Goals and Plans – Page 19 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Some updates

Just a few quick updates before I go to bed:

My short story, Decision LZ150207, is getting published in The Leading Edge! Hooray! This will be my first publication credit. It certainly won’t be my last!

As you can see from the progress bar to the right, I’ve started work on draft 2.2 of Ashes of the Starry Sea, the novel that I finished back in April of 2008 (my first “finished” novel–and the project that spawned this blog). My goal is to finish this draft by August 1st, 2009.

It is a beast of a novel–I’m predicting it will be at least 150,000 words. The draft is currently at 158,000 words, but I’m going to have to add several scenes as well as vigorously trim out the bad writing.

And boy, is there a lot of bad writing in this draft! I knew, when I wrote it, that I wasn’t that good, but holy cow! Way too much introspection, way too much “tell”-iness, not nearly enough concrete details. Too many adverbs, too much wordiness, especially in the scenes with the action. This is going to be a deep revision.

BYU’s writing conference was a blast! I’ll try to post more about it in the near future, hopefully tomorrow if I can get around to it. The three editors who attended are open to submissions from the conference, and one of them prefers full manuscripts to partials, so on Saturday I printed up the full 2.0 draft of Genesis Earth.

Holding the full manuscript in my hands was surreal. It’s one thing to write it out digitally and see it on your screen, but it is something else entirely to hold the tangible, physical thing in your hands. I just…keep wanting to hold it. It feels so real.

But yeah, I’m kind of uneasy sending the full manuscript off to this editor, especially since she hasn’t asked me for it specifically (she just told all the conference-goers that she prefers full manuscripts). I don’t want to get in trouble sending my full ms out to multiple places, so my game plan is to send this to her ASAP so it can get rejected within the next 1-4 months (what she claimed was her turnaround time).

Because of that, I’m sending her a draft which could be more polished, but oh well. Anything could be more polished–eventually, you just have to send your stuff out. Besides, as pessimistic as this might sound, I do think that my mss has a fighting chance. We’ll see what comes of this.

On your mark, get set…

This post will be really quick, since it’s after midnight and I want to get up at seven tomorrow.

I’ve decided to work on The Phoenix of Nova Terra for my next project. Except…I’m renaming it (yet again!) to…

<drumroll, please>

Ashes of the Starry Sea.

I like this title much more than the previous one. I think that just about everyone, when they first start out, comes up with a somewhat cliche title having something to do with a phoenix.

Even though this is the first novel I ever wrote and finished, I think it has a lot of potential. People always say that your first novel is never publishable, but this one wasn’t my first attempt at writing a novel (it’s something like my sixth or seventh). Besides, when judging these things, you need to look at the work itself, not on these general rules that everyone always throws around.

The story itself is pretty decent, I think. The main things to improve are 1) the worldbuilding/research aspect, and 2) the nuts and bolts writing. To help out with that, I’ve decided to follow some of David Louis Edelmen’s revision advice and completely transcribe every word of this revision draft in a new word document. Hopefully, that level of focus will help me to improve things on the word, sentence, and paragraph levels.

At the same time, I need a very clear macro-level view of this project–after all, it’s been over a year since I finished the rough draft. To do that, I started a wikidpad file that will become the story bible for the new draft. I’ll use it to do the things I mentioned in my previous post, “Outlining for discovery writers.”

I’ll also spend the next week or so reading the most recent draft from start to finish, figuring out my revision notes. This will be hard, since I stopped ennumerating the chapters towards the beginning, but I’ll figure it out.

Gah, everything is so disorganized for this project! I’ve got revision notes for the 2.0 and 2.1 versions, files scattered everywhere, feedback from a friend of mine from the FLSR that I haven’t even looked at yet…just too much. The draft needs a TON of work, too.

If I can polish this draft to a satisfactory, presentable second draft in the next month, I’ll be happy. That’s prettymuch my goal. 140,000 words in five weeks…let’s go!

