Where Stories go to Die...

I'm going to tell you something that your other writer friends won't:

(Sometimes you have to let a story die.)

GASP!!!

This is NOT the same as giving up. And it's NOT the same as expecting perfection with the first draft. I'm not telling you to stop writing. 

The truth is, though, sometimes we as writers get in the way of our own stories. Sometimes all we can see is our own expectations of what we think the story SHOULD BE rather than what it NEEDS TO BE. And sometimes the story we WANT to write isn't the story we NEED to write.

FUCK what you want to write. Throw that shit away. Delete it. Burn it. Get quiet, banish your demons (or learn to dance with them), and MAKE ROOM FOR THE STORY YOU NEED TO WRITE.

And tell me about it! Does this sound familiar to you? Have you ever wrestled with the stories in your head? Leave me a comment here and tell me about it! Or follow me on twitter and talk to me there. That's where I live anyway.

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE: The Story Begins Here...

PRE-ORDER BEGINS TODAY, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN AND READERS OF ALL AGES!!

The Road to Nowhere launches October 15 for the Amazon Kindle but if you're smart and click my link before then you can pre-order this groundbreaking Young Adult novel for just $2.99!!

Click my link! Pre-order today!

But what if you don't have a Kindle?? NO WORRIES. Anyone can read a Kindle book, on ANY device, with the FREE Kindle app. This link will explain how.

 (Hint: look at the right side of the page, just under the pre-order button.)

The Road to Nowhere is about hope, and I DO sincerely hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Adventures in Self-Publishing!

That giddy feeling you get when click "publish" on the Kindle Direct Publishing page...

...Followed by hours of impatient checking and rechecking to see if your book is live yet. 

Goddammit Amazon! You make it so easy and yet! And yet!

Available VERY SOON to pre-order for your kindle:

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

Adventures in Self-Marketing, Planning a Book Launch, and Keeping the Whiskey at Hand

So you know that I've decided to continue with my Adventure in Self-Publishing, which I dove into way back in January of 2011 with an ambitious short thriller called Charlie, the first in a year-long series. 

I'm pleased with my decision. Self-publishing is NOT what it used to be. It's mostly lost it's stigma. Once upon a time it was an expensive exercise in vanity. Today it's about creative control and expedience. And, increasingly, self-publishing is the way to make the most money.

But self-publishing also means that I'm COMPLETELY in control of my own fate. Completely. It's all about me and my own efforts. No one else is gonna toot my book's horn. And man, can it be exhausting! But I believe in my book, The Road to Nowhere. I'm not shy. I'll tell ya all about it, in my continuing blog series Adventures in Self Publishing!

But sometimes it drives me to drink. So I keep the Whiskey handy. 

Adventures in Self Publishing!

I don't like to follow the rules.

I don't like to do something just because it's convention, or because someone older and wiser than me says I should.

I'm kinda stupid that way.

All my life--well, at least since I figured out that books are things that people write--I've wanted to write books. And all my life I've been waiting for permission to do so. 

But I don't need anybody's fucking permission. I've just rediscovered that. So I'm going to stick with self-publishing. 

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Ten: Querying Your Frickin' Heart Out

You read my pathetic attempt at a first draft for my Query. And you didn't laugh TOO hard, which I totally appreciate. I wish that was all I had to do, but unfortunately it's not. That was just the beginning. Now I have to trim it down and tighten it up. And I'm going to share that process with you! (Feeling lucky?)

Edits in red. Text that is strike-through indicates I'm considering removing it.
Here goes: 

Second Draft

All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere. Good line. That stays. 

Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a secret the Ardor Laboratory Corporation will go to any lengths to protect. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere. Amarillo hasn't seen her baby sister since the day she disappeared from their family home nine years ago. The older sister is plagued by guilt: if she hadn't left home, if she hadn't sought an exciting life in Somewhere, maybe she could have saved Cerulean. A chance assignment given to her by her boss, Mayor Naples Orange of Somewhere, proves to Amarillo that there was nothing she could have done all those years ago to protect Cerulean. It also gives the spunky young woman something else she sorely needs--hope that it is still possible to save her sister, and all the other Lost Children who are trapped in the neighboring city of Nowhere.

All Amarillo has to do is find a way to get inside Nowhere Rewrite! To save the Lost Children, Amarillo has to get inside Nowhere. That is no small feat. No one in Somewhere can remember anyone ever being able to get in or out of their sister city, except maybe Nowhere's mayor, the boogeyman Mayor Blue. But Amarillo knows she can do it, even if she has to do it alone. Mayor Orange is busy with his pet road project, the Roy G. Biv highway that will connect Somewhere and Nowhere and hopefully spur economic growth. Also there is the issue of the continued hope theft from the emotion recycling plant. At first Amarillo thinks she may be able to turn to Deputy Mayor Scarlet for help, but when she spots him inside Nowhere--on the other side of the seemingly impenetrable force field that seals that city off from the rest of the world--with an armload of stolen emotion actuators, she knows he is up to no good.

What is Somewhere's deputy mayor doing? Maybe it has something to do with The Outlawz, the elusive gang of saboteurs who have been attacking the road construction from the very beginning. Both Mayor Orange and the Somewhere Times have surmised that The Outlawz are probably a youth gang comprised of Lost Children. No one has any suggestions about what the saboteurs' motives might be, but when Amarillo sees Deputy Scarlet inside Nowhere with the pilfered hope, she gets an idea.

The more Amarillo digs into the problem of the Lost Children, the more she realizes it's not just a Nowhere issue. It's a Somewhere issue. The histories of Nowhere and Somewhere are inextricably connected, and they are tied to the secret that the Ardor Labs Corporation--the largest employer in Somewhere and the biggest supporter of the Roy G. Biv highway--will do anything to keep buried. Amarillo finds an ally in Somewhere Times reporter Fern Viridian, and together, they--along with Mayor Orange--fight to unravel that secret and free the Lost Children.

