Been Away Too Long

Since I began composing this post in August, it’s been even longer now! First things first: A happy Holiday season to you, no matter what holidays you celebrate. And may your New Year provide all the good things you desire along with the things that will happen anyway.

Also, congratulations to everyone who did NaNoWriMo this year. I didn’t due to vacation schedules and rewriting rather than, you know, writing, but I’ll see where I am next April.

Looked at the last time I was here, back in May, and less has happened than you might think. Could be good or bad, I suppose.

Anyway, of note: one of my beta readers resigned. His way of educating and mine of learning didn’t mesh, and like one of the characters in my book, he got tired of repeating himself. So, while we still communicate in a friendly fashion, we’ve parted ways. I regret that because I gained a lot from his insights, even if not enough.

So, Coda? and Discoveries (formerly Served Cold) took the biggest hit from that. I’m working through how to rework Coda?, but the failings in Discoveries felt clear, even to me, and I spent considerable time attempting to clarify the story. It’s been sitting for a couple of weeks—close to time to reread and see what else crawls out to demand attention. Then off to my beta reader for an outside opinion.

Since Discoveries has been fermenting, I went back to the first book in this series. I wanted to revisit it, change the covers and make editing changes based on my current understanding of how to write. The first step was to split the book into a novella to introduce people and things, and then a full-length book covering Beckie’s experiences with Ian and the team fighting Werner. New covers took a bit of work, but I’ll reveal them closer to when I republish the stories. The writing was more of an effort, cleaning up POV, deciding which scenes could be kept, which needed revision and which weren’t needed at all. The net-net: the longer piece, now titled Allure, is almost 10000 words shorter than the earlier versions, at 112K words.

So that was in August. Today, I uploaded five files to Amazon (CreateSpace will take a few more days, mostly for creating QR Codes for the links I want to survive). I owe a great deal to Carol for her efforts in cleaning up all of them, and to Phil, as well.

Being in the land of no internetz (save Panera and Micky D’s), it may take a while but I’ll get it. Covers are in the sidebar, along with links. Comments are welcome, especially if you’d like to say something about the covers.

At this writing, the Mercenaries stories include (and are best read in the following order):
Sandfall
Allure
Freedom Does Matter
Connections
Coda?

Coming early in 2016:
Discoveries

In process:
Princess (working title)
Ralf and Catrin (working title)

Congratulations - CampNaNos

Today is the last day of Camp NaNo, so everyone who participated deserves a round of applause and a tipple of their favorite libation. Drink up!

I chose not to participate this year, seeing a scheduling disaster of epic proportions if I did. In fact, even if I didn’t but…

I had three novellas to critique (by which I mean beta read and comment on), two of my WIPs to finish up, two more to work on and then, spring to enjoy. More than winter, anyway.
I published Connections last week, and Coda? has gone to a second beta reader for comments and suggestions.
The three novellas are critted and today or tomorrow, the latest set of comments and questions will be in the respective author’s hands. As always, I hope I was able to help them on their way to the story they want to tell.
With all that, I still was able to get four thousand words on (working title) Princess, the book to follow Served Cold. Since I’m following Dean Wesley Smith’s suggestions for Writing Into the Dark, I have very little idea where it will end up. (grin)*TM DWS. (Unfortunately, he has apparently removed those posts from his blog.)

The grandson’s baseball (or maybe T-ball) season begins next week, and my brother is helping out with a show at Don’t Tell Mama in New York the middle of the month, so I’ll pack my toothbrush and phone and watch him and the others. That should be fun; I’ll catch the Thursday and Saturday shows before returning, so I’ll have Friday to look around NYC for setting ideas.

Then of course, the yard will need attention, and the house, and the usual mundane things everyone has to embrace. Or if not embrace, at least do.

Comments welcome.

Summer’s Here

Almost 90 degrees today, and a hurricane developing off Florida. Perhaps it will blow some sense into the Supreme Court on the way by. Maybe. Not likely though. Enough of politics; I’m pretty sure the wonderful people who visit me here aren’t interested in my political views.


I’ve almost done the “final” revisions to Connections—a couple more carat marks to visit and make the indicated changes, and it’ll be ready for my long-suffering beta readers again. I hope they can still read it with an open mind; I know I can’t, at this point.

