Anticipating Your Reader’s World

Once thing I’ve really realized in this revision of the novel is that some of the best writing anticipates how people view the world. By that, I mean, when you come into a room, often it’s the smells and the sounds that you register first. Then you see the big picture as a whole. Then you focus in on movement or on what you’re looking for or what you’re most interested in, often the people in the room.

Since this is the way that people sense the world, then that’s how best to structure a paragraph, I’ve discovered. One of the errors I was constantly making in my last version of this novel was to jump around on this order and sometimes repeating myself.

The closer you can get to mirroring the way people see the world, the less they’re aware of your story as being a construct, and the more seamlessly and insidiously ~ MWA HA ~ you can reel them in.

Questions of the Day: Any recent epiphanies on how to structure a paragraph?

Well, Hello There

It’s been a long and productive 5 months! Hello again. I’ve been in my novel writing cave, head down, ignoring the web almost completely. I think I could have tried to keep up on blogging, Facebook, Twitter, and everything, but then I wouldn’t have complete 162,000 words in 5 months! Two novels worth!

So here’s what I’ve been up to.

If you remember, my agent Stephanie was looking forward to a rewrite of the first novel manuscript I had first written a number of years ago, so that’s what I was working on. I kept the plot but changed the style and voice of it significantly ~ much more lush and ornate and interior and more true to the time (1885). Because it was so lush, the 100K turned into 162K, even though I cut out a significant subplot and condensed the time frame. I thought the pace was good, so we’re splitting it into two books. Can you imagine? I wrote two novels in five months! I can’t believe it myself. Now we’ll have to see if they’re any good. I’m almost completely done with both. The first is done done, and I just need to finish the final reading on the second and do the final edits.  Then we'll see what Stephanie thinks and on to the next step in the process.  Yay!

It’s such a different experience to read through a novel from writing it. There’s a lot of time and thinking that goes on between scenes when writing, but it goes so fast when reading it. Something that felt like there was a long time in between during the writing feels side by side in the reading. Also, there’s a magical third element in the reading. I don’t know how to explain it exactly. Certainly you have a third magical element that is the world of the book as you’re writing, but it’s all open and changing, while in reading it it’s fixed. By third magical element, I think that I mean it comes alive on the page and in your mind. Maybe a good way to explain it is, in the writing you’re inside this messy world that’s changing, with you kind of in control, kind of like life, while in the reading you’re outside it and you are not in control, the way is fixed. You suspend disbelief. You turn off the editor, if all goes well.

Another great thing: I’ve been accepted to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference! I have been trying to go for a couple of years, and I was finally accepted this year. A great honor. And I’m excited to join my great writing friend Nina McConigley.

So, you’ll be seeing more of me hanging out in the interwebs. I’ve missed you!  (And thanks, so much, Pembroke, for tending the flame!)

Question of the Day: Have you had a good writing year so far?

Progress

This is to let you know that I'm still making great progress on the novel rewrite ~ Yay! ~ but I'm not done yet.  I estimate another month.  So I plan to start blogging again about the first of June.  And thanks so much to all of you who sent such sweet messages saying you miss my posts!

Talk to you soon!

Algonkian Writer Conferences

Hey, just a note for all you writers who have written a novel and are just starting to send out queries. Or, if you're where I was at one point ~ you've sent out a whole bunch of queries and are getting almost no response.  If you have the resources, you could sign up for an Algonkian conference.  It's not about the writing so much as understanding the market.  Feel free to email me with specific questions.

{added}

I wanted to add that Algonkian is about the writing too.  For me, the most important thing I got from the conference was that invaluable insider information, but you spend a lot of time talking about craft as well and where your book fits in the market.  It saves lots of valuable time if you consider, even before you're writing, what shape your book should take.  If you are writing a thriller, it doesn't matter how much you want to include a meandering plot with lots of literary backstory ~ if you want to be traditionally published, you had better know and stick to the conventions of your genre. 

While there, you do writing exercises and talk about craft and Michael gives personal feedback on your work.  It's great!