What Amarillo doesn't know is that the Lost Children have not been sitting passively by, waiting to be rescued. Led by her intrepid little sister Cerulean and former Outlawz members Azure and Denim, they have been fighting: against the other Outlawz, against Deputy Mayor Scarlet, and even against the evil Mayor Blue. When the battle finally unites the forces from Somewhere and the forces from Nowhere, they are ready to stand together and vanquish their foes with their strength and their hope restored.

ROAD TO NOWHERE, a young adult urban fantasy novel, is complete at just over 77,000 words.

Well...it's a start? I'm submitting this slightly-revised second draft to The Saturday Slash query critique because I really super-duper need help in knowing how to trim this sucker down.

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Nine: Query Writing the Hard Way

I was going to subtitle this post Query Writing for Dummies, because I'm a dummy and I'm embarking on the first draft of the query letter for my MS (that's manuscript for you non-writing types), but I was afraid that y'all would assume that I'm calling YOU dummies. Then I got all flustered and turned around and was all: what am I going to call this post, then? And I chased those anxieties down the rabbit hole for a bit. Eventually I made it out and remembered what I'm supposed to be doing here:

Writing the goddamned first draft of my goddamned query letter.

So let's get the fuck on with it!

The very best piece of advice I ever received concerning query writing comes from a query-writing help book my amazing and super supportive boyfriend Brandon bought me. It's called Make it Catchy: The Quintessential Guide to Writing Query Letters by Marta Acosta. It's available as an ebook and you can buy it here.

Acosta says:

I suggest that you write a first draft without worrying about the word count. Then revise your letter to make it as tight and as intriguing as possible.

If you're like me, you read that line and breathed a sigh of relief. Because I've been pretty much paralyzed by the thought of having to summarize my book in a catchy, unique way--while following all the rules of convention and without getting TOO unique--all in 750 words or less. But I think I can give it a pretty good go without being shackled by the word count.

Here it is, in all its lengthy glory:

Query Letter: First Draft

All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere.

Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a secret the Ardor Laboratory Corporation will go to any lengths to protect. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere. Amarillo hasn't seen her baby sister since the day she disappeared from their family home nine years ago. The older sister is plagued by guilt: if she hadn't left home, if she hadn't sought an exciting life in Somewhere, maybe she could have saved Cerulean. A chance assignment given to her by her boss, Mayor Naples Orange of Somewhere, proves to Amarillo that there was nothing she could have done all those years ago to protect Cerulean. It also gives the spunky young woman something else she sorely needs--hope that it is still possible to save her sister, and all the other Lost Children who are trapped in the neighboring city of Nowhere.

All Amarillo has to do is find a way to get inside Nowhere, which is no small feat as no one in Somewhere can remember anyone ever being able to get in or out of their sister city, except maybe Nowhere's mayor, the boogeyman Mayor Blue. But Amarillo knows she can do it, even if she has to do it alone. Mayor Orange is busy with his pet road project, the Roy G. Biv highway that will connect Somewhere and Nowhere and hopefully spur economic growth. Also there is the issue of the continued hope theft from the emotion recycling plant. At first Amarillo thinks she may be able to turn to Deputy Mayor Scarlet for help, but when she spots him inside Nowhere--on the other side of the seemingly impenetrable force field that seals that city off from the rest of the world--with an armload of stolen emotion actuators, she knows he is up to no good.

But what, exactly, is Somewhere's deputy mayor doing? Maybe it has something to do with The Outlawz, the elusive gang of saboteurs who have been attacking the road construction from the very beginning. Both Mayor Orange and the Somewhere Times have surmised that The Outlawz are probably a youth gang comprised of Lost Children. No one has any suggestions about what the saboteurs' motives might be, but when Amarillo sees Deputy Scarlet inside Nowhere with the pilfered hope, she gets an idea.

The more Amarillo digs into the problem of the Lost Children, the more she realizes it's not just a Nowhere issue. It's a Somewhere issue. The histories of Nowhere and Somewhere are inextricably connected, and they are tied to the secret that the Ardor Labs Corporation--the largest employer in Somewhere and the biggest supporter of the Roy G. Biv highway--will do anything to keep buried. Amarillo finds an ally in Somewhere Times reporter Fern Viridian, and together, they--along with Mayor Orange--fight to unravel that secret and free the Lost Children.

What Amarillo doesn't know is that the Lost Children have not been sitting passively by, waiting to be rescued. Led by her intrepid little sister Cerulean and former Outlawz members Azure and Denim, they have been fighting: against the other Outlawz, against Deputy Mayor Scarlet, and even against the evil Mayor Blue. When the battle finally unites the forces from Somewhere and the forces from Nowhere, they are ready to stand together and vanquish their foes with their strength and their hope restored.

ROAD TO NOWHERE, a young adult urban fantasy novel, is complete at just over 77,000 words.

This is obviously waaaaaay too long. Also, it's very rough. But it's a start. Now I NEED your help. I am completely out of my element with this query writing business. I've read helpful books and helpful blogs on the subject, but what I really need is feedback. PLEASE LEAVE ME COMMENTS. Tell me, if anything, in this first draft works, and what doesn't. What should I cut? Should I add anything?

HELP ME!!

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Eight: GRADE MY HOOKS!!

When you're attempting to have your novel traditionally published, your query letter is the most important part of your submission package. And your HOOK is the most important part of your query letter.

I know not everyone agrees with me but everyone else is full of shit and that's fine. My journey is my own, and your journey is yours. I don't have all the answers just most of them.  But I DO know this: the HOOK is the opening of your query letter, and it's how you suck potential agents and publishers into your story. 

In other words, the HOOK is how you reel 'em in. And remember, the agent or publisher you're courting will likely read 67 other query letters the day he/she reads yours, so you wanna make sure your HOOK is damn good.

And now I'm asking for your help. Before I throw my query letters out to the universe, I want to make sure I've dotted all my T's and crossed all my I's and written the hook-iest hooks possible. So I'm posting them here. Read them, love them, hate them, laugh at them, be intrigued by them. AND THEN TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THEM. Leave me a comment or 2 or three. Which hook is the best? The worst? WHY? 

