This is the slightly belated Open Mic Day that would have happened last week if I hadn’t had a software malfunction that messed up the notification. I think that is sorted out now, so the next one will be six weeks after this.
So, talk amongst yourselves while I go over in this corner and angst about how much I am depending on technology instead of my own memory these days…
Finished the first draft of my ninth novel this week – and in only 77 days. I’m fast, but never that fast before! Guess that’s what happens when I’m so isolated there’s nothing to distract me.
And I share the angst. Outside of whatever I’m working on, I can’t remember anything these days.
Woot! I am envious.
(Of the speed, not the… whatever the other thing was. What did I come into this room for again?)
Well, I’ll take that as a compliment, but…really, don’t envy me here. I’m certain my near-frenzy of writing was occasioned by being too isolated for too long by the pandemic. So if you’re writing less than I am because you’ve managed a healthier balance than me…I am the envious one.
(Compliment intended.)
I’m writing less than you… but that’s not the reason. 😉
I just self-published a non-fiction book called _Encounters with Rabbits or Critters, a Cross, and a Cemetery_. I work part-time at the local cemetery. This book gives a behind-the-scenes look at what happens at a cemetery, tells the story of a ruined religious monument that was relocated and rebuilt at the cemetery, and tells stories about the rabbits and other critters who live at the cemetery.
http://ncthornock.com
I’m in the middle of breaking apart and rebuilding my WIP’s plot. Partly because the stakes needed adjusting.
Originally the threat was for the two main characters to lose their (his, but she feels responsible for it) fortune, but it was *not plausible* for the character to risk his fortune that way. So it’s changed to the threat of being cheated on a major payment to them. This works because she would hate being cheated – but the solution to the story-problem (and the resolution to the plot that I AM going to keep) is to allow the cheat in a way that gives the cheater a hollow victory.
I’ve also got a multi-day sequence that needs to be shifted one day later, and some events I have to put in earlier to start another sequence, rather than having that sequence run later. Rearranging the timing is trickier than I expected, but it’s still better than trying to make the original snarled timeline work.
I’m finally out of my 2020 funk! I spent a whole year writing only a handful of short stories thanks to general world chaos (and having two young kids at home). And now (victory!) I’ve spent the last couple weeks working on a rough draft of a new YA novel. I feel like I’m constantly second guessing myself in ways I didn’t do before taking a year off, but it still feels soooo good to have characters doing things again.
Congrats on un-funking! The second-guessing is a normal thing, I think; it takes a while to get your hand back in after a long down stretch.
I’m closing in on the end of the WIP… and I’m having an utter failure of motivation. I don’t know why. I don’t think it’s an in-story problem; my alpha-reader says the couple of things I was wondering about are fine, I don’t see any major flaws that would be hanging me up like this, and I’ve got “carrot” scenes coming up that I’ve been looking forward to writing for ages. But I Just. Don’t. Care.
Why am I not more excited? I should be excited at this point, dang it!
All I can say is, don’t give up. It’s too easy for me to read my own reactions to the last year into your apathy attack, but we all absolutely have reasons to be thrown off our games.
Time goes by and so do circumstances. Chin up and all that. You’ll make it.
Chapter 2 of my webcomic is almost done, and I need to start working on the thumbnail sketches for Chapter 3. The script was completed before I started drawing, so this part is about figuring out the staging – what exactly the setting looks like, how the characters are arranged in each panel, etc. I’m expecting to have to trim down a lot of the dialogue, because I vastly overestimated how much I could fit into an average panel when I wrote the script. :-p
I am still wrestling with my 3.5-hour Vestan calendar. And got a couple paragraphs of actual text written. Slog, slog.
Congratulations to all on their work. I’m curious if any of you have a take on this: I’m working on a middle-grade fantasy that is written in third-person omniscient POV. However, MG fantasies I’ve read lately are almost always in first person (much more so than, say, in YA). Does anybody know (think?) that only first-person is marketable in MG nowadays? Or does that matter?
You can always, if worse comes to worst, self-publish.
Besides — you did choose the POV to benefit the story? Do you think changing it to first person will harm it?
I chose that POV because it lets me give the reader context and awareness of events happening outside of the main character’s knowledge that are crucial to the story arc; and it lets me do so in a tidy, efficient way.
I tried writing the first few chapters in first person (alternating between the protagonist and another character who has a much fuller picture and his own interests to pursue), and it works; I also tried writing the opening chapters in first person entirely from the main character’s point of view, with brief (less than a page) vignettes between each chapter told through the eyes of other characters (to give the fuller picture), and that works too.
Overall, though, I just prefer the third person omniscient for telling this particular story. (Maybe part of it is not wanting to rewrite the whole book, to be honest.)
But I’d like the manuscript to sell; so I worry whether agents and publishers may not give it full consideration because of a bias for first-person narratives; just as I’ve read a lot of agent interviews saying they won’t even look at a manuscript that begins with a prologue…
The context for me is that I’m still trying to learn about the MG fantasy market. I’ve had one book published (Random House) but it was a nonfiction, business book, so, totally irrelevant for what I’m trying to do now.
There are a couple of things to remember when it comes to marketing your first novel:
1. The novel market changes constantly. Things that would have sold two years ago may not sell now, and vice versa.
2. What you see on bookstore shelves is what editors were buying two to five years ago. It is not necessarily what they are buying today.
3. “Editors” and “agents” are plural for a reason. What one hates, another will love. This applies to every aspect of a novel, from major things like genre choice and structure to picky details like the age of the protagonist or a minor character’s politics.
3. It is always easier to sell a good book than a mediocre book. If your *only* reason for making the change is because you *think* it might possibly perhaps be easier to sell, don’t. It is hard to make a book good/better by doing something you don’t believe in.
4. OTOH, if your ONLY reason for *keeping* the book in omniscient is that rewriting would be a lot of work… Would doing the work make the book better? Would you resent having to do the work, enough that you’d have trouble doing a good job of rewriting? Would you learn enough from rewriting that it would be worth the effort even if the book never sells?
5. Second-guessing marketing will make you crazy. Write the best book you can, set up a routine for submitting it over and over, and move on to writing the next one.
Thanks very much for the advice and very good questions, Patricia.
I wouldn’t make a change just to try to sell the book; and — despite my earlier comment — I’m ready to rewrite as much as it takes to make the story sing. Part of what I’m trying to figure out is how best to tell the story so it speaks to middle-grade kids; that’s one reason I experimented with five different approaches to the first few chapters. I am learning a lot!
wrestling with stories and trying to circle around because I lack the will to stick to one
I’m finally making some progress on my WIP, mostly by abandoning my plan of planning this one more. I freeze up. Should I allow the ghost from the previous novel to pop up in this one? How much knowledge of 18th century sailing ships do I really need? Can I write an entire novel from just one POV? (Never have yet. Short stories, yes, but not novels.) I am so tired of writing pages that have to be pitched, but it just seems to be the only way I find out what works. And what about those sea serpents? Are they really a good idea? I can second-guess myself into complete paralysis.
Sea serpents are nearly always a good idea….
Thank you.
Hello again! It’s been a bit of a while – good to be back.
Just finished the first draft of the book I started during the first lockdown, and getting stuck into the revision. Fantasy, 110K. Big Bad plotting an Epic High Fantasy, our heroes would prefer Comedy of Manners but will settle for Swashbuckling Caper if they must. Sequel part written – till I realized where the first book ended – danger of trilogy on horizon. Having a whale of a time with it so far…
Sounds like fun!
I just (a few minutes ago) finished reading Thirteenth Child and now I’m going to go back and try to figure out what made it such a brilliant read.
And maybe manage to learn something ot that.