Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘first drafts’

Back to Writing Stuff

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on January 9, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Okay, enough goals for the new year and holidays and birthdays. Back to the important stuff–writing.

THE BARD’S GIFT is out to readers. I’ve even gotten my first response back–and it was a good one. I’m still waiting for feedback on FIRE AND EARTH and MAGE STORM. So, it’s time to move on with something new.

Right now, I’m working on the rewrite of last year’s MAGIC’S FOOL, which was itself a partial rewrite of my first (serious) novel, THE SHAMAN’S CURSE. Since the main character’s age (13) was going to be a show-stopper with agents, this time he’s a couple of years older and it’s a boy-oriented young adult story. I feel better about that after reading David Farland’s NIGHTENGALE. It’s a balance between writing some new material and reusing a good bit of what I wrote last year, so it’s going pretty fast. 

Meanwhile, I’m letting a couple of shiny new ideas percolate in my subconscious. I love them both, but neither of them is quite ripe. I’m still mostly a discovery writer, but I know better than to start in on a novel-length story without a reasonable idea of where I want it to go–and what it’s central problem is. One is a sort of Oz story–if Oz was more like a magical Jurassic Park than Munchkinland and Dorothy wasn’t sure if she could trust the scarecrow, cowardly lion, or tinman. The other is a secret history of King Arthur–with dragons.

Here’s to a successful and productive 2013.

Cowardly Lion's Courage Medal

Cowardly Lion’s Courage Medal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Read Full Post »

Looking Forward

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2013| 1 Comment »

I gave up making resolutions a couple of years ago. No one keeps them. Instead, I try to make goals. Goals–good ones, anyway–are concrete and are able to be broken down into achievable steps. There’s a much better chance of at least making progress toward a goal than there is of keeping a resolution. At least, there is for me. So, here are my writing goals for 2013:

  1. Get THE BARD’S GIFT in shape to start querying it. It’s going out for critiques this month. Then revisions and polish. Plus, of course, getting the query in shape and writing the evil synopsis.
  2. Get MAGE STORM into shape to start querying it again. It’s been off the market since last March. This one is still in the hands of a very thorough critique partner.
  3. FIRE AND EARTH, too. This one is currently in the hands of a mentor from Pitch Wars. Once I hear back, beat it into shape and get it out there again. If I haven’t found an agent for one of the above by the end of 2013, I’ll e-publish FIRE AND EARTH.
  4. Whip BLOOD IS THICKER into shape and e-publish it.
  5. Enter Writers of the Future at least one quarter.
  6. Write the first drafts of two new novels. One will be the rewrite of MAGIC’S FOOL (which I have outlined and ready to go). The other will likely be one of the two shiny new ideas that came to me in the last couple of months. I’m excited by both of them, but I have more world building and prep work to do before either is really ready to go.
  7. Learn and improve.

I have a list of personal goals, too, but this post is already long enough.

Happy–and productive and successful–New Year!

Read Full Post »

A Look Back

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on December 29, 2012| 3 Comments »

Well, it’s that time of the year. Time to look back and see what was–or wasn’t–accomplished in the last year and declare goals for next year. I’ll do the first in this post and blog about next years goals in my next post, which will actually be next year.

The full post of my goals for 2012 is here.

Teen and Young Adult Fiction

   Writing goals:

  1. BLOOD WILL TELL was e-published during 2012. It’s original cover wasn’t very good, which I’m sure affected sales. It has a new and much better cover now.
  2. I did query MAGE STORM during 2012, but I currently have it torn apart for revisions with the help of a very thorough critique partner. I expect to give it another go in 2013. I believe in this story. Plus, I have at least three potential sequels for it that I’d like to write.
  3. SEVEN STARS, which is now titled FIRE AND EARTH, has also been queried. It got chosen as first alternate in Pitch Wars this month and I’m waiting for the feedback from my mentor so I can make revisions and see what happens.
  4. MAGIC’S FOOL will never get beyond first draft, I’m sorry to say. I learned in this year’s WriteOnCon that the age of my protagonist is poison. Too old for middle grade and not old enough for young adult. I can’t make him any younger, so I’ll give the story a rewrite as young adult, including material that was planned for the sequel (MAGIC’S APPRENTICE), possibly in 2013.
  5. Keep writing. This was an unqualified success. I finished three drafts of THE BARD’S GIFT, which is now ready for readers in a few days.

