After making my public announcement last week that I would no longer be submitting any entries to the FanLit contest, I spent last night tossing and turning, unable to sleep because an idea for a Round Five chapter had wormed its way into my consciousness and refused to leave me alone. Even though I knew I didn't want to go down that road again, I was mightily tempted. I even started writing the darn thing.
Now, before you castigate me too much for my momentary lapse, you should know that over the weekend, I managed to churn out eight pages of Living in Sin. I had a brainstorm last week for a way to replace some internal dialogue in the fifth chapter that really amounted to a long, boring section of "telling" with a couple of scenes that would "show" the same information. And I'm quite pleased with the result. It needs a bit of spit and polish, of course, but it's much better than what I had before and I'm so glad I did it. The only problem with it is that it's so good, the scene that comes right before it now suffers by comparison because it was written months ago and isn't as "snappy" in terms of showing the characters' emotions as the new one!
This is probably why you should write a throwaway novel (or, perhaps better yet, FanLit entries) first to develop your craft and then write the story you really care about. The trouble I have in revising these scenes that I wrote when my craft was in its infancy is that I'm so close to them, I can't see what's wrong with them unless someone hits me over the head. But when I do see what's wrong, I can't always find a way to fix it without throwing off the pace and flow of the entire scene. I should probably just start again from scratch when this happens, but that feels a bit like throwing out the baby with the bathwater. After all, it's not like there's nothing in these older scenes worth saving. And so I end up with a scene that's serviceable, but shows signs of having been patched up one too many times.
Since I was actually able to write something other than a FanLit entry, you might be wondering why I flirted with writing another one anyway. Well, first Avon guidelines for this week's chapter were tough. The requirements demanded the writers fill a plot hole that the voters had steadfastly ignored when choosing the winning entry for four weeks in a row. Entries that had tried to fill it in past rounds were steadfastly shot down in flames. Everyone on the forums complained that the premise had killed their muses. So, when I came up with an idea that seemed rather clever and unique, the desire to show it off was pretty darned strong. Especially with the knowledge that others were finding it difficult and that likely meant there would be far fewer entries this round than last.
Yes, deep down, I'd still like to win a FanLit round. Not for the prizes and not for the fishbowl head, but because I want the publishing credit. Even if it's just a single chapter in a silly e-book novella about nothing. That's all I really care about.
But despite the urge, I managed to be the master of my own domain. I just didn't do it.
I can't claim it was solely a matter of willpower, though. If it had been a normal work day and I'd been at home in front of the computer all day, I suspect I'd have succumbed. As it was, I had to go into the office and teach a class all day, which meant I had less than an hour and half in which to pump out my ~1,500 words and post them to the site. I probably could have done if I'd put my mind to it.
But I didn't. And I'm proud of that.
Monday, October 16, 2006
Friday, October 13, 2006
Getting the Monkey Off My Back (or Why FanLit is Hard to Quit)
That's right, boys and girls, another round of FanLit has come and gone. I am pleased to say my entry, The Best Little Whorehouse in London, did not win.
Yes, you heard me right. I'm glad I didn't win. Recent events have convinced me that wearing the fishbowl head is not all fun and games. It can be an out and out pain in the neck. And while it would have been nice to have a teeny-tiny publishing credit as a result of a win, I'm not sure it's worth all the hassles that go along with it!
Here's the thing: I set out very deliberately to get at least one entry into the top 20 this round. I wanted to know whether I could "write to the market" that I saw developing in FanLit. That "market", as I understood it, wanted fun and witty with a good hook at the end. So that's what I tried to write, mainly as an exercise to prove to myself that I could do it if I set my mind to it.
As it turned out, I proved it to myself twice over. Not only did the aforementioned entry finish in the top 10 (its final ranking was 6th), but my other entry (written and submitted first), And Snydley Makes Three, wound up 12th. So all in all, it's safe to say I nailed my goals in this round and there's really no reason to keep playing, especially since I need to work on Living in Sin! (Anyone who posts comments may feel free to flog me over my neglect of my manuscript. A little public humiliation would probably do me good.)
But deciding it's time to bow out has made me examine my addiction to FanLit with a more analytical eye. It took me four weeks to figure out why it's so seductive. Because it's certainly not that it forces you to write compelling stories with strong character development and solid goals, motivations, and conflicts! And it's not that it forces you to put in peculiar elements dictated by the panel such as a feather or a pot of chocolate. And it's certainly not that we all produce our very best work when we are constrained by characters and a story premise created by someone else. Or that we have only 72 hours in which to craft our small miracles. So what, exactly, is it?
My epiphany came when I finished writing And Snydley Makes Three on Saturday and sent it to Lacey and Darcy, hoping for validation of my feeling that it was the best thing I'd written for the contest thus far. I think I even titled the e-mail, Quick, before I succumb to temptation and post it!
As it turned out, I couldn't even wait an hour for them to get back to me. Okay, maybe it was two hours before I gave in, but when I hadn't heard from them for what seemed like forever to me, I did give into the temptation and posted it. And immediately hopped over to the My FanLit area of the site to watch my scores roll in.
For those of you who haven't been sucked into the FanLit universe (and if you're reading my blog, it seems highly unlikely), My FanLit shows you all the entries you've submitted in the current round and their "last rating" on a scale of 0 to 5, as well as all the entries you've read and rated with the score you gave and the last score they received. And based on the forum posts I've read, most of us spend an inordinate amount of time in the My FanLit area, periodically clicking the refresh button to see if our scores have changed. And then hopping over the forum to moan that our poor little darling has just received a low score (a 0.5 or a 0 or, worst of all, the dreaded "--", which we have been told is a 0 but somehow looks even worse than a 0) with no comment from the voter explaining what s/he didn't like about our masterpieces.
I'm sure there are some people who submit a chapter to FanLit who are actually able to submit it and then pay no attention whatever to its scores. They just let their entries fend for themselves and find out how they did first when the finalists are announced and then, if they didn't finish in the top ten, on Friday when the final rankings of all the entries in the round are announced. I'm just not sure who they are or whether they are actually human.
And the fact that so few people are able to ignore how their entries are doing is part and parcel of the reason FanLit is so compelling. It's because you get virtually instantaneous feedback. The problem with being a writer is that you do so much of your work in a vacuum. Even if you have critique partners, you can write something and not have any idea for a very long time whether it "works" as well as you thought it did or not. In addition, critique partners don't constitute a particularly wide audience. I have an unusually high number of critique partners, but that's still less than ten people who read my work and provide me with feedback on a regular basis. When you compare that to the hundreds of people who are voting on FanLit entries, you can see why it's hard not become obsessed with watching those scores.
And even if the voter doesn't leave a comment for you, the score you get tells you something. Maybe most of the really lowball scores are coming from people who are trying to help their own entry (or a friend's) by giving exceptionally poor scores to everyone else. But maybe it's also just that some voters give their scores based on their gut level reaction to your story. It might be well-written, but for whatever reason, perhaps they just didn't enjoy reading it. And a low score without a comment is no less valid as feedback than a high score with no comment, yet everyone seems to like those!
In the end, I suppose all writers have an obsessive-compulsive need to find an audience and, more, to gain approval from that audience. In the "real" world, of course, there are agents and editors to accept or reject us, but that generally takes a long time. If we are lucky enough to be accepted by an editor and have our manuscript published, then we have the audience of book buyers to accept or reject us. That generally takes even longer. Worse, once you get to the stage of being a published author, it's hard to judge your audience's approval by book sales unless you're one of the lucky few to reach bestseller status. And that takes even longer than getting published in the first place.
FanLit is so successful because it offers a shortcut to audience and approval (or rejection, though of course none of us wants rejection). Instead of the weeks or months it might take for an agent or editor to get to your query or partial and respond to you, you discover within minutes of clicking the Submit button whether your audience likes you or not. You read the comments on your entry and find out what some of your readers liked or didn't like about your story. And you keep finding out, score after score, comment after comment, hour after hour, what your audience thinks. For writers (even published authors, some of whom have participated or continue to participate in the contest), this is almost as irresistible as the urge to breathe.
But I've decided it's time for me to resist the urge. Not because it hasn't been fun and not even because it's been a colossal waste of time (okay, I admit sitting on the My FanLit page and hitting refresh every few minutes was a colossal waste of time, but writing my entries was not as I definitely learned from doing them), but because I want to have to suffer with the longer route to audience approval. And FanLit has been distracting me from that goal.
Yes, you heard me right. I'm glad I didn't win. Recent events have convinced me that wearing the fishbowl head is not all fun and games. It can be an out and out pain in the neck. And while it would have been nice to have a teeny-tiny publishing credit as a result of a win, I'm not sure it's worth all the hassles that go along with it!
Here's the thing: I set out very deliberately to get at least one entry into the top 20 this round. I wanted to know whether I could "write to the market" that I saw developing in FanLit. That "market", as I understood it, wanted fun and witty with a good hook at the end. So that's what I tried to write, mainly as an exercise to prove to myself that I could do it if I set my mind to it.
As it turned out, I proved it to myself twice over. Not only did the aforementioned entry finish in the top 10 (its final ranking was 6th), but my other entry (written and submitted first), And Snydley Makes Three, wound up 12th. So all in all, it's safe to say I nailed my goals in this round and there's really no reason to keep playing, especially since I need to work on Living in Sin! (Anyone who posts comments may feel free to flog me over my neglect of my manuscript. A little public humiliation would probably do me good.)
But deciding it's time to bow out has made me examine my addiction to FanLit with a more analytical eye. It took me four weeks to figure out why it's so seductive. Because it's certainly not that it forces you to write compelling stories with strong character development and solid goals, motivations, and conflicts! And it's not that it forces you to put in peculiar elements dictated by the panel such as a feather or a pot of chocolate. And it's certainly not that we all produce our very best work when we are constrained by characters and a story premise created by someone else. Or that we have only 72 hours in which to craft our small miracles. So what, exactly, is it?
My epiphany came when I finished writing And Snydley Makes Three on Saturday and sent it to Lacey and Darcy, hoping for validation of my feeling that it was the best thing I'd written for the contest thus far. I think I even titled the e-mail, Quick, before I succumb to temptation and post it!
As it turned out, I couldn't even wait an hour for them to get back to me. Okay, maybe it was two hours before I gave in, but when I hadn't heard from them for what seemed like forever to me, I did give into the temptation and posted it. And immediately hopped over to the My FanLit area of the site to watch my scores roll in.
For those of you who haven't been sucked into the FanLit universe (and if you're reading my blog, it seems highly unlikely), My FanLit shows you all the entries you've submitted in the current round and their "last rating" on a scale of 0 to 5, as well as all the entries you've read and rated with the score you gave and the last score they received. And based on the forum posts I've read, most of us spend an inordinate amount of time in the My FanLit area, periodically clicking the refresh button to see if our scores have changed. And then hopping over the forum to moan that our poor little darling has just received a low score (a 0.5 or a 0 or, worst of all, the dreaded "--", which we have been told is a 0 but somehow looks even worse than a 0) with no comment from the voter explaining what s/he didn't like about our masterpieces.
I'm sure there are some people who submit a chapter to FanLit who are actually able to submit it and then pay no attention whatever to its scores. They just let their entries fend for themselves and find out how they did first when the finalists are announced and then, if they didn't finish in the top ten, on Friday when the final rankings of all the entries in the round are announced. I'm just not sure who they are or whether they are actually human.
And the fact that so few people are able to ignore how their entries are doing is part and parcel of the reason FanLit is so compelling. It's because you get virtually instantaneous feedback. The problem with being a writer is that you do so much of your work in a vacuum. Even if you have critique partners, you can write something and not have any idea for a very long time whether it "works" as well as you thought it did or not. In addition, critique partners don't constitute a particularly wide audience. I have an unusually high number of critique partners, but that's still less than ten people who read my work and provide me with feedback on a regular basis. When you compare that to the hundreds of people who are voting on FanLit entries, you can see why it's hard not become obsessed with watching those scores.
And even if the voter doesn't leave a comment for you, the score you get tells you something. Maybe most of the really lowball scores are coming from people who are trying to help their own entry (or a friend's) by giving exceptionally poor scores to everyone else. But maybe it's also just that some voters give their scores based on their gut level reaction to your story. It might be well-written, but for whatever reason, perhaps they just didn't enjoy reading it. And a low score without a comment is no less valid as feedback than a high score with no comment, yet everyone seems to like those!
In the end, I suppose all writers have an obsessive-compulsive need to find an audience and, more, to gain approval from that audience. In the "real" world, of course, there are agents and editors to accept or reject us, but that generally takes a long time. If we are lucky enough to be accepted by an editor and have our manuscript published, then we have the audience of book buyers to accept or reject us. That generally takes even longer. Worse, once you get to the stage of being a published author, it's hard to judge your audience's approval by book sales unless you're one of the lucky few to reach bestseller status. And that takes even longer than getting published in the first place.
FanLit is so successful because it offers a shortcut to audience and approval (or rejection, though of course none of us wants rejection). Instead of the weeks or months it might take for an agent or editor to get to your query or partial and respond to you, you discover within minutes of clicking the Submit button whether your audience likes you or not. You read the comments on your entry and find out what some of your readers liked or didn't like about your story. And you keep finding out, score after score, comment after comment, hour after hour, what your audience thinks. For writers (even published authors, some of whom have participated or continue to participate in the contest), this is almost as irresistible as the urge to breathe.
