Onward to the beginning! Revision time at last.

In a fitting end of the month event, last night I finished the story for Book 2 / Part 2 and wrote "The End" at...well, at the end, of course.  There are still some things I want to go back and change, but for the time being I'm pleased to be done with the brute force draft writing.  As I've blogged before, draft writing and draft revising are fairly different activities.  Writing is pure creative thought; I give some regard while writing to proper sentence structure and word choice, of course, as well as (now, anyway) proper voicing in dialogues, but my main purpose is always to get the story down on paper as fast as possible. 

Now that I'm turning the chapter to another revision stage, though, I move into a more careful, deliberate process.  Part of the process is reordering most of the words and changing several.  I once read a beautiful way to describe the process, written by Douglas Adams, but my quote looker-upper is failing me now.  It had something to do with the task of a writer being the selection of a few words out of the millions available and then putting them into the correct order.  He was correct, whatever he said.  Word choice and order is absolutely vital in writing, more so than in any other entertainment medium.  In movies, for example, millions of people flocked to see Thor's ripped abdominal muscles, and most of those never really noticed that the bulk of his lines went something like, "Niff norf nuff numnom nohhhh."  Us authors, if I may include myself in that group for the time being, don't have sexy ab shots to get people interested; all we've got are the words we write.  Thus, it stands to reason that the words had better be the best possible ones. We have to choose the Thor's Abs of the possible words. 

There are, however, a few other things you do when you revise.  One is to look at details, making sure that the stuff you set up makes sense in, say, Chapter 3, and that it still makes sense a few chapters later.  Take, ferinstance, the forge scene.  I wrote it based on memory of forges and on videos and books.  Then, this weekend, we went to Colonial Williamsburg and I got to see a non-electric forge in action.  I even got slag down my shirt.  And...I was close.  The way I described the forge of the mighty Hephaestus was really pretty darn close, and in that I am pleased.  Close, though, ain't good enough.  As I go back through I'll be combining the multiple forges into just a couple to leave room for the great bellows, and I'll move a few other things around a skosh.  Then, it will be perfect. 

The third thing you do when you revise is check for consistency and story points left out.  The basic rule is that anything you bring up should tie to something; it either serves the plot arc or it helps us understand a character.  The author, though, shouldn't leave his readers hanging.  The Salmon of Doubt includes a story told by Sue Freestone, Douglas Adams's publishing editor.  In it, the great author was telling her of books he was writing, and:

There was a scene early in one book when he talked about some plates with, very definitely, one banana on each.  This was obviously significant, so I asked him to explain.  But he liked to tease his audience and said he'd tell me later.  We eventually got to the end of the book and I asked him again, 'Okay, Douglas, what's with the bananas?'  He looked at me completely blankly.  He had forgotten all about the bananas.

Now, I've done this kind of thing at work to see if people are paying attention.  I'll discuss the three things I know are important to retention, and list the first two but not tell the third one.  More often than not, the folks listening don't ask, which tells me that either they're not paying attention, or I've made the discussion so boring that they just want to go back to their cubicles and staple post-its to their foreheads.  I'm kind of hoping, though, that were I to do this in a book, people would ask me about the bananas, because novel readers have been quite effectively proven to be paying thorough attention, and the other alternative stinks.  Thus, my third goal in revision is to make sure I explain all the bananas.  And dragons, too, for that matter.  And there is that one little trip to buy silk outfits in Atlantis that I absolutely know I didn't close the loop on...yeah, it'll be fixed soon. 

The last part is dialog.  Dialog, dialog, dialogue.  My story has gods and humans from various walks of life and talking dragons and people from Scotland and...well, there is a fair amount of diversity.  A good dialog writer makes those differences pop out at the reader.  Going back through some of my earlier writing, and at the same time reading some of the comments that my beta readers made, it's pretty clear that I can't call myself a good dialog writer yet.  As I go through revising, I have to pay extra super special attention to making the talking between the characters help the storytelling instead of the other alternative.  I'll probably even blog about it some.  