As for the personal goals, well, let’s just say I did better with my writing.

Read Full Post »

Decisions, Decisions . . .

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 19, 2012| 2 Comments »

. . . of the best possible kind.

I’ve finished my drafts of THE BARD’S GIFT, ready for readers next month. I’ve got two other projects–FIRE AND EARTH and MAGE STORM–currently out and I’m expecting revision notes back on both. I’ve been revisiting some short stories that have been waiting for a little attention–and I’m getting excited about one. I think I finally see the way to make it better, as opposed to just tweaking it.

But that’s the background. The new year is almost upon us and it’s time to start planning my next project and get ready to plunge back into first draft mode after all this revision stuff. And I have a number of projects to choose from:

  1. It could be a rewrite of my embarassing first novel. Most uncharacteristically, I actually have an outline for this one. There are a couple of decisions I’d still have to make, but I basically know these characters and where the story would be going. (By the way, this is the same world as my short story “Becoming Lioness”.)Becoming Lioness Cover
  2. It could be a shiny new idea I had just a couple of months ago. A twist on “The Wizard of Oz”–if Oz was much more like a magical Jurassic Park than Munchkinland. I wrote a flash story based on this idea, but I’ve got a lot more world-building, not to mention plot development, to do before I’d be ready to start.
  3. It could be a fairy-tale retelling based (loosely) on “Little Furball”.
  4. Or a retelling of an old Welsh tale, Culluch and Olwen.
  5. Or another alternate history that’s been bouncing around in my head for the last month or so. This one could be a series. Maybe even *gasp* epic.

Decisions, decisions.

Read Full Post »

Query Time Again

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , on December 2, 2012| 3 Comments »

Not to send them. Not yet. This is, in my opinion, a really bad time of year to be sending queries anyway.

No, it’s time to start writing the query for THE BARD’S GIFT, which I hope to start querying in about six months. Yes, in my experience, it does take about that long to come up with a good query. Not solid work for six months of course. Writing the query, closing it, coming back to look at it with fresh eyes, several rounds of seeking feedback from critique partners. Queries are hard. (And I haven’t even started the dreaded synopsis, yet.)

Without further ado, here’s the current (and very preliminary) version of the query:

Sixteen-year-old Astrid keeps mostly to herself, amusing herself with the stories her grandmother used to tell. She’s too shy even to talk in front of the young man she secretly dreams of, Torolf. Then the Norse god of eloquence appears in Astrid’s dreams and forces her to drink from the Mead of Poetry. Suddenly, she’s compelled to tell her stories. In public. Even in front of Torolf.

 This has the unexpected benefit of allowing her to actually talk to Torolf–and find out that he’s interested in her, too. Things are looking up, until her father consults the seeress, who proclaims that Astrid’s gift for knowing the exactly right story to comfort, inspire, instruct, or warn is the key to leading her people from starvation in Greenland to a new future.

Astrid must sail to the part of the map labelled “Here be dragons”, while Torolf makes a hazardous voyage in the opposite direction, to Iceland, to supply the fledgling colony. Without his support, she has to learn to trust herself and her stories to keep her people from repeating past mistakes and hold off a take-over attempt that could doom their only chance.

 Ultimately, the new settlement will need both her stories and Torolf’s inventiveness. Astrid has to believe that Torolf will overcome all obstacles to find his way back to her.

THE BARD’S GIFT is an 80,000-word young adult alternate history. I have enclosed [whatever the agent wants].

Thank you for your time.