But I've decided it's time for me to resist the urge. Not because it hasn't been fun and not even because it's been a colossal waste of time (okay, I admit sitting on the My FanLit page and hitting refresh every few minutes was a colossal waste of time, but writing my entries was not as I definitely learned from doing them), but because I want to have to suffer with the longer route to audience approval. And FanLit has been distracting me from that goal.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
The Kind of Story Writers Love to Tell
So, here I sit alone in my hotel room, a Samuel Adams draught lager on my left and a TV remote on my right. No kids to put to bed (my husband gets to do that tonight), no dinner dishes to clean up after (housekeeping gets to do that), and no one to interrupt me while I'm trying to write. Ah, this is the life!
I don't go on business trips very often. I avoided doing them for years when my kids were younger because I just couldn't stand to leave them and my husband for any length of time. And of course, when they were still nursing (and I nursed all of mine well past the recommended one year), it wasn't really practical for me to leave.
But now, business trips (as long as they are only one or two nights long) are a godsend. They are a little gift to myself--peace, quiet, and nothing to do but please myself and (during the work day) the client. Believe me, I love my husband and children beyond anything, but there is something so blissful about being beholden to no one, even for just a few hours a day, that I never fully appreciated before I had a family.
Maybe at this point, you are wondering what I do for a living. I am an instructional designer. (Cue puzzled expressions.) Don't worry, no one else knows what it means, either. I always tell people it's shorthand for someone who creates corporate training materials. Then they usually nod and say "oh" in a tone that clearly indicates they wonder why I don't call myself a corporate training writer.
And I guess the answer I'd give is that there really is a design element and process to writing training materials. It's so much more than just knowing what your students need to know, but about knowing in what order they need to know it and then, once you figure that out, building documentation and demonstrations and activities that use only what they've learned up to this point and nothing more. Do anything out of order and it's a bit like trying to put the roof on the house before you've framed the walls--it all falls down around your ears. In addition, a good instructional designer writes course materials that can be delivered by many different instructors in essentially the same way. The course has to be repeatable in a way that's consistent and doesn't depend on who happens to be the teacher on any given day. That makes doing instructional design well a real challenge. And I love a challenge!
The company I work for provides data processing software to credit unions. I'd link to the company's website because I'd love to promote it, but I'm a little hinky about sharing my secret aspirations as a romance novelist with most of my coworkers, and I'm thinking the link might get tracked backward at some point. Still, it's a great place to work or I wouldn't still be there after more than 12 years. (It doesn't hurt that they let me telecommute despite the fact that I live 20 minutes from the office!)
As an instructional designer, I rarely travel or see clients. Mostly, I sit at my computer and research how the software works and then design training to teach people how to use it. But every once in a while, a client wants training on an aspect of the software in which I'm either the acknowledged expert or I'm the only available instructor. And when that happens, I'm generally willing to do it as long as it's not more than a couple of nights. Any more than that is just too hard on my family.
Okay, it's 9:40 and my beer's almost gone, so it's about time to wrap this up. The real reason I started this post was to share a story my husband told me about our seven-year-old daughter when I called earlier this evening. Now, the first thing you have to understand is that our daughter is very literal-minded. Ever read an Amelia Bedelia book? If you have, then you will understand me perfectly when I say my daughter is Amelia Bedelia. She is so much Amelia Bedelia that she usually doesn't get the joke in Amelia Bedelia stories.
For example, one morning, when she was about four, she came downstairs very early, one of her Kelly dolls in each hand. My husband said, "My, you're up with the chickens." She looked from one hand to the other then at him and said solemnly, "No, I'm up with my dolls." God, I love that story!
Today, she went to a Brownie meeting after school. As one of their projects this year, they are making a pair of knitting needles from soft wood. One of the leader moms is going to teach them to knit and they are each going to knit a square which we'll assemble into a blanket and give to a charity at the end of the year. So, this mom sharpened all the needles between the last meeting and this one and gave them to the girls, but the wood was still quite rough.
When my daughter arrived home with her knitting needles, she immediately took them out in the back yard and began covering them with dirt. My mother, who babysat this afternoon, saw her and was extremely puzzled.
"What are you doing?" my mother asked.
To which my daughter promptly responded, "I'm sanding them." Which was, of course, exactly what the leader had told her she should do.
I don't go on business trips very often. I avoided doing them for years when my kids were younger because I just couldn't stand to leave them and my husband for any length of time. And of course, when they were still nursing (and I nursed all of mine well past the recommended one year), it wasn't really practical for me to leave.
But now, business trips (as long as they are only one or two nights long) are a godsend. They are a little gift to myself--peace, quiet, and nothing to do but please myself and (during the work day) the client. Believe me, I love my husband and children beyond anything, but there is something so blissful about being beholden to no one, even for just a few hours a day, that I never fully appreciated before I had a family.
Maybe at this point, you are wondering what I do for a living. I am an instructional designer. (Cue puzzled expressions.) Don't worry, no one else knows what it means, either. I always tell people it's shorthand for someone who creates corporate training materials. Then they usually nod and say "oh" in a tone that clearly indicates they wonder why I don't call myself a corporate training writer.
And I guess the answer I'd give is that there really is a design element and process to writing training materials. It's so much more than just knowing what your students need to know, but about knowing in what order they need to know it and then, once you figure that out, building documentation and demonstrations and activities that use only what they've learned up to this point and nothing more. Do anything out of order and it's a bit like trying to put the roof on the house before you've framed the walls--it all falls down around your ears. In addition, a good instructional designer writes course materials that can be delivered by many different instructors in essentially the same way. The course has to be repeatable in a way that's consistent and doesn't depend on who happens to be the teacher on any given day. That makes doing instructional design well a real challenge. And I love a challenge!
The company I work for provides data processing software to credit unions. I'd link to the company's website because I'd love to promote it, but I'm a little hinky about sharing my secret aspirations as a romance novelist with most of my coworkers, and I'm thinking the link might get tracked backward at some point. Still, it's a great place to work or I wouldn't still be there after more than 12 years. (It doesn't hurt that they let me telecommute despite the fact that I live 20 minutes from the office!)
As an instructional designer, I rarely travel or see clients. Mostly, I sit at my computer and research how the software works and then design training to teach people how to use it. But every once in a while, a client wants training on an aspect of the software in which I'm either the acknowledged expert or I'm the only available instructor. And when that happens, I'm generally willing to do it as long as it's not more than a couple of nights. Any more than that is just too hard on my family.
Okay, it's 9:40 and my beer's almost gone, so it's about time to wrap this up. The real reason I started this post was to share a story my husband told me about our seven-year-old daughter when I called earlier this evening. Now, the first thing you have to understand is that our daughter is very literal-minded. Ever read an Amelia Bedelia book? If you have, then you will understand me perfectly when I say my daughter is Amelia Bedelia. She is so much Amelia Bedelia that she usually doesn't get the joke in Amelia Bedelia stories.
For example, one morning, when she was about four, she came downstairs very early, one of her Kelly dolls in each hand. My husband said, "My, you're up with the chickens." She looked from one hand to the other then at him and said solemnly, "No, I'm up with my dolls." God, I love that story!
Today, she went to a Brownie meeting after school. As one of their projects this year, they are making a pair of knitting needles from soft wood. One of the leader moms is going to teach them to knit and they are each going to knit a square which we'll assemble into a blanket and give to a charity at the end of the year. So, this mom sharpened all the needles between the last meeting and this one and gave them to the girls, but the wood was still quite rough.
When my daughter arrived home with her knitting needles, she immediately took them out in the back yard and began covering them with dirt. My mother, who babysat this afternoon, saw her and was extremely puzzled.
"What are you doing?" my mother asked.
To which my daughter promptly responded, "I'm sanding them." Which was, of course, exactly what the leader had told her she should do.
And Now for a Really Fast Post
I am in my hotel in Burbank. I am supposed to be at the client site to set up for my class in three minutes. But I am taking this very brief opportunity to tell you that...yes...I finaled in FanLit this week. All I really wanted was to crack the top 20, but I've done cracked the top 10. Unbelievable!
Maybe now I can quit this damn thing! It would be really good if I could.
Maybe now I can quit this damn thing! It would be really good if I could.
When Real Life Intervenes
This is going to be a short post! I should have written it last night, but real life intervened.
First, did you know it is no longer possible to fly non-stop from San Diego to Burbank? I have to go to a client site today (I work for a credit union data processing software company) and, as you've probably guessed, it's in Burbank. I wanted to fly. I can think of few things that are as great a waste of time as driving several hours. I'd rather spend the same amount of time in airports and on planes. At least in airports and on planes, I can commune with my laptop and get something useful done!
When I first found out about this client visit, I figured I'd fly to Burbank. It would give me a great opportunity to get some work done on my manuscript. But then I started looking for flights and discovered that to get to Burbank on a plane, I have to fly to Las Vegas first. What the heck?
So now I have to drive. Yahoo Maps optimistically estimates it will take me 2 hours and 14 minutes to get from my house to the client site. Um, on what planet? Obviously, Yahoo has never actually driven in Los Angeles. The last time I drove to a client site in LA, it took me more than four hours and it was closer the Burbank. The traffic was terrible.
Wish me luck. I hate driving in LA!
First, did you know it is no longer possible to fly non-stop from San Diego to Burbank? I have to go to a client site today (I work for a credit union data processing software company) and, as you've probably guessed, it's in Burbank. I wanted to fly. I can think of few things that are as great a waste of time as driving several hours. I'd rather spend the same amount of time in airports and on planes. At least in airports and on planes, I can commune with my laptop and get something useful done!
When I first found out about this client visit, I figured I'd fly to Burbank. It would give me a great opportunity to get some work done on my manuscript. But then I started looking for flights and discovered that to get to Burbank on a plane, I have to fly to Las Vegas first. What the heck?
So now I have to drive. Yahoo Maps optimistically estimates it will take me 2 hours and 14 minutes to get from my house to the client site. Um, on what planet? Obviously, Yahoo has never actually driven in Los Angeles. The last time I drove to a client site in LA, it took me more than four hours and it was closer the Burbank. The traffic was terrible.
Wish me luck. I hate driving in LA!
Monday, October 09, 2006
I Can Give Up FanLit Any Time I Want--NOT!
Okay, I confess. You've dragged it out of me. After getting down on my bad self and swearing I wasn't going to write anything for FanLit that wasn't a parody because I clearly suck at it, I submitted not one, but two serious entries this week.
All right, maybe "serious" isn't quite the right word. Serious and this FanLit contest do not seem to go together. The entries that have made it to the finals have almost to a one been droll, madcap pieces positively dripping with witticism and foolery. And I don't mean that as a criticism. It's hard to write that kind of stuff, which is why I've struggled with it.
Still, I decided in an e-mail exchange with Lacey and Darcy and a separate chain with another of my critique partner's, Leigh, that it was worth my time to keep trying. Finaling in FanLit appears to be very much a crapshoot and I'm convinced that some of the very best entries were overlooked due to the vagaries of the voting system. That said, there does seem to be a general tendency for the cream to rise, and even if the finalists haven't always included my absolute favorite entries, they've all been good. It didn't hurt my decision that I came up with one pretty darned good idea on Friday night which I was able to write and submit on Saturday, leaving me with Sunday to come up with yet another pretty darned good idea to write and submit today.
I'll admit it: I want to crack the top 20. Little birds have told me that Avon editors have been paying attention to submissions that get into the top 20. I'd prefer to be a finalist (hell, let's be honest, I'd prefer to bloody well win!), but a little notice from an Avon editor--especially when I've got a manuscript in a competition that has an Avon editor as the final round judge--would not go amiss. And I think maybe I have a shot with at least one of the entries I submitted this time. It's the first time I've felt that way and I haven't been wrong yet, LOL!
There's another reason I've decided to keep playing, though. I find writing these chapters to be a useful writing exercise. Of course, it's very bad in that it's been keeping me from working on Living in Sin as much as I ought, but I think it's improving my writing in subtle ways. First, I'm learning to get more information across with fewer words. Given how much I have to cut out of my manuscript to get it to come at or under 100K words, I cannot help but view this as a good thing.
The other thing it's taught me is that I can write quickly and well simultaneously. For some reason, with these FanLit scenes, I don't agonize over every sentence, every phrase. I don't worry the thousand little details that slow me down when I'm writing my manuscript. Part of this is the inevitably freeing effect of writing something where hitting the characters' goals, motivations and conflicts are less important than providing a scene that is witty, amusing, and surprising in some way. (Julia Quinn, who submitted an entry anonymously in the last round, commented on this very fact in the forum, and I have to agree. It's great to write something without worrying about what's going to come next and whether it will "fit" with the rest of the story.)
So, I'm hoping to carry some of these lessons over into my own manuscript. If I don't crack the top 20 this week, I suppose I'll be motivated to try again in Round 5 and again in Round 6. It's ultimately just too much fun not to.
All right, maybe "serious" isn't quite the right word. Serious and this FanLit contest do not seem to go together. The entries that have made it to the finals have almost to a one been droll, madcap pieces positively dripping with witticism and foolery. And I don't mean that as a criticism. It's hard to write that kind of stuff, which is why I've struggled with it.