I changed the cover slightly based on kind comments; the results are below. Just because I post it here doesn’t mean I’d refuse comments! If you have one, sing out.

A Paean of Thanks, or Shooting the Messenger

Once again, as I work through the critiques of my current WIP, Connections, it is necessary to shout out to my writing partners, courteous and well-spoken as they are, to thank them for taking the effort, the hours and the energy to assist me in making my story the best it can be.

I learned long ago that shooting the messenger does no more than stop the messages, and it doesn’t always do that. It never corrects the problem that the messenger attempts to warn of. In some sense, critique partners are messengers, warning of poor word choice, unclear plotting and in my case at least, making assumptions that readers have no reason to make for themselves.

I do respond to my partners’ comments and suggestions, and encourage them to do likewise when receiving a critique from me. Some of my response are questions when a meaning isn’t quite clear, and some are explanations, which mainly serve to clarify their point in my mind while allowing them to say, yeah, that’s better or perhaps, what are you thinking? I always remember that explaining to a partner only informs that one person; the change must carry through to the manuscript to do any good.

However, my point here is that my partners have done a remarkable, nay, brilliant job in reading and offering suggestions which are as wide-ranging as they are helpful. I will acknowledge their assistance in the book, but want to do the same here. Andrea, Carol and Phil, thank you isn’t enough to say for your help and assistance, but

Thank you!

Back and Working

We’re back from a fun-filled excursion to Florida visiting dear friends and then the Land of the Mouse. Taking over the world, is Disney. Some may view that with alarm, but hordes of others welcome the inevitable coming of our new overlords. At least, judging by the crowds in the theme parks. A veritable river of people, thick and fast-flowing. And of those over about 11 or 12, most were doggedly focused on getting to the next ride or attraction. Very few of those leaving Space Mountain or Buzz Lightyear’s ride or even Pirates of the Caribbean looked excited, or happy, or entertained; more, it seemed to be: Where to next? I might miss something I’ve planned to do. Not the reaction I’d hope for at “The Happiest Place on Earth!”

Back home, I finished the Ugly First Draft of Coda?. Well, except for closing it off; I still need to think about that, and I’m going to ask my long suffering partners to take a look and see if I’ve had any success in telling the story I hope to. Comments may drive the tenor of the ending.  So far, it’s just over 90K words, right where I hoped it would be. Strangling the characters when they want to run off may have a more beneficial effect than I’d thought.

The rewrite of Connections is about a third through. I’ve benefited from the blog posts I mentioned last time, at Ramblings of a Grumpy Old Man (not me, in this case!) and other input (thanks, reading partners!) and I hope the lessons learned lead to a better result. So far, four or five insignificant (read: extraneous, unrelated to the story) plot lines have been deleted, but I fear the word count goes up as often as it goes down; it’s still over 110K. Hopefully, they are better used than the earlier ones.

The next task will be the description and the covers. Suggestions will be welcome; if you’d like to offer one, say so, and I’ll try to give you information to point you.

Comments are always welcome.

I Miss Her

The Muse.

I've gone through the two beta readers' comments on Freedom No Matter, and made a long ton of changes based on their suggestions. I also gave them more work (that I hope they'll be able to fit into their schedules) asking if changes fit, and what did you mean by... and well, of course you're right, that was just [fill in your own inappropriate adjective].

I want to point out once again how much help these people give. In addition to taking the time just to read the work, they also mark errors, make suggestions, and tell me where they think the plot went astray. It's a lot of work, and I can't say how much I appreciate it. I'm sure every person writing is just as beholden to her or his beta readers; I just hope everyone remembers to say thanks, loud and clear! Even better: do an equally good job when asked to return the favor.

My readers have pointed out significant problems with my work. That's good. What's not so good is that it now falls to me to figure out how to correct them. In a day or two, I'll begin hitting Delete until I've found the focus that I slipped by earlier.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was waiting for my reader to finish before thinking I understood at least some of the issues at work (Focus, focus, focus!). The verdict is in: the second half is better than the first. The inflection point, Chapter 17, corresponds to my beginning to use a new tool. I hasten to add that the tool isn't as important as the provider wants us to think, but for me, it made it a lot easier to do what I haven't really ever done before: create an outline of the story before writing it.