Things to do before June 8th

BYU’s Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference is coming up in less than a week, and I’m pretty excited for it! I’m signed up for the afternoon sessions only, but it should still be a great experience. From what I’ve heard, this conference is several steps up from CONduit and LTUE in terms of professionalism, and I want to be ready. Here’s my list of things to do to prepare:

Spot edit Genesis Earth for the really major stuff that I can reasonably fix in the next few days–especially the first three chapters. A lot of the feedback I’m getting suggests that this novel might comfortably fit in the YA genre, which means that I’ve actually got something I can market to these agents and editors. I want it to be ready (or, barring perfection, at least as ready as I can make it).
Work out a good elevator pitch for Genesis Earth. I’m not going to ambush anyone with it, but I want to be ready in case I get into a conversation with an agent/editor and they ask about it.
Research all of the agents/editors/authors coming. The list is here.
Polish shoes.
Do laundry.
Iron shirts.
Shave. Probably every day of this thing.
Get business cards? I’m not entirely sure about this. I suppose it couldn’t hurt. Anyone know where I could get a few dozen cheap/free ones on short notice?
Brush up on recommended conference etiquette. Miss Snark has several great posts on this in the archives of her blog.
Buy/reuse a cheap notebook and get ready to take lots and lots of notes. Sorry, guys, I probably won’t be recording or posting mp3s of this conference. It’s not a fan event, after all, and I don’t want to do anything that would get me in trouble.

Anything else I’m leaving out?

4k a day

It’s late, but I really need to write something of my recent thoughts on this blog, so this is going to be a stream-of-consciousness word-vomit sort of post. But please keep reading, it probably won’t be uninteresting.

I haven’t been posting much on this blog recently, but I’ve been thinking a lot about my writing recently–specifically, the practicalities of trying to make this my career, getting serious about it, etc.

In fact, for the past three weeks, it’s been just about the only thing on my mind. I’ve been listening and re-listening to just about every episode of writing excuses, the LTUE mp3s that I recorded, the old English 318 mp3s from last year, and various other talks and speeches on the subject of writing as a career.

I don’t have the time to really explain all my thoughts on the subject, but to sum it up, I’ve been angsting over it quite a bit. Will I be able to break into publishing in the relatively near future, or does my writing need years and years more work? Am I making a mistake to spend my summer just working on my writing? Am I making a mistake to be pursuing this so vigorously as my primary career path? and a whole lot of irrational angsting besides all that. You get the picture.

Well, I’ve gotten sick of doing all this thinking and now I think it’s time to just do it. I heard back last week from the agency in New York–turns out they already have someone, so I won’t be going there for the internship–but that’s actually alright, because it means I can take the summer to really focus on improving my writing.

Of course, if I’m not doing anything else, I need to be treating this like my full time career. The standard thing I keep hearing, at least from the professionals in the local scene, is that the average per-day wordcount is 4k. Depending on deadlines and other projects, that may increase, but the average daily wordcount is 4k. Since I plan on making writing my focus this summer, that’s my goal: 4k a day.

Last week, my wordcount was above 10k, but that’s actually a bit misleading. I wasn’t writing 10k words of new material each day, I was doing a quick mid-draft revision to add in a few crucial characters and scenes that I didn’t know I needed until I got midway through the book. It wasn’t even much of a revision; when I saw places where my writing really needed work, I made a note for later and kept on skimming. I only stopped to rewrite the sections that needed major changes in order to set things up correctly for later.

As a result, I feel that I’ve lost a degree of momentum. Now that I’m through all the old stuff, I’m writing entirely new material, and it’s very hard. I’ve only been skimming the last few chapters and scenes; as a result, when I picked things up this morning, I had difficulty getting into the story again.

I did 3,248 words today–that’s 3.2k words of new material–and by the end, I felt like the momentum was building and I was starting to get back into the story. A couple of weeks ago, when I was still angsting uselessly over the whole writing career thing, I kept feeling like this novel I’m writing is just crap. Now, however, I’m starting to see my faith in it return.

