Thoughts and Reflections – Page 36 – One Thousand And One Parsecs

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.

“That’s what it looks like when the infection sets in.”

So said Howard Tayler at CONduit today when he saw the expression on my face at the Aspiring writers Q&A panel. We chatted a bit afterward, and he said something very encouraging: that if I continue to pursue my writing career with the same hunger he saw on my face, he believes I will be successful. Awesome!

This weekend, I attended CONduit 2009 in Salt Lake. It was my first con experience, and I had a great time! Besides being just plain fun, it was very educational and inspiring.

I felt a bit unnerved at first to be surrounded by so many people that I barely knew, in a comfort-zone shattering kind of way. I went up with Charlie and Laura, though, and it helped to have friends sharing the experience. By Saturday, we were all getting around very well. By the end, I figured that I did know a lot of people there–and, surprisingly, that a lot of people recognized me.

I came away with a TON of ideas and things learned! Here are just a few of them:

One of the panelists on Friday suggested this revision method: use search-and-replace to color all filler words (such as “really,” “just,” “very,” “was”; basically, the words I always overuse on this blog). That way, you can easily see which sentences you need to rewrite.
Howard and Sandra Tayler mentioned, almost in passing, how they made it a matter of prayer before deciding to go full time on the web comic thing. I definitely need to include the Lord more as I try to figure out how this writing thing is going to fit into my life.
In their Saturday panel, Howard made a very interesting remark about cultivating your personal image. I realized that if I want to be seen as a professional by editors and agents, I need to adjust my wardrobe and appearance accordingly. I don’t necessarily have to go the suit-and-tie route–Howard’s image involves jeans and a button-up shirt–but my dress and appearance should say “I am competent, sharp, and serious about what I do.”
Dan Willis had a very interesting suggestion for writers: get and use business cards. Networking is one of the most important business activities that aspiring writers can, should, and must engage in, so using business cards at conventions is very important. It sounds so obvious, but I’d never given it much thought. I’ll have to get some printed up for myself before I go to World Fantasy and Worldcon later this year.
Between panels, I got into a fascinating conversation with Eric James Stone about networking at these conventions. From that conversation, I learned how important it is to be genuine and personal as you network, to listen more than you talk, and to never see people as mere stepping stones for your career. He got an anthology contract with Kevin J. Anderson through a con, and he never approached him with that attitude–ever. Other people he saw who did, Anderson treated politely but never contacted. You should certainly have a pitch ready, but you should also give time for contacts to develop. Over time, people will remember your face and recognize you at these events.

conduit2009-jawa Conventions are definitely great for networking, but I absolutely hate walking up to a stranger and asking for favors. It makes me very nervous. As a result, I’ve adopted the philosophy of asking myself what I can offer the person I’m trying to connect with, rather than asking something of them. I tried to follow this philosophy at CONduit, even if all I could offer was a compliment on something they’d said on a panel.

Using this strategy, I was able to get into a lot of interesting, genuine conversations with some of the big names at the con. Charlie, Laura, and I got into a long, interesting conversation with L. E. Modessitt at one point. He gave me some advice on women, which Charlie found hilarious (he must have seen us bickering/bantering earlier). Had some good conversations with Dave Wolverton as well–he probably recognized me as the crazy fanboy who had him sign a poster of his first (now out of print) novel. It was also good to see Brandon and talk with him–I thanked him for his helpful (if harsh) comments on my English 318 final. Other people like James Dashner and Julie Wright recognized me from LTUE, which was really cool.

If people in the local scene are starting to recognize my face and my name, I must be doing something right. That’s very encouraging. Plus, the convetion was just plain fun. To top it off, the guy in the jawa costume was awesome. All around, good times. Very good times.

13,837 words in a day?

Yeah, that’s right. Believe it or not, I barreled through about 13,837 words today. That’s thirteen THOUSAND, not thirteen hundred.

Now, only about a thousand of that was new stuff that I was writing. Most of the rest of it was rearranging scenes that I’d already written, touching them up only a tiny bit. I did merge a couple of scenes, delete or tone down some stuff, etc.