So...look out world, another major milestone has been reached.  Soon, the Ascent of the Goddess will be born. 

Word Count: 87,392; total word count: 162,100

Getting to the end...or not.

I don't devour stories like I used to. I remember, way back in my young man days, getting a copy of Robert Jordan's latest installment of WoT (can't recall if it was Book 369 or 373) on a Friday and finally going to sleep Sunday having read the entire bazillion-page book cover to cover, almost literally.  Now I savor books a bit more...if I like them.  If I don't, of course, I don't read them.

What brought this up is that this morning I realized I had gotten to the final scene of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.  With some sadness, I laid the book down and stood, unwilling to just plunge through the last several pages and close out the plot arc.  Tomorrow morning I'll probably finish it, or the next, but I've enjoyed the book so much that I'll actually feel sad when it's done.  The same thing happened with The Eye of the Needle; it was a compelling story.  In neither story did I much like the central character; it's a German spy in one, and a really rather ignorant and somewhat barbaric girl in the other.  But in both cases I understood them; the authors successfully brought a (less than likeable) character to life for me.

Contrast that to another award-winning novel, Articles of War by Arvin.  I bought it before I bought the EotN, and eagerly popped it into my CD drive on the way to work the day after it arrived.  Halfway there, I popped it right back out.  I went on to listen to a couple of other books, and then tried it again...in part, because I felt sort of guilty for admitting to not liking an award-winning book, and in part because I had nothing else to listen to other than the satellite and FM radio stations.  This time I forced myself to make it all the way through the first CD, but just couldn't bear to pull the next CD out of the case, much less pop it into the player.  I know it's bad when I start looking at the readout that shows what track is playing on the CD, wondering what cool sounds I'm missing on the 80's channel. 

What made this one so tough?  For me, it boils down to the main character.  I've read reviews telling what wonderful and insightful challenges the guy goes through in the book, and that sounds great.  But I can't get past the first part.  The guy is flat.  He's boring.  Maybe he's that way on purpose, but something that's bad on purpose is still bad.  He's called Heck because he doesn't curse.  And...that's all I remember about him.  I can tell you where Die Nadel grew up and what sport he won an award in, but I have no idea about Heck.  I can give you all sorts of details about Yeine's background, but Heck's is absent for me.  It's not like Heck's background was unwritten; I just didn't get much give-a-damn out of reading it. 

Given that, I really owe the folks who've read the draft of Part I for me an even greater volume of thanks than I realized at first.  Most of what I've been hearing is that my characters are flat, at least at first.  And they're right.  That means my friends have been doing what I haven't been able to do: reading past the boring part to get to the more interesting stuff.  While I'm glad for their strength, the realization of what I've done makes me want to dive in and fix it that much more.

Eventually, I promise, I'll have the type of book that I would put down, just a little past where I am in the writing currently, unwilling to just plunge through the last several pages and close out the plot arc.  Till tomorrow, anyway, or maybe the next day.

Word Count: 75,000

Drinking and writing

I was initially going to take a day off of blogging for a couple of reasons, but it's Towel Day, and so I absolutely must write, if for no other reason than to pay homage to Mr. Adams.

Some time ago I wrote about what authors drink, and it turned into an interesting bit of research for me.  Many authors are or have been known for their alcohol consumption...take, for example, Stephen King.  In the 80's, he got into drug and alcohol abuse to the point where it serves a significant role in his book On Writing.  His advice, loud and clear in the book, is this: don't do it.  It's a crutch, he says. 

I've written about my own enjoyment of a nice beer or a whiskey after a long day of work, myself.  Of course, I tend to write after work, which means I often drink and write at the same time.  The thing is, I usually don't drink very much, so it's never been an issue.  Last night was different, though.  I had a particularly rough day at work, and so I picked up a particularly tasty and strong beer (Double Bastard, from the makers of Arrogant Bastard...yum) on the way home.  Then I drank it.  It was so good, I drank another.  By the time I started writing, I was feeling beyond relaxed and into pretty darn giddy.  Did my thousand words, ish, and then moseyed on off to bed. 