I can hear the heads butting the desks and tables now. Of course the focus will be better when you know what you're writing. And on and on. Or perhaps the cry is: pantsers will rise again. Maybe.

The tool that made it easier for me to adapt is Aeon Timeline. I found that being able to outline in a chronological context made that part of the job both easier and more useful. I think, with my limited experience, it works better for more complicated story lines, or rather, it has more utility for those scenarios. It also links with Scrivener, back and forth, although I haven't figured our how to use that feature to its fullest. It's a Mac only tool right now; read the developer's blog about progress on the Windows platform.

Check out their websites, linked above. Trial versions are available if you think either of them might help you, too.

As for the Muse, she's been flitting in and out. We're working on the timeline for Background Check so I'll have a little structure when NaNoWriMo comes along. She also got me to start a short story completely unrelated to anything, but snuck out before saying how she thinks it should end. Working on that one, too.

Off She Goes: The Muse is Helping Others

Temporarily. She'll be back in November, anyway, and maybe earlier. We've been working on setting up the next story in the Mercenaries universe, now I've got the ugly first draft (and second, and in a few places third and fourth drafts) of Freedom No More complete.

It came out 110Kwords, and knowing someone besides me needs to see it to tell me what I've done wrong, I've sent it off to my beta readers. The feedback has already been swift and through!

It's to be expected. Still, I wish I wasn't putting at least the first one through so much pain. We have been discussing it, and I think I've finally realized what he means by "find your story!" Focus. Make sure I'm telling the story instead of wandering about in the weeds.

Easier said than done ( I love the weeds), but the second half (which he has yet to get to) may point to the root cause. I'll wait to see if the second half (after I changed horses in mid stream, in a manner of speaking) has the same level of problem as the part he's completed so far.

My other reader has been awesome busy, and just got started; I can't wait to see how that goes!

Do you plan to do  NaNoWriMo? I think the muse and I will try to get the first half of that next book through the keyboard. Tentative working title: Background Check.

More later.

Pantsers Part 2

I posted last week about the cast size problems I've had by not controlling my characters, letting them do as they please while wandering along the story arc.

Of course, the new characters feel that they are as important as the ones I started with, the ones who brought them to life. They bring their own story arcs, with which they are enamoured. To tell the truth, sometimes I'm equally enamoured of them. But the main story doesn't take this interference lightly. Or positively.

I'm still learning the discipline to either cut these extraneous arcs out, or change the main arc to embrace them. A bigger issue for me in recognizing these side arcs as what they are: superfluous. It's one of the things my beta readers do that really helps-even if I would rather they thought everything worked just fine! It's better that they be honest, after all.

Only peripherally related: does anyone else have difficulty rewriting scenes? Once I've written something, I better back it up! For the life of me, I can't create it for a second time. It's like the muse says 'I gave you the clue once, it's your job to keep track of it. Don't bother me!'

Comments welcome below.

Updates

First, NaNoWriMo: By my word count, an unmitigated disaster. Not quite 10% of the 50 000 word goal. However, the words I did get written will not be lost (I think). And they led me, not astray, I don't think, but somewhere I hadn't planned to be. The two primary characters came to me after the last few words flew from my fingertips into Scrivner's memory. The less primary one said, "You know, it's not gonna work for her this way. I have to die." The other one just nodded, not particularly happy. And neither am I. Not big on killing girls. So, I have to either accept her words - she does know what she's talking about, after all - or I have to rethink where the story is going. I haven't made that decision yet. Hopefully I'll have it done before NaNoWriMo rolls around next year. But I gained that from the experience. That's good. I'm happy and I'll do it again.

Second, Sales: None, so far. Oh, well.

Third: Book Two: Almost complete with the latest round of world-changing edits. Dropped something like 18 000 words, and focused the story better, I think. I'll be out to my beta readers soon to see what they think. Then to decide if I should make it all one big book...

That's it for now. I hope all the holidays you celebrate are wonderful for you.

The Wonders of Beta Readers

I have two correspondents that I consider beta readers. We share and comment on each others' work, and I know that I've gotten a significant benefit from it. I hope they have received at least some benefit in compensation.