Then find me on twitter (right here!) and tell me there, too!

Remember when I wrote that it takes an army to publish a book? (Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part 7) Well now I'm asking you to enlist. Will you be my literary soldier?

Okay! Here we go....HOOKS:

(1) All hope is never lost. Not even in Nowhere.

(2) No one in Nowhere can exist without hope, even if that hope is stolen.

(3) When children go missing, it's assumed they're Somewhere. But what if they were Nowhere?

(4) The road to Nowhere cost several lives, but saves many more.

(5) More than the contested Roy G. Biv highway separates the free citizens of Somewhere from the Lost Children of Nowhere.

(6) To save an army of Lost Children, Amarillo Saffron uncovers hidden secrets and battles real and figurative demons, armed with nothing but her unwavering hope.*

(7) The road to Nowhere means freedom for the Lost Children, death for the evil Mayor Blue, and an unceremonious end to the nefarious goings-on at the Ardor Labs corporation.*

(8) Cerulean and Amarillo Saffron are sisters separated by guilt, regret, and a nine-year-old secret. Only hope can reunite them and save the Lost Children of Nowhere.*

Got wordy there at the end, didn't I? Hmmm... Wonder what that means. Now! GRADE MY HOOKS!!!

*This hook was shortened for twitter.

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Seven: AMASSING YOUR LITERARY ARMY

If it takes a village to raise a child, then it must take an army to publish a book. An army of dedicated, bespectacled, grammar-correcting nerds who come out under the cover of darkness to further their nefarious literary schemes.

...I wish.
That would be cool, wouldn't it? Sword-wielding publishers? But alas, the reality is much more mundane than that. It DOES take an army of dedicated folks to publish a book, but it's an army of regular (albeit bookish) people. There are no moonlit meetings or secret codes. Publishing folk connect through query letters, conventions, and the occasional twitter pitch party (see #pitmad, #askagent, and #twitterpitch among others).

Finding and reaching out to your literary army can be daunting. It's time-consuming and more than a little bit intimidating. But there really are no shortcuts. Well, at least not for regular people. There have been a few previously self-published authors who achieved such stunning success on their own that agents literally courted them. (Amanda Hocking is one, Ania Ahlborn is another.) But they are the exception. Most of us writerly types have no choice but to roll up our sleeves, swallow what's left of our pride, and query.

If you've been following my Adventures in Fiction Writing series from the beginning, you'll already know how I feel about query writing. I'm sure many of you feel the same. But we need to get over ourselves. Literary agents are not monsters. And believe it or not, they want us to succeed just as much as we do. It's true! Our success is their success. Without writers, there could be no literary agents.


So take a deep breath and get ready for the query-go-round. Here's how I'm doing it. This is just my way. There are a million others. And I'm new at this, for all I know, my way might suck. But I'm giving it a go.

(1) Research literary agents who accept submissions in your genre.
(2) Make a list of 20-30 of those agents, noting their contact info, websites, and social media reach (especially twitter!!)
(3) If you're not already on twitter, GET ON TWITTER.
(4) Follow all agents you plan to query on twitter. 
(5) Write your query letter.
(6) Write it again.
(7) Write it some more.
(8) Show query letter to beta readers.
(9) Rewrite query letter.
(10) Begin submitting.
(11) While you wait for responses, follow all the writerly types you can find on twitter. Follow all the writerly hashtags. (#writetip, #wordmongering, #NANOWRIMO, #JUNOWRIMO, #pubtip, #AmWriting, etc, etc). You WILL NEED the moral support, and you may learn of a twitter pitch party you can take part in.

A word on twitter pitch parties.

Think of these as the cyber version of an elevator pitch. It's your opportunity to grab the attention of a bunch of literary agents with one well-crafted tweet. Think it's hard to write a 140-character hook for your book? Hell fucking yeah it is! But it's not any easier to write a query and synopsis. And how often you can pitch a whole mess of agents at the same time? These are fun, low-pressure ways to query. DO IT.

Sometimes I think I sound like the PR department for twitter. Oh, well.

Anyone out there struggling through this stage of your adventure in fiction writing? Leave me a comment and tell me how you're dealing with it!

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Six: 20 Things to Do to Kill Time While Waiting for your Beta Readers

Originally this post was going to be an introspective look at how impatient I get while waiting for feedback on my #WIP. But then I said to myself:

"GRRRL, nobody wants to hear you whine."

And I was right. Nobody does. Especially not me. So instead I put together a list of things impatient bitches like me can do to distract ourselves while we wait for that all-important reader feedback. Hopefully it will help some of you. I'm pretty sure it prevented the untimely death of my lovely and infuriating teenage daughter.

(1) Bake a banana bread. It's widely regarded as impossible to be anxious or angry while mashing bananas.
(2) Read someone else's book. But nothing serious. Choose something light or fluffy or fantastical. You know what I mean: the sort of literary junk food you usually deny indulging in.
(3) Get all your friends together--NOT including any beta readers who also happen to be your friends--for a night of drinking and gaming.Cards Against Humanity is stupid fun. It's pee-your-pants-because-you're-laughing-so-hard funny.
(4) Go smurfing for pseudoephedrine. It worked for Walter White.
(5) Forget that. Spend a weekend binge-watching Breaking Bad instead.
(6) Try a new shade of nail polish. Try a different color on every finger. When people ask about it, respond with something completely irrelevant and judgemental, like:

"I hope one day you can grow beyond your racism."