So really, about 90% of my work today was just revision, and not even really hardcore revision at that. I’m still treating this version of my story as a rough draft; I’m not taking the time to polish things up and fix the known minor problems. Really, I’m just running through what I’ve already written to make sure I have what I need to get past the roadblock I hit back in April.

The biggest thing I’m doing right now is rearranging scenes into entirely new chapter arrangements. This seems to be a problem everytime I write a story with multiple viewpoints: I never seem to get the prelude-rising-falling-resolution-cliffhanger action that good chapters have. I write scenes as they come to me, in a progression that seems natural at the time, but once I take a step back, I find that things work better on the macro-level if I complete rearrange which scenes come where in the narrative.

Part of that is that sometimes I just need to write a few paragraphs (or even a few scenes) just for me to figure out what’s going on, plotwise or settingwise. What I’m finding with Bringing Stella Home is that I’m taking scenes from James and Danica’s viewpoints and moving them up a chapter or two, cutting out the filler in the middle.

I’ve got a long way to go before I master the art of good chapter structure. Or perhaps it’s something that I do better when I’m revising, not drafting. After all, I think I’m more of a discovery writer than a firm outliner. Perhaps I write in a sort of puzzled up everywhere kind of way, and then do best when I don’t put all the pieces together until after I’ve vomited them all on the page.

I am getting more excited about this story, though. Taking a step back and looking at things from a more global perspective has really re-energized me. I can see the major turning points, and that helps me to build up for them much better.

I’m only worried that the “midpoint” is going to be somewhere around the 3/5ths mark, not the halfway mark as it should be. One of my goals with this book is to see if I can hold to the three act structure and whether that makes my story any stronger. But, according to the website, the midpoint occurs “approximately” at the halfway point, so I guess I can fudge it.

Also, the midpoint is supposed to be where the main character hits rock bottom. Hee hee hee…oh, he will. He will. Bwahahahaha!!!

In the meantime, you owe it to yourself to listen to this:

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)

Ugh. Just ugh.

Man, it was hard to write. So hard, I only just finished, and it’s 1:30 am. Ugh.

The reason it was hard was because the character’s reactions in this scene needed to be totally revamped. That also necessitated a complete shift in the structure of the writing, because the rough draft consisted almost entirely of internal feelings and reflections. Indeed, the rough draft of this scene was about as close to an info dump as I will ever allow myself to come.

Or so I tell myself. The first rewrite tried to keep things internal, just with the new reactions and motivations, but…well, before I knew what I was doing, I was info dumping. Yes. Shame on me, I went and committed one of my greatest pet peeves. And I felt dirty afterwards, too.

Well, guess what happened? I just kept writing, dumping out the info that I , but it kept coming out slower and slower, like wringing the last few drops out of a washcloth. I didn’t know where to end, so I decided to cut it out somewhere in the middle…but then I got to the next scene from this character’s point of view, and realized that I was lacking the right transition to that part of the story.

Everything was falling apart.

So…I couldn’t just cut out all that stuff that I’d vomited onto the page. It was a butt ugly info dump, but I had to get it across somehow. I decided the only way to do it was to add in an extra scene.

Trouble was, for the sake of the flow of the chapter itself, I couldn’t just add all that stuff in another scene. For starters, the nature of the stuff I’d just dumped on the page necessitated two scenes, but I didn’t have another one to bring in to break them apart. I didn’t want to have three scenes all in a row from the same point of view–that would just be clumsy.

Ugh. Just ugh.

So, how to solve it? Take out a chainsaw and perform some delicate surgery. I threw out virtually the entire info dump that I’d spent a good part of my day writing, and made some fundamental changes to the world that I’m writing that totally negated all of that previous stuff (I can do that, you know. One of the perks of being a science fiction / fantasy writer–you can play god with the world you create). Then, with the new changes I’d made to the world, I came up with a totally different scene–one that actually worked–and inserted that after the very brief, almost prologue-ish opening scene of introspection.

And then, when I was working with something a little more concrete, I was back in that wonderful place where character shines through and suspense builds through a functional plot. No more info dumping–I felt so clean, so free of sin. Great.

It still took bloody forever to finish, though. All that wrangling from earlier in the day killed my momentum, so it was an uphill battle the whole way. Ugh.

