Tudor’s Desk

I told everyone the only reason I promised my friends I would shop this book is because I had an attack plan for revisions. On Wednesday, Jen asked what the attack plan is, essentially, when she asked how I use my notecards. I thought it was worth a post, just because I’m one of those freaks who likes hearing how things work for other people. So.

Notecards work differently for different people, so if you decide to try them, include whatever you think you need on yours. For me, it’s a brief summary of what happens in the scene, nothing more. (I like Blake Snyder of Save the Cat!’s fame’s idea of noting there is conflict - Jenny Crusie does this too in her ‘outline’ by noting X char v. Y char. - and also the emotional shift, that the POV char starts the scene with one emotion and ends with a very different, hopefully polar one; I don’t think you need to go that far, but I thought I’d share it because it’s interesting, and something worth thinking about while revising.) But for me, I just jot down something to spark my memory of what’s in the scene - I usually list all the beats in the scene with a brief phrase, “garden fight; meet Groveley; rominuk game,” or something. I’ve mentioned I use notecards to get me through the first draft as well, but here is how I use them in revisions.

I just went through the manuscript and made sure there was a notecard for every scene break in the current draft, wrote a couple cards that say “ADD” in giant letters across the top, and a few that are scenes already written that I wrote a second card for and said, “Change POV?”. I will be making more of these as I move on to step two:

I plan to type the cards into a file next as a scenelist so I can SEE the thing (probably in MS Word - Excel would be the better choice but it gives me a sick feeling; too much corporate office association for me) and from there I figure out where best to add in the threads I need to flush out, and how to move things around. (Using different colored fonts for POV is invaluable in this step.) It requires a different mindset than writing itself, and I like it. I like working with the notecards and the scenelists, because they spark things creatively in a different way from things that are just written, which is why I do the exact same thing during the first draft, too.

In fact, this step is nearly exactly the same as when I do it for first drafting, but this time I’m working with existing material, and these notecards represent pages and pages of scene.  (In draft one notecards, I tend to extrapolate more on what I think will go in the scene, since I haven’t written it yet!) It’s a lot easier to manipulate the notecards in a scenelist than the actual scenes.  Guess what? I don’t print the sucker to do this step. I know a LOT of pros swear by printing out but I can’t afford it and I don’t want to waste the ink and paper, and for me, this works just as well.

So. I manipulate the scene list (with notes on whose POV, particular notes of import in the scene, etc.) to give me what I need the book to look like. Here is where I will be adding more notecards, and swapping in the new POV cards for what’s currently there.

Then when I’m all done with this, I’ll go through the manuscript itself to make sure it matches the new scenelist by writing new scenes, rewriting old ones, changing POV, etc, and that will be draft two. I do this by taking a chapter and copying it to its own file, and then going scene by scene to make sure “it’s all there.”  Then I c/p the new version back into my full draft, which is a “Save As” version of the first draft, which is a file I do indeed call “[Title] 2.0″. This second draft will be where I get my resonance (hopefully).

After I go through the draft adding and cutting and making things consistent, then I will edit the material one last time for tightness and vibrance with the language itself, the mechanics and line-editing. This gives me the sparkle.

This is how anything I’ve ever finished - including school papers and projects for my creative writing degree - has been revised, and so it seems to work for me, although this is the first time I’m actually APPLYING it to a novel. (Shorter projects do not get actual notecard sets, btw.) My former fear of revision seems silly now that I’ve just outlined a coherent, working method that I’ve used with success before. Eh?

Of course, this is after I get my revision notes from my first readers and think about their comments and my own thoughts on the project, which I accumulate in a file called “Revision Notes” as I’m writing.

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Angelle, Congratulations!!! Yours was the 1010th comment at Tudor’s Desk! Email me with your home address to claim your prize.

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson is indeed as amazing as I thought it would be. It’s even better than I thought it would be. It’s beyond words. Go. Read it. Now. I command you.

The Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman. It’s for the younger set of the juvy readers. It was cute. It was okay. I don’t think I’d want to read more. It was all just too… convenient for the main character. I know since it’s geared toward the younger part of the young set that word count is limited so it’s going to move fast and thus seem like more… coincidental, but I don’t know, I wanted her to be wrong, or something.

Reading The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle and it is also as amazing as I thought it would be. The Blind Hunt! Lord Letrin! Dear goodness, this is what I aspire to with Choir. K? I have a LONG WAY to go (which is why I’m starting revisions today).

Next on the docket is The Queen’s Bastard by Catie Murphy and then Jeffrey Deaver’s Garden of Beasts which I borrowed from my sister at, like, Christmas, and promptly forgot about.