(7) Spend an afternoon reconnecting with your younger self. Pull out that old box of toys from the attic. Play with your barbies. (Or GI Joes if you're a guy. Or a woman who played with masculine toys as a child.) Name one after that rumor-spreading bitch at work. Play through a scenario in which she develops cancer of the everything and then give her "treatments" that consist of you dousing her with gasoline and lighting her on fire.
(8) Research literary agents who represent books in your genre. Make a list of those who are currently accepting submissions.
(9) Stare at your list in despair. Cry a little.
(10) Tell yourself to man up. Expand your list to include details about what each of the agents likes to see in a query letter. Then pour over websites that offer advice on how to write winning query letters.
(11) Pour yourself a glass of red zinfandel. Take a sip. Then knock back the rest of the glass because no one could possibly write a query letter as well as the examples on the website.
(12) Pour yourself another glass. Wonder for a moment how good it would feel to write a different kind of letter to all those literary agents? One in which you tell them exactly where they should shove their submission guidelines.
(13) Throw your glass across the room. Drink the remaining wine straight from the bottle.
(14) Doodle ugly pictures of your Beta readers. Be creative with the details: give one boils and another an unfortunate facial scar.
(15) Ditch the wine. 3 am pity parties call for whiskey.
(16) Come to terms with the fact that each and every one of your Beta readers hates your guts. Or worse, hates your book.

Because that's why they haven't responded to your emails and calls. They hate your book so much that the mere though of talking to you sends them into fits of rage.

(17) Cry yourself to sleep. Wake up the next morning with a hangover. Call in sick to work.
(18) Spend the day in a bubble bath. Renew your promise to yourself that you will chill the FUCK out.
(19) Bake chocolate chip cookies. Eat the cookies in bed.
(20) DO NOT CHECK YOUR EMAIL.

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Five: Queries

Whenever I think about querying I want
 to shoot myself in the eye.

There. I said it. It's out in the open. I'm a PUSSY when it comes to the topic of querying. And I know I'm not the only one. Who invented this shenanigans? It's horrible. It's a veritable creative rape of your mental processes. You write a book and then you're asked to justify its existence to people you hope will become champions for the book but in order to do that you have to strip yourself and your work down figuratively naked. 

And you're standing there, naked, begging these people to like you. 

"Tell me I'm clever," you say. 

It's GOD AWFUL. 

This is how I want to query: 



Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part Four: Now Let's REALLY Talk About Characters

Wait, what?
This blog series already has one post about characters. Why am I writing another? I have a couple of reasons:


(1) Characterization is just that important in fiction writing, and
(2) This blog series is a journey through my own revise/rewrite process, so the topics I hit on have been and will continue to be the topics that are pertinent to MY adventures in fiction writing.


But really, good characters are THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect of good fiction. Period.


I just read an amazing YA (remember, YA means Young Adult) novel that I won't name because of the potential for spoilers (but the title is 3 words long and suggests that the protagonist is in search of an American state that begins with the letter A). If I wanted to distill the plot of this phenomenal novel down to its most simple, I could sum up the entire thing like this:


Socially awkward boy moves into boarding school and makes friends. One of his new friends dies.


That's it. That's really all that happens. Sound dull? It wasn't, because the characters are soooo gooood.




I recently asked my boyfriend Brandon and The Teen to read the second draft of my #WIP (that's work in progress for you non-literary folk). Here's my philosophy for who should see your drafts and when:




First Draft: Writer's eyes only, because this shit is embarrassing
Second Draft: Friends/family who can be counted on to tell you THE UGLY TRUTH about your #WIP without making you want to off yourself. You need this feedback to BOTH ground you in reality and bolster your confidence enough to move forward.
Third Draft: Writing instructor, critique group, friends who pride themselves on being grammar Nazis.
Fourth (and subsequent) Drafts: Have your friends and family who read the second draft revisit the manuscript now. Also: writing instructors, critique groups, and friends who pride themselves on being grammar Nazis.




So Brandon and The Teen recently read the second draft of ROAD TO NOWHERE. They both finished the read excited about the story. They said the plot was riveting, the pacing was good. They said they never felt bored. They said my plot twists were sneaky and fun. And then I asked them about the characters. And, well...*sigh.* I have some work to do.




Brandon could identify one stand-out character. The Teen couldn't. They agreed on one character who seemed to have no purpose. And, worse, they agreed that the character who I intended to be central to the storyline just wasn't living up to my expectations.






Here's how I introduce Cerulean in the book. I think this introductory scene is good. I think it works. But after getting some good feedback from my family, I'm going to be reworking the rest of her appearances:

Cerulean met the little girl at Gruesome Point. That was where she met all the newcomers. The girl wore fuzzy pink slippers, pink bows in her hair, and a cheery nightgown that looked out of place with her gray surroundings and was all quivering lips, trembling hands, and wide, staring eyes. She looked like she had woken up to discover her nightmare was real. Which was pretty much exactly what had happened.

Meeting kids like this always made Cerulean want to cry, but she couldn't, at least not now. Now she had to put on a smile and be brave for the girl—assure her that life goes on, even in Nowhere.

She had to lie, in other words.

Cerulean smiled and approached the terrified child. “Hi,” she said in her most soothing voice, “I'm Cerulean. What's your name?”

“Where am I?” The little girl asked.

“This place doesn't really have a name,” Cerulean said. “We call it Nowhere. What can I call you?”

“I'm Indigo,” the girl said. “This place is scary. I don't want to be here. Where's my mommy?”

“Your mom's at home,” Cerulean said, knowing what question came next, and hating herself for how she was going to have to answer it.

“Can I go home?”

“I'm afraid not. At least not yet. We haven't figured out a way to leave this place.”

Indigo burst into tears. Cerulean wrapped the girl's tiny body in a hug. She couldn't have been a day over six years old.

“Sshh,” she said. “You'll be OK. I'll take care of you. You can stay with me while you're here.”

Indigo just kept sobbing. “I...I want...my...mommy!”

“I'll be your mommy here,” Cerulean said. “I'll take care of you.”

She picked the distraught child up and walked toward home.

Adventures in Fiction Writing: Preparing Yourself for the SUICIDAL SECOND DRAFT

Okay, so, you wrote your book.
It was tough, and it took a long time: months, probably, but sometimes even YEARS.
It started with a feverish idea that wouldn't leave your brain and it grew into this whole messy, exciting THING, this STORY.
You wrote when you were excited about it. And you wrote when you weren't. You wrote when you felt like a hack and the story sounded dumb to your own ears. You wrote when the very act of writing felt like disembowelment...but you ALWAYS wrote.

I wrote a whole book!