Still, I decided in an e-mail exchange with Lacey and Darcy and a separate chain with another of my critique partner's, Leigh, that it was worth my time to keep trying. Finaling in FanLit appears to be very much a crapshoot and I'm convinced that some of the very best entries were overlooked due to the vagaries of the voting system. That said, there does seem to be a general tendency for the cream to rise, and even if the finalists haven't always included my absolute favorite entries, they've all been good. It didn't hurt my decision that I came up with one pretty darned good idea on Friday night which I was able to write and submit on Saturday, leaving me with Sunday to come up with yet another pretty darned good idea to write and submit today.
I'll admit it: I want to crack the top 20. Little birds have told me that Avon editors have been paying attention to submissions that get into the top 20. I'd prefer to be a finalist (hell, let's be honest, I'd prefer to bloody well win!), but a little notice from an Avon editor--especially when I've got a manuscript in a competition that has an Avon editor as the final round judge--would not go amiss. And I think maybe I have a shot with at least one of the entries I submitted this time. It's the first time I've felt that way and I haven't been wrong yet, LOL!
There's another reason I've decided to keep playing, though. I find writing these chapters to be a useful writing exercise. Of course, it's very bad in that it's been keeping me from working on Living in Sin as much as I ought, but I think it's improving my writing in subtle ways. First, I'm learning to get more information across with fewer words. Given how much I have to cut out of my manuscript to get it to come at or under 100K words, I cannot help but view this as a good thing.
The other thing it's taught me is that I can write quickly and well simultaneously. For some reason, with these FanLit scenes, I don't agonize over every sentence, every phrase. I don't worry the thousand little details that slow me down when I'm writing my manuscript. Part of this is the inevitably freeing effect of writing something where hitting the characters' goals, motivations and conflicts are less important than providing a scene that is witty, amusing, and surprising in some way. (Julia Quinn, who submitted an entry anonymously in the last round, commented on this very fact in the forum, and I have to agree. It's great to write something without worrying about what's going to come next and whether it will "fit" with the rest of the story.)
So, I'm hoping to carry some of these lessons over into my own manuscript. If I don't crack the top 20 this week, I suppose I'll be motivated to try again in Round 5 and again in Round 6. It's ultimately just too much fun not to.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Another Round of FanLit Completed
Well, my straight entry finished in the top 100 this time (40th, to be precise) and it seems I actually beat Lacey this time, but not Lynne's parody. I guess that's progress of a sort! At least this time, the average scores and page views seem to make sense in relation to each entry's placement in the ranks. There don't seem to be any major disparities like there were last time.
So, here are the posse's entries in this round:
31st Lynne's A Different Light
39th Sarah's A Lighter Shade of Mauve
40th My Flings and Arrows
56th Sarah's Purple is the Color of My True Love's Lies
60th Sarah's Cat's in the Cradle
94th Lacey's Double-Crossed
Darcy didn't enter this week, as she was in the throes of moving.
At this point, it seems pretty evident that trying to write an entry with a valid shot at the finals is a waste of my time and talent (which apparently is more camp and comedic than I previously imagined). I seem to do much better with my parodies and have more fun with them, so maybe I'll stick to that from now on.
So, here are the posse's entries in this round:
31st Lynne's A Different Light
39th Sarah's A Lighter Shade of Mauve
40th My Flings and Arrows
56th Sarah's Purple is the Color of My True Love's Lies
60th Sarah's Cat's in the Cradle
94th Lacey's Double-Crossed
Darcy didn't enter this week, as she was in the throes of moving.
At this point, it seems pretty evident that trying to write an entry with a valid shot at the finals is a waste of my time and talent (which apparently is more camp and comedic than I previously imagined). I seem to do much better with my parodies and have more fun with them, so maybe I'll stick to that from now on.
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Ego, Superego, and the Id(iocy) of Self-Delusion
Okay, I admit it. My pride was wounded. Let's just get that admission right out on the table. And it's at least part of the reason I didn't post the results of the second round of FanLit on my blog when they came out on Friday as I originally promised.
Most of you who read my blog probably also read Lacey's and/or are involved in FanLit one way or another, so you already know that her entry, Sweet Deception, won the second round. That's right, she won!!!! And, honestly, I'm couldn't be more pleased.
Well, okay, I'd be even more pleased if I'd won. And I'd still love to win. First, though, I've got to figure out how to write an entry that's not a parody that people actually like. Alas, thus far, I don't seem to have that skill nailed down. I can apparently write parodies that people find hilarious and heap praise upon, but my straight entries leave something to be desired.
As mentioned below, my entry in Round 2 was a very silly piece of fluff called The Fairy Tale Fractures. But much to my surprise, it got a lot of "buzz" on the forum. The winner of the first round, Sherry (aka Yorkie Lover), even left a comment saying she thought it would be fun to follow. It appeared on quite a few people's favorites lists. And while I knew such a ridiculous entry would never actually be allowed to win, I had momentary dreams of grandeur. I visualized finishing in the top 20, if not the top 10.
So I'm sure you can imagine how dumbfounded I was when the results came out and my much-acclaimed entry came out in 282nd place. Um, people, there were only 299 entries! How in the world did my wonderful if ridiculous little story, which had three pages of mostly complimentary comments, wind up in 282nd place? It was mind-boggling. Unbelievable.
When the site hiccuped shortly after the winner was announced and no one could access the results for entries that finished out of the top 100, I had a brief moment of hope that the results were actually wrong and I'd at least finished in the second 100. But no, the final results came back and showed that The Fairy Tale Fractures had indeed finished 282nd.
(Have I written 282nd enough now for you to realize how catastrophically damaging to my ego this was?)
I was not the only person who was bamboozled by this result. Lynne Simpson did a little bit of digging in the HTML code and discovered that my entry's raw average and page views should have been sufficient to place it easily within the top 20, if not the top 10. Well, that made me feel a tad better. The voters didn't actually hate it; there was some other explanation for its bottom-of-the-barrel finish.
Questions were posted to the forum, asking whether someone could have deliberately sabotaged my entry and several others that seemed to have peculiar final rankings. The FanLit people responded with assurances that averages and page views aren't the only thing that goes into the final rankings and that there are "top secret" weighting factors that also play into the equation.
In the end, I came up with my own theory for why my entry finished so astonishingly low, and it soothes my wounded pride a bit. I've also no intention of sharing it here as it probably stinks of conspiracy theorism and vanity. Not to mention I wouldn't want the powers that be in the FanLit universe accusing me of accusing them of unfair play. Which I'm not! It just might sound that way.
So here are the final finishing positions of the entries (not including Lacey's winner and my loser) submitted by the members of our little posse, to which I'd like to welcome Sarah as our newest member.
15th Place Lynne's The Amateur Adventuress
22nd Place Lacey's The Comedy In Question
27th Place Erica's Once a Hellion, Always a Hellion
32nd Place Sarah's Suffragette City
38th Place Sarah's Very Nearly Picture Perfect
44th Place Darcy's The Morning After
52nd Place Sarah's Cat Scratch Fever
74th Place Lynne's The Wayfaring Wife
102nd Place Erica's Surprises in the Shadows
118th Place Darcy's The Absent Husband
In this latest round, I decided to do only one, completely straight entry. As mentioned, I apparently haven't got the knack of writing successful straight entries, however, and I'm sure it has no chance whatsoever of finaling, let alone winning. Given that, I may go back to parodies in the next round. It seems to be what I'm good at. And I already have an idea...
Most of you who read my blog probably also read Lacey's and/or are involved in FanLit one way or another, so you already know that her entry, Sweet Deception, won the second round. That's right, she won!!!! And, honestly, I'm couldn't be more pleased.
Well, okay, I'd be even more pleased if I'd won. And I'd still love to win. First, though, I've got to figure out how to write an entry that's not a parody that people actually like. Alas, thus far, I don't seem to have that skill nailed down. I can apparently write parodies that people find hilarious and heap praise upon, but my straight entries leave something to be desired.
As mentioned below, my entry in Round 2 was a very silly piece of fluff called The Fairy Tale Fractures. But much to my surprise, it got a lot of "buzz" on the forum. The winner of the first round, Sherry (aka Yorkie Lover), even left a comment saying she thought it would be fun to follow. It appeared on quite a few people's favorites lists. And while I knew such a ridiculous entry would never actually be allowed to win, I had momentary dreams of grandeur. I visualized finishing in the top 20, if not the top 10.
So I'm sure you can imagine how dumbfounded I was when the results came out and my much-acclaimed entry came out in 282nd place. Um, people, there were only 299 entries! How in the world did my wonderful if ridiculous little story, which had three pages of mostly complimentary comments, wind up in 282nd place? It was mind-boggling. Unbelievable.
When the site hiccuped shortly after the winner was announced and no one could access the results for entries that finished out of the top 100, I had a brief moment of hope that the results were actually wrong and I'd at least finished in the second 100. But no, the final results came back and showed that The Fairy Tale Fractures had indeed finished 282nd.
(Have I written 282nd enough now for you to realize how catastrophically damaging to my ego this was?)
I was not the only person who was bamboozled by this result. Lynne Simpson did a little bit of digging in the HTML code and discovered that my entry's raw average and page views should have been sufficient to place it easily within the top 20, if not the top 10. Well, that made me feel a tad better. The voters didn't actually hate it; there was some other explanation for its bottom-of-the-barrel finish.
Questions were posted to the forum, asking whether someone could have deliberately sabotaged my entry and several others that seemed to have peculiar final rankings. The FanLit people responded with assurances that averages and page views aren't the only thing that goes into the final rankings and that there are "top secret" weighting factors that also play into the equation.
In the end, I came up with my own theory for why my entry finished so astonishingly low, and it soothes my wounded pride a bit. I've also no intention of sharing it here as it probably stinks of conspiracy theorism and vanity. Not to mention I wouldn't want the powers that be in the FanLit universe accusing me of accusing them of unfair play. Which I'm not! It just might sound that way.
So here are the final finishing positions of the entries (not including Lacey's winner and my loser) submitted by the members of our little posse, to which I'd like to welcome Sarah as our newest member.
15th Place Lynne's The Amateur Adventuress
22nd Place Lacey's The Comedy In Question
27th Place Erica's Once a Hellion, Always a Hellion
32nd Place Sarah's Suffragette City
38th Place Sarah's Very Nearly Picture Perfect
44th Place Darcy's The Morning After
52nd Place Sarah's Cat Scratch Fever
74th Place Lynne's The Wayfaring Wife
102nd Place Erica's Surprises in the Shadows
118th Place Darcy's The Absent Husband
In this latest round, I decided to do only one, completely straight entry. As mentioned, I apparently haven't got the knack of writing successful straight entries, however, and I'm sure it has no chance whatsoever of finaling, let alone winning. Given that, I may go back to parodies in the next round. It seems to be what I'm good at. And I already have an idea...
Thursday, September 28, 2006
It Oughtta Be Called FanLITE!
More than one poster on the Avon FanLit forum has remarked upon its addictive qualities. When submissions and voting are in full swing, dust bunnies grow dust bunnies, refrigerators and cupboards grow bare, and we all forget to eat. It wasn't until dinner on Monday that I realized I hadn't consumed anything but one cup of coffee and one cup of tea. I've lost three pounds this week, and I'm not even on a diet!
So, this week in FanLit, I submitted one very silly entry oh-so-wittily entitled The Fairy Tale Fractures. It started out as an X-Files parody, but then wound up going in a rather different, more Shrek-like direction. In the end, it was neither fish nor fowl--not really a parody and not really a straight entry, either, but a little of both. However, as you can probably guess by the title and the Shrek/X-Files angles, it definitely headed into paranormal territory and therefore had zero chance of getting into the final round.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when several people (including the winner of the last round) commented in the forum that my entry was in their top ten lists. I was flattered beyond words. (Okay, I'm a writer. I was not flattered beyond words. But darned close!)
When the final ten were announced yesterday afternoon, mine was not among them. No surprise. Really, we are supposed to be writing a Regency novella, not a paranormal parody. I know people enjoyed my entry and I'm satisfied with that. As with A Regency Enterprise, even I wouldn't want to write the next chapter based on the one I submitted this time. So I'm completely cool with it.
But guess who did make the final ten? Our very own Lacey Kaye! She refused to state which entry is hers in her blog, so I guess I'm supposed to be hush-hush about it so as not to sway the voting, but I will say that it contains both a lot of purple and a lot of cats. As of this morning, her entry had also received a Player's Pick from the winner of the last round and Author's Picks from Cathy Maxwell and Victoria Alexander. Does Lacey rock, or what?
There were also great entries in the last round from the rest of the "gang". Lynne Simpson had both a straight entry and a time-travel parody entry which shall forever after be known as "The Viagra Entry". The straight entry was good, but the Viagra one was hilarious. Unfortunately, I read the parody first, which sort of spoiled the real one for me, LOL.
Darcy submitted two entries, the second of which she didn't even have time to write a "real" promo for. In an ironic twist, I think her hurried promo which read "Out of time - just read it! A duel, some witty repartee, it's kind of cute. I'm out of time!" was actually more appealing and intriguing than most of the ones people sweated over (including mine). I expect that one to finish in the top 30 if not the top 20.
Tomorrow afternoon, we'll know where all our entries finished and I'll post to links to all of them. In the meantime, cross your fingers for Lacey's entry, Sweet Deception. (Oh, shoot, I just gave it away!) I want to write purple cats in the next round!