Friday is M’s school’s senior prom. Last year we went and had a blast, so we’re making it a tradition. I go into the city and we spend the day hanging out with his coworkers and chatting, eat at a fun place downtown, and then he chaperones and I dissect his students’ fashion choices. He teaches at an art school, so a bunch of girls design their own prom dresses; prom is a HUGE BIG DEAL so it’s a ton of fun, and a lot of them have great taste and a lot of them have a lot of attitude, and the two in combination is especially cool. Although there is the occasional other end of the spectrum, but I can’t recount those for you because my eyes are bleeding.

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Over the weekend, two of my first readers (Jen and May) sent me their thoughts. They were spot on. The ending needs a lot of work (I should’ve known this when I stopped writing and thought, in a fog, “Oh, I’m done now?… Yah, there’s no more plot. I must be done.”) Also Vaughn and Rigel need better development, especially earlier on. I actually knew this because I remember when they clicked for me, and it was not in the beginning, LOL. But they both brought up interesting thoughts that I had no idea needed work but when they said it, I went, oh, good point. So thanks guys! You’re the best.

I can’t wait to get started but I want to let it sit a bit longer so I can percolate on the things that need fixing some more to come up with revision notes. I have a list - I’ve HAD a running list while I was still writing, LOL, but it’s going to be so great! I’m so excited to do this (yes, still a little scared, but mostly excited). I definitely know I can handle it. I have the same feeling as when I was going to edit “Blood Myth”. A lot of the problems aresimply that it IS a first draft, and I was just learning the story out; you know? Now I can go in and make it deeper and darker and make it resonate, which is what a lot of the problems sort of were (save for the ending, May, you were so right).

So hopefully some of my other readers will get back to me… I think I’m going to wait the whole week - if it doesn’t kill me! - and then I’ll open the file and start doing a scene list and whatnot and dig in. Wednesday or Friday you may see a guilty little addendum that I couldn’t wait, but I’ll only get started if I think the book will not be better served by waiting. Right now I’m willing to percolate.

I was going to rant about Philly sports teams and their incredibly odd names - what is a Phillie? Or a 76er? - but I won’t. It would probably have been more interesting. But the thing is, we have an all Pennsylvania play-off in the NHL right now and… despite living in Philly, my husband learned to play hockey from a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. So we have a Pens fleecy on our bed. Last night’s game was well-played but poorly called, so it’s a hollow victory for Pens fans, and so I don’t feel like ranting about Philly sports teams.

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Now that my brain is functioning again, I have discovered Things. For instance, I have an addiction to parmesan cheese. My fallback meal is noodles (or bread, if I’m desperate) smeared with some butter and then dumped with the cheese.

Also, I do not hate rain. I used to love rain, especially warm spring rain and the great smell it gives, the earthy, rich smell… oh, how I love that rain. But I have realized, as I have aged, how much I hate going out in the rain. How could this be when I do not hate rain? And I deduced the problem: I love rain; I hate puddles. Because I am short, even the best pants are too long and I am cheap and lazy and do not have anything hemmed, so there is no way to avoid getting the bottoms of my pants wet, which seeps up my entire pant leg - on particularly rainy days, although up to my knees my clothing will be drenched, just from stepping into a puddle lightly - not EVEN puddle-jumping. So. Bad puddles.

The other thing I have learned is I am really excited to read my book. See, I wrote it in a daze of flurried typing. Sure, I know what happens (mostly >.>) but… the words themselves, except for some particular whammies, I do not remember. So I’m really looking forward to printing out the first chapter and seeing what’s in there, tiny warts and all. That and I have sent the draft off to my first readers, who are not critiquers but people who have been real encouragement and I promised would get to read it As Soon As It Was Done, and now it is done, so off it went. Jen P, do let me know when you get it.

I do need to find actual critiquers now, though. :\

And today’s writing bit of the week: If you ever do a book-signing, do not haggle the customers, and perhaps even more important, do not haggle the booksellers.

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I planned to write a really intelligent post today, but instead, I’ll just do this:

The Faery Choir

The book, she is done. I’m gonna go quilt something and then do plot cards for a screenplay or something. I feel twitchy, like I can’t be done working. But I’m not worried, revisions will start soon enough. And go looky, I updated the “Works” page.

(This means I totally kicked Sven’s butt.)

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For a while now, I have been considering adding some Christian elements to the blog: a page on the sidebar, a feature that my church calls “God’s Fingerprint” of how the Lord is working in my life, other Christian-related posts; I’d even go back and retag those missions posts I made last year. Well. I found a term to use for all of the Christian blogstuff.

I apologize to any Jewish people who may read this blog.

