Lessons From MS #1

Hey lovely awesome people who follow this blog! I'm really sorry that I haven't updated in a while. I've always known that there are a lot of things to juggle as a writer--the drafting itself, the editing, the network/platform building, etc. But now I'm finally feeling the difficulty of managing all of these components myself. And I was never one for juggling :( (There will be a post on the art of multitasking as a writer because it DEFINITELY is an art).

But, as my CP's and other writer friends suggested, I do have a twitter now (do not worry, I will survive!). I probably won't be one of those 24/7 tweeters--I'll mainly be using it to stalk my CP's and look up agents and fawn over authors.

So, I haven't actually had the time to write a new post, but here is one that I've written before, just haven't posted :)

Lessons I've learned from MS #1 (current status-complete and trunked):

1. Don't write too fast

This one is huge for me. Unfortunately, it would be dishonest for me to say that I LOVE editing, that I dream about editing, that I can't wait to finish my story so that I can tear it apart. I know that editing is essential. But it doesn't mean that I like it. Editing is scary. What if I change something that semi-worked into something that completely does not work? What if I realize that a whole chapter, a whole character, a whole scene does not work? What if I realize that the whole book has a weak plot? Editing is like deboning a fish (not that I've ever dbeoned a fish, but I've seen others do it). Removing bones is good. But when I'm faced with removing the whole spine, I waver. You see, the fish falls apart without the spine. When I realized that novel #1 essentially had no plot, I knew I was facing the dreaded spine debonement. I backed away.

For me, momentum is really important. I need to have hope. I need to at least have a vision that in the end, everything will be okay. If I write/spew a mess (and I am VERY good at spewing and being wordy) and then look back at the mess, I tend to lose sight of hope. Then, I can't get my head into the editing. It's kind of like giving critique. The best critique is honest but also delivered in a way that avoids triggering the writer to shut down. The best kind of first draft that I personally find beneficial is one that I took the time to make sure that the basic structure has some shape and is workable.

All first drafts suck but I do cope better with a first draft that is less sucky than super super sucky.

2. Don't be afraid to delete writing

I used to see my writing as gold. Or chocolate. Or insert anything that is valuable. Every single character, word, paragraph I wrote was valuable because I had put in brain juice, time, and tears (okay, not the tears..most of the time). So accordingly, I would be very reluctant to delete any of my writing, even if I knew that it didn't work. Chunks of writing not working is inevitable. No matter how struct of an outliner you are (and I'm not), your plot is going to start to breathe and come to life the more you write. And hopefully, your characters will start to change, develope, grow. That's a good thing. But the bad thing is that scenes that you've written before might not work quite as well. For me, writing is one long road trip. When I look back, I can see the palces where the plot/writing meanders from the best and most concise path. So delete! When you gut tells you to delete, delete. When you delete is up to you. Sometimes, I delete as I go. Just make sure that you don't get caught in a cycle of deleting and rewriting. Delete the extraneous parts and move on or delete and then rewrite and move on. Just keep on chugging. Of course, when you are done you'll want to go back to make sure that your writing and scenes are as tight as possible.

I know I dreamed of MS #1 being the one that might someday be published. Who knows, maybe a few years from now I'll go back to it and rewrite it. But I do remember how disappointed I was when I had the epiphany that it needed major overhauling and how I retreated from writing for a month or so afterwards. I got so hung up over how I felt cheated of time and effort that I forgot that I love telling stories and putting them on paper. As someone who likes to set goals and work toward them, I think I'll always run the risk of experiencing that empty feeling of I can't believe I have to give up. Goals are good, but what I've learned with writing is that although sometimes you don't always get what you expected out of your work, you will always get something. Whether that be a great character or plot that you can revamp or recycle, or a set of lessons, like me, or great friends that you made along the way, there will always be a thing of value to be gleamed from all that you write. It won't always be a book deal, but you won't have wasted your time.

Comment with the lessons that YOU'VE learned from previous/current MS's!

Hide me, please

Mind you, I'm half awake as I type this so please forgive me if I come across as crazy.

5:00 AM- Woke up.
5:01 AM- Checked my laptop. Sadly, due to obsessive compulsive inbox refreshing, I've eebn sleeping with it on my bed stand. Don't judge :)
5:02 AM- Inbox loading...

5:03 AM- My eyes pop out of my head. The revisions are here! The revisions are here! I obviously do not sleep with my glasses on so I basically stick my face onto the screen to see.

5:05 AM- Opening revisions in a googledo. Commence nail-biting, nervous reading. Because I have great foresight. I knew I was going to blanch.

5:10 AM-

5:11 AM- Suddenly so happy that I'm in bed because now I can just crawl back and go to sleep.

5:12 AM- Not really. I actually have to get up.

Still no good at managing my initial reaction to REAL revisions. Not line edits or oh-this-pacing-is-a-bit-off revisions, but real honest to god surgery.

I'll sleep on it :D

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop pt. 2

PART 2

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
I'm actually incredibly out of the loop when it comes to pop culture. I watched three movies in 2012. Not even movie-theater movies--I mean movies, whether at home or anywhere else. I love movies, don't have anything against them, but I just don't have time.

As a result, I don't know that many actors/actresses, but there's my best attempt:

MC: Sibyl Kenschild

 Ella Purnell

She's a bit young right now but screw ages :D

Love interest: Ashley Reeves

Jake Abel

And he's kind of old now and there's kind of an age gap but again...imagination is an awesome tool!

Secondary MC: Quentin Mott

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

And he's older than them all. Also, in case anyone is wondering, there are no love triangles in this story. He's just a friend of Sibyl.

