Manuscripts vs. Entropy

Lightning StrikeI’m prepping a manuscript (Last Run) for shopping, after a HUGE number of great changes suggested by the White Gold Wielders writers group here in Austin. Having one’s novel read and commented on in group format is a blessing I would hope for all my novels.

I fired up Scrivener, started making changes, moved from my laptop to my desktop, and Uncle Murphy struck. The result: A few dozen “recovered” files, blank scenes where once text resided. What’s been updated? What’s had changes? Between a Word copy used for the group discussion, a text comparison tool, and a lot of careful scrutiny of the recovered files, I was able to bring the manuscript back to wholeness, with only one scene flagged as “deleted right before the crash–” and therefore not an issue.

Save. Save again. Save yet more. One of the first things a writer learns is “keep a backup.” I have Dropbox, exports to Word, saved zip files of scrivener folder structures for major edits. And still, Murphy manages to get a word in edgewise. Or at least cost me three hours of quality time repairing, because things went splat at exactly the wrong time.

An Author Moment

Just finished hand edits of Last Run, a monster novel (originally 185k or closing on 800 pages). I’ll have a much lower word count when I’m done, if for no other reason than most post-apoc manuscripts are best salable when they’re under 120k. Or so I’m told. This month, at least.

I find the act of writing on paper validating, as I immediately see what I’m changing. In Word, or Scrivener, old words disappear, and are seamlessly replaced. (Yes, edit tracking in Word. Also yes, it makes it really hard to read.) It also gave me some more practice at writing in cursive. Because we all know that’s the next New Thing.

What I didn’t expect was the emotional impact reading the book. I hadn’t picked it up in a year, so while I knew what was happening, I was rediscovering the phraseology and tension. (Especially after pruning all those extraneous words…) So I had the tear-jerker moments, the tension-filled suspenseful ones. The chuckle at the narrator’s subtle wit. It was fun, damn it! I enjoyed it. And after re-reading it, I’m sure an audience will as well.

Unlike my Shmuley Myers books, this one’s going to go to a professional editor for cleanup, then straight to alpha (beta? gamma?) readers.

Hope my agent doesn’t mind hawking two manuscripts at once…

Accountability Report: Needing Brightly

Snapshot of empty progress graph for "Needing Brightly"First, old business

A Day at the Zoo is being shopped with editors. Most are based in New York, which is in its yearly Jewish High Holiday convulsions. Which means it might not get the attention it’d have if, say, it gets pitched in two weeks. But… I’ve already cast that dice.

Zepps, my “I’ve tied myself into knots” manuscript, is done. At least, in the draft form. There’s a slew of corrections, but I’ve got the mss in the right shape in terms of plot lines. Yeesh. Don’t want to go through that again. Lesson: If I’m gonna “pants” a novel, I’m going to need the plot laid out better before I start, just so it doesn’t spiral out of control. (Damn characters and their agency!)

So… new business. After going through my “ooh, write this next pile” (current population: too many), I came across a little snippet called “Shave the Moon.” Long story short, and mostly riffing off that title, I’m starting a hard-SF, character-driven novel. Should be fun—if I can just stop stopping to do research on which the plot dangles. Tech and background have already gone through my wonderful writers group, the White Gold Wielders. (They tell me this means something in the gaming world.)

And I know I’ve been using titles for these unpublished manuscripts. I just want to say I have no expectations any of them will see the light of page. Just see what Marshall’s written on the subject.

The beat goes on. Itchy fingers to start writing. Must. Plot. A. Little. First!

Motivations

I’m juggling too many books that aren’t finished. “Last Run” needs a 40% diet, and I’ve been plowing away at edits. “Zepps” has a hit list of dozens of changes (see my previous post: Knotted!) I’m wandering around, like a Shakespearean actor in a Dr. Seuss play, shouting “what’s my motivation” in the various voice of my characters.

Oh, and I’m sending, via agent mine, the first salvo of agent queries to editors. So I’m writing up tip sheets in additional to customized queries, to make life faster for her.