Writing is like that sometimes: the further you are from your story, the worse it seems, while the more you get into the story, the more faith you’re able to have in it. If you don’t have faith in the story you’re trying to tell, you just won’t be able to write it.

I could say more about what I’ve learned from my experience these past few weeks, but this post is getting long. To sum it up, that’s my new goal for this summer: 4k a day, as if I’m doing this full time.

At that rate, I’ll probably finish this novel sometime before the BYU writer’s conference (which I will be attending, at least the afternoon sessions–just registered yesterday). The personal deadline I set was June 15th, after the conference, but I think I can get it in early.

Okay, enough word vomiting. Time to get some sleep.

New directions

This past week, I’ve been going through Bringing Stella Home at quite a good clip. I’m going through the rough draft as I had it at the end of April, making some major revisions that hopefully are going to make it easier to write the middle section.

I’ve been going along at a good clip, getting through as many as seven thousand words a day (it helps that I’m not taking classes or working right now), but today I hit something of a wall and realized I couldn’t go forward if I didn’t have some serious backstory worked out. So, instead of writing much in the book itself, I went through each of the characters in this mercenary unit and wrote out ALL of their backstories.

It was fun, and took a lot more time than I was expecting. It also surprised me how much it fleshed them out, made them all real people. I could go through and write a prequel to this novel now, where the viewpoint alternates between all of these characters and tells how they got together and formed the unit that they are now. I won’t do that, since it would take too much time, but now I can do it, and that’s going to help out a ton in figuring out what has to happen next.

For this project, one of my goals is to experiment with the three act structure and see if I can strengthen my writing by strictly following that story format. Well…when I say strictly, I don’t mean that I’ll make the characters do stupid things just to move the plot where it needs to go. At least, I’m going to try not to end up doing that–we’ll see how it ends up. The first draft is probably going to be horrendous.

Speaking of horrendous, I’ve been surprisingly discouraged with this story in the past few days. I mean, it’s probably just me, but it seems that this novel is really just a piece of crap. Of course, it’s a rough draft, so it’s supposed to be crap, but it’s just frustrating. Then again, my writing group in English 318 seemed to be really into this story–sometimes, it seemed that they struggled to find things to critique about it–but I wonder if a lot of the positive stuff they said wasn’t just because they were being nice.

Meh. It doesn’t matter. Of course this draft is going to need a lot of work–it’s a rough draft, for crying out loud. If I didn’t think it needed some serious work, something would be wrong with me.

The cool thing is that part I ends at about the 30k mark–right smack at 25%, assuming this novel ends up being about 120k. That’s exactly where it should be, according to the three act structure. Encouraging!

I mapped things out on my calendar, and I’ve figured that if I do 3,00 words a day, I can finish this draft by the 15th of June. 3,000 words a day shouldn’t be too hard to manage–I’ve got another 40k of stuff from the previous unfinished draft, and while much of that needs some deep revisions, I can probably recycle at least two thirds of it without making too many changes. I’ve got a couple of conventions coming up here–CONduit and BYU Writers for Young Readers–but I think I can still make things average out quite nicely.

15th of June. It’s a good target. It also gives me practically the entire summer to revise and re-revise my other novels, perhaps even start a completely new project. Huzzah!

(image courtesy photo researchers)

What did you do with your summer?

This is the question I’m kind of worried people will ask me (or I’ll ask myself) when fall rolls around. It’s looking more and more like I won’t be going to New York for the internship, so that begs the question–what else are you going to do? Are you going to be productive and do something that helps boost your future career, or are you going to waste your time and have this gaping hole in your resume?

Well…I don’t know what to say. I mean, I could use a break, but I also don’t want the days to turn into weeks and the weeks to slip away until I have nothing to show for myself. I suppose the best thing to do would be to make some plans and set some goals.

I do already have a backup plan–or at least, a vision of how I want to use this time. And honestly, I’m kind of glad that I’m not going to New York this summer, partially because it means I don’t have to get catapulted out of my comfort zone here in Provo (not a good reason), but mostly because it means I can focus on the things I really want–and need–to do.