So this morning, I got up and read over what I'd written, and as a result, I won't drink that much and write ever again, I assure you.  I mean, it was garbage.  Crap, with a capital k.  Total crap, with a capital tk.  I had written the scene where Thor introduces our beautiful and capable (and quite beaten up, by this point) heroine to his hall of warriors for dinner after a long day of her sparring with the thunder god.  I know how I want that scene to sound, and what I read this morning wasn't it.  What I'd written sounded more like Jimmy Carter introducing the Queen of England to a frat house.  Ugh.  It's not even worthy of mere deletion; I feel like I have to print it out so I can stomp on it, mark it up in a black magic marker, and then shred it. 

Ah, well.  At least I didn't totally waste my time.  I got some experience, and as I learned to say a long time ago in the Army, experience is what you got when you didn't get what you wanted.  As I'm re-writing that scene tonight, I'll start with a hundred times of repeating:  If you drink, don't write.  If you write, don't drink. 

Word Count: 73,407

Quotes 'R Us...well, Me, anyway.

I used to play a game, back when I was ensconced in the glory of having supreme faith in a particular religion and its views.  I'd take that book...you know the one, whose title always begins with a Capital B no matter what...and open it to a random page, point to a random verse, and be thrilled when the writing on the page spoke directly to my present situation.  It was clearly the hand of God reaching down, guiding my one finger as it picked the right verse out of thousands for me to read. 

Meh.  I've aged a bit, and life doesn't hold quite the mystery it used to.  Not saying you shouldn't continue playing that game, if it brings you strength or warmth or inspiration.  It still, in fact, works for me.  But so does a web site full of quotes on writing. 

Funny how it works.  I presume there's some psychological term for it, this ability to find relevance in random quotations or thoughts or images.  But it does happen, and it's not surprising that it does.  After all, our lives are strange and quirky amalgamations of thousands of events every day.  You may not notice, but I suspect your subconscious does, and so when you read a quote that has relevance to something you saw, heard, or read at, say, 6:30 this morning, is it really surprising that your brain flags that as interesting? 

*ahem* So now I've probably destroyed the magic in someone's prayer life, dooming them to eternal Hell or something like that.  Sorry.  What I'm really getting at is that I went through some quote sites this morning and found a number that applied to my efforts.

Be obscure clearly.  ~E.B. White
Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.  ~Hannah Arendt
I love writing.  I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.  ~James Michener
Every writer I know has trouble writing.  ~Joseph Heller
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the other one.  ~Baltasar Gracián
What no wife of a writer can ever understand is that a writer is working when he's staring out of the window.  ~Burton Rascoe
The best time for planning a book is while you're doing the dishes.  ~Agatha Christie
If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.  ~Don Marquis
Most editors are failed writers - but so are most writers.  ~T.S. Eliot
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.  ~Stephen King (no, not this one)

See how much wisdom can be gained through reading the words of others?

Word Count: 73,407

A different letter for the alphabet

Douglas Adams is one of the few authors for whom, when I have his work open in front of me, I change the verb "reading" to "recharging with."  Granted, "recharging with" isn't precisely a verb, more of a verb and preposition, but you get the point, no?  In any event, one of his shorter essays in The Salmon of Doubt struck me as particularly apropos to my efforts this morning. 

"Why" is the only question that bothers people enough to have an entire letter of the alphabet named after it, the essay begins.  It goes on, The alphabet does not go "A B C D What? When? How?" but it does go "V W X Why? Z." 

He goes on to write about some questions in life are easy to answer, like "When was the battle of 1066?" (his answer is, of course, "Ten-fifteen in the morning").  But other questions are much harder to answer, and often those are the questions that begin with Why. 