That’s not to say I’m done with the final flourishes on the novel I’m pitching (“A Day at the Zoo.”) Aside from my awesome writers group, Chris Brown (author of Kansastan and ArmadilloCon #40 had a few suggestions.

Can’t have 4k EVERY day!

Yesterday was a word count bust: under 500 words. But! I spent a good three hours doing some (don’t tell folks) plotting to complete Zepps, my sci-fi novel in progress. After that an excellent workshop with the White Gold Wielders. Ain’t nothing like feedback and encouragement from folks who Know What They’re Doing.

Today’s another olio day: reviewed the excellent Deana Roy‘s presentation on Indie publishing. Meeting Jack Conner for lunch to translocate his very successful publishing strategies to my brain. Then I can get down to the business of getting to the thriller at 40,000 feet that is Zepps.

On a separate business-of-writing note, I’ve noticed that my hours per day of writing and editing have skyrocketed over the past month. I’m averaging 7-9 hours per day, seven days out of eight. Just like writing’s a muscle—the more often you write, the more you can write in a day—editing works the same way. I can knock out 20-30 pages of line editing (mowing through the 765-page monster:my post-apoc novel Last Run). And 5k of another two or three stories for other writers.

Austin’s a great place for writers, and I’m lucky to count several as friends. There’s something really cool to see a published author in their new-book-release glow. Wanna. Just… wanna. ArmadilloCon is less than two weeks away!

Miscellaneous Blog Post Day

Keeping Things Updated

I was chatting with a cover artist today and after giving him my web site URL he asked me how my novel “Last Run” was coming along, since it showed I was 22% complete. Hmmm… old news. So I updated that page to reflect some of the kreative kaos underkway.

So the novel page got a rewrite. I’m meeting with a photographer Monday for an author head shot (may her camera not shatter). About a cover (for Last Run) I’ve already tipped my hand. That’s also going to need help from a marketer and editor, because I just don’t have the cycles for all of that myself. So, this web site, formatting and all, will likely change radically in the next couple of months, making it more focused on writing and easier to update and maintain.

Last Thoughts on the 2018 WLT A&E Conference

The 2018 Writers League of Texas Agents & Editors Conference was very helpful. More this year than last but more because I’m more aware of all that I don’t know instead of last year’s version of feeling smart. So yeah, worth going if you’ve never gone. Helpful, but also showing me how much more organized I need to do, and how much have have yet to do while still looking for an appropriate Daye Jobbe (as the late author Jay Lake would put it). Trello’s good at organizing things, but the real problem—and not just for me—is load paralysis. Too much to do? Play solitaire! Y’all know that one? Yeah, me too.

…But I’ve got…my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder and Guilder to frame for it; I’m swamped

So, to summarize: I’m writing one novel while editing three others, marketing a fourth to agents and a firth for Indie publishing (well, one of the three under edit, but hey, numbers!). Oh, and I’ve still got four more ArmadilloCon manuscripts to go over before the end of the month. (All hail that fair venue!)

Writing Velocity

Today (Saturday) was a 4,000-word day, and that brings me to 4,2500 words written in my last ten calendar days (including this past Thursday with no writing done). Years ago I thought 1,500 wpd was a good chunk. The Shmuley Myers books were written on an average daily cadence of 2,500 words. Zepps is cruising along at 3.65k per day and I kick myself for goofing off for a couple of those days. A pair of 7ks and a few 5+s in the mix, there.

Sure, for anyone who’s done a NaNoWriMo novel challenge, there’s no quality like massive quantity. Fellow Austin writers might remember my little video clip from the early 2000s, humble-bragging. Daughter the Elder, lying face down on her bed, was typing blind to finish her 50,000-word “novel.” (Hint: her fingers were off for five thousand of those words. We’ve sent the results to the NSA for decryption and haven’t heard back yet.) 7/17/18 Update: DtE avers that she was really blind typing. She. Scares. Me.