I mean, half of me seems to be freaking out, afraid that I’ll just end up wasting this time. But the other half is both calm and optimistic, and with good reason. My sister and her husband (in a surprisingly generous gesture) offered to let me stay in their spare room over the spring term without paying any rent (just so long as I help out with groceries, dishes, that sort of thing). I have no financial stressors, no pressing obligations, access to vast amounts of resources (ie BYU campus), lots of friends in the area that I can call on for support, as much free time as I could possibly ask for…I mean, if ever I had any freedom to spend my time doing what I want to do and working towards what I want to work towards, now is that time. There are virtually no restrictions, and that’s awesome.

Of course, with all of that freedom comes the freedom to screw it up. But I won’t be doing that. I know exactly what I need to do, and how this summer can help me achieve my long term goals.

I want to be a full time writer. At least, that’s what I think I want. This summer, I can test that out and see if the full time writing thing is something I can actually stand. Since I don’t have any pressing work or school obligations, and no financial obstructions either, I can devote this time to work on my writing, hone my craft, and produce something that I can take to an agent/editor and sell. I’ve been writing nonstop for the past two years, but always as an on-the-side kind of thing. Now I can see if this is something I can actually stomach for doing full time.

Goal #1: produce on a consistent basis as if writing were my full time job.

And, while regular practice is one of the best ways to hone your craft, it’s better to both read and write–read the kind of stuff that you’d like to write, and use what you read to help improve your writing.

Goal #2: read and review, on this blog, 15 works of science fiction / fantasy (that’s roughly 1 per week, with a little bit of room for leeway).

And, so long as I’m honing my craft, I shouldn’t restrict myself to just reading and writing. There are a number of good conventions and writers’ conferences, both here in Utah and on the east coast where I’m from. Besides the opportunity to hear some great talks and panels by experts on the craft, I might also be able to make connections in the sf&f community, the publishing world, and may even have the chance to sell some of my work. At the very least, I can practice doing all that stuff.

Goal #3: attend at least 3 conventions and/or writers’ conferences.

One of the things I want the most from this summer is the long-term perspective and vision I need to make some very important life decisions in the near future. Part of that is trying out the full time writing thing, but it’s not limited to that either. I’ll be graduating soon, probably within the next year, and I still don’t have any post-graduation plans. Hopefully, the free time this summer will give me a chance to take a step back and make some plans.

But while thinking things out and weighing my options is definitely part of doing that, another very important part is listening to the spirit, praying about my options and plans, and connecting with the Lord on these things. Towards that end, I need to work on my personal spirituality, my relationship with the Lord, and take the time to really listen on a spiritual level. As a summer nomad, working on this individually is going to be even more critical, because I won’t be settled in one ward for a long period of time.

Goal #4: consistent daily scripture study.
Goal #5: worship at the temple at least once weekly.

I think it was my grandfather who said that as long as you’ve got your health, you can do just about anything. It’s true–being in good physical condition can really help you get everything else done in a much more efficient and effective way. Besides, it’s important for it’s own sake. With all this free time, if I didn’t exercise at all I would certainly be neglecting myself.

Goal #6: work out at least five times a week and eat healthy.

And finally, while I still have enough grant money left over to cover just about anything I want to do this summer, it would be wiser (and helpful for my resume) to carry a few jobs and at least break even. I’m not paying rent, but I am paying for food, gas, car and health insurance, and tickets to all those conventions and conferences I want to go to. Besides, if I don’t spend the grant money now, I can spend it later on a poli sci internship next school year, possibly in Washington DC or even Scotland.

Goal #7: find part time employment and try to break even.

So those are my seven goals this summer; we’ll see how it works out. Usually, I’m not that good at keeping goals and resolutions, but I think these will at least point me in the right direction.