Read Full Post »

Minor Characters

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on November 18, 2012| 2 Comments »

As I work through the second draft of THE BARD’S GIFT (now about 75% complete), I’m starting to think more and more about my side characters. Minor characters can add depth, conflict, and realism to a story. After all, would HARRY POTTER be as good without the Weasley twins or Luna Lovegood? Or LORD OF THE RINGS without Faramir and Eowyn?

My first drafts tend to be very protagonist-centric. Minor characters and even the antagonists tend to be underdeveloped in the first draft. That’s not a problem–as long as I realize it and fix it.

Through the second draft, part of what I’ve been doing is strengthening the antagonists. I’m not nearly done with that. There’ll be more to do in the third and maybe even in the fourth draft.

There are other minor characters, too, though. And they all have to be real, three-dimensional characters in the final draft. That’s one of the main things I have to work on in later drafts.

In particular, I’ve got my eye on a very minor character. Well, she was minor in the first draft. A friend of Astrid, my main character, who isn’t always on her side. She’s a friend, but she has her own issues and goals, too. And her own ideas of what is in Astrid’s best interest. This is good. It makes her more real. It’s also a potential (and currently untapped) source of conflict in the story. Next draft, Gerda is getting a lot bigger role.

Who are some of your favorite side characters?

Read Full Post »

Prologues

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 28, 2012| 2 Comments »

Ack! I really generally dislike prologues–both as a reader and as a writer. Besides that, I’ve heard often enough that agents hate them, too. But even I have to admit that sometimes they’re necessary. Unfortunately, it looks like THE BARD’S GIFT is one of those times.

You see, there’s a speculative element in TBG that will be somewhat important to the ultimate resolution of the story. And that element–a particular creature–doesn’t turn up as early as I’d originally hoped. Not until about three-quarters of the way, through, in fact.

In my opinion, any unexpected element that will affect the ending needs to be introduced at latest before the half-way point. Otherwise, you risk the ending feeling like Deus ex Machina–something the characters haven’t really earned. That’s just not satisfying for the readers, generally.

But there just isn’t any way to introduce this creature/character much sooner because my POV characters don’t get into his territory before that. My solution, at least so far, is a prologue–just a short scene involving this character that hopefully also raises some tension, but mainly lets the reader know that he exists.

Sometimes, you just gotta do what you gotta do.

Read Full Post »

Progress Update

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 17, 2012| 2 Comments »

Well, by now I’d hoped to have e-published BLOOD IS THICKER, which is the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL. That’s not going to happen until sometime early next year.

Partly that’s because I didn’t get to it as soon as I hoped, because the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT took longer than expected. Partly it’s because the first draft of BLOOD IS THICKER is just very, very rough. It’s going to need a lot of work and I won’t release it until I’m happy with it, bottom line.

On a brighter note, I’m making better progress now that I’ve decided this first revision pass is going to be strictly to fix plot issues. That decision has freed me up to work a lot more smoothly and not get hung up on things that are basically cosmetics. Not that those craft issues aren’t important; far from it. It’s just that I can’t do everything at once on this one and that was keeping me from making any progress at all. Once the story is right, the cosmetic and mechanical issues will be so much easier to fix.

I have given a little thought to the eventual cover for this one in my spare time. Even looked at a few images. Having found that gorgeous magicl night sky for the background for the cover of BLOOD WILL TELL, I think the next two will also feature other kinds of magical skies–and that’s all I’m going to say about that for now. You’ll have to wait for the cover reveal.

Read Full Post »

Bright Shiny New Ideas

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , on October 7, 2012| 4 Comments »

On Friday, while I was out running errands, a bright, shiny, new idea hit me between the eyes.  Don’t you love it when that happens? My mind happily followed this idea down its rabbit trails and provided me with a good slice of world building before I even got home. (I jotted notes down on the back of my grocery list.)

It’s a bit of a departure for me, but that’s okay. It’s good to stretch outside the comfort zone now and again.