At these speeds there are chunks I’ve had to simply tear out because they were crap, or took the plot off a cliff. For example, over 11,000 words from the second Shmuley Myers book, An Uncertain Allegiance, because I turned an explosion into a runaway, Skyscraper meets Armageddon meets Mothra kind of even. Fun to write, and I’ve got it tucked away, but horrible. Aside from blowing up the plot it created over a dozen characters two thirds the way into the book, and… well, let’s never speak of it again.

But they’re replaced with better ones. And it’s better to get the words out, then edit, and maybe remove, and then later maybe use somewhere else, than not to write them at all. Plotters might disagree, and say that if the plot’s sufficiently laid out in detail, then wild writing sprees aren’t necessary or good. But I submit that a plotter would get perhaps more and better WPD than even I. After all, we pantsers tend to make it up as we go along, more or less.

Thoughts, anyone?

Amid, Among, Between, Betwixt

H/t to Ashwin Mudigonda for non-commercial use

Just signed up for the 2018 Agents & Editors Conference here in Austin. Last minute. Second year going. Wasn’t going to, but after working on a single query letter for the better part of the day, I might as well see if I can’t catch an agent’s eye. Researching each participating agent and editor took a few hours, but that’ll come in handy as I stalk the Wild Agent at the conference. I’m also gonna do a toss-at-the-buzzer pitch of my larger novel, Last Run, to one or two victims agents that might have an appetite for it. Of course, that means cleaning that puppy up too, before June’s end.

This interrupted writing madly a piece to submit for the ArmadilloCon Writers’ Workshop. I think this is my last year that I’ll submit. I’ve gotten quite a lot out of it but the panel sessions were where I got the most bang for my conference buck. And hopefully I can assist next year.

All this while getting the first “Angels” book cleaned up enough to send to agents. Meeting tonight with one of my writing groups for dinner and last revisions before last cleanup. And find a title. It’d be great if I had something to call it aside from a word unrelated to the story.

Book two in the series is done, at least in first draft. And #3 is already starting to come into focus in my head, so I’m getting character journeys and the larger arc or three sketched out.

And all the above is while my fascination with a paying, full-time day job increases. Doing an application right can take an hour or two for each one.

Life. Gotta love it.

Flipping the Page

I wanted Angels to be finished, or at least topped off, by January 1. I missed that deadline, but my real next deadline is getting back to my editor with changes to Infection, which is a whole other genre and animal. Then Last Run needs a thorough editing, and Induction, for re-release with Infection. I’ve got a couple of shorts that I want to write, and one titled Five Thousand Words that I’m rewriting after the Austin Public Library workshop. And shopping stories. And getting things together to find an agent.

I’m also going to try and emulate Marshall Ryan Maresca‘s amazing blog posting schedule. Once I have a good sense of the kind of content I want to put out.

Wow. Okay. I guess there’s plenty of work to do… Happy 2018! I hope.

“Last Run” Topped Out

By Leif Ørnelund – Oslo Museum: image no. OB.Ø59/2680 (Byhistorisk samling), via oslobilder.no., CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23247983

When a building’s top floor is in place, especially for tall buiildings, they’re “topped out.” Usually a tree, sometimes a flag.

Authors should have something analogous for a novel. Even if we’re not trying to appease the tree gods.

Sunday I pitched two projects to an agent at the Writers League of Texas Agents & Editors conference. A win for me, at my first pitching, would be “sure, I’d like to see the first ten pages and a query letter via email.” The agent with whom I chatted wanted to hear about two of my projects: my current novel, Last Run, a post-apocalyptic tale, and my Induction series, a “hot” SF set of novels. She wanted the first three chapters and a synopsis of the first, and then maybe the second. Yoiks.

Yesterday I “topped out” the novel, tearing up at the last scene. Last Run currently stands at around 173k words, and the sweet spot for novels in that category is closer to 85k words.

So… behold the mighty editor’s pen, out and primed in red.