Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Confession Is Good for the Soul

Or so they say. And I'm feeling confessional today.

The closer I get to the end of my book, the harder it's becoming to write. That's not because I don't know where the story is going. Au contraire, I know exactly what has to happen between now and the end. And perhaps because I'm very much a pantser when it comes to writing, my certainty is getting in my way. It's just not as much fun to write when I know precisely where I'm going, in the same way it wouldn't be as much fun to read if I knew exactly how the story would turn out. (Hmmm, I think I've just had a revelation as to why I'm more of a pantser than a plotter!)

It's just as likely, however, that I'm a little afraid to finish. Paradoxical as that sounds, since I want to finish this book if for no other reason than to prove that I can, I suspect there's an element of truth here.

Because, first of all, finishing means saying good-bye to my characters in some fundamental sense. Yes, Patrick and Rosalind will likely make appearances in other stories in the future, but once they reach their "happily ever after", their story is over. And there's something just a little sad about that, especially after spending the last nine months in their company trying to get them to their "happily ever after."

More than that, though, I think I'm a little afraid to finish because it means it's time to start doing the work to actually get Patrick and Rosalind published and out in the world. It means revisions. (I know some writers prefer revising to writing, but I am not one of them. In a perfect world, my first draft would be my last. Obviously, the world will never be perfect...) And it means writing the dreaded query letter.

I know it's the idea of writing a synopsis that makes many writers shiver in their boots, but for me, it's the query letter that represents my greatest single fear in life. (I should mention here that I have absolutely no fear of speaking in public. I can get up in front of a room full of a thousand people and feel as comfortable as I would if we were sitting down for a chat in my kitchen over a cup of coffee. Assuming I'm prepared, of course. Don't ask me to do it off-the-cuff when I'm not expecting it. But I digress.)

Query letters scare me because so much rides on them. How can I distill my characters and story into a single page that's snappy and witty enough to convince an agent or editor that it's worth requesting my partial (or better yet, a full)? I mean, let's be honest here: even if I manage to cut 100+ pages out of my manuscript during revision, it takes me 400 pages to tell the story. And you want me to get that down to ONE page? Oy vey!

I'll admit that a great attraction of the contest route in my mind is the potential to get my partial read by an editor and, from that, to get a request for a full. All without having to write the dreaded query letter.

You can see that this terrifies me. More, in fact, than the lump I found in my left breast last week.

Ah, yes, I told you I was in a confessional mood.

I discovered this lump because it was quite painful--it hurt when I was toweling off after my shower on Thanksgiving morning. I kept quiet about it and didn't panic for several reasons, not the least of which was that I knew there wasn't a blessed thing I could do about it on Thanksgiving Day.

The lump has already shrunk quite a bit and it's not nearly as painful any more. I saw my doctor yesterday who reassuringly confirmed my suspicions that it was very unlikely to be cancerous for all the reasons I'd already come up with, those being:
  1. It hurt, and cancer usually doesn't hurt until it's very advanced.
  2. The lump coincided with my period.
  3. I'm at an age when breast cancer is extremely rare unless there's a genetic factor, and
  4. There is zero history of breast cancer among any of my female relatives (which sort of goes with #3).
He's pretty certain it's a benign cyst and I tend to agree. I'm still going for a diagnostic mammogram (tomorrow) and an ultrasound (Friday) to verify that it is a cyst, but I'm pretty certain everything will turn out just fine.

Still, the thought of it has been sapping a fair amount of my emotional and intellectual energy over the past several days, which could be another reason I haven't been able to power through to "The End."

There are also three other reasons. Yesterday, I said I'd been on the Interruption Express all day, not least because of these three reasons:

7 comments:

lacey kaye said...

OMG so cute!

I have to jump in here and wonder aloud (does writing count as aloud?) why you, who seems to be innately related to me, would rather go the meek contest route than the in-person route? If you're prepared (by having a pitch ready and knowing your book inside and out--the NEW version, LOL) and you know your audience (an agent or editor), then why wouldn't it be easier to get your requests that way? Atlanta's coming up, baby! And yes, I'm allowed to count 8 months from now as coming up. Less time than it takes to make a baby, I say.

So by then you should be able to get the major requests out of the way and feel confident enough that your story can garner interest to write a query letter. And you CAN write one! But it seems to me that at first, at least, you don't have to.

Just try not to interrupt too many private editor/author appointments...

/Lacey runs blushing

Jackie Barbosa said...

Thanks for the well-wishes, Leigh. I'm sure everything will be just fine. (Not looking forward to tomorrow's mashogram, but that's a separate issue!)

And my kids ARE pretty dang cute, if I do say so myself! Which is probably why I put up with the Interruption Express.

So, Lacey, on the subject of query letters vs. contests vs. in-person: I was rolling around in my mind Lynne's comment on my Monday post and thinking I would REALLY like to apply for and get PRO status before National. Which I THINK means I will have to write at least one query letter (even if it sucks and fails miserably, LOL).

But I also think I might not be quiet as innately outgoing as you are. Yes, I can stand in front of huge groups of people and speak on a prepared topic, but I'm a little more precarious in one-on-one or one-on-small-group, allow-me-to-introduce-myself-and-sell-myself situations. Which is why I plan to follow you around in Dallas and say the rough equivalent of "Me too!" frequently *g.

lacey kaye said...

Ack! Did I call it Atlanta? I'm a moron.

And yes re: writing a query letter to go PRO--buuut, isn't the point of going PRO that you submitted and were rejected? LOL. So it doesn't matter how horrible your letter is :-) Although it's going to be wonderful. You have a great story and no lack of talent telling it!

Jackie Barbosa said...

I love your confidence in me, Lacey. And it's very sweet of you to say I have no lack of talent in telling my story. What I do seem to lack, however, is BREVITY. Which is precisely why the notion of a one-page query letter reduces me to a quivering mass of jelly *g!

Jackie Barbosa said...

Hi Jody! The masher wasn't too bad, actually.

I really should have been Mashed at least twice in the past two years since annual mammograms are supposed to commence at 40. But I was still breastfeeding until, ahem, the beginning of this year and they refused to do one until I'd been stopped for 6 months. And then I kinda forgot about it...

/Sigh

Anyway, tomorrow's the ultrasound and with luck, that'll be all she wrote. On that topic. (There's still a few thousand more words of my book to write!)

Pam Skochinski said...

Yep -- your interruption express is a dang cute "train" !

Hope all goes well -- heck, buy the shoes and ice cream anyway, you deserve it!

Anonymous said...

Yeah, what all of them said. Very cute interruption express, good luck on the masher, and just close your eyes and type out the ending. Stop thinking about revisions, and start thinking about what fun book you will start working on after the revisions. It can be your treat for getting the query out.

Alice