I have a whole cast of bad guys, but here's the guy I would select as the baddest of them all:


Antagonist: Adam Reeves (yes, Ashely's brother.)

Callan Mcauliffe

And there is another whole cast of tertiary characters but here's just two of them:

Competitor: Pam

Rachel McAdams

Badass Team Member: Viktoria

Bryce Howard

*All pictured characters are either sixteen or seventeen in the story, with the exception of Adam, who is nineteen.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre?
Well, it's not sci-fi but then again mine isn't completely, either: HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff is a beautiful beautiful (I repeat, BEAUTIFUL!) book about survival, war, and love. If you haven't read it yet, GO READ IT NOW. It's super short (about 150 pages) but so powerful.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
Other amazing writers, history class (sucker for history), and current events.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?
It's set in the future--2089 to be exact. It's got an element of interior design (or rather Space Manipulation) but since nobody wants to read lengthy descriptions of rooms, I actually have drawn blueprints to go along with the writing. Yay!

Once again, thank you to Deborah Kreiser for tagging me and go check out the blogs of Avon and Elyse Guziewicz!

Crazy things that writers do...

Issue #2: FONTS 

I'm kind of a font freak. I collect them as a a little girl would collect barbies (I did that, too). So, when I'm procrastinating, I do this:

I know, I know. One of the worse ways to waste precious writing time (it's a SHINY NEW IDEA, too. I don't really think I'm procrastinating because that's not possible for new ideas. I'm just succumbing to my short attention span, as usual).

So now I have a bunch of new fonts and an idea to write! How does life get better?

What is your guilty pleasure when you take a break from writing?

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

PART 1

SHOUT OUT to my CP, the lovely Deborah Kreiser, for tagging me in this post! If you've read my WIP page, then there is some crossing over, but keep on reading for other goodies.

What is the working title of your book?
INGENICIDE. It used to be called THE ORDOCIDE, but I realized I had a problem when I kept on getting tongue twisted and saying THE ODORCIDE instead. Good rule of thumb for titles: make sure you as an author have no trouble pronouncing the title :D

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
16 year-old Space Manipulator Sibyl Kenschild has only been trained to design the best rooms, but when discontent Normals start massacring the prodigies, she'll have to pull all tricks to survive.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
Agency or die. Just kidding :) But I really am aiming for getting an agent. Probably agency or shelving for now.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote the first chapter in November (didn't do Nanowrimo though because I found that I actually need to take my time to write or else I get a complete, rewrite-worthy mess that it still too daunting for me to handle. Then from November to the end of February I wrote sporadically (I am in a period of my life when I have many high stakes to juggle), finishing after four months with 60k. I know, not impressive :(

What genre does your book fall under?
YA...I really want to call it a socio-political adventure but HAH, there's no such genre. I guess...sci-fi? With the lightest touch of dystopian?

Where did the idea come from for the book?
Many things! I will list them because without lists I am one of the most scatterbrained people you will ever meet.
1. MS #1- I refer to my first novel frequently because I've learned so much from it from all the things that did not work. My writer friends used to always say that I was great at writing description, but never did they comment on my action scenes. I don't blame them--I had no action scenes. Um, MS #1 didn't really have a conflict. Once I got over the grief of shoving it onto the back burner, I told myself that I would surprise myself and my reader buddies. I would write the inciting incident in the very first chapter, keep a tight grip on the pacing, and refrain from describing unnecessary details.
2. My Own Life- Yuck, right? I know, real life is often very boring in comparison to the infinite boundaries of the fiction world (check out my post on Real Life in Fiction). Because of that, you should never be afraid to write what you don't know VICE VERSA you should never confine yourself only to the subjects that you DO know. At the same time, there will always be something magical about the writing that flows out of you when you are writing about a subject that you are familiar with, even if it is just a related emotion or a sensation. For example. I'd basically trained since the age of six to become a professional artist. I drew about 1,000 pencil sketch eggs and many more color studies. I won a national gold for a larger drawing:

My parents spent a lot of time driving me to and from art class. I reckon I spent most of my odd childhood focused on this one skill. Then, high school hit, and I suddenly realized that I loved art, but I didn't LOVE art. I didn't love it enough to actually pursue it as a profession, to take daunting risks, to potentially starve. And for a job such as professional art, you really do need to love it. Otherwise, you will have no fuel for your mad creativity. Anyway, when this epiphany hit, my world turned up-side down. Suddenly, I felt aimless. I felt as if I have wasted so many years and the hopes of my parents. I wondered if there was something wrong with me--maybe I was just hitting a "wall". Maybe this was the hurdle I had to pass in order to unlock my full potential. Maybe I was just being a typical teen, wanted to break out of the path that had been drawn for me and explore. Whatever the reason, I felt like I had failed, and that feeling sometimes still chases me to this day. I keep asking myself: Is it right for me to waste a talent by not seeing it to the very end? So I took this element of "prodigy" and decided to weave it into the core of my story.

That's it for PART 1 of the post (I spewed a bit so I'm breaking it up into 2 parts to make the reading more manageable :D).  One of the best things about the writing community is that everyone is united against the forces of rejection/editing/drafting/writer's block/fill-in-your-choice-of-poison that we all look out for each other. So thank you Deb again for tagging me in this blog hop. Now I pass on the goblet! Go check out these whimsically fantastic writers and I will tell you "I told you so" when they become the next big thing:

Elyse Guziewicz
Avon

KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR PART 2--CASTING AND MORE!