And now it's done. At least, the first draft is. You can hardly believe it. It's such a relief and you're so proud of yourself and you feel like celebrating (hopefully you DO celebrate), but then you go online...

...And you realize that what you thought had been the hard part was actually just the warm up.

The first draft is the easy part, they say.
The real work is in the revisions, they say. 
Also, they say, the test of a real writer is the re-writing. Because, dontcha know, anyone can write a FIRST DRAFT.

(Pause for the obligatory eye rolling.)

So, they say, be prepared for a lot of tears and a lot of sleepless nights, because the difference between a writer and a PUBLISHED AUTHOR is how well you handle revision.

Somebody shoot me.

Just who the hell are THEY, anyway? Why do THEY make the writing rules?

Well, here's the thing. THEY are probably people you know and/or respect. They're your friends and fellow writers. They're published authors you've read and admired. They're creative writing teachers.

In short, THEY are people who know. They're people who've been there. They're survivors of the SUICIDAL SECOND DRAFT.

Of course that makes it harder to hate them, which frankly sucks. The last thing you want to realize after all the work you put into your first draft is that now you have to do it all AGAIN, only BETTER, and probably SEVERAL MORE TIMES. But that's the frustrating truth of the matter. And it's also the difference between the ART of writing and the CRAFT of writing.

The ART of writing is in the drunken exhilaration of the first draft. 

The CRAFT of writing is in the care and attention of the revisions.

Both are essential for a good story. And to be fair, both have their moments of joy. But if you're like me, you MUCH prefer the former to the latter. Which is why I chose to call the second draft the SUICIDAL SECOND DRAFT, because it makes me want to slit my wrists. But hang in there! It gets better. The third draft is less painful than the second, and by the time you get to the fourth, you've generally fallen in love with you WIP again.

...because I still write with a pencil!

Wait a minute!

What?

There are more than 2 drafts?

Oh, sister, there are soooo many more than 2! 

(Insert evil laugh.)

Sorry for laughing. But yes, if you're a normal human being there are going to be way more than two drafts required to turn your fledgling WIP into a literary masterpiece. There is no formula that specifies how many drafts your WIP needs because there are no hard and fast rules. Every writer is different, and every WIP is different. The only thing you can depend on is that your novel needs a lot of love and attention. 

Go on! Give your novel all the love and care it needs. It deserves it! And I'll be here to hold your hand in the process...as long as you promise to hold mine. The SUICIDAL SECOND DRAFT is rough, y'all.

Ready to Revise!

Adventures in Fiction Writing! Part One: Characters

Afternoon Darlings!

If you follow me on twitter (and you should! Click here to join my adoring following) you probably already know that last year I wrote the first draft of a YA (that's Young Adult for you non-literary readers) novel called Road to Nowhere. I wrote the first words of the story on June 7th, and the last passage on Christmas Day. Romantic, huh?

The novel grew out of a writing prompt that my boyfriend Brandon picked out for me from a book that's literally FULL of them. He gave me the prompt: Newspaper headline ROAD TO NOWHERE SET FOR REPAVING and I sat down to write on it for 30 minutes. I reported on my initial efforts here. (Check it out!)

I've taken the month of January off from the WIP (that's Work-In_Progress for you non-literary readers. What a vocabulary lesson this is becoming for you!) to clear my head so I can dive into the dreaded Suicidal Second Draft with what I hope will be fresh eyes and a clear perspective. I've also decided, because I love you all so much and because misery loves company (mostly because misery loves company), that I will make the revise/rewrite/edit process a public one, here on my blog. So come along, friends! This should be an interesting ride!! 

My Adventures in Fiction Writing series kicks off with a post about CHARACTERS. What about  characters? We love characters, we hate characters. We write characters, we kill characters. Characters whisper scenes in our heads and yell at us when we write their voices wrong and sometimes change appearances halfway through a story.

Gah. I've turned into one of those annoying writers who talks about characters not only as if they're alive, but as if they're sentient and control me. ...
dsofjsdnfs;ljdkn;jdsgndjfsgn;dfjytuygbjhdbsjhbdfs
*Sounds of a scuffle*

This is Cobalt, star of ROAD TO NOWHERE. You will ignore everything Shana wrote about characters above.
poijojnlnljnibweASSDfzsfgfdbfdm   sd;fnsdlkfnsdljfnsfSd...../////
*Thud* *THUMP*

AHEM! This is me again. Cobalt's back where he belongs. Now where was I? Oh yeah: CHARACTERS.

Look, this isn't going to be a writing lesson. I'm not your fucking teacher. I don't have an MFA in creative writing. (That's Masters of Fine Arts. Pay attention please.) I am an educated woman, but everything I know about writing I've learned the hard way, and all of it is probably only true for me.

My truth is my truth and your truth is yours. But MY truth becomes clear when you share YOUR truth with me, and vice versa. That's equally true in fiction as in life. Entiende?

Here's a character chart I drew up when I was about halfway through my novel's first draft.

Notice how sparse it is. See how in the box for Mayor Orange there's only one descriptive term: FAT. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Mayor Orange is fat. Below him , in the box I intended to fill with adjectives that describe Cobalt (introduced above), is one phrase: TOO-LONG BANGS. So, Mayor Orange (first name Princeton) is fat and Cobalt has bangs that fall into his eyes.

What's the deal with this? The thing is, I'm not a visual reader. Therefore, I'm not a visual writer. When I read your characters I don't tend to pay much attention to your description of their appearances, because I almost never remember it, anyway. I'm way more interested in how your characters speak and what they say and especially how they behave.


Of course, there are exceptions. If your character's appearance is an integral part of his/her, well, character, and if you repeat descriptions of it enough times I will remember it. Or if there's an aspect of your character's physical appearance that is an integral part of his/her personhood I'll remember that. For example, Rose the Hat's jaunty top hat in King's Doctor Sleep. Nearly every single time he mentioned Rose he described her hat, perched saucily atop her head at a gravity-defying angle. But you know what? The description never felt overdone. Moreover, it served to describe Rose herself, perched as she was at the top of the True Knot's society, which in turn perched saucily on top of our own society, at a gravity-defying angle.