One that springs to mind occasionally in my efforts is: "Why am I doing this?"  The question is quite beautiful in its generality, but for now let's focus on the writing.  I'm spending hours each day writing a story.  That's hours each day I'm not spending with my family, or reading a good book, or recreating.  I took the family out to a wonderful tour of the Maymont Park this weekend and then to dinner and a movie, and all along I kept thinking about how much I wanted...NEEDED...to get back to the writing.  It's like a bad addiction I could easily give up, but won't.  Why? 

The money, of course.  Yes, I'm giggling as I write that.  There's a great chance that I'll find a wonderful agent and a publisher who will make me rich and famous because of all the fabulous authoring I'm doing now.  In The Making of a Bestseller, they roughly quantify that great chance: "Bowkers estimates that 175,000 new titles are now published annually.  It is believed that less than 1 in 100 books that are submitted for publication actually end up in print...."  OK, so make that a 1% chance of getting published in the first place.  Then "It has been estimated that only 10 percent of books published ever end up selling enough copies to earn back the advance paid to the author....  How many become bestsellers?  Fewer than .3 percent."  That's .3 percent of 1 percent.  You do the math; it makes my brain cry.  The last blow the book gives before scurrying off into rosy discussion of how to do it is, "Another way of looking at these results is that...an average of 4 new books per week appeared on the list, or 208 for the entire year (in fiction)." 

Can I write one of those 208?  Possibly.  I'm excited for the opportunity, frankly, but I would also be pretty stupid if I counted on it.  Those ain't big odds. 

So, why?  Why, why, why?

For solace, I return to the ubermeister, Douglas Adams, and his essay on the topic.  He said:

But when you hear the word "Why?," you know you've got one of the biggest unanswerables on your hands, such as..."Will you go to bed with me?"  "Why?"  (Yes, I skipped several other less interesting unanswerables) 

There's only ever been one good answer to that question "Why?" and perhaps we should have that in the alphabet as well.  There's room for it....  How would it be if the alphabet ended..."V W X Why Not?"

Why do I write?  Why not?  There's a story in there to tell, and it may bring me fame and glory, or it may bring me a thick sheaf of papers in an old box to show my grandkids.  One way or another, I'm takin' a swing. 

Word Count: 72,566

Butchering a legend

OK, I'm doing it myself...the very thing I derided the director/screenwriters of the movie Thor for in an earlier post.  I'm butchering a legend.  Specifically, I'm having the lovely heroine of the story go spend time in Valhalla with its master, Thor. 

But wait, those who know Norse mythology will say: Odin is the master of Valhalla. 

Not in my story. 

It kind of comes down to a bit of a sticky point on how I'm tying the Norse deities in with the Roman/Greek pantheon, and then fitting Yahweh in to the whole mess.  It's a bit sacreligious from a Judeo-Christian standpoint, so if I believed in Hell I'm sure I'd think I was going there.  What I'm doing now, meanwhile, is sacreligious to my Asatru friends, so hey, I guess I'm an equal opportunity offender.  But the only way the story makes sense to me is if Thor is in charge of Valhalla.  If that makes me destined for Helheim, or to be eaten by the dragon Niddhog, after my death, so be it.  But it's my story, after all. 

Hopefully, if I'm telling the story right, it's the only way it will make sense to the readers, as well.  I did write in a long discussion between Matt and his resident expert in mythology to explain it away, and then yesterday I revisited the discussion with the guy whom Matt's resident expert in mythology is named after, and it seemed to work out fine in both cases.  Maybe I'll escape offending the Asatruars after all.  Maybe.   

In any event, it's an awfully fun part of the story to write.  Valhalla is a cool place, after all. 

And now, back to writing....

Word Count: 68,269

I just don't get it....

I have a very strange brain.  That's not exactly groundbreaking news to those who know me well, but it's true in so many ways.  Specifically, now, the strangeness I'm speaking of is related to the topic of creativity.  See, some people are innately creative.  I'm not.  And yet here I am doing something creative to discuss an act that is inherently creative. 