So my friends and I have a Bible study group. We’re taking a break from the Bible itself to read through Ann Spangler’s Praying the Names of God. This past week we started El Shadday (as she spells it). We prefer Shaddai ’round these parts, though. El Shaddai means “God Almighty,” or literally translated, according to Spangler, “God, the Mountain One.”  (She gives an explanation of a cultural variety for this.)

Somehow at study, Shaddai became a verb. It means “to experience a moment that could be only of God.” For example, our good friends are moving to Indiana and announced this, so if anyone knew anybody who needed an apartment, theirs would be up for rent in July, just as M and I decided we needed to move somewhere cheaper in July. So. We’ve been Shaddai’d because the fortuitous serendipity of all the pieces of this could be only of God. Hence, the Almightyness. The Shaddai.

I’d like to institute Shaddai as the term for Christian elements around the blog and make it regular, like Shaddai of the Week. I don’t know if I’ll lump it with the Of the Week post or not, but it’s got its own tag now. I think it’s important to reflect on what God is doing in our lives, and if I have to share at least one moment a week, well, at least it has a cool name now.

God Almighty. El Shaddai. ‘Cuz only He could do it.

Oh, and in case you didn’t catch that sleight of hand, yah, we’ll be moving over the summer, so expect craziness and possibly even a lack of internet at some point.

ETA: I just broke 60k and 200 pages. Looks like it’ll just hit the 70k mark; I have 7 scenes left to write. Woo!!! (and, of course, now I’ve passed 100k for the year.)

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First up, Katie Crouch’s Girls in Trucks. I gave a mini-review of this already, so I’ll be succinct. Well-written. Cynical. Solid writing. Depressing. Good details. Too lit.

Next is Rebecca Flowers’ Nice to Come Home To. This was an updated version of Sense and Sensibility, and I thought it was well done. The characters were very realistic and relatable and the writing was very good. I had a teeensy problem with one bit of the ending, but not enough to dislike the book.

Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! This will be appearing in the Of the Week, as in writer’s resource of the week that you must have. It’s Vogler’s Writer’s Journey without all the cheese. Easier to understand and kinda witty. It’s Jenny Crusie’s turning points on steroids. It really crystallized structure for me. Definitely recommended for writers, even of novels.

Currently on deck: The Dark Hills Divide, Patrick Carman (YA fantasy) and The Girl Who Stopped Swimming, Joshilyn Jackson.

Next on deck: The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle and The Queen’s Bastard by Catie Murphy, my two reward books for finishing Choir. To borrow and probably misuse a term from Catie: I’ve hit the novelist’s event horizon. I can Just See The End. It is soclose but notquitehere. Today I’m doing laundry so I’ll be playing with the notecards for the END OF THE BOOK. Then all that’s left to do is write it, about 15k of it. So, a week to a two weeks and this sucker is on the shelf resting, woo.

 Now I must review a not-book. M and I went to see a concert last night, Apocalyptica. Like, wow. We sat for two hours waiting for them to take the stage; there was no opening act, and it was SO WORTH IT. The theatre had the balance skewed so I thought the drums were too loud, but it was otherwise amazing. You have to SEE these guys, not just hear them. I’ve never seen anyone do that with a cello; it was slightly obscene to my classically-trained mind and I LOVED it. Also, if you’ve ever seen a well-built man play a cello standing up, well, that’s slightly obscene in a different way. Or maybe that would be my mind.* They played two of my favorite songs, Bittersweet (without singers) and Nothing Else Matters, which is one of my favorite songs whether they’re playing it or Metallica. NEM was actually the second encore. They hadn’t played it and I was disappointed, and then they did their usual concert-encore-closer of Hall of the Mountain King in about quadruple-time, crazy, and left, and we just kept stomping and chanting and they came out and said they hadn’t expected such a great lively crowd on a Sunday night, so they played NEM! SQUEE!

 * I totally celeb-crush Apocalyptica and Metallica. Allow me to explain: I crush on their work; their work is so attractive to me that it extends to the band. It’s not that I think the band is attractive, it’s the whole of the thing. The work needs someone to perform it, right? Hence, my interpretation of a celeb-crush is not the same thing as when people say they think so and so actor is hot. I don’t do that. I love pieces of work, which just need people to perform them, and typically, only certain people are right for that performance. I celeb-crush my husband’s photography. But then, I just crush on my husband anyway. He’s a hottie.

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Today’s post of the week was found via Tammy, and it can be found here, about achieving your dreams.