Miscellaneous news updates

I’m so bad at writing catchy titles for my blog posts. CORRECTION: I can come up with catchy, sexy, exciting titles for my blog posts, it’s just that the first one that comes to mind is always dull and uninteresting. Well, too bad. To quote my mother: “suffer!”

Item One: State of the summer plans

Real quick: still haven’t heard back from the guys at JABberwocky. I’m starting to think their either really disorganized (not out of the realm of possibility), or they’ve picked someone for the internship and it’s not much of a priority for them to get back to me. I’ll email them tomorrow or Friday and ask what’s going on; probably I’ll stay in Provo, at least for spring. But you know what? I’m actually okay with that.

Lately, I’ve been staying at my sister’s apartment, hanging out with her and her husband, and spending most of the day at the HBLL writing (and chatting with Charlie, who seems to be perpetually bored at her nine-to-five job). Should I end up staying in Provo, I don’t think that’s going to change much. I might work a couple part-time and/or temp jobs, and definitely attend a few cons and writers’ conferences, but that’s about it.

Oh, and maybe go on a random road trip every once and a while. Fun! 🙂

Item Two: State of Genesis Earth

The rewrite is coming along very well! I’m over 80% finished now and I think it’s getting better. Incrementally, certainly, and there remains a lot of room for improvement, but at least it’s headed in the right direction.

I’ll probably write a different blog post on this, but I got Brandon’s comments back on the first three chapters (I submitted those for the final) and his comments were…interesting. Helpful, certainly, but a lot more negative than I thought they would be. Basically, he got really confused in chapter 2, and that ruined it for him. I’ve got to completely overhaul a couple of those scenes to make sure they’re clear. Fortunately, he really liked chapter 1, so if I can fix chapter 2 in the same way I fixed chapter 1, I think I’ll be in business.

Item Three: Other projects

With all this free time, now that school’s out, I think I should take on another writing project. Back in the fall, I tried to do this and utterly failed at it, but now that I’ve got the time I think I can manage. The question is, which project should I choose to work on first?

Option 1: Bringing Estella Home

Summary: When their home system is conquered by the ruthless Hameji barbarian warfleet, James leaves his home and sets out to rescue his older brother and sister, who have been captured and enslaved. Little does he know, his brother is being turned into a Hameji killing machine and his sister has become one of the Hameji overlord’s personal concubines.

This is the most recent project. It’s about half finished, but it needs some major revision work before I can comfortably continue where I left off. It’s got a lot of action, but it’s also pretty dark and tragic. Not a happy space opera, that’s for sure.

Option 2: Hero in Exile

Summary: Tristen (lamest name ever–I’m totally going to change his name if/when I pick up this project again) fell from the sky in an escape pod when he was only eight years old and was raised in the desert of Nova Gaia by a clan of desert tribesmen. When he sets out with Mira, the chieftain’s daughter, for the legendary Temple of a Thousand Suns to ask the keepers of the Holy Archives of the Earth of Legend about his true parentage, he has no idea of the disparity, depravity, and danger he will meet in the world outside the small, isolated community of local tribesmen–or of the corruption and intrigue within.

I started this one in the fall, planned it out extensively, and then, halfway through…realizing I was writing a completely different story. If I pick up this project, I have virtually no idea where I’ll end up with it. However, it’s a fun space opera with a lot of action and a fair amount of romance (unlike Bringing Estella Home which has virtually zero romance. No, slaves and concubines don’t count).

Option 3: The Phoenix of Nova Terra

Summary: When Ian finds himself stranded on a distant planet, the only thing he wants is to meet up with the rest of his crew and go home. Little does he know, the native humans already venerate him as their chosen savior and their king has selected his daughter to be his wife. When his journey takes deep into the forbidden lands, from which no-one has ever returned alive, Ian begins to uncover the secrets of this long-lost world, and the alien artifacts that will forever alter the paradigm of galactic human civilization–for its good or its destruction.