So, this week in FanLit, I submitted one very silly entry oh-so-wittily entitled The Fairy Tale Fractures. It started out as an X-Files parody, but then wound up going in a rather different, more Shrek-like direction. In the end, it was neither fish nor fowl--not really a parody and not really a straight entry, either, but a little of both. However, as you can probably guess by the title and the Shrek/X-Files angles, it definitely headed into paranormal territory and therefore had zero chance of getting into the final round.
Imagine my surprise, therefore, when several people (including the winner of the last round) commented in the forum that my entry was in their top ten lists. I was flattered beyond words. (Okay, I'm a writer. I was not flattered beyond words. But darned close!)
When the final ten were announced yesterday afternoon, mine was not among them. No surprise. Really, we are supposed to be writing a Regency novella, not a paranormal parody. I know people enjoyed my entry and I'm satisfied with that. As with A Regency Enterprise, even I wouldn't want to write the next chapter based on the one I submitted this time. So I'm completely cool with it.
But guess who did make the final ten? Our very own Lacey Kaye! She refused to state which entry is hers in her blog, so I guess I'm supposed to be hush-hush about it so as not to sway the voting, but I will say that it contains both a lot of purple and a lot of cats. As of this morning, her entry had also received a Player's Pick from the winner of the last round and Author's Picks from Cathy Maxwell and Victoria Alexander. Does Lacey rock, or what?
There were also great entries in the last round from the rest of the "gang". Lynne Simpson had both a straight entry and a time-travel parody entry which shall forever after be known as "The Viagra Entry". The straight entry was good, but the Viagra one was hilarious. Unfortunately, I read the parody first, which sort of spoiled the real one for me, LOL.
Darcy submitted two entries, the second of which she didn't even have time to write a "real" promo for. In an ironic twist, I think her hurried promo which read "Out of time - just read it! A duel, some witty repartee, it's kind of cute. I'm out of time!" was actually more appealing and intriguing than most of the ones people sweated over (including mine). I expect that one to finish in the top 30 if not the top 20.
Tomorrow afternoon, we'll know where all our entries finished and I'll post to links to all of them. In the meantime, cross your fingers for Lacey's entry, Sweet Deception. (Oh, shoot, I just gave it away!) I want to write purple cats in the next round!
Friday, September 22, 2006
Quick, Get Me a Paper Bag! I'm Hyperventilating!
Well, this has been a red-letter week for li'l ole me! Which is a good thing because when Hilary Sares knocks me down a peg or two in early November, I'll still have this little high moment to remember and savor.
A little over an hour ago, I received a couple of e-mails from a fellow FanLitter, Sarah Kirbo. Sarah, you are naughty because you provide me no way to link people to you! Update thy profile with a blog or somethin', says I!
I can, however, link to one of her FanLit entries, Bloody Rose, which finished a very respectable 28th. Better than my parody, come to think of it.
/me scowls
So, it seems Sarah e-mailed Teresa Medeiros, Avon author and self-identified Trekkie, and suggested she read my Star Trek parody. It seems there was "buzz" earlier in the week that Teresa herself might have been the author. At any rate, Teresa did read it and Sarah forwarded me her two e-mails praising my entry to prove it (I won't reproduce them here on the chance Teresa wouldn't want me to). Just suffice it to say she said words to the effect of "I wish I had written it," and I had another squee moment as a result.
I sent a nice e-mail to Teresa thanking her for reading my entry and being so kind about it, of course. But the really funny part of this is that when I saw the first few 5.0s come in on A Regency Enterprise, I had momentary delusions of grandeur in which I envisioned it finishing in the top ten just so Teresa could read it. Because I knew she is a Trekkie and I was pretty sure she'd think it was, at the very least, amusing. I never dreamed my entry would be (however incorrectly) attributed to her or that she'd enjoy it as much as she seemed to.
I am in awe.
And oh, how I wish we had more than 69+ hours left in which to craft the next chapter. Because I have a pretty good parody idea, but I just don't know how I'm going to find the time to write it!
A little over an hour ago, I received a couple of e-mails from a fellow FanLitter, Sarah Kirbo. Sarah, you are naughty because you provide me no way to link people to you! Update thy profile with a blog or somethin', says I!
I can, however, link to one of her FanLit entries, Bloody Rose, which finished a very respectable 28th. Better than my parody, come to think of it.
/me scowls
So, it seems Sarah e-mailed Teresa Medeiros, Avon author and self-identified Trekkie, and suggested she read my Star Trek parody. It seems there was "buzz" earlier in the week that Teresa herself might have been the author. At any rate, Teresa did read it and Sarah forwarded me her two e-mails praising my entry to prove it (I won't reproduce them here on the chance Teresa wouldn't want me to). Just suffice it to say she said words to the effect of "I wish I had written it," and I had another squee moment as a result.
I sent a nice e-mail to Teresa thanking her for reading my entry and being so kind about it, of course. But the really funny part of this is that when I saw the first few 5.0s come in on A Regency Enterprise, I had momentary delusions of grandeur in which I envisioned it finishing in the top ten just so Teresa could read it. Because I knew she is a Trekkie and I was pretty sure she'd think it was, at the very least, amusing. I never dreamed my entry would be (however incorrectly) attributed to her or that she'd enjoy it as much as she seemed to.
I am in awe.
And oh, how I wish we had more than 69+ hours left in which to craft the next chapter. Because I have a pretty good parody idea, but I just don't know how I'm going to find the time to write it!
My Friends Kick My Butt in FanLit!
Well, I may be a finalist in a contest with sixteen entries in my category, but my friends who submitted entries to the Avon FanLit contest whupped my proverbial hiney when the field was a whopping 513 entries. My parody did frighteningly well, finishing in the top 10%, but I'm sure that's only because it had a ton of reads because the promo was really clear and people needed a break from the standard entries! So I don't think its ranking strictly "counts" because it didn't follow the category premise and therefore would never have been selected as a finalist anyway, even if it had scored better, vote-wise.
Here's how we all finished:
13th Lynne's The Loom of Time
17th Lacey's Star-Crossed
34th My A Regency Enterprise
36th Darcy's The Lies That Bind
54th Lynne's The Loom of Time (Rewrite)
69th Lacey's The Husband Hunt
101st My Cherchez La Femme
155th Darcy's The Distance Enchanted
(And thanks to Lacey, from whose blog I stole the above--because she's faster than me, LOL--so I wouldn't have to redo the links.)
The really great news here is Lynne, Lacey, and Darcy all had legitimate entries that finished in the top 10%. That is solid, people! And I think it means I'm a pretty darned good judge of writing skill, since I loved all of their entries and thought every one of them was as good as or better than the ones that finaled (the top 10).
My very favorite entry, The Goddess of Small Things, did final but didn't win. The winning entry was The Wayward Wife, which I thought was well-written and a fun read, but which gave me zero ideas on where to go in the next chapter. Of course, part of the contest is that the panel will post a set of guidelines to tell entrants which plot points to hit in the next chapter, so maybe something will come to me once I read that. But if not, I may sit out the next round since I really, really need to get crackin' on Living In Sin.
Here's how we all finished:
13th Lynne's The Loom of Time
17th Lacey's Star-Crossed
34th My A Regency Enterprise
36th Darcy's The Lies That Bind
54th Lynne's The Loom of Time (Rewrite)
69th Lacey's The Husband Hunt
101st My Cherchez La Femme
155th Darcy's The Distance Enchanted
(And thanks to Lacey, from whose blog I stole the above--because she's faster than me, LOL--so I wouldn't have to redo the links.)
The really great news here is Lynne, Lacey, and Darcy all had legitimate entries that finished in the top 10%. That is solid, people! And I think it means I'm a pretty darned good judge of writing skill, since I loved all of their entries and thought every one of them was as good as or better than the ones that finaled (the top 10).
My very favorite entry, The Goddess of Small Things, did final but didn't win. The winning entry was The Wayward Wife, which I thought was well-written and a fun read, but which gave me zero ideas on where to go in the next chapter. Of course, part of the contest is that the panel will post a set of guidelines to tell entrants which plot points to hit in the next chapter, so maybe something will come to me once I read that. But if not, I may sit out the next round since I really, really need to get crackin' on Living In Sin.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
FanLit, SchmanLit! I Finaled in the Golden Rose!
Squeeeeeeeeeeee! (Where's an animated gif of a happy dance when you need one?)
That's right, folks, Living In Sin finaled in the single-title historical category of the Portland Golden Rose. (The entry is listed under my real name, not my pen name, which I didn't include in my submission because I was told it was moot. Wonder if I can get them to change that? Not because I'm trying to hide anything, but because it's confusing!)
The "prize" for finaling (at least as far as I'm concerned) is that my synopsis and first three chapters have a date with Hilary Sares, editor at Kensington. And to be honest, it was only because I hoped to get my manuscript in front of Hilary that I entered this contest in the first place. Of course, Hilary might hate it and knock me down several pegs, but I'm just so delighted to get the chance to be at the top of her pile!
Almost equally exciting, my critique partner Erica Ridley finaled in the Romantic Suspense category with Witness. That manuscript has the funniest opening chapter I have ever read, bar none, so I'm not at all surprised by her success. Congratulations, Erica!
So now, I really have to get cracking and finish writing this thing. The results of the final round are supposed to be announced in the first week of November, so the fire has definitely been lit under my bum to have the manuscript wrapped up by then, if only in first draft form (though calling any of my chapters a first draft, since they have all been past at least one of my critique partners already, is probably not completely fair).
The good news is that FanLit did seem to help kick something loose in my brain that allowed me to figure out how to replot the ending without writing out any of the secondary characters. It's just that instead of two sub-plots, I now really only have one. Everyone who shows up in the story with a few exceptions is somehow related to that one sub-plot so they can all tie up neatly at the end in one package.
I also came up with a new scene to add at the very beginning of the manuscript between my heroine and her brother that allows me to set up her GMC before meeting the hero. And I think that will give the first scene between the hero and the heroine a little more "pop", as well as allow me to cut some dialogue and narrative in later chapters that I currently need to explain her situation. Anything I can do at this point to cut into the backstory development in later chapters will help me get to the end.
In the meantime, I should probably let FanLit rot. Except I've made some friends there. (I've even had a few FanLitters come visit my blog in the last week and maybe they'll come back again.)
/me waves to all FanLitters (or does that sound too much like KittyLitter, LOL?)
That's right, folks, Living In Sin finaled in the single-title historical category of the Portland Golden Rose. (The entry is listed under my real name, not my pen name, which I didn't include in my submission because I was told it was moot. Wonder if I can get them to change that? Not because I'm trying to hide anything, but because it's confusing!)
The "prize" for finaling (at least as far as I'm concerned) is that my synopsis and first three chapters have a date with Hilary Sares, editor at Kensington. And to be honest, it was only because I hoped to get my manuscript in front of Hilary that I entered this contest in the first place. Of course, Hilary might hate it and knock me down several pegs, but I'm just so delighted to get the chance to be at the top of her pile!
Almost equally exciting, my critique partner Erica Ridley finaled in the Romantic Suspense category with Witness. That manuscript has the funniest opening chapter I have ever read, bar none, so I'm not at all surprised by her success. Congratulations, Erica!
So now, I really have to get cracking and finish writing this thing. The results of the final round are supposed to be announced in the first week of November, so the fire has definitely been lit under my bum to have the manuscript wrapped up by then, if only in first draft form (though calling any of my chapters a first draft, since they have all been past at least one of my critique partners already, is probably not completely fair).
The good news is that FanLit did seem to help kick something loose in my brain that allowed me to figure out how to replot the ending without writing out any of the secondary characters. It's just that instead of two sub-plots, I now really only have one. Everyone who shows up in the story with a few exceptions is somehow related to that one sub-plot so they can all tie up neatly at the end in one package.
I also came up with a new scene to add at the very beginning of the manuscript between my heroine and her brother that allows me to set up her GMC before meeting the hero. And I think that will give the first scene between the hero and the heroine a little more "pop", as well as allow me to cut some dialogue and narrative in later chapters that I currently need to explain her situation. Anything I can do at this point to cut into the backstory development in later chapters will help me get to the end.
In the meantime, I should probably let FanLit rot. Except I've made some friends there. (I've even had a few FanLitters come visit my blog in the last week and maybe they'll come back again.)
/me waves to all FanLitters (or does that sound too much like KittyLitter, LOL?)
Friday, September 15, 2006
All FanLit Up
If you are one of the few, the proud, and the brave who have not yet been swept up in the Avon FanLit hysteria, I applaud you. You are probably actually writing your real book and/or doing other forms of paying work. The rest of us, I'm sorry to say, are not being very productive at the moment, so good on you. Because we need someone to keep running the world while we're preoccupied.
I actually had no intention of submitting an entry (the category for submissions is Regency and I thought the story premise was a little ridiculous) or of voting on entries (except for those sent in by my critique partners), but alas, I am weak. About midway through the submission period, I caved. And now not only do I have two entries (more on the second entry in a second), but I am also in the top ten list of Top Players! (You are awarded "buzz points" for every entry you score, for leaving comments with your scores, and other site activity. I've no idea exactly how these points are determined, but I have earned a lot of them somehow, enough to be in the top ten.)