Pretty deep, huh?

What else did Mr. King say about Rose? She was hot. Was she blonde? Don't think so. What color were her eyes? Don't remember. Don't care. But I'll always remember the hat.

And really I'm that flaky with my own characters, as well. I remember who the badasses are, and the villains. I can tell you which characters start out meek and discover their own strength during the journey. But who's the redhead? Which of the boys has freckles? Are you seriously asking me? I'm supposed to remember? So I made a chart.

I try to give each of my characters some physical trait that describes who they are in the story. I don't know that I'll get around to everyone, but so far I think I've touched each of the main characters.

Mayor (Princeton) Orange is fat, because he represents comfort and plenty. I mean this in both a nice, homey way as well as a selfish way.

Mayor Blue is skeletal and has the parched skin of a mummy because he is Want, and the death of hope.

Fern Viridian has brilliant green eyes and spiky red hair because she is all go, go, go! She has so much curiosity and energy that no one can stop her.

Midnight wears a John Cena tee shirt because she, too, will never give up. She wears a sparkly beaded headband to bring some light into Nowhere. During the story, she is scarred in a very meaningful way.

Navy's head was once shaved. Now his hair is growing back in patches. He wears a hoodie that's way too big for him. His shoes maybe fit two years ago. He cut the toes of the shoes open so his own toes would have some more room. Clearly, this is a neglected young man.

Amarillo Saffron has big, bouncy blonde curls, yellow-green eyes, and a winning smile. She also has spent much of her life trying to please others at the expense of herself. She thinks of herself as a pretty, delicate figurine to be perched someplace: pleasing to the eye but without any inherent strength. She discovers her strength during the story.

Cerulean Saffron has waist-length two-toned hair that she wears in her trademark blonde-and-blue braid that typically hangs over her shoulder. Why the two-toned hair? Duality. She is both of Somewhere and Nowhere. Like her older sister Amarillo, Cerulean is pretty, but in a sturdier, more matronly way.

Azure has blue eyes and strawberry blonde curls and a tiny body. She's 14, but looks more like 11. And that's all I have for her right now. Actually, I don't think this physical description really matches her character. Hmmm...I think I have some work to do with this one.

Denim is large and muscular. DEFINITELY need to work on this guy's physical appearance.

Mr. Scarlet is a main character without much in the way of physical description in the WIP. He doesn't even appear on my character chart. WTF is up with that?

(Yeah, I have a looooong way to go with this WIP. That much is clear.)

There are, of course, more characters than that in ROAD TO NOWHERE. But I think you get the idea. Even better, I've learned some more about my characters during this exercise. So it's a win-win!

And this concludes part one of my ongoing series this year, Adventures in Fiction Writing! Be sure to tune in next time when I write all about the Suicidal Second Draft!

AND REMEMBER:

TOO HOT FOR AMAZON!! Sasha Sparks Author Talks About Smut

Hey y'all. It's Shana. Just wanted to introduce my guest blogger, erotica author Sasha Sparks. Play nice everyone! If you play nice she will. If you don't...watch out! Here's Sasha:

Hi there sexy!
Can I ask you a question? Do you think I look like a nice girl? You think so, right? Well apparently, Amazon doesn't agree. Amazon thinks I'm naughty. Too naughty for them, anyway!

Can you believe it?

A couple of weeks ago, Amazon took down my best-selling sexy story, Baby Learns to Beg. All I got in return was a form email telling me that the book violates their terms of service. That was that. Not even a sorry. Just banned from Amazon!

Well Amazon's loss is the Nook's gain because that's exactly where I took my too hot for Amazon book!

Go here to buy it!

You can also buy my other steamy book: Me & Colette and the Epic Shower. 

Amazon still sells this story, and if you're a kindle whore reader like me ;-) you can buy it here. For some reason the Big Bosses at Amazon don't find this story to be too naughty for their site, although it starts: I'm a slut in the shower, and just gets hotter from there! 

So go on, you sexy beasts! Read and enjoy! Hope you have as much fun reading my smutty stories as I had writing them! ;-)

THIS WILL HAPPEN GODDAMMIT!!

So I'm writing a novel: a YA dystopian novel.
And for the first time since I began self-pubbing short stories a couple of years ago I'm feeling like I would actually like to try to traditionally publish this one.

HAVE I LOST MY MIND?!?

I don't know. Maybe?

But I'd like to! I really feel like I've got something worthwhile going on here, you know?

But that, of course, means I have to finish the damn thing. SO I'M MAKING A DECLARATION!!

I hereby promise to you, to myself, to the NSA, and to any and all deities listening that I WILL HAVE THE FIRST DRAFT DONE BY NY 2014!!!


And here's a little taste, just for stopping by:

(The following is an excerpt from ROAD TO NOWHERE)

Cerulean met the little girl at Gruesome Point. That was where she met all the newcomers. The girl wore fuzzy pink slippers, pink bows in her hair, and a cheery nightgown that looked out of place with her gray surroundings and was all quivering lips, trembling hands, and wide, staring eyes. She looked like she had woken up to discover her nightmare was real. Which was pretty much exactly what had happened.

Meeting kids like this always made Cerulean want to cry, but she couldn't, at least not now. Now she had to put on a smile and be brave for the girl—assure her that life goes on, even in Nowhere.

She had to lie, in other words.

Cerulean smiled and approached the terrified child. “Hi,” she said in her most soothing voice, “I'm Cerulean. What's your name?”

“Where am I?” The little girl asked.

“This place doesn't really have a name,” Cerulean said. “We call it Nowhere. What can I call you?”

“I'm Indigo,” the girl said. “This place is scary. I don't want to be here. Where's my mommy?”

“Your mom's at home,” Cerulean said, knowing what question came next, and hating herself for how she was going to have to answer it.

“Can I go home?”

“I'm afraid not. At least not yet. We haven't figured out a way to leave this place.”

Indigo burst into tears. Cerulean wrapped her tiny body in a hug.