The temptation, always, is to act like a magpie and follow the bright, shiny, new idea wherever it leads because, well, new ideas are sexy. But I’m not going to do that–at least not yet.

I’m in the middle of revisions for the next couple of months, one way or the other. I’m not ready to start a new first draft. A new idea needs time to grow and accumulate a few other ideas as it rolls around in my head. Time to develop more fully.

Very fortunately, there’s a new challenge up on Hatrack River that this story idea fits pretty well. That allowed me to take the edge off the need to go after the new idea to the exclusion of all else by writing a quick flash based on it. It’s not–not by a long road–the whole idea, but it let me put a little first-draft love into it without telling the whole story.

I think this is a young adult story, although it could be done as middle grade. That’s one of the things that letting the idea brew a little will help me decide.

So now the question is which of two possible stories I’ll be starting. I think I know what I’ll be working on for most of next year either way.

In other news, I happened on a photograph that completely revised my idea for the new cover of BLOOD WILL TELL. I’m working on a totally new concept with a couple of options for how to get there. Maybe I’ll have enough of it together to show by my next blog post.

Read Full Post »

Revision Plan and Status

Posted in writing, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Well, unless lightning strikes, it looks like I’ll be in revision mode for most of the rest of this year. Being more or less the three-quarter mark of the year, it’s a good time to make plans and set goals.

  1. MAGE STORM: I actually completed the revisions on this ahead of schedule. I’ve got one reader for the revised version and I probably need to look for one or two more. Then, of course, incorporate anything coming from the revisions that I feel is right for the story. I’m feeling really good about this one. So I’ll also need to go back over the query and synopsis. This one is likely to go out to agents again early next year.
  2. BLOOD IS THICKER: I’ve started the revisions to this one. This is actually the first round of revisions and in places it’s probably one of the roughest rough drafts I’ve written in quite a while. I wrote the first draft early last year and had a few alpha readers on it, but I haven’t touched it since last May (busy with the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT). Now I need to read through it and incorporate as many of the revision notes as I can. Then I’ll be able to see what to do with it next. This is the sequel to BLOOD WILL TELL.
  3. Time permitting, I have a couple of short stories I might take a second look at. “Infected With Magic” is the short story that spawned MAGE STORM. It also got me an honorable mention from Writers of the Future. I won’t undertake another round of revisions on it, though, unless I can figure out a better ending. Endings are still my Achilles heel when it comes to short stories. I can land a novel no problem, but short stories, especially ones under 5,000 words, are just a lot harder for me. I’m more likely to take another pass at “The Seeker”. I’ve gotten some feedback on this one recently and I think I finally have a better idea of what I need to do with it. We’ll see.
  4. There’s also a novelette, “Becoming Lioness”.  I’m going to put this one up to my writers’ group in October. After I shine up whatever they find, I’ll probably e-publish it. It’s an awkward length for traditional publication and it’s already been to most places I’d be willing to send it. It just came back from the last one after 230 days on submission.
  5. Then it’ll be time to get back to THE BARD’S GIFT and get it shined up for the writers’ group to read in January. Fortunately, that one is a pretty clean first draft. It needs the usual (for me) things added to it–antagonists motives and a stronger presence of the antagonist, setting descriptions, etc.–but I think the draft will stand pretty well without major plot changes. At least until after I get a few reader reactions.
  6. If I just get an itch to start something new, I’ve got the outline for THE SHAMAN’S CURSE/MAGIC’S FOOL (I don’t know which title I’ll choose for the third time around) to play with.
  7. I also really need to use this time to set up a marketing plan for the things I’ve e-published. Something I really should have done first, I know. But I know me and I knew I wouldn’t do it without some skin in the game. Now that my head’s not completely in the first draft of THE BARD’S GIFT every time I sit down at the computer, maybe I can make some headway on this. I’m going to have to start laying out concrete, short-term goals to get it done. Marketing was never my favorite subject.

Well, that ought to be enough to keep me out of trouble for a while.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »