Help! The Italics Thieves are here!

Sigh. Sigh. It's not that I don't think you can figure out on your own which words to emphasize while you're reading, it's just that I like italics. (Yes, Amber, just like Emily Byrd Starr!) I overuse them. I confess. I just like them. (Okay, that one was just to make a point.) So, in my latest Silksinger editorial letter, my editor points out that I have italicized over 400 word. 400 out of 95,000ish, that's like 1/237th of the book! (I like to picture him with a scotch on the rocks in one of those fat crystal glasses, going through my manuscript page by page, tallying italics. I hope it was some sneaky computer function that did it, and not him!) He recommended I de-italicize the entire (ha!) manuscript, then only put them in where I really need them. I didn't do that, because I am chicken, but I am (you see! It's a sickness!) de-italicizing like wildfire. Really I am. I am.

Okay, enough of that. It's nice to be at the stage of worrying about such menial things as italics, rather than, you know, considering cutting half the book and rewriting it. Not that I don't still have some big issues to tackle and some scenes to rewrite, but overall, third draft = less insane than 2nd draft, and much more pleasant. Yay!

It's at times like this that we discover our irritating habits as writers. I have gotten some great feedback from my first readers, and I have a few manuscripts piled beside me, all marked up with comments, words circled and underlined and slashed out. And it has become clear to me that the word "suddenly" needs to be stripped from my vocabulary. (Thanks, Steph, for being the "suddenly" police!) Also offenders: "extremely" and "immediately." There are very few times in good writing that modifiers like "extremely" are necessary. Also, I am finding in my manuscript that often times things "seem to be" when they should just "be." It is wishy-washy to seem. "Very" gets a little out of hand too, especially when used like this: "he could feel the very air peel aside at the touch of his blade."

And how about habitual characterizations? This is tricky. You know, writers, how we fall back on describing certain details about our characters, especially when they are reacting to something? If I had that nifty function on my computer, I would count how many times my characters' eyes narrow with suspicion or go wide with surprise. Eek! And the blushing. And the anxious chewing of the lip. You know of what I speak, writers?

Then there are the fall-back verbs, especially speech modifiers. My crows, they croak their lines, and they squawk. The Djinn have a tendency to hiss. Lots of things hiss, come to think of it, it's an awesome word, but I do overuse it. "Said," is a champion of a word, folks, it's an invisible word. Have you noticed this? You can use "said" 8,000 times in your book. It can be 1/11th of your book, and you'll scarcely notice (okay, so I exaggerate, but you know). In Silksinger I had a fun problem: my main character is named Whisper, because she, um, whispers. But how many times can I use the word "whisper"? And of course, never ever can I say "Whisper whispered." So I had to get creative, as her voice is a crucial plot element (you know, Silksinger).

Anyway, it's fun and eye-opening, getting this sort of feedback at this stage. Thank you to my editor, and huge, huge thanks to Steph for being not only the best-ever smiley-face and heart drawer, but for mercilessly slashing useless words.

I will never slash enough words to satisfy my editor. He has asked me to cut an additional 7000 words from this manuscript (while simultaneously adding many many things -- don't ask how I hope to accomplish this; I don't). My trusty calculator tells me that I only have to cut 28 words per page. That's all. No sweat! I think I'll just cut the first 28 words from each page. That'll be easiest. Haw haw! (Oh, and can you see how I am learning my lesson about italics? Ah, but this is an italics-friendly zone. I promise that by the time Silksinger reaches you, there will be nowhere near 400 words in italics!)

Any of you writers have any particular quirks you want to share? What are your word weaknesses?

Lastly, a few fun notes about having sent out Silksinger to "first readers." I have never done this before, by the way. I have never even been in a critique group -- only my husband, best friend, and family have read my early drafts. But I'm really, really glad I sent it out, because the responses a) cheered me up and inspired me, and b) pointed out some really important things! So, thank you to Jim, Alexandra, Steph, Amber, Lexi, Heather, Nerd Goddess, Frida, Daanon, Chary, and Owen. You are all made of awesomeness. May the universe reward you with cupcakes until the day comes that I can reward you myself with cupcakes (or, in Daanon's case, voodoo donuts!)

Yesterday I got a phone call from my favorite 10-year-old boy, Owen. He is the boy who swooned at my feet at Wordstock last year, which will be a high-point of my writing life for as long as I live. And he kind of looks like Talon, without the facial tattoos, by the way. And his father runs a literary festival, and his mother owns a chocolate shop. Ladies, if you were ten years old, who would be your boyfriend? Owen! So, he told me his current thoughts on the book, and about how his rock band just wrote a protest song about the environment. (love)

And I got a very endearing email today from Enna Isilee, who is friends with Nerd Goddess (they are in a critique group of two), asking very nicely (and persuasively) if she might read Nerd Goddess's copy of Silksinger draft 2. Nerd Goddess (how wonderful is that name?) is apparently taking to heart my note that readers can let their friends read the manuscript, but only if they then kill them. Nerd Goddess, it's okay. You don't have to kill Enna Isilee. I would feel really, really bad about that. (By the way, these two are Shannon Hale fans, so you know they're awesome. A writer can dream about having the devoted fan following of the lovely and so-talented Shannon Hale.)

So, thanks again to all reader! I go forth fortified to finish the third draft, with far fewer "suddenlys" and a fatwa against italics!

Kidlitosphere Conference '08

If you are a writer of children's books and you want to learn how to connect with other writers, reviewers, librarians, and booklovers online, if you want to build an online community before your book is published and learn how to spread the word about it, or if you just love children's books and blogging and want to meet like-minded souls, come to the Kidlitosphere Conference '08!

It's September 27 in Portland, Oregon and will be really fun (as well as informative). Last year, the lovely Robin Brande kicked off the first one on a whim -- she just wanted to meet face-to-face all the awesome booklovers she'd gotten to know online. So we all convened in Chicago and it was a blast. This year, the city being Portland, the organization has fallen to Jone Rush McCulloch and myself. We've booked a great hotel for the event, and have plans for a friday night Powell's Books spree too, followed by dinner and fun -- the conference and official dinner to follow on Saturday.

Many attendees will be book reviewers, many will be authors. From the author's perspective, I want to put this out there to writers: if you're not already blogging and doing online promotion for your books (published or not-yet published): you should be. And the only way it can be effective is if you genuinely connect with the spirit of the online community. It's not enough to just put up a blog that periodically announces your bookstore events. That won't get you anywhere. You have to take an interest, get to know your kindred spirits, and really become a blogger. (Take it from me: it's incredibly rewarding!)

At last year's conference, I learned about such things as "blog blast book tours" and "search engine optimization," and "podcasting," and I got to meet wonderful reviewers like Jen Robinson, Betsy Bird (who I'd been lucky to meet before), and Jules & Eisha of 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast (who, by the way, did a lovely piece on Laini's Ladies last weekend!). There were terrific writers in attendance too, like Ysabeau Wilce and Sara Lewis Holmes.

So, join us. Portland is beautiful in September. You can go see some waterfalls, shop at Powell's, and talk kidlit with awesome people. Come, come. (click HERE for more info and to register.)

Cheers!

a morbid question, apropos of nothing:

It's just something that popped into my head:

Have you ever thought about how there will be people whose dark luck it is to live at the end of things? I don't mean the Rapture end, I mean the years when life here is just misery because we've gone and ruined our planet. When everything is flooding and disaster and famine, planet-wide. There will be people with the bad luck to be born then and endure short, terrible lives. There will be people who will be the last people.

Isn't it awful to think of that?

I don't know about you, but I have no hope for the future of this planet. I'm not going to go on and on here, I'm just saying.

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps from the floor of
the Grand Canyon,
"It is done.
People did not like it here."

-- Kurt Vonnegut

The Ghost Carousel

[story removed by author]

Commencing third draft. . .

Whew. In the aftermath of sending in my second draft, I set off on a whirlwind of summer activities and spending time with friends and family. But now I have my edits in hand and it's time to get back to work! The manuscript arrived yesterday, covered in notes as usual. Now, third draft, here I come. [Shudder.] I am so ready to write a new book!

[By the way, big thanks to Lexi, Heather, and Amber, who come in #2, 3, and 4 respectively in the Silksinger readathon. Thank you ladies!!!]

This week I have scarcely set foot in my own home, it seems. My sister was in town from California, and now my niece is here too. Here are we four Taylor women having Thai food at Pok Pok:

Yesterday, my mom and I took Isabella (we call her Izzy, she calls herself Bella) to get some fun colored hair extensions (like my yellows) for the summer. She got to choose her color:
I really thought she was going to go for the aqua blue, but she didn't. She chose. . .
Hot pink! (Why, I ask, would anyone want pink hair???) It looks so cute. It's so fun -- why doesn't everybody have a few streaks of blue or purple or pink in their hair? Why?

Strolled around a little on Mississippi, went into Flutter, which always feels like a fun photo safari. You never know what you're going to find. Weird, altered prom dresses (one had a patch on the front that said EAT), stuffed foxes and iguanas, singing birds, gas masks. . .



And the day wasn't over! Yet to come was dinner with two wonderful bloggers, tiny noises and Frida. "Tiny noises" lives here in Portland, and "Frida" has been visiting from New Zealand. Jim and I had a wonderful time eating Mexican food with them and their boys:


And so, thus ends my social summer interlude. Now it is me in my writing room once again, with a new stack of manuscript beside me. Deep breath. . .

Opal Creek Ancient Forest

Another thing off my squeeze-summer-into-a-few-days list: a hike at Opal Creek! My sister Emily is in town for just a few days, and since she's usually here at Christmas and only ever sees Oregon in the gloom, my parents and I took her out to the woods. (Poor Jim stayed home to draw some role-playing game cards he's working on for White Wolf).

I've been wanting to go to Opal Creek ever since I read about it in Audubon Magazine at the doctor's office (and stole the magazine, I confess). It's a tract of 35,000 acres of old-growth forest that was narrowly preserved from loggers over a long battle that spanned the 1960s to the 1990s. Remember the whole spotted owl controversy? Well, this is spotted owl habitat, and now -- thanks to decades of fighting by a few remarkable people, this forest still stands. (Thanks, remarkable people!)

This is "Jawbone Flats" -- the old gold-mining camp that has been turned into an education center and cabins:

It's all powered by the force of the creek (cool!) and you can't get there by car -- it's 3-1/2 miles from the trailhead, with sights like this along the way:
I am not the sort of skilled photographer who can convey scenes in the forest with much majesty, but trust me that it is spectacular.
It was hot, and all that green water looked so enticing, but it is so cold -- the kind of cold that makes your feet ache within seconds of putting them in the water. (Quite different from the bathwater-warm waterfall Jim and I went to in Chiapas!)

We just went for the day and didn't get a chance to hike any of the side trails from Jawbone Flats or really look for critters (Opal Creek is a "phib" paradise -- ie, amphibians -- home to some 3 kinds of frogs and 11 species of salamanders, including the Pacific Giant Salamander, which can live up to 40 years!!!) but it was still lovely. Another time I'd like to go and stay. I had a thought while sitting beside a creek that it would be so fabulous to have a "fairy tale writing retreat" there -- a group of writers for three or four days, all working on writing fairy tales? Find a different place by the creek or falls to sit and write each day, get together in the evenings to share? Sounds great, doesn't it? Maybe some day!

Speaking of faeries I want to hugely thank Stephanie for officially being the first person to read Silksinger in one day! Perhaps only other writers can understand how much this means -- to have someone read your book in a day is the biggest compliment there is, and of course, often someone might want to, but just not be able, so I'm not saying I don't love other people who took a few days to read it. I love anyone who reads my book! (But special thanks to Steph!)

And thanks also to Steph for introducing me to Mr. Thornton North and South, the BBC drama which I also thought was that old Civil War thing with Patrick Swayze, but which is way, way, way better. Imagine if you will, that when Mr. Darcy proposed to Elizabeth (and she turned him down with cold disdain), he had passionately declared his love for her. Twice. And, imagine: kissing. Misunderstandings. Riots. Girl throwing herself in front of an angry mob to save brooding hero. And there's smoldering. Really, really good smoldering:
And remember: kissing! Rent it, ladies. Meet Mr. Thornton for yourselves.

Berry Day (& the Silksinger winner!)

This morning, checked another thing off my squeeze-summer-into-one-week list: pick berries! Jim and I went with my parents to Sauvie Island and picked blueberries and raspberries. It was so lovely. The weather was perfect, there was barely anybody there, berries were plentiful. Just lovely. You see, we picked a few:
I'm not sure what I'm going for in that photo -- am I guarding the berries, or am I gearing up to eat them in one gulp? I only know my mouth is very open and it is very flattering! Here's Jim, much more civilized than me (and with far, far fewer berries, poor lad):
Tonight for dinner we had huge portobello mushrooms and corn on the cob, and for dessert I had been planning to make a cobbler but the berries are too perfect to bake, so we just had berries with frozen yoghurt, and it was wonderful. I love summer.

On the matter of the Silksinger prize pack [of work], the winner is: Nerd Goddess!!!
Yay, Nerd Goddess! That will go in the mail to you tomorrow, and I really look forward to getting your feedback. Thank you! Thank you to all who entered -- your emails were wonderful, and I'd love to send it to ALL of you, but all that photocopying really adds up! I will do another drawing for some galley copies when those come out. I do plan to email everybody to say thank you, but right now I am exhausted. It was hard work eating picking all those berries!

Leroy says goodnight too, from his particularly crooked position:

In which Laini leaves the house. . .

See? Me in the sunshine with grass. You can't see them, but there are honest-to-God trees around me too! Oh, and though I look like a depraved animal (snort!), those aren't beers, they're pear sodas. If you look real close, you can see the pears!

YES! I have exited the house! More than once! On Monday, after hitting send, I thought: Picnic! So we picked up yummy sandwiches and peanut butter cookies and went to Mount Tabor park, and then we went really crazy and went to Home Depot for garden plants (so woefully late to be planting, but so it goes) and some sky blue paint for my patio table. On the way there, we got ice cream at Ikea; on the way back we got mango Slurpees at 7-11. Oh yeah. Day of decadence! ha ha ha! So, in the past two days there has been *gardening* (not really, more like weed pulling and cursing), and painting of patio furniture, and watching of mediocre summer blockbusters (Wanted, Hancock).

As for Silksinger, I just want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who emailed to enter the drawing for the manuscript and shwag! Thank you so much! I was secretly afraid no one would want it, which is why I had you email me instead of just comment -- because that way I could hide it if there weren't many responses (ah, confidence!). But! You guys make me feel very special! Thank you! I have been loving reading your emails and I wish I could send you ALL a manuscript, but that is not really reasonable. I will draw out of the hat later today. And I think I will probably draw two, though I only have one audiobook to give away. There is plenty of Laini's Ladies stuff for prizes though. The manuscripts are at Kinko's right now getting copied and spiral-bound. I will mail them out tomorrow. Thank you again everyone! I'll announce the "winner of the work" later.

In the meantime, for your entertainment, click HERE for a very funny rap video about two hardcore guys going to get cupcakes and watch Narnia!

And here, watch this. It's really short. This girl is kind of a Magpie Windwitch -- a little girl with big mojo. Love this!

It is done. (And there is a prize in it for you.)

Draft two is done, and it has been sent away through the ether to my bow-tie-wearing editor in New York, who will hopefully like it and tell me so in generous language. Draft two is 17,000 words shorter than draft one. I was aiming for 20,000 words shorter, but that's still pretty good. And. . . it's not like I *cut* those words. Really, it was more like I cut out about half the book and then rewrote it from scratch. This was a much much bigger revision than I have done before, because Silksinger has been a tricky, tricky book from the beginning, but I think I have done it. I think this draft comes close to being what I want. I think I love it.

I feel weirdly empty and slack now, though, and all moody and surly. Why? I don't know. It will help when some eyeballs have read it and [hopefully] liked it. Certainly, that will help. I've been in this book so long it's hard to see it. I'm going to make some copies for a few kid readers, one of whom is my best friend's 10-year-old niece Miriam, who is the world's best and fastest kid reader, and another one is the darling, darling 10-year-old, Owen, whose father runs a literary festival and whose mother owns a chocolate shop and who swooned at my feet when he came to hear me do a reading. (Love those two kids.) And my parents haven't peeked at the book at all yet, and are anxious to. Jim has read a little more than half and today I will release the rest to him. It's always a tense moment, because of course when you finally give your manuscript to readers -- especially a reader you live with, you want them to fall into it, be unable to tear their eyes away, not get sleepy, love every single word. . . etc, and you want to hear them laugh from the next room, and you want to spy on them reading it, and if they get a perplexed look on their face, or smile, or look sad, you want to say, "What? What? What part are you reading now?"

Jim's very good. He laughs and cries and tells me nice things, and he hugs me a lot when I'm mopey, and he genuinely thinks I'm the best writer in the world. (He also thinks I have a better butt than Angelina Jolie, so, you know, he's kind of biased!) Oh, and he helps me make my action scenes better. (Thanks, sweetie. Mwah.)

Which brings me to the PRIZE mentioned above. . . Well. . . more of a prize PACK, really. Here it is: If you are interested in reading Silksinger shazam-fast and giving me feedback, then I will give you a copy of the fabulous audiobook of Blackbringer read by the marvelous Davina Porter, PLUS some Laini's Ladies goodies, such as a box of adorable post-its for use in your feedback-giving! (Have you noticed that this is kind of a trick? That it's. . . work? Shhh. . . don't tell anyone.) Are you interested? If so, email me [hotdiggity@comcast.net] and let me know. In the subject line put: PRIZE PACK OF WORK. I will put names into a hat and draw one at random.

Okay, I think I will go wash my hair, and then maybe step outside. I must be vitamin-D-deprived. Is vitamin D the sunlight vitamin? I have a deep craving to be in a forest.

And then, there's thoughts -- always -- of the next book. . .

Letter to a Young Writer

I know, I shouldn't be here right now. I should be frantically revising, but I couldn't stay away. Why? Wellllll. . . I got a draggy email today that sort of derailed my deep, happy concentration. And it has been deep and happy and everything has been going great, truly, the book is at last becoming the book I have always wanted it to be. Yay! But since the suck email, I've been trying and trying to scoop my brain back into the world of Dreamdark, but I have not yet been successful, so here I am instead, because writing about writing often gets me inspired, and here is a post I have been wanting to write.

So check this out. I got the greatest email from a 13-year-old named Jessica (dig her playful spelling at the end) and I was pretty floored by how perfectly and succinctly she summarizes the trials and woes of writing a novel. I think you will agree:

Dear Laini,

Do you ever get so incredibly frustrated when writing through drafts of your book that you just want to erase it all and start all over? That's how I feel right now! I've been writing and re-writing this one chapter and now I'm so fed up with it I'm ready to bang my head against the computer desk! Suddenly it seems like the story doesn't want to work with me and I just can't get the words to flow the way I want to. Out of the blue, I'm stuck on how to describe things and how to give my readers the opportunity to make connections with what's happening. Whatever inspired me to write this book seems to have faded away and I can't get it back. Is that normal for a young author? Is there some sort of cure for my sudden lack of inspiration? Please give me any advice you might have. Thanks.

Sincerely,
Jehsyka

Wow. Jessica, you're awesome, and you will so write novels, of that I have no doubt. (By the way, I have been lucky enough to read a plot summary of Jessica's fantasy novel and it is awesome and I've jokingly doubted that she could really be 13 -- but, Jessica. . . are you really???)

Okay. YES, Jessica, I do get so incredibly frustrated that I want to erase it all and start over, and I do erase it all and start over -- which I don't necessarily advise, but sometimes it is the only solution. (But not always.)

The first goal is to find the story. This doesn't always happen on the first try, and really, when you think about it, it would be kind of like a crazy coincidence if it did. I mean, a young story is a wild and feral thing that has never seen a human before. It's not curled up in your lap like a cat. It takes some hunting to find it.

The trick is to keep hunting. Keep writing. And specifically, keep writing that story. Yes, new ideas will spring to your mind that seem so shiny and gorgeous and, by comparison, easy. Resist them. They are like those evil lake spirits that look like beautiful maidens just to lure you close, and as soon as they've got you in their clutches, they turn into hags and drown you! That is to say, even the new ideas will get hard once you get going on them. Don't let them trick you into abandoning your work-in-progress.

You need to develop a habit of completion. For a new writer, it might be a good idea to start on stories or novellas, rather than novels, because dang, novels can defeat almost anybody. But the most important thing is to heed the story that is alive in you, whatever it is, and whatever it wants to be.

And NO, it will not always feel alive in you. What inspired you to write the book is bound to fade away as you work with it day in, day out. This is totally normal. You must make yourself remember how it made you feel in the beginning, and remind yourself always of what you loved about it when it was all fresh and shimmery. I recently discovered that a writer friend does something I also do, which is make a list of the things I love about my book, so that when I am having a hard time accessing the love, I can refer to it and just trust that, at one time, those ideas did seem shiny and original and awesome -- and that when someone reads them for the first time they will think so too. The ideas for Silksinger that I have now been laboring with for over a year, for example. They stopped being fun new ideas so long ago. But I have a page in one of my notebooks entitled "COOL THINGS" and it's a list with things on it like: dragonfly caravans, Djinn in bottles, trapdoors, licorice-whip eyes, and crickets dancing to a zither, along with various secret identities, crushes, and nemeses that are crucial to the plot.

There's a lot of faith involved, faith in your original idea, and there's a lot of stubborness involved too, to stick with it and finish it. Here's a question: what's the main difference between a published novel and one that is sitting unfinished in a drawer? Well, the main difference is that the published one is finished. "Finished" is an absolute prerequisite to publication. Even before the requirement that it be good, first it must be finished -- because only then can you go on and make it better (but making it better, that is, revisions is another subject for another day).

When you feel uninspired, it is your task to re-inspire yourself, not with a new idea altogether, but perhaps a new idea within your idea, or a whole new way of looking at your idea. Sometimes I think of this as "turning the kaleidoscope." If a scene or section of the book feels dull and colorless, I try to turn the kaleidscope, get the colors wheeling and spinning, look at the events of the story from every conceivable angle and figure out a cooler way of unfolding them. Or, if this completely fails, sometimes I might have to face the hard fact that I've taken a wrong turn in the labyrinth of my novel, and I have to go back a few paces and try another path. There is always a way through. You just haven't found it yet.

Remember: as long as you keep working, the book can never defeat you. It might feel like it is fighting you, but really its only tactic is intimidation. It can't do anything to you, but you can do everything to it. You are its god, and it must obey you, not the other way around!

As for the actual work of laying down words and creating scenes, this is another place where sheer stubborness comes in. You must simply do it and keep doing it. I love the way you phrased this: "how to give my readers the opportunity to make connections with what's happening." I think that's a gorgeous of way of saying what it is we're trying to do. All I can really say is that I try to sort of "climb inside" the scene and feel as if it is really happening, and examine the way the characters would truly feel. How would you feel? If you can get at the truth of the emotion, you might be able to make that connection. Then, of course, you must be able to clothe that truth in language that enables it to be transferred to other human brains, and that is a matter of practice and work, and developing mastery of language.

One thing I will tell you about being stuck on one chapter is this: skip it. Or rather, take an index card or a scrap piece of paper (something that is not precious) and just write a simple synopsis of what needs to happen in that chapter, both the actual happenings and the emotional growth of the character. Write it as simply as you can. Get to the bone of it. Then just set that aside and move on to the next chapter. I find so often that it is easier to go back. It's as if, by simply skipping it, I've showed it who's really in charge and next time it behave much better.

Along the lines of that sneaky index card or scrap piece of paper, here's another thing to try: never don't write. I mean, when you're stuck, don't just stare at your chapter. Instead, open up a writing journal or a new document on your computer and "chat with yourself" about what you're trying to do. Write about the scene, about the plot, about whatever is tripping you up. Brainstorm, turn the kaleidscope, ask "What if. . .?" about a million times. Try out scenarios. Very very often, this turns into writing.

All in all, in my experience (today included), there is much woe and turmoil in the writing of a novel. Sometimes one must embrace the joy of woe, that is -- slunch down on the sofa and watch a crappy movie instead of writing, all while complaining about how hard writing is. This can be very satisfying. (I know.) Well, woe is so much easier than writing, but, while satisfying in the now, it does not really pay off in the long run. (I know that too. If I could be 13 again, I'd do things differently!)

I could go on about this stuff forever, but I will finish up with this quote that I found today in an interview with the writer Larry Doyle (who wrote for The Simpsons and also wrote the novel I Love You Beth Cooper, which is very funny but not at all appropriate for a 13-year-old!!):

"I have always wanted to write a novel. What prevented me from doing so until now is there was nothing stopping me from not writing it."
- Larry Doyle

Thank you for your great emails, Jessica! I hope this helps a little. Keep writing. (And P.S. It is okay at 13 to write stories instead of a novel, and work your way up, but that is entirely up to you.)

Eek Day

This is next week on my lovely Anahata calendar. See the green "eek!"? That signifies the day that my editor absolutely must have draft 2 of Silksinger in hand. So: "EEEEEEEEEK!"

I will be a bit busy for the next week, probably. It is sort of ridiculous I am blogging now. But I just finished a big section of the book and my brain needed to breathe a little. So I thought I would list some of the things I'm looking forward to doing after Eek Day is past:

1) Go for some hikes. Places like here and here. Perhaps see a giant salamander. (I'd also like to find a place in Oregon, if such a place there is, where I can see a huge swarm of bats leave a cave or barn at dusk. Anyone know of any?)

2) Go to u-pick blueberries on Sauvie Island. Pick many blueberries And possibly some peaches.

3) Give my writing room porch a makeover. It has the potential for extreme cuteness, but the potential has not yet been met. This will require: some landscaping and planting; painting of patio table and chairs sky blue; some pretty pots with flowers; some cute flourishes, like maybe some sheer, floaty curtains and a hanging fuschia.

4) See movies.

Those are the topmost in my mind, but I am sure there will be more. Soon!

School Canceled Due to Ninja Outbreak

Okay, so it wasn't an outbreak, it was just one ninja, but school was canceled. Okay, wait, no it wasn't. I'm such a liar. It was only "locked down" for a short time, until it could be determined the ninja in the woods was not, in fact, a real ninja. This happened in New Jersey, where they have ninjas (ninji?) coming out their ears. When you look out your window in New Jersey, you might see a streak of black in the woods, but then again, you might not. But if you don't, it doesn't mean they're not there. Because, you know, they're ninjas. (See here.)

I just happened to recall that my younger cousin was a ninja once for Halloween many years ago, and my brother told him he looked like a black smurf.

Cheerio!

P.S. Note: Should you take it into your soft heart to feed your elderly dog a diet of roast chicken, expect to become familiar with the smell of roast chicken farts. They smell exactly like roast chicken, but with a powerful, lingering component of. . . fart. It all makes perfect sense, really. Just, beware. And, why is it, I wonder, that dogs have a way of positioning themselves like they're aiming at you?

Lentil in calabash, or: my brain as a still life

Oh my head, she hurts. Have any of you other writers ever suddenly come to a realization that you're not actually smart enough to do what you're trying to do? Do important thoughts and bits of story keep falling right out of your head like it is a just a big. . . um, a big thing filled with holes? (See? I just started a sentence that I wasn't smart enough to finish!) Well. I feel like that. A lot. I saw something recently at Sara Lewis Holmes's blog: "Our writing should be smarter than we are." I'd never thought of it quite like that before, but I think it is the striving for that that makes my brain feel like a little lentil rattling around inside a calabash. Maybe a calabash like one of these:

I feel like, creatively, I am always trying to do something beyond my skill. With illustration, for example, I labor over drawings for days, reworking them and reworking them, until they were as good as I could possibly make them, and hopefully better than I thought I could make them. Then I would proceed to painting. It's rewarding after the fact, but it isn't joyous, like the spontaneous bursts of creation that sometimes catch one unaware and are just FUN. Well, writing Silksinger has largely felt like that. Filled with striving and pushing, making it better and better, hopefully better than the outer limit of my capacity even. But. Not always fun.

Here's a quote I love:

"A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
--Thomas Mann

Yes! Me, me, me. You? Anyone? Oh, I mean, there are times of joy, but often it is been a case of "I don't love writing. I love having written." The joy comes after, when the lentil is allowed finally to come to an exhausted halt in the bottom of the calabash and just. . . lie there. You know, like the wee, pathetic lentil that it is.

I'm having great eager yearnings toward a little fun writing, after this draft is done. There's been a "fun" idea drifting idly in my brain for a while, and yesterday, while I was in the shower, something happened that fellow writers will know about: it collided with another idea. And in about five minutes, those two ideas fell in love, got married, and had a whole brood of idea babies, which they presented to me proudly and said, with big beaming grins on their little idea faces: "Here we are, all ready. Now, write us!"

And I want to. So much. This sweet little notion promises fun that my lentil can handle. But. Honestly. I know myself. I could take Jack and Jill and turn it into an epic with interweaving storylines, and then decide I need to learn ancient Greek in order to do it justice, and that it needs to be told alternately from the perspective of the hill and the pail. In five volumes. You know. I just can't help it. Blame it on the lentil. It strives.

Here's a link, by the way, to a good post at one of my daily reads, Justine Larbalestier. This one is on how good and bad writing days affect our mood and mental state. Oh no, not at all, she says in a small voice.

For instance, for the last couple of days, I reworked a section of the book. Intensely, with great concentration and some pulling of pink hair. And then, I was forced to admit that it had been better before. And to undo it. But I had wrought such changes I couldn't just go back to the old version. I had to unweave the new stuff from the text, like, um, getting gum out of hair. I do that a lot. I meddle with my books. Sometimes for good, sometimes for evil. Pointless, pointless evil. And it plunged me into such a black, black mood last night. I'm better now though. I woke up this morning and cleared away the last of the evil. For now.

I am aching for sunshine and summer, not just the little splash of it on the floor of my writing room, but real sunshine and summer. Hikes. I greatly need hikes, and to freeze my feet in snowmelt waterfall pools, and see a snake slip across a path, and smell trees. Soon, self. Soon.

etsy fun

A few weeks back I mentioned that Jim went a bit Etsy-mad while anniversary shopping. Well, the results have arrived! Look at this gorgeous sculpture that came all the way from Germany. The face is polyclay, but the way it's incorporated into the driftwood makes it seem carved; and then there's the seashell. Isn't her face so lovely? Some day this needs to be a centerpiece in a faerie-theme curio cabinet, with her face somehow peeking out of ferns. There will be strange seedpods and some brittle dragonfly wings, a bird's nest with tiny eggs inside, bits of horn, a small strange animal skull with antlers, a toadstone, that sort of thing. I just love her. She's staring straight at me as I write.

The others are more whimsical, less beautiful. Here's Rocketbird:
And Pikul:
Thank you, sweetie!

By the way, Blackbringer celebrated its first anniversary on Saturday! A year, it's been out. Funny. Time, she is so slippery. It seems longer, and yet it seems like yesterday. Darling book, happy first year. May you live long in the world. Jim is rereading it right now, which is sweet. He hasn't read Silksinger yet (well, he read the first 60 pages or so months and months ago, but they've changed). I've been holding off letting anyone read it (besides Alexandra, but she forgets stuff right after she reads it, so it's okay) until it's "in shape." And it's coming along. This revision has been, and continues to be, much more massive a job than Blackbringer or Lips Touch. I've rewritten practically every scene, sort of taken the book apart and put it back together, cut a lot of scenes, written a lot of new ones. WHEW.

By the way, I'm thrilled by a few speaking invitations I've received. One is to the University of Washington Writing for Children program, and the other is the Western Washington SCBWI professional series. At the latter, the subject of my talk (in December) will be: "tactics for finishing a novel." Sometimes it feels to me that finishing a novel is not so unlike crawling through the mud on your belly with a knife in your teeth -- you know, like in military training montages you see in movies. It's been a heck of an ordeal for me, learning how to make myself do it, and I'm excited to share my own strategies. I may also talk about strategies for revisions, but that might be too much for one hour. We'll see. Anyway, I'm very excited. A couple of trips up to Seattle in the coming year!

And now. . . back to revisions!

Ah, Romance. . .

What do these two couples have in common? They both fight demons together? No, wait, that's not it. Umm. . . well, just. . . the romance! -- and the fact that they are two ongoing stories in my pop-culture life just at the moment.

Jim and I continue our ongoing Buffy extravaganza. We're midway through Season 4. Watched Hush last night. BEST. EPISODE. EVER. As a writer and a consumer of writing, I love certain kinds of situations -- certain "meetings" and certain ways that secrets are revealed. Well, in Hush there's just a great sort of double-secret-reveal, involving demons and weaponry and a big juicy crush. There's a first kiss in it, too. And it's so delish. **youtube clip below

And then, readingwise, I'm feeding another one of my not-really-guilty pleasures, which is Jane Austen spin-off fiction. In this case, it's An Assembly Such As This which tells Pride & Prejudice from Darcy's point of view. FUN! (And, there are three volumes. I swiped them all from my dad, who shares this not-really-guilty pleasure with me; I think he might have a crush on Jennifer Ehle, and who can blame him? And, by the way, though I love the Joe Wright P & P too, it's totally Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle I'm picturing as I read this. Without that mini series, would this slew of Austen fan fiction even exist?)

But the point is just: ROMANCE. Sure, there was a time when I wouldn't have admitted how much I love it, but that was back when I wasn't reading fantasy either, but just Balzac and DeMaupassant, etc etc. (Or, as I like to call them, Honore and Guy.) Nothing against those guys, great literature, etc etc, but give me Joss Whedon and faux Jane Austen any day. Longing and smoochies and demon fighting! It makes me yearn to be writing the YA book that's been simmering in my brain for a goodly year. But alas, I think once I'm done with revisions, I really need to get on to Dreamdark 3, and not the YA at all. And I love Dreamdark, don't get me wrong, it is my beloved child, but there are no smoochies in Dreamdark. There is the devil fighting, and a wee bit of yearning, perhaps, but no smoochies. Just good, clean family fun with devil wars and scimitars.

And on the subject of romance, did anybody who's reading the Emily books with me get a bit frustrated by Emily's Quest? I found it unsatisfying. I kept wanting to shake everybody by the lapels. I remembered what happened from when I read it years (23 years?) ago, but I didn't remember quite how maddening! It's a fine line for me -- I have a love/hate thing for romance storylines of love denied. Yes, yearning, frustration, all that is a big, important piece. But some books carry it too far, and once a certain line is crossed, the romance is broken and one starts to rather root against it. One of the Eva Ibbotsen books I read this spring did that (A Song for Summer); I really like it until a certain point, after which I drastically disliked it. Instead of reading it, read A Company of Swans a second time. It's way better.

Anyway, Emily lost her charm a little for me in the third book. It was too bleak, and there was the always wanting to shake them that distracted me. I was just as affected by The Seller of Dreams as I recall, though. It hurts, doesn't it?

Here's some clips from Hush, if you're curious. (Warning: creepy!)

I dedicate this book to. . . myself

Be honest. Would you think that was weird? I mean, weird in a bad way, if I were to dedicate Silksinger to myself? I'm sort of feeling like, at the end of all this, I'll deserve it. Writing Blackbringer was hard, but this is hard in a whole different way, to a whole different magnitude. (I hate to tell that to people who think the first book is the hardest and after that you somehow magically know how to do it. Not so much.) But seriously, what would you think if you opened a book and saw this inscription:

I dedicate this book to. . .
myself,
with pride, relief, and love.
I'm so glad you're finally done.

Okay, maybe not that last line! And -- it's not done, not yet. I am anticipating being able to say that one day, though most days I can scarcely believe it to be true.

Sigh.

The Fall

Saw a wonderful movie today -- it's not getting a whole lot of press, unfortunately, or wide release, but if it's playing anywhere near you, I highly recommend it -- I was a little afraid it might be arty-farty and abstract, given how beautiful it is, but the good news is, not only is it gorgeous to look at, but the story is good! It's about a young girl in the hospital in 1920s Los Angeles (she has a broken arm, sustained picking fruit) who befriends another patient -- a stuntman in early Hollywood "flickers" who was injured in a stunt involving a horse. The stuntman is played by Lee Pace, of my favortie new show of last year, Pushing Daisies. (He was also in the wonderful Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day). And he's great, but it is the young Rumanian lead, acting in her first movie, who is truly amazing. The director, Tarsem Singh, said that he was waiting to start making the movie until he found the right girl -- and when he found Catinca Untaru, he knew it was time to begin. It often seems as if Lee Pace is improvising dialogue with her, it feels so natural and unscripted -- and indeed, I saw in an interview just now on Youtube that they were.

So, I forgot to mention the most important part of the movie -- that in the hospital, Roy tells Alexandria an epic tale of 5 warriors, and a large part of the movie is this elaborate warrior/fairy tale filmed all around the world. I mean, the locations!!! There are scenes on the Charles Bridge in Prague, and in the blue city, Jodphur, and in front of immense red desert dunes I assume are in Africa, and in piazzas in Rome, and islands in the Andaman sea, and a ton of other places I couldn't name. It's so beautiful, and so are the costumes and fantasy visuals. I mean, look at this trailer:

You have never seen such a coat as is worn by Charles Darwin in the movie:

Some more stills:

Teeth & Skeletons -- an old chapter, unearthed

I was just searching through a very early draft of Silksinger, hunting down a description I recall writing, and I reread this old chapter and was delighted with it. At one point, this was the "prelude." Well, the book has changed entirely between then and now; this chapter was cut long ago, but I love it, so I thought I'd put it here. As I say, nothing of this remains. Actually, the name "Slomby" does, but he is an entirely different character now.

I've said in talks I've done how "second-string villains" are great fun, because they can be gross and nasty and imaginative. Well, this is a perfect example of one. I had so much fun writing this, and was sorry to have to let it go:


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Teeth and skeletons were Slomby’s bread and butter. He dealt in other things too: horn and talons and fur, feathers and blood and spit. Even plain old rags sorted according to degree of filth: very filthy, or extremely. He was a rag and bone merchant, so he had to stock rags, but following up the bone end of the business was what put the spring in his step.

Or rather, in his slither.

There was a greedy market for bones in Nazneen. No matter that from the air it looked like a faerie city, clean as mountains, pearly as teeth -- underneath it was another city, a dark and festering one where tails left slither trails in the mud and faeries never dared flutter their dainty wings.

“Teef and skellies!” Slomby cried, pushing his cart through the murk and the dark. He wasn’t selling just now -- he did that out of his shop. He was gleaning. In Nazneen’s undertunnels there were always creatures ready to part with a well-gnawed haunch or a nice bit of jawbone, and Slomby made it his business to buy those grisly treasures and haul them back to his shop, where he polished them up proper and sold them to someone else.

Down here, magic wasn’t the airy stuff of faeries. Faeries’ power was gifted to them by the Djinn, and they had no need to sully their fingers with skulls and such. They had only to think their magic -- draw pretty pictures in their pretty heads -- but for others it didn’t come so easy. Others needed fangs and feathers and hair with scalp still clinging to it to work their spells, and maybe just maybe guts once in a while. Slomby didn’t judge. Who was he to judge?

Hadn’t he spent the first half of his life hanging off a sea serpent by his sucker mouth and thriving on its blood? He’d been born a parasite, a snag parasite on a bigger snag, and he was unashamed of it. After all, he hadn’t dreamed his ownself up. Something else had done that job for him and he wasn’t sorry -- though if it had been up to him he guessed he’d have asked for fingers instead of hooks and perhaps a less particular appetite. It was a job of work for him just to fill his belly.

He wasn’t unique in that. In the upper city faeries may have been in charge, but down here in the slurk and the slough, strange hungers were what ruled. Knowing parasites like he did, Slomby knew there was at least one made special for every kind of creature in the Djinns’ grand world, a unique and dastardly parasite for everything that lived, like they’d been doled out at the Creation: here ye go, a tummy for you, some teeth, a brain (maybe), and. . . a parasite all yer own. There was even a mite that lived only in the left ear of one kind of moth!

And it wasn’t just parasites. In Slomby’s experience the same went for predators. For every living thing that went about its business, yawning and griping and scratching its rump, there was some other creature out prowling with slick teeth and a rumbling belly, hungering just for it. About the best you could hope for in life was to not meet the creature whose hunger was for you. It was a big place. Odds were good.

But no one could live forever.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Tee hee. A little gross, no? I do love me some gross, I got to say!

Thoughts on the hamster wheel

I snipped this out of Publisher's Lunch the other day. Thought it might be of interest.

Top Authors on Annual Deadline Pressures
Publishers (and fans) increasingly expect and hope that top fiction authors will issue a new book on regular basis, but the Boston Globe says writers are complaining about the pressure. Patricia Cornwell says : "The Scarpetta [manuscript] that's due out Oct. 7 is due in a few weeks, because they have to reserve the storefront real estate and pay for it. If I don't get the book turned in on time, they'll be freaking out. If I miss my deadline, I miss the entire year. Sometimes there's an overwhelming feeling of panic. It's like a rock 'n' roll concert, and what if I don't show up?"

Thriller writer Brad Meltzer has turned down requests to have a book a year: "There's pressure to treat authors like Coca-Cola. Every time you get a bunch of writers together, this is all they complain about. The trend is, 'How many books can you put out?' From building your reputation to get on the best-seller list, it's gone to trying to get to the tippy-top of the list. It's not worth it to me."

And Dennis Lehane said he tried to write faster once: "I did it ["Prayers for Rain" in 1999], but the week it was published I realized what would have made it a really good book. The anger of that realization haunted me. I said I would never go back on that hamster wheel. It's what led me to write 'Mystic River.'"

David Baldacci does not object: "If you don't write a book a year, it might not be devastating, but it helps to keep your face out there."

(HERE is the full original article.)

Not being a "top fiction author," I'm not saying I can relate to the pressure these guys are feeling, but to some degree I admit to feeling the anxiety too. Last year at Comicon the fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore (super nice guy), gave me the advice that, basically, you got to keep the books coming, and fast, or you'll lose your space on the shelf. It scared me a little, because I'm not speedy and at that point I was beginning to suspect I might not finish Silksinger in time for an '08 release, and now here I am just a few weeks shy of my first book's first anniversary, and no more bookies are forthcoming from me until next year. As predicted, I have lost my space on the shelf -- most shelves, anyway. Most chain stores aren't carrying Blackbringer anymore. So, that's how it goes. Just got to buckle down and keep working and know that next year will be much more rewarding, and try to finish a book in time for a '10 release ('10!! Holy!!), and avoid another "dry year."

So, it's not just pressure from publishers that creates the anxiety. It's pressure from bookstore shelves -- or rather, absence from them!

But, as I say, next year will be better! It won't just be Silksinger and Lips Touch, but the paperback of Blackbringer too. Yesterday I got to speak with Sharyn November, who is publishing the paperback through her awesome fantasy imprint, Firebird. She's made a decision, which I fully endorse, to drop the "Faeries of" from the series title, and Putnam thought it was a fine idea too. Henceforth, it shall be "Dreamdark" instead of "Faeries of Dreamdark." It was my original series title, but somewhere along the way somebody affixed those extra words. Whenever I tell people the full title, I inwardly groan at how long it is. So, yay! I'm most anxious to see what they do for a new cover, too -- I love LOVE the hardcover cover, and it's hard imagining anything else.

Okay, now, back to work!

Inspiration Wednesday

Can't in good conscience take the time to write an articulate and interesting blog post today. (Or really, any day in the near future.) But I want to pass on two wonderful things, both gleaned from kindred spirit blue poppy.

One is a piece from Ira Glass of This American Life, about getting better at creative endeavor through practice. The other is J.K. Rowling's Harvard speech, which has been flying around the internet, but if you haven't seen it, give it a read or listen. I like her even more than I already did.

For J.K. Rowling, click HERE -- full text and/or video available.

And here's Ira:


And now, back to my regularly scheduled work day. (By the way, the Pacific Northwest is experiencing one of its coldest springs on record, and I sit here in a fleece poncho. It's in the 50s!! Ack! Of course, one of the things I love about the Northwest is that most of the year the weather doesn't tempt you out to play -- and that is some temptation I don't need right now as I feverishly revise. But still, it is June 11! )

Not to leave you without a few fun random animal pictures:
(baby slender loris)
(hedgehog babies -- so cute!!)

Friendly Neighborhood Fight Club

Really and truly, I am not kidding you, our neighbors set up a boxing ring in their backyard and all day long, shirtless guys have been drinking beer and bashing each other in the face. It's delightful. What kind of neighborhood do we live in, you ask, that something like this might happen? It's not the neighborhood's fault! It's the homeowner's fault -- he's a [very nice] National Guardsman who bought the house right when he got back from Iraq, then promptly decided to move to California to marry his pregnant girlfriend. I wholly support that decision, dude, just: sell the house first! Don't rent it to a pit-bull-neglecting, something-sordid-always-happening-in-the-hot-tub, stare-into-space-and-smoke-on-the-porch-all-day, fight-club-having random guy. PLEASE!

I don't know exactly what this guy does for a living (the renter), but it's some kind of skilled labor thing like underwater welding where he travels a lot for long jobs, and when he's gone, for months at a time, a loserly rotation of friends dogsits for the pitbulls. This is typical weird (though not obnoxious or noisy) behavior of the house-sitters: sit on the back porch for hours, smoke, stare at nothing. Not a book in sight. Who does that? You know, I read a book recently in which this one character was a brilliant theoretical physicist, and her job was just to sit and think of other dimensions and stuff. So, maybe they're not at all losers. Maybe they're physicists. But I don't think so.

Anyway, primary renter guy is back for the summer, and his first act, apparently, is fight club. Jim said to me last night after taking Leroy out into the yard: "I think they built a boxing ring in the backyard." It hardly seemed plausible, though it did indeed look like nothing but a boxing ring. I thought it was probably too much to hope they were staking out a vegetable garden! And this morning, the usual posse of friends assembled and started to grow. And grow. And grow. And then the boxing gloves came out. And the hitting. And the cheering, and the dinging of bells. Goth chicks with mohawks and neck braces on the porch cheering. Beer.
Jim immediately started scrolling through real-estate websites, as if it would be possible for us to move now, today.

Just out of curiosity I called the police (non-emergency line) to ask if backyard boxing is legal, and it turns out it IS. Goody! It might have been my imagination, but I think the lady on the phone took a little pleasure in assuring me there was nothing to be done. "Parties are not illegal," she said coolly. I formed a picture of her in my mind, based on the fact that boxing is, to her, "a party."

Anyway, it's getting dark now, and they've been at it all day, and now they're starting in on fireworks. I love them. I love them so much. And that boxing ring, it looks built to last. I'm guessing this might be a regular summer thing. Yay! (Okay, okay, it wasn't really that bad. They didn't really make that much noise, and they didn't have loud music, and as far as I know, no one died and was buried in the corner. As far as I know. It just takes a little getting used to, I guess.)

Anyway, boxing and all, I still managed to have a good revising day. I did bad things to good characters, as a writer often must. (And I enjoyed it a little. Is that wrong?)

By the way, and this is much more important than boxing: today makes SEVEN YEARS OF WEDDED BLISS to THIS wonderful man. Seven years ago today we got married in Berkeley, and every year, though I seem to like people in general less and less all the time, I like -- and love -- Jim more and more, even when it doesn't seem possible I could like and love him more than I already do! We get along better than any couple I have ever met or heard of, we almost always feel like doing the same thing, whether it is staying in or going out, eating veggie corndogs for lunch, seeing a movie, watching nothing buy Buffy for months in a row; and we always like and dislike (and sort-of-like) the same people, and we can [almost] communicate telepathically when we are watching a stupid play and want to mock the actors without making them feel bad. (That happened last night. I say "almost telepathically" because it in fact required discreet hand pressure. But I feel quite certain we were transmitting whole disdainful sentences to each other by means of subtle thumb pressure! Oh, and we have a short tune we hum that means "thank you," instead of saying "thank you," and a hand signal that means "beam me out of here now," and we have a code word, just in case either one of us ever suspects the other of being an imposter, but I can't remember what the code word is!! Hmmm. That could be a problem. . .

It's me, I swear. Sweetie . . .?

(Oh wait, I just asked Jim, and he doesn't remember the code word either. Oh my god. Do you think that means we are both imposters?? And if we are does that mean that maybe the real "us's" (I don't think there is a plural form of "us") are living together elsewhere, perhaps in a villa? With servants? And no backyard boxing?)

Check out the awesome sculpted Goth circus chick Jim got me for an anniversary gifty:

In fact, he went a little nutty on Etsy and bought a small slew of awesome sculptures, but they have not all arrived yet. And I, in return, gifted him with Radiohead tickets for later this summer. Radiohead is Jim's favorite band and he has never seen them live, and this is an act of love for me, because I am not really a joyful concert goer. I know, I know you don't understand, something's wrong with me, etc etc, but I just get bored at concerts, even really good ones, and ten minutes in I'm just wishing desperately for a book and a flashlight!! But, this once, I can do it. I'm interested. Everyone says they're great live, that they're geniuses beyond my comprehension, and that Thom Yorke has a spastic stage presence, which should be entertaining.

Aside from the mock-worthy play last night, we had dinner at our favorite Indian restaurant, Bombay Cricket Club. Love it!
My favorite thing there, which I must invariably order, the chicken tikka masala:
And here's Jim, about to confront his favorite drink, the infamous "snake shake."

On the way home, we were beside a HumVee limo for blocks, and I think it must have been a middle-school graduation celebration, because young girls were hanging out its windows for three blocks yelling that they loved my hair. That made me feel good!

Cheerio!

P.S. Oh, when I told Alexandra I'd gotten Radiohead tickets for Jim, she said, "That doesn't sound so fun. We should go to Barry Manilow. He's coming." And she was serious, bless her heart. Barry Manilow.

More Revision-think

This business of writing books is still pretty new to me as I revise my third one. I am still learning how, and I'm beginning to be able to sort of put into words the things I'm striving for. Sort of. In my last post on revising, I said a lot of the process of revisions for me is "sharpening the story like a pencil." And that is true. That is one way of looking at what I am doing. Today I had another thought, and a new metaphor.

It's that I want the story to be like a strand of diamonds.

What I mean by that is that I want the book, which is an adventure book for middle-grade through adult readers, to move from one sharp and glittering moment to the next. I don't want it to be meandering and muzzy, stretched out and fuzzy. I want it to pass quickly from one distinct moment to the next, each scene a diamond, strung up against another diamond, and so on. I want to carve those scenes into their own individual perfect little entities, each leading into the next like diamonds on a strand. Does that make sense?

In practice, in revisions, it means a lot of cutting and carving. The chunk of the book I'm working on revising now is three chapters which, taken as a whole, represent a sort of mid-way climax to the book. (Is there a technical term for that?) It's not the climax, but it's about halfway, and it's a series of linked events in which suddenly, everything changes for the main characters in a dramatic way. Taken together, those three chapters are nearly 9000 words long. Too long! The sharp point of them is dulled to a kind of meandering muzziness, not just because of the length, but because of course when you first write something (and often, the second and third time too), you don't know how to "cut" them -- as diamonds are cut, that is, to bring out their brilliance.

It's only since I finished the book that I really know the place of these scenes in it, so that now I am able to polish them up to do just what they need to do, in as sharp and compact and shining a way possible. Carve away that muzzy feeling, sharpen it all. The "diamond" idea helps me visualize the flow of the book -- the way I want it to feel: in each scene a new dramatic thing coming fast on the heels of the last, each thing having its own cool "nuggetness" and solidity and shimmer. Cool thing after cool thing. Each "moment," each scene in succession, brainstormed thoroughly to make sure I've come up with the best possible way to have it happen, the "coolest" way it might unfold. And, the "coolest" way to tie them all together, because after all they are not loose diamonds sitting on black velvet for individual inspection. They are a strand.

So, there are some of my current revision thoughts. It is helping me to think of the book as a series of important & interesting moments -- and to work to cut out anything that is muddying up the purity and flow of those moments, bogging them down. Sometimes as I'm writing -- as my plots tend to be fairly complex -- I'll find that I have to have X and Y happen in order to pave the way for Z, which is what I really need to have happen. But, horrors! X and Y are kind of boring! But I need them, or Z won't happen! What to do? Figure out a way around X and Y. Get rid of em! Streamline. Sharpen. It's not always easy to come up with the way to streamline, but usually there is a way.

Remember: "I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." (Thomas Edison)

Some writerly blurbies

Some passages on writing from a few novels featuring girl-writer protagonists:

From Emily Climbs:

"I begin to think the child has an easy way of making a living."

An easy way! Emily overhearing this as she went through the hall, smiled and sighed. What did Aunt Ruth -- what did anyone know of the disappointments and failures of climbers on Alpine Paths? What did she know of the despairs and agonies of one who sees but cannot reach. What did she know of the bitterness of one who conceives a wonderful tale and writes it down only to find a flat and flavorless manuscript as a reward for all her toil? What did she know of barred doors and impregnable editorial sanctums? Of brutal rejection slips and the awfulness of faint praise? Of hopes deferred and hours of sickening doubt and self-distrust?

From Atonement:

(on the budding novelists' discovery of the superiority of fiction over playwriting)

The simplest way to have impressed Leon would have been to write him a story and put it in his hands herself, and watch as he read it. The title lettering, the illustrated cover, the pages bound -- in that word alone she felt the attraction of the neat, limited and controllable form she had left behind when she decided to write a play. A story was direct and simple, allowing nothing to come between herself and her reader -- no intermediaries with their private ambitions or incompetence, no pressures of time, no limits on resources. In a story you only had to wish, you only had to write it down and you could have the world; in a play you had to make do with what was available: no horses, no village streets, no seaside. No curtain. It seemed so obvious now that it was too late: a story was a form of telepathy. By means of inking symbols onto a page, she was able to send thoughts and feelings from her mind to her reader's. It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it. . . You saw the word castle and it was there, seen from some distance, with woods in high summer spread before it, the air bluish and soft with smoke rising from the blacksmith's forge, and a cobbled road twisting away into the green shade. . .

Ah, yes to both. Yes, yes. And now I dive into revisions, not to surface for days. I am beginning to feel a little editorial breathing at the back of my neck. Again, my dearest super power wish rises up within me: the power to freeze time. How I wish!!!

Writing about the scene

Okay, here's something I do when I'm writing, and I wonder if anyone else does it? I mean, I'm sure they must, but I don't know as I've ever heard anyone admit it.

So some of you, when you have a scene to write, you probably just. . . write it. Yeah? You? Sounds so easy and so obvious. But that doesn't always work out for me. I'll stare at the screen, think a little, decide to google something terribly important, get sidetracked, wallow in time-wasting, then discover it is lunch time -- rather than just write the scene. I just caught myself doing it -- spent about half an hour wikipedia'ing "frost" and "snow" (interesting stuff! ever heard of watermelon snow??) -- and it occured to me to blog about it, i.e. waste even more time.

What I could be doing instead of wasting time, is:

I could write about the scene. Do you ever do that?

It's less scary than actually writing the scene. In my "notes" doc which is always open next to my "manuscript" doc, I start telling myself what I want to have happen in the scene, what things I want to reveal, what the overall tone ought to be, and I try to brainstorm details, and I try to figure out what the characters are thinking and how they're feeling, and what it might lead them to do and say. In short, I try to feel my way inside the scene, try to sort of build it up around me into something that begins to feel real, and I do this in brainstorming mode, saying "maybe this" and "I suppose that" etc.

The consequence of writing about the scene is usually that I discover it, make it real and figure out how to write it. I do wish it were easier though, the whole writerly ordeal. Reading the "Emily" books again, I find myself jealous of her -- jealous of both the fictional character Emily, and the author L.M. Montgomery, who I'm guessing modeled her character after herself in some such essentials. Emily must write. She can't not. She awakens in the night with a story idea, grabs her Jimmy book and starts writing, and keeps writing, enraptured. It's so lovely. I want it to be like that! And there are moments when it is, but not that often. When I was writing Sunday Scribblings stories I would find myself in that fabulous place, because there was no pressure, but writing Silksinger it has only ever come in flashes.

How about you? Do you find that sheer joy, that ease?

It sure sounds nice to me. Sigh. After I write a few more books, perhaps my brain will learn to relax? I hope.

By the way, I am changing so much in this draft of Silksinger, it will be a whole new book when I am through with it! Tomorrow I will backtrack from the middle, where I am now, to write an entirely new Chapter Two. I couldn't quite face the challenge of writing an entirely new Chapter Two at the time I realized it had to be done; I let myself skip over it for a little while. But now I must face it. When I think how much time I spent on the old Chapter Two, I really could cry -- I mean, you'd think I would cry, but in fact I'm not feeling overly sentimental about it. Enough time has passed that, instead of mourning it, I can get excited about what will replace it.

P.S. I did another school visit today and it was fun as always, 4th graders again. 4th graders are delightful. And, I experienced my first attempted theft from the box of claws! The barn owl talon went missing! It was discovered by a teacher in a boy's pocket. I didn't even see who the boy was, but I keep trying to imagine the drama from his perspective, what it might have been like, the split decision to take it, the shame of getting caught with it. I told my mom about it and she reminded me of a story about my niece who, in 1st grade, inexplicably told her teacher that her sister had died. (She is an only child and always has been.) Then, to her utter mortification, her teacher decided to walk out with her after school to offer his condolences to her mother! I can just imagine her trying to persuade him that really, he didn't need to do that -- to no avail. And the horror of it all! I'm trying to think of what some of my own mortifications might have been. I do love, in the Emily books (and the Anne books too), the way L.M. Montgomery makes these dramas of childhood so vivid and huge, the little shames and triumphs.

Okey dokey, off to the night-gym. Tell me, please, if you write about what you're going to write. Tell me, too, if you think this sounds absolutely dreadful, like it would kill all soul and spontaneity in the scene. Curious about your thoughts!