Gosh, how do you write a paragraph summary for a 168,000 word epic? This is the first complete rough draft of a novel that I’ve written, and it is HUGE. It spans dozens of worlds, six separate civilizations (including one alien and one AI), seven or eight viewpoint characters, and a friggin boatload of internal and external conflicts. INSANE. What’s more, it requires a lot of work–the rough draft was REALLY bad. But you know what? It might be kind of fun to try out. It’s definitely a very fun, very positive story, with lots of intrigue and lots of romance.

So, the question is: which one should I pick up first? Which ones should I work on this summer? I’ll probably only be able to do two, plus Genesis Earth; which ones should I choose?

Item Four: Looking for Beta readers

This last item is pretty brief: I’m about to finish up with the Genesis Earth rewrite, and I need some beta readers to help out with it. I’ve already got about a dozen people or so, but it wouldn’t hurt to have some more. I’m looking for as much criticism and feedback as you can give me–anything helpful, including specific problems as well as your broader, overall impressions.

Who wants to help out that can read this story by the end of May? I really appreciate it! Email me or post a comment if you want in (but please don’t ask to read it unless I already know you from real life).

Aaaaand…this post is almost 1,100 words long. Yikes! See y’all around!

(images courtesy Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers)

Living in a state of limbo

Graduation was today. I’ve got another year left, but a lot of my friends are moving on. I took my last exam of the semester on Monday, and my contract at the FLSR ends Saturday morning at 10 am.

And I have no idea where I’ll be living for the summer.

There’s a chance I might be going to New York for an internship with Brandon Sanderson’s agent. My friend Steve has been planning to move to New York in June, to try and break into writing for Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock, and I thought it would be really cool to live with him while working/interning/whatever in the publishing world there. I asked Brandon if he knew of any openings with editors/agents for a summer intern, and he got back to me with the news that his agent was looking to take one on.

Well, I got in touch with the guys over at JABberwocky literary agency at the beginning of the month, sent them a resume, had a phone interview, and…haven’t heard back yet. They told me they’d get back to me after the London book fair, which was this past weekend, so…I’m still waiting to find out what they say. I think the interview went okay, though I heard from Brandon that they’ve got a lot of other people itching to get this internship. College graduates. With degrees in editing and publishing.

So…I don’t know what’s going to happen. It would be WAY awesome to go to New York City this summer, and really awesome to be an intern in the publishing world. REALLY awesome. I’ve been following the publishing world, especially the sf&f corner of the publishing world, for a couple of years now. It would be great to get in there and see it up close, see how it works, see what kind of career opportunities exist there and meet the people who are involved in all that.

If it doesn’t work out, though, that’s still okay. I’ve got a backup plan. It’s not as awesome, but it still works. If I don’t go to New York, I’ll probably spend spring here in Provo, taking a break from classes and working odd jobs here and there (private English tutor–my boss at the FHSS Writing Lab can set me up with that–Arabic tutor, freelance editing, temp campus jobs during some of the conferences out here, etc). I’d also spend some serious time working on my writing, and attend some of the major local sf&f conventions, such as BYU Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers and CONduit. I might even be able to go home over summer term and attend Worldcon in Montreal.

I’ve got two finished rough drafts right now and two others that are only halfway finished. With a relatively free summer, I could almost certainly have three polished, finished drafts by the time school starts again. Perhaps I could even have them all finished before Worldcon 2009 in August, or finish all four of them before World Fantasy 2009 in October.

It would also be a good chance to see whether I can handle the writing lifestyle. I’ve been writing fairly steadily for the past two or three years, doing between 500 to 1,000 words a day, but it was never the primary thing I was doing. If I have the summer off from all my other obligations, I’ll be able to explore a little bit what it’s like to write full time. It doesn’t exactly translate into something nice and shiny on a resume (not like an internship, at least), but it would give me some valuable and useful personal experience.

Besides that, taking time off would help me to figure out what I want to do post-graduation. I’m aiming to be a professional writer, but I’ll probably graduate from BYU long before I sign my first book deal, so it’s good to have other directions to go. Trouble is, whenever I’m busy with school I never take the time to think existentially about what I’m doing and what I want to do. I’m so focused on the day to day aspect of things that I find it hard to make any long term plans.

Of course, either way is going to help me figure that out. Whether taking time off to work on my writing or working as an intern for a literary agency, I’m going to gain experience that will help me figure out what I want to do after graduation. So I can expect that to happen no matter where I go, I hope.

So…until I get an email / phone call from the guys at JABberwocky, things are up in the air. It’s a little bit nerve wracking, especially with all of the moving out / moving in going on around here. I know I won’t have any trouble getting a spring/summer contract here at BYU, but New York…I have no idea. I’ve got family up there that I can stay with for a few days until I get settled, and there’s the housing list for the New York stake, but man, it’s expensive over there.

I don’t know. Maybe I’ll end up staying here in Provo after all. We’ll see how it goes.

(Image courtesy David Iliff. Published under a CC attribution 3.0 unported license.)

This sucks and I’m a horrible writer

It’s getting really, really hard for me not to believe that statement, especially as I finish up with the middle part of this novel. I’m starting to realize that I made a whole bunch of mistakes pages and pages ago, and that the climaxes just aren’t working without everything set up right.

I know, cognitively, that it’s mostly just psychological and that this book probably isn’t as bad as I think it is, but I’m finding it hard to convince myself of that. I got to the climax of part II yesterday, and it was…not what I’d had in my head. That’s probably what’s frustrating me the most. If I can’t write down the story as I have it in my head, what does that mean? It either means I’m a terrible writer, or that I didn’t get the setup right (or both…gah!).

So…where do I go from here? Throwing out the entire story isn’t an option–I’m not going to allow myself to do that. I could, however, put it on the back burner for a while, let it simmer…or I could do or die and finish the 1.0 draft, no matter how crappy it turns out. I suppose that would accomplish something for my self esteem, but is that the way to best serve the story?

Fortunately, this past week we talked about revision in English 318. Listening to my recording of the class gave me a few ideas. I could make a list of known problems, with their fixes, and continue as if I’d already made them. I think I did that a few times with The Phoenix of Nova Terra, but I don’t know how I feel about that now. I could probably make it work…

The main issue is that I feel very, very distant from this book. A month ago, I was immersed in the thing, writing over a thousand words each day, just chugging it out. Now, for various reasons, other things have come up and drawn away my attention, so I don’t feel that I’m really in this world anymore. I feel like I’m more of an outsider, writing for the sake of writing rather than trying to tell this story the way it wants to be told. I can’t really remember what I wrote a hundred pages ago, despite that big sheet of butcher paper up in my closet.

Another thing that complicates all of this is that I’m really, really excited about the other novel, Genesis Earth. I’ve gotten back comments from most of my alpha readers, and I’m all but chomping at the bit to start working on it again. If I had nothing else going on, no pressing obligations or assignments, with the enthusiasm I have for this project I could probably finish the second draft in a week, and the third draft the week after that.

So…what’s next?

Well, I think I’m going to start the revision on Genesis Earth today or tomorrow. When I was this enthused about revising Pheonix, I decided to wait and finish Genesis Earth instead, and the enthusiasm for that project died down surprisingly fast. Better to start now than wait until I’ve got the free time but struggle with motivation.

In the meantime, I’m going to finish the current chapter of Bringing Estella Home and let it rest for a bit. I’ll probably reread what I’ve got from the beginning, make a few revision notes, perhaps an outline of sorts–try to figure out what’s wrong, what I need to change to make it work. I’ll restrain myself from actually making those revisions (though I did that, mid-draft, for Genesis Earth, and it turned out alright…sort of), but once I feel I’m sufficiently “into” the story again, I’ll get back to work and finish the 1.0 draft. Hopefully, I’ll be able to do all that before the end of May.

