Of contests, that is.
The final results of the Portland Golden Rose and the first round results of the CTRWA's CONNections are due "in the first week of November". November, as I'm sure you've all noticed, starts tomorrow. However, since November starts in the middle of a week, I'm not entirely certain I should expect to hear anything from either of these contests until next week, since it's the first full week in November. And not knowing when to expect the announcements is driving me insane.
I'd like to say that this obsession is the reason I've only managed to write three pages in the last two days, but alas, it would be a fib. The truth is that I'm stuck in a scene. The irony of that is I knew this scene was coming a long time ago and I've had portions of it visualized for what seems like ages. But once I actually sat down to write, I realized the stakes were much higher for the heroine than I'd originally imagined but for an entirely different reason. This means a lot of what I thought would happen no longer works in the story, but I haven't quite been able to figure out what will work.
Usually, when I back myself into corners like this, my characters show me the way out. This time, it hasn't happened, possibly because my heroine is as uncertain as I am how to proceed (she usually knows, but this time, darn her, she's not helping!).
So, what do you do when you write yourself into a corner? Any clever tricks for getting out, aside from just ditching the scene entirely and replacing it with something else? That might work in this situation, but I'm rather fond of the way this scene ups the tension and conflict, even if I can't quite see how to resolve it.
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9 comments:
Oh, Jacqueline, I know how you feel. :-) I hate waiting for contest results! Although we know the final placements for the IGO, we still don't have any info on editorial feedback or requests. Unfortunately, I have no particular words of wisdom on how to get through the agony of waiting -- I seem to be just as impatient and cranky about it as I ever was!
When I write myself into a corner, I do one or more of the following:
a) Switch to another project and come back when I'm not so close to the problem.
b) Write first person "diaries" of that entire day for each of the key characters. Most of this material never gets used, but it can help me better understand the characters.
c) Skip to a later scene and see if writing it helps clear up what needs to happen earlier.
Good luck!
Hey, Lynne. I hope you hear about editor requests soon. I suppose that's even MORE frustrating than waiting for final results, actually. I doubt I'll do better than fourth in the GR (that's where I placed in the first round, so placing anywhere above third would be a major victory, LOL), so I don't have great expectations, but I just want to be able to stop wondering about it!
I'm really more curious about the Connecticut contest. Since that one has Tessa Woodward at Avon as the final round judge, I want to know whether or not I final and I want to know now. I think the version of the manuscript I submitted to that contest is even better than the one I submitted to the GR, so IF it can get in front of an editor, I think it might have a realistic shot at a request.
I like your suggestions about how to get out of a corner. Unfortunately, I'm really bad at writing ahead. I'm SO linear and when I DO write ahead, I almost always wind up throwing out most, if not all, of what I wrote. And I would switch to another project if I hadn't promised myself I would finish this manuscript before tackling anything else.
That leaves me with your first person diary suggestion, which I might try. Often, when I write into a corner (or can't get my characters to take a scene where I want it to go), I find a POV switch to be useful. In this case, I don't want to switch POVs, though, but maybe if I wrote a first person account of the scene from the hero's POV, I could see where it should go in the heroine's.
Thanks for the idea!
Lynne's suggestions are great. I know I tried to get out of your corner by writing a little diary for Rosalind. The problem is me and Rosalind are ENTIRELY different people! The stakes she sees in this scene are completely not the stakes I would have picked out. And I respect that--it's what makes her so respectable--but if I caught that hussy on MY man, I'd be hard-pressed not to maime her. Er, that sounds violent. But you know what I mean!
It might be worth trying, though. Or you COULD write a scene or a snyopsis or whatever for LL. OR you could start working on your query letter for LIS! Back book blurb! All things you'll need pretty soon :-) I give you permission!
LOL, Lacey, you crack me up. Rosalind does want to commit violence and, as you know, it's the fact that she wants to have a hissy fit but CAN'T that makes the scene so hard for me to write. I can't let her go where, naturally, she SHOULD go!
Write a query letter for LIS, though? You're right, it would be a good thing to do. But, ack, I fear the query letter more than the synopsis (which is, of course, actually written)! I just keep hoping I get a request for a full from an editor from one of my contests followed by a contract and thereby get to bypass the query letter altogether :->. Yeah, I know, it'll never happen, but a girl can dream, right?
I think I'm going to be able to finish it today, though. I hope. Because I really want to finish this book so I can start on my NaNoWriMo project (and coincidentally enough, there's actually a talk show on my local public radio station about NaNo right now!).
Hey, Typing Slave, that's what blogs are for: complaining! So I've already finished that step.
Hmmm, are the 7 Stages of Writer's Block? The first one would be complaining. Second would be brainstorming. Third would be--what--throwing the computer across the room?
Third would be eating chocolate. ;-)
Actually, I think the second should be eating chocolate, especially the day after Halloween!
Amen, typing slave.
In a perfect world, nothing would ever involve cleaning house :->. Or at least not before reading blogs, answering email, and otherwise fannying about on the Internet.
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