One of the more frustrating things about the way this whole fanlit thing is working, however, is that you really can't tell how your entry is doing. My sense is that my "straight" entry isn't doing very well--it gets ratings from 0 (the lowest) to 5 and everything in between, but more on the lower side than the higher, it seems. I've generally only gotten comments from folks who liked it reasonably well, however, so I don't know exactly what the majority of people who give it 0's through 1.5's are thinking.
A good average score at the moment appears to be anything over 3.0, but you only see an entry's average immediately after you score it yourself and these averages apparently don't take into account all of the things that will determine an entry's final ranking (like how many times a chapter's promo was skipped), so that average likely doesn't mean all that much anyway.
But the primary reason I have gotten caught up in this FanLit thing is that it is fascinating to watch from a psychological point of view. The period for submitting and preliminary voting for the first chapter is quite long (it began at the end of last week and doesn't complete until early next week), and for the last few days, things have gotten more than a tad cranky. People are getting sick of seeing the same characters (Damien, Earl of Coulter and the mysterious Countess Fraser) and scene (the Duchess of Alderman's ball) over and over again. There are complaints in the forums about "unfair" voting and general nailbiting/hairpulling over the whole thing.
Early in the rounds, there was a simply hilarious entry called A Time to Rake. It was a send-up of Snakes on a Plane featuring Lord Samuel L. Jackson and it had me absolutely in stitches. But some people were really put out by it, taking it as a mean-spirited satire of Regency romance. Suffice it to say that some of those comments made me think we were all starting to take this thing just a tiny bit too seriously.
So I came up with my own spoof entry. I thought everyone was in need of a little comic relief, so I selected something I was sure would not be taken seriously but would simply give people a needed break from the same old, same old. And now that Lynne Simpson has thoroughly outed me on her blog, I will state with pride and for the record that the entry entitled A Regency Enterprise is mine. As you might have guessed from the title, it is a Star Trek parody. Unfortunately, entering it in the contest makes it the property of Avon, so I can't post it here, but I can tell you that McCoy gets to say, "Damn it, Spock, I'm a doctor not a ballroom dancer." (And that line still cracks me up, a full day after I wrote it.)
Okay, so I put that sucker out there yesterday morning after having composed it in all of thirty minutes and within minutes, the darn thing was pulling in ratings of 5.0 and getting comments like this:
So the final irony is that I am pretty sure A Regency Enterprise will wind up with a better average score than my real entry. Which serves me right, really. But honestly, I have gotten way more "bang for my buck" out of the spoof entry than out of the real one because I have obviously given so many people the pleasure of a hearty laugh. And what could be better than that, really? The idea of winning the contest actually pales by comparison.
I have no idea if I'll be able to sustain my wit into the next round, but I am now considering entering some sort of parody entry each time because it really has been so much fun. I've already been asked by some of my friends if I will please do one with Next Generation characters, and since that show is actually my favorite of all the Star Trek series, I may just do. And perhaps I can think of some other TV shows, movies, or books to parody along the way. There are six rounds, after all, and I think Star Trek may lose its amusement value pretty quickly if I stick only to that.
So if anyone has any suggestions for me, I'm all ears.
I actually had no intention of submitting an entry (the category for submissions is Regency and I thought the story premise was a little ridiculous) or of voting on entries (except for those sent in by my critique partners), but alas, I am weak. About midway through the submission period, I caved. And now not only do I have two entries (more on the second entry in a second), but I am also in the top ten list of Top Players! (You are awarded "buzz points" for every entry you score, for leaving comments with your scores, and other site activity. I've no idea exactly how these points are determined, but I have earned a lot of them somehow, enough to be in the top ten.)
One of the more frustrating things about the way this whole fanlit thing is working, however, is that you really can't tell how your entry is doing. My sense is that my "straight" entry isn't doing very well--it gets ratings from 0 (the lowest) to 5 and everything in between, but more on the lower side than the higher, it seems. I've generally only gotten comments from folks who liked it reasonably well, however, so I don't know exactly what the majority of people who give it 0's through 1.5's are thinking.
A good average score at the moment appears to be anything over 3.0, but you only see an entry's average immediately after you score it yourself and these averages apparently don't take into account all of the things that will determine an entry's final ranking (like how many times a chapter's promo was skipped), so that average likely doesn't mean all that much anyway.
But the primary reason I have gotten caught up in this FanLit thing is that it is fascinating to watch from a psychological point of view. The period for submitting and preliminary voting for the first chapter is quite long (it began at the end of last week and doesn't complete until early next week), and for the last few days, things have gotten more than a tad cranky. People are getting sick of seeing the same characters (Damien, Earl of Coulter and the mysterious Countess Fraser) and scene (the Duchess of Alderman's ball) over and over again. There are complaints in the forums about "unfair" voting and general nailbiting/hairpulling over the whole thing.
Early in the rounds, there was a simply hilarious entry called A Time to Rake. It was a send-up of Snakes on a Plane featuring Lord Samuel L. Jackson and it had me absolutely in stitches. But some people were really put out by it, taking it as a mean-spirited satire of Regency romance. Suffice it to say that some of those comments made me think we were all starting to take this thing just a tiny bit too seriously.
So I came up with my own spoof entry. I thought everyone was in need of a little comic relief, so I selected something I was sure would not be taken seriously but would simply give people a needed break from the same old, same old. And now that Lynne Simpson has thoroughly outed me on her blog, I will state with pride and for the record that the entry entitled A Regency Enterprise is mine. As you might have guessed from the title, it is a Star Trek parody. Unfortunately, entering it in the contest makes it the property of Avon, so I can't post it here, but I can tell you that McCoy gets to say, "Damn it, Spock, I'm a doctor not a ballroom dancer." (And that line still cracks me up, a full day after I wrote it.)
Okay, so I put that sucker out there yesterday morning after having composed it in all of thirty minutes and within minutes, the darn thing was pulling in ratings of 5.0 and getting comments like this:
And my all-time favorite:"You need a "beverage alert" in your blurb. My monitor just got baptized in Diet Coke. ;-) Loved your story! LOVED it." -- This was from Lynne
"Cap'n, I canna take any more mirth! My sides hurt too much from laughing at all the dilithium-um, delirium! Thanks for the laugh - and this was very well written, besides."
"Brilliant! Refreshing. It so engaged me that I forgot to look for picky errors. Alas, I believe Regency purists will be shocked, but I adored it. Great imagination! You got guts, spunk and true wit. Live long and prosper!"
Fantastic! Every word sheer genius. You definitely deserve some kind of prize: give this author a tribble!I have also gotten a few comments that make me think some people believe I actually entered this with the serious intention of having it win. Mais non! It was all just for comic relief, I swear. I figured it would make people laugh and provide a little break from the tedium. I never in my wildest dreams imagined it would get high scores. I figured people would score it a 0 or a 1 or something, even if they got a kick out of it. A few of the comments seem a bit irritated because it's not a Regency, but really--it's a joke. Even I wouldn't want to have to work with this as the beginning chapter for the next round, peeps, and I wrote it!
So the final irony is that I am pretty sure A Regency Enterprise will wind up with a better average score than my real entry. Which serves me right, really. But honestly, I have gotten way more "bang for my buck" out of the spoof entry than out of the real one because I have obviously given so many people the pleasure of a hearty laugh. And what could be better than that, really? The idea of winning the contest actually pales by comparison.
I have no idea if I'll be able to sustain my wit into the next round, but I am now considering entering some sort of parody entry each time because it really has been so much fun. I've already been asked by some of my friends if I will please do one with Next Generation characters, and since that show is actually my favorite of all the Star Trek series, I may just do. And perhaps I can think of some other TV shows, movies, or books to parody along the way. There are six rounds, after all, and I think Star Trek may lose its amusement value pretty quickly if I stick only to that.
So if anyone has any suggestions for me, I'm all ears.
Friday, September 08, 2006
To Replot or Not To Replot: That Is Not the Question
I came to the painful realization earlier this week that if I stuck to my original plot line for Living in Sin, I was going to wind up with something approaching a 160,000 word monster. Yeah, I'm that far, plot-wise, from tying up all my loose ends. I have known for a long time that I have a lot going on in my story; I was just in denial that it was too much.
Alas, I am not Diana Gabaldon and therefore, I am not allowed to write 800-page epics.
So I've finally admitted to myself that it's time to take a hatchet to the sub-plots. And surprisingly, I'm not finding the process nearly as painful as I expected. In fact, if anything, it's almost as much fun to replot as to plot. Which is a good thing, I suppose, since it's entirely possible I'll find I have to replot this story yet again.
The fun thing about hatcheting subplots has been that the ones I've decided (with a little plotstorming help from my critique partner, Lacey Kaye) can go are exactly the opposite of the ones I thought would have to go. To my surprise, I've discovered some elements of the story that I always thought were absolutely essential can be dispensed with, while other elements I thought were more tangential, can remain. And the reason this is great is that I'm actually fonder of the elements I thought were tangential than I am of the ones I thought I really needed.
Since Lacey and I finished our plotstorming e-mail thread a few days ago, I've had a few more flashes of insight that will alter the storyline a bit more, but I'm excited about the changes. I believe it's a much better story with the changes than it would have been if I'd stuck with the original plot. A bit more character-driven, but still with plenty of sub-plot intrigue!
The not-fun part of hatcheting sub-plots is rewriting all the scenes you've written with the old plot in mind. Even though the replotted story can retain many of the original elements, there are still a few scenes that have to be altered or removed. Smooothing everything into the new plotline without missing anything is a tough business. Which must be why I haven't touched my manuscript for three days. (Although a couple of crush work projects and the head cold from hell have no doubt contributed to my complete lack of productivity!)
One of the reasons I'm resisting actually cutting into the manuscript or writing forward, however, is that I'm torn over whether or not to remove one of the secondary characters. I hate to cut her out because her point-of-view is so much fun (so much that I decided to make her the heroine of my next story!) and I think she serves some valuable purposes beyond the role I originally conceived for her under the old plot, but I'm not sure she can stay if she doesn't have a meaningful effect on the resolution of the externally-driven black moment.
So, I'm stymied until I either figure out how to keep her in the story or decide she has to go. Because if she doesn't go, she has to have a part in the story from this point forward. And if she goes, then she can't be in any future scenes to say nothing of those in the past. How can I write anything new until I know?
Alas, I am not Diana Gabaldon and therefore, I am not allowed to write 800-page epics.
So I've finally admitted to myself that it's time to take a hatchet to the sub-plots. And surprisingly, I'm not finding the process nearly as painful as I expected. In fact, if anything, it's almost as much fun to replot as to plot. Which is a good thing, I suppose, since it's entirely possible I'll find I have to replot this story yet again.
The fun thing about hatcheting subplots has been that the ones I've decided (with a little plotstorming help from my critique partner, Lacey Kaye) can go are exactly the opposite of the ones I thought would have to go. To my surprise, I've discovered some elements of the story that I always thought were absolutely essential can be dispensed with, while other elements I thought were more tangential, can remain. And the reason this is great is that I'm actually fonder of the elements I thought were tangential than I am of the ones I thought I really needed.
Since Lacey and I finished our plotstorming e-mail thread a few days ago, I've had a few more flashes of insight that will alter the storyline a bit more, but I'm excited about the changes. I believe it's a much better story with the changes than it would have been if I'd stuck with the original plot. A bit more character-driven, but still with plenty of sub-plot intrigue!
The not-fun part of hatcheting sub-plots is rewriting all the scenes you've written with the old plot in mind. Even though the replotted story can retain many of the original elements, there are still a few scenes that have to be altered or removed. Smooothing everything into the new plotline without missing anything is a tough business. Which must be why I haven't touched my manuscript for three days. (Although a couple of crush work projects and the head cold from hell have no doubt contributed to my complete lack of productivity!)
One of the reasons I'm resisting actually cutting into the manuscript or writing forward, however, is that I'm torn over whether or not to remove one of the secondary characters. I hate to cut her out because her point-of-view is so much fun (so much that I decided to make her the heroine of my next story!) and I think she serves some valuable purposes beyond the role I originally conceived for her under the old plot, but I'm not sure she can stay if she doesn't have a meaningful effect on the resolution of the externally-driven black moment.
So, I'm stymied until I either figure out how to keep her in the story or decide she has to go. Because if she doesn't go, she has to have a part in the story from this point forward. And if she goes, then she can't be in any future scenes to say nothing of those in the past. How can I write anything new until I know?
Thursday, September 07, 2006
My Contest Scores
So, I got my score sheets from the Emerald City Opener in the mail two days ago. I still haven't been able to bring myself to look at the inline comments, partly because I'm chicken and partly because I've changed the first seven pages so much, I'll probably laugh at my own writing.
My scores averaged out to 85%, or a solid B, but one of the judges scores definitely seem out-of-whack compared to the others, as shown below:
Characterization: 3, 5, 5
Plot: 3, 5, 5
Situation: 3, 5, 4
Conflict: 2, 4, 5
Dialogue and Narrative: 3.5, 5, 5
Writing Techniques: 3.5, 4, 5
Mechanics: 5, 5, 5
Overall Appeal: 3, 4, 5
It's hard not to look at the first judge's score and suspect that she either just didn't get my story or that I drew the sourpuss judge who never gives anyone a 5. (Although I did get all 5's in Mechanics. I guess the frustrated high school English teacher in me has something to be grateful for!)