Today’s funny bit comes from my dearest friend Julie. I mentioned to her that I plan on submitting Choir when I’m finished because I know I can handle revising it and already have an attack plan, which is the only reason I decided it would be submitted. I get wistful with every project, but this one I really am going to submit and I know this because of the attack plan. I have a letter written for Jennifer Jackson already. Well, Julie surprised me by saying that she and Maggie K (of sidebar fame) decided that if I didn’t, they were going to kidnap a draft and mail it off anyway if I dawdled about it. I asked, “Do I look like I’m procrastinating here?” She said, no, but you do have some editing/revising issues. (anyone who has read my blog knows that this is, well, true.) I said my instinctive reply to that was, “Oh, have you noticed?” Her answer? “It’s okay. We all have writing issues… yours just come after the writing is over.”

And don’t forget the CONTEST. Simply leave a comment. If yours happens to be the 1010th one here at Tudor’s Desk, you win. Easy as a slice of pie, or piece of cake if you go that route. Winner will receive a copy of Holly Lisle’s The Ruby Key!

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I think in terms of books. My husband thinks in terms of movies.

Think of what? Money. When someone says a thing costs, oh, $50, I think, automatically, “That’s, like, 6 books!” (paperback, of course). My husband would say that’s about two and a half movies (or, maybe, one video game). We contrast things against movies and books. Do I want that or do I want 4 hardcovers?

 Priorities again. What do you think in terms of?

Yesterday was National Day of Prayer. I find the concept somewhat dubious. The mission of the day is this: “The National Day of Prayer Task Force’s mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family,” as taken from their website, www.ndptf.org, emphasis mine. They designate May 1 for everyone to do this.

There’s nothing wrong with that, is there? Of course not. But it’s the same problem I have with Valentine’s Day. Why aren’t you doing this EVERY day? Why do we need a special day for it? I get the part about focusing on the country. I get the part about reaching a broader audience. But as a Christian, this should be fundamental to my existence. It should be like breathing. 1 Thes. 5:16-18 says, “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus,” emphasis mine.

So I prayed today, just like I eat chocolate on February 14; I set aside time today to pray specifically for the country like they’d like as well as all of my own thoughts and prayers. Because it’s the right thing to do. I just should not need a task force to tell me so.

My hope is that someone who has not yet come to know Christ as Savior will encounter the NDPTF’s literature and the Holy Spirit will work in his/her heart, just as my hope for Valentine’s day is that my husband will remember to pick up a card. I’m not holding my breath; it’s not up to me (or my husband as the case may be). It will happen or it won’t. But refer to my emphasized part of the mission statement.

They’re preaching to the choir. Breathing. Prayer, unlike books and movies, is not currency. It’s fundamental (like reading. Oh, I could make this a political blog yet. I am skirting, aren’t I?).

***

My friends have given me a deadline of May 24th for the first draft, which is only 9 days later than Sven, so if I finish by their deadline, I will be satisfied to have “beaten” Sven, especially since I started a week late, remember? I took all my free days and then some. I didn’t get into the swing of Sven until mid-March, so I think I will be quite accomplished if I finish the draft by May 24. Given it’s 10:30AM and I’ve already written 3800 words… I think it’s doable, May 24. Don’t you?

ETA: I wrote 6,100 words today. I feel I could keep going, but I have work tonight. This means I have crossed the 50k threshold on Choir AND even bigger news - I HAVE WRITTEN 90K FOR THE YEAR! I’m halfway to my goal! Also, I have a sneaking suspicion that I will hit 65k just fine (and by May 24) but that the story will not be over. We shall see. Acts III and IV are quite short in comparison; I have my breaks messed up I think, so maybe not.

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Brief update: I hit 40k. Woo! And the scene I wrote yesterday, it is so pretty. [SPOILERISH] Sela has a vision way back on page 42 involving Vaughn and his father and it ends badly, and now on page 125, I got to that part of the plot, and Vaughn remembers the vision and so the scene does not end badly. But it’s lovely dramatic irony because the scene is from the father’s perspective, who does not know about the vision, and the scene ends (after they have nearly gotten into an awful physical fight), “Rigel thought that had gone exceedingly well.”, and of course we as readers are agreeing with him because we know how much worse it should have been, given the vision.

The scene I wrote AFTER that one is not pretty. It’s the darkest scene in the whole book and shows just why Rigel is the antagonist. Sure, he has his motives, love and blah blah, he’s not all bad, but he is still very very bad. This scene is crucial in showing how he is unwilling to grow and change to achieve his ends. It was heartbreaking because it involves Sela’s rival being victimized. But I wrote three very good scenes yesterday, each doing different things, each making leaps in character and bounds in plot. Oh, and 40k. Can y’believe it? I am SQUEEING beyond belief. Now, off the writer soapbox.

 I’ve been reading a lot of thought-provoking books. I think Friday will be a reviews post, in summary. I’ve already mentioned one of them.

I have to dash to work but I’ll edit more in later if I think of it; I really didn’t want another writerrant post but, but… SQUEE!

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