“Sshh,” she said. “You'll be OK. I'll take care of you. You can stay with my while you're here.”

Indigo just kept sobbing. “I...I want...my...mommy!”

“I'll be your mommy here,” Cerulean said. “I'll take care of you.”

She picked the distraught child up and walked toward home.

A short while later, after Cerulean's footsteps and Indigo's cries faded into the black night, Mayor Blue came prancing up the street toward Gruesome Point. He wore a pointy hat atop his head and a shirt five sizes too big that flapped around his bony frame like a sail in the wind. His skin was cracked and the yellowy-gray of old parchment and it was stretched across his skull so tight it pulled his mouth into a mean, tight-lipped grimace.

He paused at the spot where Indigo stood and bent over, examining something on the ground.

Presently he stood up and laughed. He held aloft a stoppered glass bottle. Its contents swirled and sparkled in the pale moonlight. A label on the bottle identified the substance as Tears.

“Girl's tears always taste the sweetest,” the mayor said in a voice like the rustling of leaves on a cold night.

And he skipped away into the night.

21 Days of Words: SUCCESS!

Ladies and Gentlemen and Precociously Literate Children:

I am pleased to report that my 21 day writing challenge was a HUGE MOTHERFUCKING SUCCESS!!

I kept my commitment. I wrote every fucking day no matter how blocked, tired, or worn-out I felt. Some days I didn't write much. Other days I wrote a lot. But I wrote EVERY DAY. And since I didn't have any current works-in-progress at the beginning of the challenge I wrote all sorts of different, silly things. Sometimes I journaled. Sometimes I blogged. Most days I used prompts I picked or those picked by others.

And it was one of those prompts, picked by my awesome boyfriend Brandon, that proved to be the turning point for me. The prompt (a fake newspaper headline: "Road to nowhere set for repaving") began as just a silly lark but wound up opening up all new literary vistas for me. It's become my current work-in-progress. I'm writing it as a YA novel that I'm even considering trying to traditionally publish. Haven't decided yet. We'll see.

But I'm super excited about it. Squeeee!!

So thanks for all the moral support guys. You rock!! Writing rocks!! YAY FOR LITERACY!!

SNEAK PEEK: Road to Nowhere

Here's a little sneaky-poo from my #WIP, ROAD TO NOWHERE:

There was a billboard at the corner of Rainbow Street and Prism Boulevard, two blocks from City Hall, that overlooked the playground in Vibrant Colors Park:

A smiling mom and daughter were perched on the little girl's bed. The girl clutched a teddy bear. Mom held what appeared to be an inhaler, and was demonstrating the device's use to the girl. A banner splashed across the top of the billboard read: Neutral children sleep better, wake more refreshed. Be sure your child uses his emotion actuator each night. At the bottom of the billboard, in smaller type, was this message: Paid for by the Friends of Somewhere's Recycling Committee.

Follow me on twitter for updates as I continue to write! Look for these hashtags: #Wordmongering, #LetsWrite, #21DaysofWords, #WORDBITCHES, #AmWriting, #RoadToNowhere

What If...?

This writing exercise was inspired by two things:

A question asked by my boyfriend Brandon: "What if your mom had said yes all those years ago?"

And by an exercise in a writing book I found recently at the Goodwill, titled What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers
The exercise is called creative wrong memory and it involves writing out a memory, but altering it in some way: adding color, changing the outcome, or changing the players. The idea behind this exercise is to learn how to mine your own memories for use in fiction.

So I combined this exercise with Brandon's question and came up with the following!

(A quick note on the formatting: the writing exercise advises the writer to use italics for any portion of the memory that is added or changed. So that's what I did. Thus, in order to indicate emphasis, I used bold.)

The day dawned crisp and sunny for everyone else in Santa Cruz. It was spring in the cute California beach town: the birds were chirping, the sea lions were barking, the hippies were sleeping it off in their vans.

My day, on the other hand, began on my knees in the bathroom of the Vertigo Cafe, with my face hovering inches over the toilet bowl. My friend John had taken me out to dinner the night before and I was saying goodbye to the chicken pot pie and garlic bread and mashed potatoes that I'd so eagerly scarfed down. I puked until I was empty and then kept at it for a while longer. Morning sickness was a real bitch.

I checked the wall clock behind the cash register when I left the bathroom after round fifteen or so. It was eight thirty in the morning. My mom was supposed to show up about three that afternoon. That left me with six-and-a-half hours to kill. I had no money, nowhere to go, a nauseous belly and three cigarettes in my pocket. But what else was new? Such was the life of a gutter punk.

The only good thing about being awake at that ungodly hour was that I had no competition for seats. Cafe Vertigo was the only coffee shop I'd ever heard of that stayed open until two in the morning, and from sundown til last call, any day of the week, the place was hopping. I'm talking standing room only. But today I had the place to myself. I grabbed a magazine, hopped up on the window seat, and settled in to wait.

Mom showed up thirty minutes late, true to form, with my little sister Melissa in tow. Melissa was my little sister only because she was three years younger than me, but at fourteen she was already tall enough to look down on me. I didn't know when that had happened. It had been more than a year since I'd seen her. God, everything changed.

Even my mom. It sounds stupid to say “She looked so old.” It sounded stupid to me even then, in my head. Because of course she was old. She was my mom. I'd gotten older and so had she. I guess that's what happens when you don't see people. They change and it surprises you.

“Look at you!” Mom said with a big grin on her face, “You look good!”

I smiled at the compliment but regretted it before I could manage a weak, “Thanks.” Was she for real? You look good? That was the first thing she thought to say to me when she came to visit me on the street?

Mom and Melissa headed to the counter to order coffee. I followed. Melissa ordered first: one coffee for her and one for me.

Mom ordered next: a cup of coffee for herself, then she turned around and asked me, “What kind of cigarettes do you smoke?”

“Um, Camel straights,” I said.

She added a pack to her order.

They paid, the cashier handed everyone their coffees, and then we moved back to our table. As we worked our way over, Melissa slipped a ten dollar bill into my hand.

“What is this?” I said.