On the bright side, two of the three published authors who read my work liked it pretty darn well. And it's been improved since then. Although I'm probably going to rewrite that first scene from the ground up, anyway, to layer in a little more internal/external conflict for my heroine (which is the point I really suffered on, especially with the first judge). I'm not changing the overall mechanics of the scene, but I feel like I've revised it so many times and still haven't managed to make it really sing, it's time to scrap it and start over.
So, that's the upshot of my first contest. I'm glad I did it. In a couple of weeks, I should know about the second contest, the Golden Rose. I'll report when I hear!
My scores averaged out to 85%, or a solid B, but one of the judges scores definitely seem out-of-whack compared to the others, as shown below:
Characterization: 3, 5, 5
Plot: 3, 5, 5
Situation: 3, 5, 4
Conflict: 2, 4, 5
Dialogue and Narrative: 3.5, 5, 5
Writing Techniques: 3.5, 4, 5
Mechanics: 5, 5, 5
Overall Appeal: 3, 4, 5
It's hard not to look at the first judge's score and suspect that she either just didn't get my story or that I drew the sourpuss judge who never gives anyone a 5. (Although I did get all 5's in Mechanics. I guess the frustrated high school English teacher in me has something to be grateful for!)
On the bright side, two of the three published authors who read my work liked it pretty darn well. And it's been improved since then. Although I'm probably going to rewrite that first scene from the ground up, anyway, to layer in a little more internal/external conflict for my heroine (which is the point I really suffered on, especially with the first judge). I'm not changing the overall mechanics of the scene, but I feel like I've revised it so many times and still haven't managed to make it really sing, it's time to scrap it and start over.
So, that's the upshot of my first contest. I'm glad I did it. In a couple of weeks, I should know about the second contest, the Golden Rose. I'll report when I hear!
Writing: Hobby, Vocation, or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?
Last Sunday's sermon at church was about work, an appropriate topic for the day before Labor Day. Our minister is reminded us that we should do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, take all the vacation we're entitled to, and enjoy our lives outside of our jobs.
All of which I completely agree with.
But then he started to talk about "vocations." A vocation, he told us, can be your paying job or not, but whatever it is, you should devote yourself to it because the world needs your talents. Your vocation is the way you make the world a better place.
Now, not so long ago, I would have said that my paying job was my vocation. I like my job. Really. I'm always learning new things and I get to help other people learn new things. What I do feels useful and meaningful, albeit useful and meaningful to a very small sliver of the universe (people who happen to work for credit unions that happen to use our company's data processing software). I've always considered myself exceptionally lucky to have more or less stumbled into a job that lets me do the two things I always wanted to do: write and teach.
Obviously, however, my paying job is no longer my vocation. Or, at least, it's not capturing my interest the way it used to.
Alas, Writing Mania has possessed me. Every minute I spend not writing my book is a minute I wish I were writing my book. Every minute I spend writing or working on my book in some way (reading e-mail from my critique partners and writing-related loop and blog posts counts, right?) it is a minute I could or should be using to accomplish something of much more practical use. Like cleaning my house (its state is increasingly appalling), spending more time with my kids, spending time with friends (I do have some in real life, actually!), doing necessary household errands, etc., not to mention doing my paid job.
So, naturally, as I listened to this sermon about vocations and the value of pursuing them, I had to wonder whether I could consider writing a romance novel a vocation? Does the world really need my talents as a writer?
I'm not saying that I don't think romance novels contribute to a better world. I do. I'm sure there are people who would disagree, but I believe romance novels give readers pleasure and happiness, and it's hard to see how that can do anything but make the world a better place. Maybe the majority of them are not high literature that will be read centuries from now, but I'll bet a few will turn out to be. (Call me if you live long enough to find out which ones!)
But does the world need my romance novels? (I'm trying really hard to finish the one before I start any others, but I've got at least three more floating around in my brain.) Are mine that special?
Given the fact that so few authors ever get their manuscripts accepted for publication, odds seem pretty high that the answer is a resounding No! While I certainly hope to be published some day, the realistic side of my brain tells me that the chances of that are not great. But I keep on writing anyway.
Why?
I wish I could say that it's just a hobby and I'm doing it because I want to. That would be nice, because then it would mean I could stop whenever I want, too. Just a little hobby that I pursue in my spare time. Having a hobby is perfectly acceptable. It's something most people understand.
But as I've just admitted, I don't just pursue it in my spare time. (What is spare time, anyway? Is it like a spare tire, something I can store somewhere out of the way until I need it?) Worse, I can't just stop when I want to. I can't even stop my stories from keeping me awake at night, for heaven's sake! How could I possibly stop writing them when the characters, scenes, and words keep popping into my head and demanding to be set down on the computer screen?
It's not a hobby and it's not a vocation: it's a compulsion. And for people who don't have the compulsion, it must seem as incomprehensible as alcohol or drug addiction to someone who's never experienced it. Why, they must wonder, do writers want to sit all alone in front of a computer with their imaginary friends when there's a whole world of real people out there to experience?
Perhaps it's more understandable to people who are readers. After all, they are the ones who choose to spend their time with the imaginary people we writers create. But it's still not quite the same. Although there are some books that will simply demand I sit down and read them every chance I get, most are a bit less compelling. I enjoy reading, but I know the book will wait for me.
Writing feels very different. The story doesn't want to wait for me. It wants to get out now. Not an hour from now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.
I didn't always have this compulsion. When I was in high school, I did. But I seemed to outgrow the writing bug in my 20s, and I gave it up for a long time. What made it come back now, I have no idea. All I know is that I can't not write. Even though there are times when I think I probably should. Because the other things in my life that should be my vocation (especially my family) are getting short shrift on account of my disease.
I'd found Writeaholics Anonymous, except for one thing.
I'm not sure I want to be cured!
All of which I completely agree with.
But then he started to talk about "vocations." A vocation, he told us, can be your paying job or not, but whatever it is, you should devote yourself to it because the world needs your talents. Your vocation is the way you make the world a better place.
Now, not so long ago, I would have said that my paying job was my vocation. I like my job. Really. I'm always learning new things and I get to help other people learn new things. What I do feels useful and meaningful, albeit useful and meaningful to a very small sliver of the universe (people who happen to work for credit unions that happen to use our company's data processing software). I've always considered myself exceptionally lucky to have more or less stumbled into a job that lets me do the two things I always wanted to do: write and teach.
Obviously, however, my paying job is no longer my vocation. Or, at least, it's not capturing my interest the way it used to.
Alas, Writing Mania has possessed me. Every minute I spend not writing my book is a minute I wish I were writing my book. Every minute I spend writing or working on my book in some way (reading e-mail from my critique partners and writing-related loop and blog posts counts, right?) it is a minute I could or should be using to accomplish something of much more practical use. Like cleaning my house (its state is increasingly appalling), spending more time with my kids, spending time with friends (I do have some in real life, actually!), doing necessary household errands, etc., not to mention doing my paid job.
So, naturally, as I listened to this sermon about vocations and the value of pursuing them, I had to wonder whether I could consider writing a romance novel a vocation? Does the world really need my talents as a writer?
I'm not saying that I don't think romance novels contribute to a better world. I do. I'm sure there are people who would disagree, but I believe romance novels give readers pleasure and happiness, and it's hard to see how that can do anything but make the world a better place. Maybe the majority of them are not high literature that will be read centuries from now, but I'll bet a few will turn out to be. (Call me if you live long enough to find out which ones!)
But does the world need my romance novels? (I'm trying really hard to finish the one before I start any others, but I've got at least three more floating around in my brain.) Are mine that special?
Given the fact that so few authors ever get their manuscripts accepted for publication, odds seem pretty high that the answer is a resounding No! While I certainly hope to be published some day, the realistic side of my brain tells me that the chances of that are not great. But I keep on writing anyway.
Why?
I wish I could say that it's just a hobby and I'm doing it because I want to. That would be nice, because then it would mean I could stop whenever I want, too. Just a little hobby that I pursue in my spare time. Having a hobby is perfectly acceptable. It's something most people understand.
But as I've just admitted, I don't just pursue it in my spare time. (What is spare time, anyway? Is it like a spare tire, something I can store somewhere out of the way until I need it?) Worse, I can't just stop when I want to. I can't even stop my stories from keeping me awake at night, for heaven's sake! How could I possibly stop writing them when the characters, scenes, and words keep popping into my head and demanding to be set down on the computer screen?
It's not a hobby and it's not a vocation: it's a compulsion. And for people who don't have the compulsion, it must seem as incomprehensible as alcohol or drug addiction to someone who's never experienced it. Why, they must wonder, do writers want to sit all alone in front of a computer with their imaginary friends when there's a whole world of real people out there to experience?
Perhaps it's more understandable to people who are readers. After all, they are the ones who choose to spend their time with the imaginary people we writers create. But it's still not quite the same. Although there are some books that will simply demand I sit down and read them every chance I get, most are a bit less compelling. I enjoy reading, but I know the book will wait for me.
Writing feels very different. The story doesn't want to wait for me. It wants to get out now. Not an hour from now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now.
I didn't always have this compulsion. When I was in high school, I did. But I seemed to outgrow the writing bug in my 20s, and I gave it up for a long time. What made it come back now, I have no idea. All I know is that I can't not write. Even though there are times when I think I probably should. Because the other things in my life that should be my vocation (especially my family) are getting short shrift on account of my disease.
I'd found Writeaholics Anonymous, except for one thing.
I'm not sure I want to be cured!
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Regress Report (or Why It Is Sometimes Better to Take Away than to Add)
First things first.
Judging by the lack of a phone call yesterday, I didn't final in the Emerald City Opener contest, which I entered back in June. I didn't really expect to, of course, but naturally, I hoped!
I'm still looking forward to getting my feedback sheets in the mail sometime in early September, maybe as soon as next week. Although at this point, my first seven pages probably only distantly resemble what I submitted, I'm still extremely interested to see how my story fared relative to others that were entered. And since I have learned that your first two pages are critical for convincing an editor/agent to read further (the contest entry was seven pages), I am definitely anxious to find out what I could do better in those first 400 or so words.
Now, onto the meat and potatoes.
If you've been watching my Write-O-Meter since I added it to the blog last week (this assumes you actually check in with me every few days, which is the height of conceit on my part, LOL), you may have noticed it hasn't moved much. That's partly because, sadly, I haven't written as much during the past week as I would like. I was aiming to knock off four pages (roughly 1,000 words) per day, not including weekends (when virtually no writing gets done because everything else has to get done), but it hasn't worked out that way. It seemed like a reasonable goal (and still does) because under normal conditions, I can write 1,000 words on a daily basis without a hitch. Sometimes more. But mainly, I set myself that goal because if I achieve it, I should finish the book by the end of September, and that's been my deadline for a while now.
When I started writing this thing back in February, I got to 40,000 words in something like a month. Six weeks at the most. The thing just flew off my fingers. I thought, "I can write a 100,000 word novel in three months, easy!"
And then I got critique partners. Need I say more? The project ground to a halt.
Well, that's not completely accurate. It didn't exactly grind to a halt. But I quickly discovered lots of things that were just plain wrong with the story. Things I had to fix in order to move forward. So I began to spend at least as much time revising what I'd already written as writing new stuff. And revising it again. And yet again.
Lest you think I am complaining about my wonderful critique partners and their feedback, let me assure you, I'm not. When I think about the mistakes I made writing those first 40,000 words, I want to weep. Some of what I wrote was just plain awful! Now, I suppose I could have written straight through to the end and then solicited feedback. It's possible I could have then fixed all the things that were wrong with it afterwards. And it might have been faster. But I doubt it.
The reason I don't think it would have been faster is that once my critique partners started pointing out the flaws in my writing, I started making a conscious effort to avoid them in anything new I wrote. So, while it took me longer to write the second 40,000 words than the first 40,000, the latter were just a lot better to start with than the former. Which means they need less editing and less revision, which means it shouldn't take nearly as long to polish the second half of the book as to polish the first. So it all works out in the end.
I think.
So, anyway, I haven't been writing as quickly as I'd like, but I did manage to pump out a twenty-page chapter over the past week or so, which was pretty close to my original goal. So, given that, how come my Write-O-Meter didn't move by twenty pages?
The answer is that as I have been adding, I've been cutting. At this point, I'm assuming my final word count for the first draft will be around 110,000, or roughly 440 pages. All of my projections for completing as of September 30th are based on that count. But the truth is that I'm a little worried, based on where I am in the story and where I still have to go, that it could wind up being a 500-page monster before I'm done.
Why is 500 pages bad, you ask? Well, because the standard, single-title historical romance novel is about 375-400 pages. If you happen to read them (and since you're reading my blog, I assume you do), pick up any off your shelf and look at the page count. You'll find the majority of them are right in that ballpark.
So, bottom line, it's hard to sell a 500-page historical romance novel. Not saying you can't (Diana Gabaldon has managed to sell a half a dozen of 'em! Of course, she doesn't really get pubbed under the "romance" banner, but I just looked and The Fiery Cross--which I haven't managed to read--is 978 pages in large paperback format with fairly small type. To quote Shaggy, "Zoinks!"), just that it ain't easy. If nothing else, that sort of length limits your options for publishers.