This is not to discount if you are writing to follow your own whims.  A very valuable undertaking.  But if you wish to publish, it's a good idea to know where you fit.

Hiatus - and News!

Well, it's time that I came clean and admit that this blog is going to have to go on hiatus for a bit.  The reason?  I'm deep in novel revisions.  I'm making great progress (about 4 pages a day), but between that, my day job, and you know five-year-old twins and a husband, I find my time a bit short.  So, let's not say goodbye ~ let's say see you later.  Maybe about a month, as at my present pace that's when I'll have a good solid draft done.  Yay!

But the news!  I have a story up, one that I'm very proud of.  It's called "How to Be a Man," and it's up at the wonderful online magazine NewWest.net.  Check it out!   I'm one of six writers who were chosen by Russell Rowland to have their work showcased.  (And the lovely Jenny Shank is the books editor. Check out her book The Ringer, just out!) Another of those chosen is my friend Shann Ray, who won last year's Bread Loaf Bakeless prize for his short story collection American Masculine (out soon).  I would also urge you to hang out at NewWest awhile.

Ciao ~ for now.

Progress

I haven’t been showing up here or on Facebook or Twitter very much because I’ve been spending every spare moment doing a major rewrite on the novel. Back on that horse!  I’m thrilled to say I’m making great progress. First I edit through yesterday’s work or from the beginning of the chapter and then I go on to write new material. I average 4 pages of new material a day. I’ve been using the desk timer, and it takes about two hours to do the pages. I’m between one-fourth and one-third of the way there. Best case scenario, I will have this draft done in a little more than two months. But, you know about those best case scenarios!

Have a fabulous, wonderful, productive weekend. I’m going to try to!

Working a Table at a Convention

The last couple of days for my day job, I've been working a table at a grad fair.  You'd think it'd be mind-numbingly boring, but, you know, it wasn't.  It was long but not boring.  I'm inherently a people-person, and now that I have a few people skills, it's great just to talk with people!

But you know the greatest thing about this experience?  I thought a lot about ways to sell my book, when the time comes.  Lots of dos and don'ts of working a table.  It's the same things people like J.A. Konrath have been saying for a long time, but sitting there really drove it home. There was a great table over to the side that had the ROTC and AFROTC, and there were at least four people manning the table (three men and a woman) at all times and they looked like they were having fun and they had giveaways and they even walked around and introduced themselves.

So here's what I was thinking:

• Try to create a party at your table.
• Have cool giveaways. I was thinking of the cool cat pen you get from Hemingway's house in Key West. Also postcards of your books, book marks, any cool inexpensive toys you can think of, and so on.
• Have treats or cookies.
• Don't forget the kids - have stickers or something.
• Talk with people as much as possible!
• Have that quick pitch (one line about your book, the hook) handy, but don't necessarily lead with it.
• Have a contest where people can sign up, thereby collecting their names for your email list.  Or at least have a place for people to sign up.
• Have other calls to action.  Make sure your web address is on all handouts.
• Be positioned near the door to the right - where people will naturally go first and have the most energy.  If you can't be to the right, be to the left.
• Have lots of flair and stuff on your table.
• If you can swing t-shirts as giveaways, do it!
• Have your books there to sell.
• Have a cool artfully designed short story as a giveaway.
• Talk to the organization who's putting the event on for ideas.
• Have something that people can take to fill out and mail in to get their email addresses or a handsigned book.
• Stand.  If not in front of your booth, behind it.  Look approachable.  Do not hide behind a laptop or a book.  And don't bring a friend that will distract you. You're supposed to be talking to new people, not shutting everyone out by talking to your friend.  It's okay if there's a bunch of people and a party too.
• Take time to mingle yourself, if you can.
• It'd be cool to have a whole coordinated ad campaign with promo items and everything organized ahead of time. 
• A banner that hangs over the front of your table is nice too.
• See if you can schedule a reading or some other event at your table.

These were just a few of the thoughts that were running through my mind as I stood there and smiled and saw what other people were doing.