But really, no, I'm not a creative guy.  Not, not, not.  How do I know?  Creative people watch interpretive dance and think...something...about how beautiful an expression of life, the universe, and everything it is.  Last time I watched interpretive dance, I was at a cast party at West Point for a theater production we had just done.  As one of the more balladic songs--don't recall which--played its tones across the dance floor, one of the primary actor types sauntered out between everyone who was dancing in the non-interpretive, I-want-to-sleep-with-you way, and started wiggling.  Sort of.  Moving, wiggling, herky-jerkying, and spinning are all verbs that come to mind.  Now that I've heard of it, I know that he was just doing interpretive dance.  Back then, I thought he was in need of mental treatment.  Still kinda do, in fact; that stuff was strange.

What brings the subject up in a fresher sense is my research today.  See, I took Stephen King seriously when he suggested, through his On Writing work, that I constantly seek to learn more about the craft.  I had the perfect opportunity today, in fact, when due to an illness on my staff I got stuck watching people take an admissions test for four hours.  The practice is called proctoring, and every time I do it I'm reminded of its closeness to the term proctology.  It consisted of endless repetitions of: scan the room, no cheaters (kinda tough for them to cheat, anyway, since each has her own version); scan the testing company's monitoring site to make sure nobody went over her time limit on a section of the test (which can only by definition happen once an hour); repeat.  During that time, I was granted a wonderful opportunity to research more about the craft of writing, since sleep wasn't a valid option.

I hit on something grand, in a strange way.  Or perhaps it's strange, in a grand way.  I'm not sure which yet.  It's called "asemic writing."  According to my good friends at Wikipedia, asemic writing is defined as "a wordless open semantic form of writing."  Semantics, of course, is the study of meaning, and so the term open semantic refers to the freedom to mean anything, even nothing, in any manner you wish.  Open semantics, then, is kind of the opposite of what Stephen King teaches in his book on the craft.

Asemic writing is more or less artfully displayed at several web sites, including http://www.asemic.net/, where the site owner says, "It looks like writing, but we can't quite read it."  My non-creative mind says...so what the hell good is it if we can't quite read it?  My sarcastic side then chimes in with a comparison of the writing sample displayed at asemic.net with my own handwriting, which is known to be horrible on the best days, from the class notes at West Point from International Relations class.  That was the class that recorded the lowest grade on my transcript, in part because I found the subject fascinating right up till I had to study it in that fashion and then found it unbelievably boring, and in part because it was right after lunch.  I am a little ashamed to admit that I kept all my notes for about five years after graduation, but those notes brought a chuckle for all those years as you'd see each lesson start with precision and end in a herky-jerky set of scribbles combined with the vertical marks you find concurrent to a student's head-bobbing of sleepiness. 

There are more sites devoted to scribbles...or asemic writing...of course.  http://thenewpostliterate.blogspot.com/ is a site titled "The New Post-Literate: A Gallery of Asemic Writing."  As offended as I may, in my non-creative brain, be by the suggestion that asemic writing is what we ascend to AFTER we get good at the readable stuff, I'm fascinated by how much of it there is and by how many proponents the practice seems to have gathered.  It's the literary equivalent of that wing in the art galleries and museums I'm always terrified to walk into: the one where everybody is standing around a famous work of art saying how wondrous it is, and all I see is a bunch'a friggin' blobs.  Have you ever seen the one that looks like the artist painted a finger with his finger?  That's what I'm talking about.  In physical art, it's called abstract.  Apparently, as I learned this morning, in literary art, it's called asemic. 

And I don't get it.  Either one.  Add that herky-jerky stuff called interpretive dance, too.  I just don't get them.  I have no creative side of me.  Sorry.

Lucky for me, I don't think that true creative brilliance is required to write a decent novel.  In fact, that just might be the difference between literary fiction authors and commercial fiction authors.  Maybe the literary folks see asemic writing and think on what a beautiful linguistic expression it is, while commercial authors see it as scribbles too.  Might make for an interesting dissertation, that. 

Not interested in doing a dissertation, though.  For now, I'll just continue plugging along in my semantic-filled world. 

Word Count: 67,163