“Take it,” she said.

“Thanks,” I said.

We settled into our seats, and that phony smile reappeared on my mother's face. “So how've you been?” She said.

“Good,” I said automatically.

A voice in the back of my head shouted: You have NOT been good! You've been fucking HOMELESS, and it's ALL HER FAULT. But I kept quiet.

“Did you have somewhere to sleep last night?” Mom asked.

“John got a motel room for me,” I said. Then, before I could chicken out, I blurted: “I'm pregnant.”

I took a big sip of the scalding coffee before anyone could ask me any questions. But nobody did.

“Wow!” Mom's eyes grew wide and her smile somehow intensified. “How wonderful!”

Melissa said nothing.

I blinked.

That was not the response I'd anticipated.

“Being pregnant is such a special time for a woman. I remember when I was pregnant with you, Shana.”

Continued smiling.

I opened and closed my mouth a few times before I stammered: “But I—I'm homeless. What am I going to do? I can't have a baby out here.”

I said the words, and they were like an incantation. For the first time since I peed in a cup at the Planned Parenthood and my condition was diagnosed it felt really real to me. Like it was really happening. I was really pregnant. There was a human being incubating in my womb, and in a matter of a few short months that baby was going to force it's way out of me.

What the fuck was I going to do?

No one said anything. Minutes ticked by and still no one said anything. Melissa stared at her coffee cup; I stared at my mom; and she just smiled that empty, sappy smile.

I lit a cigarette to fill the silence and sucked in its delicious poison gratefully.

“You're going to be okay, Shana,” Mom finally said, “You always figure something out.”

She meant for her words to be uplifting, but they weren't. I didn't want to hear about how I was going to fix the situation. I wanted to hear someone say they were going to rescue me. I wanted a hero. Because I'd never felt so helpless in my whole life.

“Tony's gone back home to Pennsylvania,” I said. “His mom won't send me a bus ticket so I can be with him. Not that I expected her to,” I added, “she doesn't even know me, but...I'm trying to get the money for one myself...John said he might be able to help...”

I let my voice trail off, hoping she would fill in the blank with something helpful like: “I'll buy you a bus ticket, Shana! Of course you need to be with the baby's father.”

But: “I hope you can find the money,” was what she actually said.

My own feeble hopes crashed to the floor.

Melissa's eyes flicked up from her coffee cup and met mine. It was just a moment, but it was long enough for me to see the hurt in her heart.

“We're gonna have to get going in a minute,” Mom said, “I promised Carlos we'd stop at Home Depot on our way back.”

They were going to leave. They were going to leave and then I'd be alone again. I panicked.

“Well, could I—I mean, could I maybe have dinner with you tonight?”

Melissa's head snapped up. “Yeah Mom, can she?”

Mom looked from me to Melissa and then back to me. In another timeline, this would be when she said no. It would be when she dragged my little sister out of the cafe and drove her home crying. It would be when she left me, her pregnant seventeen-year-old daughter, on the street. And it would be the last time I saw her for years.

But in this timeline Mom said yes.

“Fine Shana.” Heavy sigh. “You can have dinner with us. But you're not spending the night. So don't ask.”

“I won't,” I said.

“Yay!”Melissa said.

We stopped at Home Depot first like Mom promised my stepfather she would. She picked out planters for their backyard and Melissa and I played hide and seek among the two-by-fours. We laughed and laughed. My morning sickness was gone. For the first time in months I didn't feel like I had to watch my back. I felt like a kid again.

Me and Melissa were so busy having fun that when Mom was ready to go we were oblivious. She had to get one of the cashiers to call us three times over the loudspeaker before we noticed. Mom was so embarrassed! It was great.

On the ride to their house Mom gave us the low-down on how she wanted to handle dinner:

“You guys keep yourselves entertained outside or in Melissa's room until Carlos gets home. I want to be the one to tell him that we're having you over for dinner.”

I looked at Melissa. She rolled her eyes. I snickered.

“I'm serious Shana!” Mom said, glaring at me through the rear-view mirror. “The last time Carlos saw you wasn't the greatest time, if you remember.”

“I remember,” I said. And I did. I remembered my stepfather telling my mom he'd had enough of me. I remembered him telling her that either I had to go or he had to go. And I remembered her saying goodbye to me.

“I just want things to go as smoothly as possible,” Mom said, “so do what I say. All right?”

“Yes Mother,” Melissa and I chorused, then exploded in laughter. Mom heaved a weary sigh.

***

I heard Carlos slam through the front door about half past six. Melissa heard him too—I caught the look of fear that flickered over her face—but neither of us mentioned it, and the look was gone almost as fast as it came.

Melissa had been showing me the scrapbook she kept of the kids she babysat: a brother and sister, ages seven and three. After our stepfather came home we kept up the pretense of the show-and-tell for as long as we could, but the raised voices from the kitchen killed our high spirits. Before too long, Mom knocked on the door.

“Shana,” she said, pushing open the door without waiting for an invite, “I'm sorry honey but you're going to have to leave.”

Melissa started to cry.

“But we haven't eaten yet,” I said.

“I know,” she said. “This just isn't going to work out.”

“You'd let him do that?”

“Shana...”

Melissa cried harder.

“You'd seriously let him tell you not to feed your own daughter? Your pregnant daughter?”

“That's not fair.”

I stood up. “What the fuck do you know about fair?”

“Stop it Shana,” Mom snapped. “Don't make it worse. Just leave.”

“Are you giving me a ride?”

“No.”

“Of course not,” I said. “Am I supposed to hike the forty miles back to Santa Cruz?”

“I don't know. But that's not my problem. Figure something out. Or call your friend John.”

“I think he's visiting family in Santa Monica. Besides, I can't call him for everything. I'm not his responsibility. He's not my parent.”

“That's enough! Go. Now.”

I walked out of Melissa's room, down the hall, and into the entryway. Melissa's hysterical cries echoed throughout the house. I saw Carlos standing in the kitchen. He had his back to me. I flicked him off, then opened the door and walked out into the night.

Alone again.