my brain from being neurotic.

Oddly, though, the writing part of my brain does not seem content with my work-in-progress of choice, piecing together my subterranean library. I’ve accomplished a lot as far as reworking the structure and the plot and I know what the shape of it is and what needs to be cut, what needs to be rewritten and what needs to be added.

And yet, my brain doesn’t want to write it.

My brain, tricksy thing that it is, wants to write something entirely different. I ignored it for awhile, but over the last couple of days I’ve been allowing myself to play in this new novel and I’m rather enjoying myself. It’s different than anything I’ve done before. It’s linear! It’s YA! It’s not fantasy! It’s speculative, in a way that feels fantastical, but it’s not a straight-up fantasy.

It’s coming together fairly quickly, too, so I think I’ll play here for awhile before returning to the other, more complicated, non-linear place. Maybe it’s just all about karmic lessons in going with the flow and not trying to over-plan things.

So yeah, that’s the current state of the nation. Spending the end of this rainy, rainy June playing things by ear and attempting to be zen. And I’m working on a super secret project that will be announced in July for my birthday, too.

By erin, ago

on rejections & muffins & crosswalks

Within a matter of ten hours both of the full manuscripts I had out with agents were rejected. That was not a fun ten hours. Granted, I was asleep for most of the hours in between, but still.

The first rejection was extremely nice, personalized, and gave me no reason to think there’s anything concretely wrong with the novel, just that it wasn’t this particular agent’s cup of tea. Which is fine, it’s a weird sort of novel.

The second rejection was a form letter. That one kind of stung a bit.

So I made banana chocolate chip muffins. I’ve never actually made them before, but I make banana muffins fairly frequently and saw the banana + chocolate chip thing mentioned somewhere recently and gave it a try. They came out wonderfully, and I am very pleased.

Then I sent out five more query letters. And put a fair amount of Malibu coconut rum in my Pepsi Throwback.

So yeah, I’m disappointed but I know that this whole process is slow and complicated and I’m trying to be zen about it. I think getting an immediate positive reaction made this hurt a bit more than it might have otherwise, but at least it was comparatively quick.

Then the boy and I went for a walk, because the sun had finally come out after it had rained for days. I had my camera in my bag so I took some photos.

I lost my light before we got home but I got a few lovely shots, some of which are now up on my Flickr photostream (this one of the top of a damp tomb in the cemetery is particularly nice, as well as this door knocker that I covet) including this one of the push to cross button while we were waiting for the light to change at a crosswalk. Yes I did push it before I took the photo.

It strikes me now, with photos and rejections and muffins and tea all jumbled together in my brain, that this is precisely where I am with the novel. I’m at the crosswalk. I’ve pushed the button. I’ve sent out my queries and polished my manuscript and now it’s just a matter of waiting for the light to change.

I just have to trust that it will change, indeed, and I can preoccupy myself with photos and muffins and tea and creative things in the meantime.

By erin, ago

out of one story, into another

I am attempting to be patient while I wait to hear back on manuscripts out with agents. Emphasis on attempt. I polished my nails! They’re now a lovely grey violet and harder to bite.

So, while I try to be zen like my iGoogle TeaHouse Fox, I am attempting to ease my brain out of the story that is now out in the world and back to the one that is sitting in bits and pieces in Scrivener.

It’s easier than I had expected, shifting gears from one story into another. I re-read everything I had written so far for this one, took some notes, scribbled down snatches of dialogue and ideas for scenes. It has more shape than I’d thought it did, which I think is helpful. But I’d say the draft is only half done. It’s about 55k at the moment, most of that done for NaNoWriMo ’08 and a large percentage of that needs massive overhaul.

I like being back at this stage of the game. Figuring things out, putting pieces together. It’s more exploratory. More of an adventure.

Things that are helping take my head out of the circus and into my cat-infested subterranean library include:

Sia’s album Colour the Small One, which I listened to a lot while I was originally writing. Especially the “Breathe Me” remixes. The circus doesn’t have a particular album that it feels like, but the library feels like this.

This painting that I stumbled upon by accident, looking for something else. A Place of Her Own, by James C. Christensen:

And I keep finding quotes that resonate for this one, which is unusual for me:

Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.

– Eugene O’Neill

But when the self speaks to the self, who is speaking?—the entombed soul, the spirit driven in, in, in to the central catacomb; the self that took the veil and left the world—a coward perhaps, yet somehow beautiful, as it flits with its lantern restlessly up and down the dark corridors.

– Virginia Woolf

It’s like going back to a familiar country after a long absence. Should be an interesting place to spend the next few months. Hoping to have a full draft by the end of the summer. We’ll see where things go from here…

By erin, ago