All of which means I'm going to have to come back through this manuscript on the second pass and eliminate a LOT. Forty pages worth of a lot. Yikes! Where am I going to find forty pages of material to cut? When every plot point, every scene, every paragraph, every word is absolutely essential to my story?
Okay, I lie like a rug. It's not all essential. And part of the reason my word count didn't go up by twenty pages this past week is that I cut out five. Except I didn't really cut five full pages.
See, one of the tricks I've learned is that word count for a novel isn't determined by the actual number of words (the way MS Word would count them), but by a formula. The standard manuscript format is Courier New 12-point type with one-inch margins all around and spaced so that there are roughly 25 lines per page (which is very close to double-spacing, but not exactly). The assumption is that there are roughly ten words per line, which means 250 words per page. Therefore, when an editor/agent looks at your manuscript and tries to figure out its word count, she simply multiplies the total number of pages by 250 to arrive at the word count. And this applies even if you have a page with only one or two lines of text on it!
So you can see how important it is, if you're worried about running over a certain word count, not to pad your manuscript with pages that have very little text on them. It's shooting yourself in the foot.
Going back through my manuscript this week, I discovered five chapters that ended with two to four lines of text on a page. And it turned out to be a fairly simple exercise to go back through those chapters and eliminate a word here or there to reduce a paragraph by a line, thereby cutting the whole chapter back by a page. In some cases, I think the tweaks I made even improved the text as well as making the chapter shorter. For example, I had a paragraph that wrapped over by a single word. I noticed that I'd used the word "change" twice in two sentences. I changed the second instance to "alter", and bam, the paragraph took up one less line. Coolness!
And the bonus for this is that I now can write five new pages without increasing the page count. Which, in my case, is sweet. Because at this point, I need every extra page I can get!
Judging by the lack of a phone call yesterday, I didn't final in the Emerald City Opener contest, which I entered back in June. I didn't really expect to, of course, but naturally, I hoped!
I'm still looking forward to getting my feedback sheets in the mail sometime in early September, maybe as soon as next week. Although at this point, my first seven pages probably only distantly resemble what I submitted, I'm still extremely interested to see how my story fared relative to others that were entered. And since I have learned that your first two pages are critical for convincing an editor/agent to read further (the contest entry was seven pages), I am definitely anxious to find out what I could do better in those first 400 or so words.
Now, onto the meat and potatoes.
If you've been watching my Write-O-Meter since I added it to the blog last week (this assumes you actually check in with me every few days, which is the height of conceit on my part, LOL), you may have noticed it hasn't moved much. That's partly because, sadly, I haven't written as much during the past week as I would like. I was aiming to knock off four pages (roughly 1,000 words) per day, not including weekends (when virtually no writing gets done because everything else has to get done), but it hasn't worked out that way. It seemed like a reasonable goal (and still does) because under normal conditions, I can write 1,000 words on a daily basis without a hitch. Sometimes more. But mainly, I set myself that goal because if I achieve it, I should finish the book by the end of September, and that's been my deadline for a while now.
When I started writing this thing back in February, I got to 40,000 words in something like a month. Six weeks at the most. The thing just flew off my fingers. I thought, "I can write a 100,000 word novel in three months, easy!"
And then I got critique partners. Need I say more? The project ground to a halt.
Well, that's not completely accurate. It didn't exactly grind to a halt. But I quickly discovered lots of things that were just plain wrong with the story. Things I had to fix in order to move forward. So I began to spend at least as much time revising what I'd already written as writing new stuff. And revising it again. And yet again.
Lest you think I am complaining about my wonderful critique partners and their feedback, let me assure you, I'm not. When I think about the mistakes I made writing those first 40,000 words, I want to weep. Some of what I wrote was just plain awful! Now, I suppose I could have written straight through to the end and then solicited feedback. It's possible I could have then fixed all the things that were wrong with it afterwards. And it might have been faster. But I doubt it.
The reason I don't think it would have been faster is that once my critique partners started pointing out the flaws in my writing, I started making a conscious effort to avoid them in anything new I wrote. So, while it took me longer to write the second 40,000 words than the first 40,000, the latter were just a lot better to start with than the former. Which means they need less editing and less revision, which means it shouldn't take nearly as long to polish the second half of the book as to polish the first. So it all works out in the end.
I think.
So, anyway, I haven't been writing as quickly as I'd like, but I did manage to pump out a twenty-page chapter over the past week or so, which was pretty close to my original goal. So, given that, how come my Write-O-Meter didn't move by twenty pages?
The answer is that as I have been adding, I've been cutting. At this point, I'm assuming my final word count for the first draft will be around 110,000, or roughly 440 pages. All of my projections for completing as of September 30th are based on that count. But the truth is that I'm a little worried, based on where I am in the story and where I still have to go, that it could wind up being a 500-page monster before I'm done.
Why is 500 pages bad, you ask? Well, because the standard, single-title historical romance novel is about 375-400 pages. If you happen to read them (and since you're reading my blog, I assume you do), pick up any off your shelf and look at the page count. You'll find the majority of them are right in that ballpark.
So, bottom line, it's hard to sell a 500-page historical romance novel. Not saying you can't (Diana Gabaldon has managed to sell a half a dozen of 'em! Of course, she doesn't really get pubbed under the "romance" banner, but I just looked and The Fiery Cross--which I haven't managed to read--is 978 pages in large paperback format with fairly small type. To quote Shaggy, "Zoinks!"), just that it ain't easy. If nothing else, that sort of length limits your options for publishers.
All of which means I'm going to have to come back through this manuscript on the second pass and eliminate a LOT. Forty pages worth of a lot. Yikes! Where am I going to find forty pages of material to cut? When every plot point, every scene, every paragraph, every word is absolutely essential to my story?
Okay, I lie like a rug. It's not all essential. And part of the reason my word count didn't go up by twenty pages this past week is that I cut out five. Except I didn't really cut five full pages.
See, one of the tricks I've learned is that word count for a novel isn't determined by the actual number of words (the way MS Word would count them), but by a formula. The standard manuscript format is Courier New 12-point type with one-inch margins all around and spaced so that there are roughly 25 lines per page (which is very close to double-spacing, but not exactly). The assumption is that there are roughly ten words per line, which means 250 words per page. Therefore, when an editor/agent looks at your manuscript and tries to figure out its word count, she simply multiplies the total number of pages by 250 to arrive at the word count. And this applies even if you have a page with only one or two lines of text on it!
So you can see how important it is, if you're worried about running over a certain word count, not to pad your manuscript with pages that have very little text on them. It's shooting yourself in the foot.
Going back through my manuscript this week, I discovered five chapters that ended with two to four lines of text on a page. And it turned out to be a fairly simple exercise to go back through those chapters and eliminate a word here or there to reduce a paragraph by a line, thereby cutting the whole chapter back by a page. In some cases, I think the tweaks I made even improved the text as well as making the chapter shorter. For example, I had a paragraph that wrapped over by a single word. I noticed that I'd used the word "change" twice in two sentences. I changed the second instance to "alter", and bam, the paragraph took up one less line. Coolness!
And the bonus for this is that I now can write five new pages without increasing the page count. Which, in my case, is sweet. Because at this point, I need every extra page I can get!
Thursday, August 24, 2006
The Pen Name (or Why I Want Everyone to Read What I Write Without Knowing I Wrote It)
Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last confession...er, post.
Oops, wrong blog!
Over the last couple of days, there has been some discussion on one of the loops I subscribe about writing romance novels and how it can be a little difficult when you're a churchgoing mommy with kiddies in the house to really let it all hang out, so to speak.
(Aside: The phone just rang. I answered and waited a few seconds. Almost hung up on the wrong number theory. Then a deep, commanding male and obviously recorded voice came on the line. "We are serving other customers at the moment. Please wait and one of our representatives will be with you shortly." Um, hello, you called me and you have no live human available to talk with me? You want me to wait for you? Click. What is up with that?)
Now, I mentioned that as a Unitarian Universalist, the churchgoing part is probably not a problem. I suspect if I stood up and told the entire congregation I write soft-core porn (this is what my mother calls romance novels) on the side, they'd probably all stand up, applaud, and tell me which covenant group I can join to celebrate my inner pornographer. (My seventeen-year-old nephew recently announced in a sermon that when he told members of the church he is a "flaming bisexual," everyone said, "Congratulations. And, by the way, we have a support group for that on Tuesday nights.")
I did, however, confess a certain discomfort with the idea of people who know me "in real life" reading what I write. Especially not my husband, mother, sister, etc. (My kids don't count, as they're still much too young to be interested in reading adult novels, the romance aspect aside.) Everyone assumed, perhaps fairly, that it's because my stories include sex that I'm shy about this, but that's not it. Because it would feel just as weird to me if I were writing a book in another genre, up to and including anything but the blandest of children's books.
You see, as I already said in an earlier post, I have these people in my head. And it's a little embarrassing and even puzzling to me. Because these people do and say things I would never dream of doing or saying and yet, they must be me in some fundamental sense, mustn't they? So I wonder, if my most intimate family and friends knew what was going on in my head--people who think they know and understand me--how would that knowledge change how they think of me? Would it change their opinions of my character and personality? Would they give me sidelong glances, wondering if I might engage in extramarital affairs because one of my heroines does or whether I'm into S&M because one of my villains is?
Now, I don't have this problem when it comes to sharing my work with my critique partners or even my Internet friends (I used to be quite a newsgroup junkie, though the book has recently overcome that particular obsession). In fact, I'm eager to share my writing with other people--as long as I've never met them face to face! Of course, I assume the day will come when I will actually meet all of my CPs face to face, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to stand up to that pressure. Because they're writers, too, so they understand! But do non-writers understand? I'm not sure they do. Even if they are your closest, most intimate friends with whom you can normally share your deepest feelings and secrets.
Of course, perhaps I'm not giving my family and friends enough credit. Or maybe I'm just stinking insecure. On some level, I suppose I'm afraid that the people I love and respect most in the world won't like what I write and that might crush me. (Okay, I did not mean to get that heavy here. I promise to lighten up in a minute!)
But at the same time, I've become very aware of the way in which author=book and book=author in the minds of most readers. Hell, there's even an entire branch of literary criticism based on the idea that you can understand an author's story by picking apart the author's life. So I don't think it's entirely irrational to think that what one writes might have subtle (and not-so-subtle) effects on one's relationships.
(Damn, I hit publish too soon. I'm not done yet!)
The real reason I decided I should have a pen name, however, has almost nothing to do with my deep aversion to the idea of people I know reading what I write and knowing I'm the person who wrote it. It might be a reason, I'll admit, but only a teeny-tiny one. Avoiding stalkers might be another sliver of the reason, especially since I am putting myself out there in the Internet world and have a family to protect.
Here's the main reason: my real surnames (both my married and maiden ones) are unpronounceable. It's that simple. I don't want to spend my entire writing career (assuming I ever actually have one, LOL) correcting people's butchered pronunciations of my name. Not to mention their butchered spellings of same. I do that enough in the grocery store, at school, at church, at work, when the phone rings (unless the person on the other end is a recording--see, I knew I'd circle back around to that phone call eventually; I never write anything without a purpose!). So I chose a pen name that I think looks and sounds nice, is easy to pronounce, and should be a heck of a lot more marketable than MyRealFirstName EitherOfMyRealUnpronounceableLastNames.
The fact that it might also mean someone I know buys my book, reads it, enjoys it (or doesn't, for that matter) and never knows I actually wrote it is merely a bonus.
Oops, wrong blog!
Over the last couple of days, there has been some discussion on one of the loops I subscribe about writing romance novels and how it can be a little difficult when you're a churchgoing mommy with kiddies in the house to really let it all hang out, so to speak.
(Aside: The phone just rang. I answered and waited a few seconds. Almost hung up on the wrong number theory. Then a deep, commanding male and obviously recorded voice came on the line. "We are serving other customers at the moment. Please wait and one of our representatives will be with you shortly." Um, hello, you called me and you have no live human available to talk with me? You want me to wait for you? Click. What is up with that?)
Now, I mentioned that as a Unitarian Universalist, the churchgoing part is probably not a problem. I suspect if I stood up and told the entire congregation I write soft-core porn (this is what my mother calls romance novels) on the side, they'd probably all stand up, applaud, and tell me which covenant group I can join to celebrate my inner pornographer. (My seventeen-year-old nephew recently announced in a sermon that when he told members of the church he is a "flaming bisexual," everyone said, "Congratulations. And, by the way, we have a support group for that on Tuesday nights.")
I did, however, confess a certain discomfort with the idea of people who know me "in real life" reading what I write. Especially not my husband, mother, sister, etc. (My kids don't count, as they're still much too young to be interested in reading adult novels, the romance aspect aside.) Everyone assumed, perhaps fairly, that it's because my stories include sex that I'm shy about this, but that's not it. Because it would feel just as weird to me if I were writing a book in another genre, up to and including anything but the blandest of children's books.
You see, as I already said in an earlier post, I have these people in my head. And it's a little embarrassing and even puzzling to me. Because these people do and say things I would never dream of doing or saying and yet, they must be me in some fundamental sense, mustn't they? So I wonder, if my most intimate family and friends knew what was going on in my head--people who think they know and understand me--how would that knowledge change how they think of me? Would it change their opinions of my character and personality? Would they give me sidelong glances, wondering if I might engage in extramarital affairs because one of my heroines does or whether I'm into S&M because one of my villains is?