The trouble here is that I’ll probably end up writing the first draft of this novel and revising the other one at the same time…something I tried last September and failed miserably. However, by the time all of this is finished, inshallah school will be over and I won’t have to worry about it. Things are looking really good for me to get an internship in NYC, which makes me think I should drop my Spring classes and just take it easy for a month before I start (as for housing, that’s a whole other conundrum…).

Gah! Writing is complicated. Is this something I want to do for the rest of my life? Something I can do? I don’t know. I really don’t know. I just have to keep on writing through this depressing pessimism and trust that it will pass.

As a side note, I took the title of this post from a Writing Excuses episode some time ago; here is the link to that episode, in case you want to hear it.

Slugging it out and summer plans

Ok, last week I wrote almost nothing on this blog, and last night I wrote a quick post before going to bed that didn’t really explain much. I just got done reading one of Dave Farland’s kick-in-the-pants series of email newsletters and it said, basically, to post every day if you have a blog (unless it cuts into your writing time). Sounds like a good plan: more, shorter posts instead of fewer, longer posts. Here goes.

Last week was pretty crazy. I got everything done by the time it needed to be done…barely…but it was so disorganized and upside down that it really grated on me. It was one of those weeks where, when Saturday rolls around, you look at the calendar and think “where did all that time go?”

I tried to write every day, in the morning, but it didn’t work out. At all. I allowed myself to get distracted, and by the time I was ready to sit down and write, it was time to go to class. After a couple of days of that, I just stopped getting up altogether.

I wanted to get through the last two chapters of Bringing Estella Home by yesterday, but that TOTALLY didn’t happen. I’m still in the middle of chapter 9, not even to the major climactic battle that ends the second part. Bah. As a result, I’m starting to have doubts that I’m going to actually finish this novel by April.

HOWEVER, on a more positive (and a completely different note), I actually have an idea of what I’m going to do this summer. I don’t know when or how exactly it hit me, but I have something of an idea, and it’s starting to really grow on me.

Here’s the plan: I spend the spring term here in Provo, retaking a handful of freshman level classes in order to boost my GPA (I got a C- in beginning piano, and a B- in Geo 120…yeah, those could be raised a little). That’ll give me plenty of time to work on my writing and the opportunity to attend a couple of interesting looking writing conferences out here in Utah, such as BYU Writers for Young Readers and CONduit.

After the spring, I’ll head back East (haha! ‘back East’! I’ve been transformed into a Utahan!), spend a couple of days at home, take a train down to New York City and live for a month or two with my old roommate Steve Dethloff, who’s moving to NYC after he graduates. I’ll try to get a job, possibly doing something writing/editing related, or maybe make some contacts in the publishing world. Or not. We’ll see how it goes. But either way, I’ll have enough time to work on my writing.

Also, if I’m back East in August, I’ll be in a good position to attend Worldcon 2009 in Montreal. I haven’t yet decided if I’m going to go, but it’s only 4-5 hours from my home. I could borrow my parents’ car and drive up. Then, later in August, we’re going to have our family vacation out on Cape Cod, so if I’m back East for summer, I’d definitely be in a good position for that.

Wherever I go, I’ll try to find work, but even if I don’t, I still have enough money left over from the Pell grant that these plans are still viable. I’m certain I can find work down here in Provo, but I’m not that certain about New York. Still, if I’m down there for only a month or two, it shouldn’t be too hard. If I sublet out from Steve, rent should only be about $250-$300 per month.

Trouble is, there isn’t any awesome trip to the Middle East involved in these plans. :'( That’s sad. But still, if I want to focus on my writing to get ready for World Fantasy and (potentially) Worldcon, it’s probably a better idea to stay in the country. Going abroad would mean making a lot of difficult cultural and linguistic adjustments, and I’m worried that that would make it difficult to write. I know that last time I went to Jordan, I didn’t hardly write at all (except in my blog, of course).

So, until I come up with a better plan, that’s what it looks like I’m doing for now. We’ll see if things change. And as for my novel, this week I’m totally going to do better. I got up at 7am this morning and got in a good hour of writing before school. Momentum is definitely building up again.