Looking back, am I satisfied with what I wrote? Honestly, no. But the revisions it need are the kind that can wait until the 2.0 draft, not the kind that are preventing me from finishing the first draft.

Those problems, I’m afraid, are yet to come.

Getting into it

Three days into Bringing Stella Home 1.1 and I’m really getting into it. I’ve reworked the first and second chapters a ton. It’s coming along surprisingly well, considering I was just about ready to throw in the towel a month ago.

So far I’m over 12,000 words into the story, which shows up on the progress bar as 10% because I upped my estimated ending wordcount to 120k. I’ve heard that 90k per novel is what you really should be shooting for in science fiction, but then again, some of my favorite sf novels are well over 90k. Publishers make exceptions, I suppose–as long as the story and the writing is good.

I’ve been spending several hours writing every day, and I’ve noticed that I’m starting to produce more. Despite the fact that I’ve been doing some fairly substantial revisions to this piece, I’m clocking in at around 5k or 6k every day. Last week, I felt like I was stretching myself if I did more than 3k. If I keep this up, maybe by the end of the spring term I’ll be doing 10k or 12k words every day. Maybe.

That reminds me–I got an email back from the agency in New York. Turns out they haven’t yet chosen the person to fill their intern position…and they were wondering if I was in New York so I could interview with Joshua personally. Well, I’m not in New York, but they told me that was okay and it wouldn’t hurt my chances at getting this thing.

So…maybe I will be going to New York. :p Who knows? They told me they’d let me know one way or the other, and I haven’t heard back from them, so there is a chance that I’ll be catching a flight back east sometime next week.

The cool thing about this, though, is that whatever happens, it’s a win-win situation for me. If I stay, I’ll go ahead with the plans I’ve already set, and have an awesome summer working on my writing. If I go, I’ll have an awesome time in New York getting to know the publishing world a little better. I can’t go wrong with either option–my happiness and satisfaction doesn’t depend on other people. That’s the best position to be in.

One final thing: while rummaging around some old posts in my blog aggregator, I came across a link to Shannon Hale’s blog. She’s a young YA writer with some impressive accomplishments (such as a Newberry award) and some even more awesome things to say about writing, reading, and literature. One of the really cool things is this collection of essays on writing. She’s got some advice in there that’s simultaneously sobering and encouraging, which is probably the best kind that’s out there.

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)

Happy progress

Now that school is out and I don’t have any pressing obligations to keep me busy, I’m making some excellent progress on my writing. Really good progress, actually. I revised about five thousand words today, which, according to openoffice’s wordcounting algorithm, puts me at 73% finished.

Wow. At that rate, I could be finished with the 2.0 revision of Genesis Earth by the end of the week. I could finish the 3.0 version before the second weekend in May and get it out to all my beta readers by then.

Today, I went up to campus in the morning and had a liesurely, enjoyable day. I set up camp at an LRC computer and just wrote for six hours, with about a forty five minute lunch break in between. No other worries, no other obligations, pressing appointments, places to be…it was great.

I finished reading through Genesis Earth 1.0 a couple of days ago, and there was this conversation between my two main characters that really stood out to me. They’re both on foot, headed towards a village of primitive, native peoples on a distant planet. Terra turns to Michael, the viewpoint character, and asks him, point blank, “are you happy?”

It’s not like the main character is depressed or anything, it’s just that, up to this point, he hasn’t really taken the time to think about himself, to think about why he does what he does. Most of what he does, he does it for other people, or for some grand cause, or for something outside of himself. He does that so much, in fact, that he doesn’t ever really notice whether he’s happy at what he’s doing, or satisfied, or fulfilled. Terra’s question forces him to think about where he is, what he’s doing, and evaluate whether his work, his cause, his chosen mission really does give him happiness.

Well, I asked myself that question as I was hanging out in the LRC, and I’ve got to say it makes me really happy to just write. To immerse my mind in the story or project at hand and have that be my primary concern. I was very happy today, just working on my own writing, at my own pace, and not having anything or anyone screaming at me to do anything else.

We’ll see how that changes over the next few days and weeks. It will be an interesting summer if I end up in Provo, working on my writing and hitting up some of the cons out here. It’ll definitely know if I can be truly happy and fulfilled with this writing lifestyle.

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.)