Now, I don't have this problem when it comes to sharing my work with my critique partners or even my Internet friends (I used to be quite a newsgroup junkie, though the book has recently overcome that particular obsession). In fact, I'm eager to share my writing with other people--as long as I've never met them face to face! Of course, I assume the day will come when I will actually meet all of my CPs face to face, and I'm pretty sure I'll be able to stand up to that pressure. Because they're writers, too, so they understand! But do non-writers understand? I'm not sure they do. Even if they are your closest, most intimate friends with whom you can normally share your deepest feelings and secrets.
Of course, perhaps I'm not giving my family and friends enough credit. Or maybe I'm just stinking insecure. On some level, I suppose I'm afraid that the people I love and respect most in the world won't like what I write and that might crush me. (Okay, I did not mean to get that heavy here. I promise to lighten up in a minute!)
But at the same time, I've become very aware of the way in which author=book and book=author in the minds of most readers. Hell, there's even an entire branch of literary criticism based on the idea that you can understand an author's story by picking apart the author's life. So I don't think it's entirely irrational to think that what one writes might have subtle (and not-so-subtle) effects on one's relationships.
(Damn, I hit publish too soon. I'm not done yet!)
The real reason I decided I should have a pen name, however, has almost nothing to do with my deep aversion to the idea of people I know reading what I write and knowing I'm the person who wrote it. It might be a reason, I'll admit, but only a teeny-tiny one. Avoiding stalkers might be another sliver of the reason, especially since I am putting myself out there in the Internet world and have a family to protect.
Here's the main reason: my real surnames (both my married and maiden ones) are unpronounceable. It's that simple. I don't want to spend my entire writing career (assuming I ever actually have one, LOL) correcting people's butchered pronunciations of my name. Not to mention their butchered spellings of same. I do that enough in the grocery store, at school, at church, at work, when the phone rings (unless the person on the other end is a recording--see, I knew I'd circle back around to that phone call eventually; I never write anything without a purpose!). So I chose a pen name that I think looks and sounds nice, is easy to pronounce, and should be a heck of a lot more marketable than MyRealFirstName EitherOfMyRealUnpronounceableLastNames.
The fact that it might also mean someone I know buys my book, reads it, enjoys it (or doesn't, for that matter) and never knows I actually wrote it is merely a bonus.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Avoiding Cliches Like the Plague (or Why I Never Met a Cliche I Didn't Like)
Yesterday, I stopped obsessing and sent my entry for the Rose City Romance Writers' Golden Rose contest to the coordinator. I'd spent the better part of three weeks getting one critique after another on the first three chapters of Living In Sin and polishing and repolishing the thing in the hope of making it shine like a newborn baby's butt. (Actually, I've never seen a shiny newborn baby's butt and I've had three of them, but they--the babies, not their butts, LOL!--do have a really nice smell, sort of reminiscent of the famous new car smell.) Fortunately, most of the suggestions were on the order of pretty small potatoes, which may bode well for my entry. I'll find out at the end of September, I guess!
But one of the things that came out of the critiques I received had to do with a single sentence in Chapter Three. It read like this:
You see, that expression is straight out of the lingo of the con game (it refers to an actual scam that goes back to medeival times). And a few pages later in this story, the reader is going to discover that Patrick has some serious con artist tendencies. In fact, in this chapter, Patrick actually hatches a "pig in a poke" scam (another very old one) against a couple of crooked characters who've injured his friends.
So I thought with that "cat in the bag" phrase, I was doing a nice, subtle job of foreshadowing. Except, darn it all, no one else saw it.
Well, I take that back. One of my CPs actually said it was a cliche but that it was "darn near perfect" in the context, so I think she got it. But most of my readers just saw a cliche and suggested I remove it.
I hemmed and hawed. I impugned (in my own mind) my readers' intelligence for not seeing the beauty of it as a foreshadowing device. I waved my artistic license.
And then I took it out. In my contest entry, the sentence reads:
Which brings me to the crux of the problem: it's nearly impossible to write without occasionally dropping a cliche or hackneyed phrase into your narrative. In fact, I'd wager a guess that it is impossible. That you'll never find a book, anywhere, by anyone, that doesn't include a single cliched phrase.
Go on, I dare you. I'll be here when you get back in about 40 years.
I'm told, however, that the editors whom you want to impress to publish your novel when you enter a contest or send in a partial/full hate cliches. That cliches will turn your manuscript into a wallbanger faster than you can say "you'll never be published in this town". Which is why I took it out of my contest entry. I didn't want to get pitched against the wall in a fit of pique.
But I'm hard-pressed to understand how this actually works in real life. Given that I just said I don't believe there's a single book in the English language that doesn't have a cliche in it, how do writers get their cliches past these editors in the first place?
Of course, I'm not about to provide an answer to my rhetorical question. I have no idea how they do it. I imagine it has something to do with the overall ratio of cliche:not cliche, as well as the distinctiveness of the writer's voice and story. But it might also just have a little to do with luck and how much the cliches you do use jump off the page and announce themselves.
Which brings me full circle on my contest entry. Because I realized after I'd sent it that it also includes this sentence, toward the end of Chapter One:
So, anyway, as of this morning, the cat went back in the bag. Yep, it's a cliche, but I firmly believe it works in the story. And if that one cliche (or the plague above) is the only thing that prevents my manuscript from being published...well, that would be a dream, wouldn't it?
But one of the things that came out of the critiques I received had to do with a single sentence in Chapter Three. It read like this:
By the time Patrick arrived at the tavern after church, he knew the cat was out of the bag.Now, I knew "cat out of the bag" is a cliche when I wrote it, but I had a good reason for using that cliche. Or thought I did, anyway.
You see, that expression is straight out of the lingo of the con game (it refers to an actual scam that goes back to medeival times). And a few pages later in this story, the reader is going to discover that Patrick has some serious con artist tendencies. In fact, in this chapter, Patrick actually hatches a "pig in a poke" scam (another very old one) against a couple of crooked characters who've injured his friends.
So I thought with that "cat in the bag" phrase, I was doing a nice, subtle job of foreshadowing. Except, darn it all, no one else saw it.
Well, I take that back. One of my CPs actually said it was a cliche but that it was "darn near perfect" in the context, so I think she got it. But most of my readers just saw a cliche and suggested I remove it.
I hemmed and hawed. I impugned (in my own mind) my readers' intelligence for not seeing the beauty of it as a foreshadowing device. I waved my artistic license.
And then I took it out. In my contest entry, the sentence reads:
By the time Patrick arrived at the tavern after church, he knew his former anonymity was a thing of the past.Okay, good, it doesn't use a cliche. Or does it? What about "thing of the past"? Shit! I tried "he knew he was in trouble" before that, but decided that was a cliche, too.
Which brings me to the crux of the problem: it's nearly impossible to write without occasionally dropping a cliche or hackneyed phrase into your narrative. In fact, I'd wager a guess that it is impossible. That you'll never find a book, anywhere, by anyone, that doesn't include a single cliched phrase.
Go on, I dare you. I'll be here when you get back in about 40 years.
I'm told, however, that the editors whom you want to impress to publish your novel when you enter a contest or send in a partial/full hate cliches. That cliches will turn your manuscript into a wallbanger faster than you can say "you'll never be published in this town". Which is why I took it out of my contest entry. I didn't want to get pitched against the wall in a fit of pique.
But I'm hard-pressed to understand how this actually works in real life. Given that I just said I don't believe there's a single book in the English language that doesn't have a cliche in it, how do writers get their cliches past these editors in the first place?
Of course, I'm not about to provide an answer to my rhetorical question. I have no idea how they do it. I imagine it has something to do with the overall ratio of cliche:not cliche, as well as the distinctiveness of the writer's voice and story. But it might also just have a little to do with luck and how much the cliches you do use jump off the page and announce themselves.
Which brings me full circle on my contest entry. Because I realized after I'd sent it that it also includes this sentence, toward the end of Chapter One:
If he’d had the first inkling that Lady Rosalind fell into that category, he would have avoided her like the plague.Ouch! And yet, no one commented on that cliche. Nobody. Which I find utterly fascinating and completely inexplicable.
So, anyway, as of this morning, the cat went back in the bag. Yep, it's a cliche, but I firmly believe it works in the story. And if that one cliche (or the plague above) is the only thing that prevents my manuscript from being published...well, that would be a dream, wouldn't it?
Friday, August 04, 2006
My Irony Meter Runs Amok
After skipping last week's entry due to a combination of laziness and bummed-outed-ness (because I wasn't at the RWA conference in Atlanta like almost everyone in the romance writing world), I'm pumped up for this week's entry. You see, I've been reading posts in the romance blogosphere the past few days that are seemingly unrelated but have tripped my irony meter right off the scale.
The first (though the most recent, chronologically speaking) comes from author Shana Galen/Shane Bolks on Jaunty Quills, excerpted below:
Now, I'm sure at this point, you're wondering what connects these two topics in my pitiful little mind.
In a nutshell, it's this: romance, however varied its forms and permutations, can't please either the left or the right. To the highbrows on the educated left, romance is too conservative. It's anti-feminist and demeaning to women. (The fact that most romances portray women's sexuality in healthy and empowering ways seems to have escaped their notice.) But then to the right, romance is equally contemptible for being too progressive. "Perversions" aside, there's too much sex and, by extension, too much feminine empowerment, and conservatives long for the days of the sweet love stories in which the hero and heroine didn't consummate their relationship until after they were married and then only in the most euphemistic of terms. (When were those days, again? I remember reading a few Harlequins of this variety when I first started reading romance in the late 70s, but I pretty quickly graduated from those tame things to Bertrice Small and the like. The hotter the sex, the hotter the romance!)
Last week, I heard this quote from Aldous Huxley:
And even though I am happily plugging away on writing my own historical romance novel and enjoying (almost) every second of it, I am not immune to what I perceive as the scorn in which romance is viewed in the wider world. Despite the fact that romance is an incredibly popular genre and that I read and enjoy it myself, I feel compelled to apologize for writing something so trivial and, well, non-literary. I don't fool myself that I'm writing the Great American Novel, but then I wonder: who's to say the Great American Novel can't be a romance? Not to say that it would be mine, mind you!
But why the hell not?
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, if you'd like to read about RWA Nationals from a first-timer, check out my critique partner Lacey Kaye's blog. Her take on the conference is both informative and hilarious.
The first (though the most recent, chronologically speaking) comes from author Shana Galen/Shane Bolks on Jaunty Quills, excerpted below:
The second is the kerfuffle over a letter written to Romance Writer's Report (the RWA's magazine) by Jan Butler essentially castigating RWA for allowing books portraying "alternative" relationships (e.g., homosexual, bisexual, polyamorous) to be published under the banner of "romance". I won't bore you by reproducing the letter either in full or in part here, but if you want the gist of it, I suggest you read the excerpt on Kate Rothwell's blog. You can also read a host of comments in response to the original letter, as well as Ms. Butler's own defense of her position, in both Kate's blog and on Smart Bitches.I guess I got my first taste of the literary scorn for genre fiction when I signed up for a novel-writing class after I finished my first book. The instructor read our first submissions, and during the second class, she assigned everyone outside reading. Most of my classmates had to read books on character, dialogue, plot. I was told to read books on feminist theory.
Apparently it wasn’t so much plot or point of view that I needed help with (though I certainly could have used help on both!). The instructor was more concerned with her stereotype that romance novels shows women as weak creatures who need a man to save them.
Fortunately, I ignored her advice and kept writing romance because, for me, writing a romance novel is a feminist statement.
Now, I'm sure at this point, you're wondering what connects these two topics in my pitiful little mind.
In a nutshell, it's this: romance, however varied its forms and permutations, can't please either the left or the right. To the highbrows on the educated left, romance is too conservative. It's anti-feminist and demeaning to women. (The fact that most romances portray women's sexuality in healthy and empowering ways seems to have escaped their notice.) But then to the right, romance is equally contemptible for being too progressive. "Perversions" aside, there's too much sex and, by extension, too much feminine empowerment, and conservatives long for the days of the sweet love stories in which the hero and heroine didn't consummate their relationship until after they were married and then only in the most euphemistic of terms. (When were those days, again? I remember reading a few Harlequins of this variety when I first started reading romance in the late 70s, but I pretty quickly graduated from those tame things to Bertrice Small and the like. The hotter the sex, the hotter the romance!)
Last week, I heard this quote from Aldous Huxley:
And my first thought was, "Damn, I'm never going to be an intellectual!"An intellectual is a person who's found one thing that's more interesting than sex.
And even though I am happily plugging away on writing my own historical romance novel and enjoying (almost) every second of it, I am not immune to what I perceive as the scorn in which romance is viewed in the wider world. Despite the fact that romance is an incredibly popular genre and that I read and enjoy it myself, I feel compelled to apologize for writing something so trivial and, well, non-literary. I don't fool myself that I'm writing the Great American Novel, but then I wonder: who's to say the Great American Novel can't be a romance? Not to say that it would be mine, mind you!
But why the hell not?
Oh, and on a completely unrelated note, if you'd like to read about RWA Nationals from a first-timer, check out my critique partner Lacey Kaye's blog. Her take on the conference is both informative and hilarious.
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