Hopefully, a writer eventually gets to the point of thinking "Okay, this draft is it!" We've reached the whole "Ok, I'm gonna send this ms off... to other people! Not me." place in our novel's life. I faced that part early on, and I'm mostly ok with it now. The upside is a comment like:

The scene where Rebecca is trying to explain to her mom and dad why she has to do what she is doing actually, and really, brought a tear to my eye... When you get to editing, treat this passage with respect, please.

 Of course, there are far more of these comments: "This is a little confusing." "This is a statement that confuses me." "Who is this girl?" "I don't see any point to the parts in blue." (The parts in blue comprised 60% of the preceding paragraph!) "Does this impart vital information?  All of this is irrelevant to the story at this point in time." Perhaps you can see a common thread; I surely can.


While the upside comments are welcome beyond belief, the other ones are the ones I live for. Live for, but don't particularly enjoy, since they point out likely mistakes. They tell me where I've gone astray in communicating with the reader, and may also give me a direction to follow. But that last, while helpful, isn't the goal. The goal is to see where I went in one direction without giving the reader sufficient information to follow, at least without backing up and saying to him- or herself, "What? Where'd that come from? 'Who is this girl?'"

I am grateful to have two people I trust for this help. Each of them see different things while having a remarkably coherent view of the story. I think having one more would benefit me, and I'm working on that. I hasten to add: in addition to, not in place of, the two I have now.

Perhaps you already have readers, no matter what you call them, that you trust to  point out the blemishes in your story. If not, I can't recommend finding one or two highly enough. I think they need to be someone you can go back and forth with, not always agreeing (because disagreement is the root of all that's good and wonderful, especially after resolution is reached), but always respectful of one another and as important, respectful of the story and the need you as author have to tell the story you want to tell. On the other side is your responsibility to consider suggestions seriously.

Trust me, if you truly believe you've written the perfect novel, you won't find beta readers helpful.

Trust me also that when you read a comment like "I also wondered, last night actually, if Cari's travelogue story was in fact there only to introduce Jean-Luc," and realize that the implication of that being correct is that 20000 hard written words are going to be recycled because we don't yet need to introduce Jean-Luc, and so that whole arc doesn't bear on the story at all, it gives you a queasy feeling in the tummy. (Now there's a wonderfully run-on sentence!) Maybe I shouldn't be so much of a pantser after all! However, I would never have realized that plot arc didn't belong without someone to say, "Look at this, will ya." Maybe you are different, but I get invested in my words and little plot elements, and without intervention, it's hard to look at one or more of them with an eye toward eliminating or reducing. I hope that will come as I gain experience, but right now, my beta readers ask the hard questions and deserve the good answers.

One thing I have to be careful of, at least in my mind, is a tendency to justify my past (plotting, word choice, whatever) decisions rather than give a hard look at suggestions. I think I'm doing better at this; I managed to avoid it in business after all. However, there there was not quite the emotional connection to the decision that there is in writing. Do your best to be honest with yourself when you read a suggestion, or critique, or review. With few generally easily detected exceptions, the author of the suggestion is stating an opinion that they believe will improve the work. My experience is - and this may reflect my lack of skill as a writer - many of these do improve the package.

Conversely, you are under no obligation to use all, or even any, of the suggestions you receive. With that in mind, I offer a suggestion: Be honest with yourself about the comments you receive. Use them when you think they improve the story; don't reject them out of hand. Don't reject them until you've made a rational decision that another option - including leaving the piece as is - is actually better. But I think that requires an honest evaluation, not one colored by 'how could he/she mean that? It changes everything!' feelings of doubt and betrayal. It may change everything (but likely not).  Sometimes, it may change everything. Perhaps that will be a better solution. Also, treat the reader supplying feedback with respect and, yes, wonder that they are willing to invest their time and energy in your work. Maybe even love them a little.

Alright, then. This has been a long-winded thank-you to my beta readers, with a discourse on the benefits I've seen which I hope you might find beneficial as you pound out those words and then lovingly shape them into a finished product.

Your thoughts and experience are more than welcome.

NaNoWriMo

I waited till day two of NaNoWriMo to sign up, thinking that, in spite of being a procrastinator of the highest water, I could use the effort to get at least most of a draft of Freedom No Matter (working title), the sequel to Mercenaries: A Love Story complete. I had blasted about eight thousand words on flights to and from Hawaii - nothing like writing to keep your mind off the fact that you're five miles over nothing but water, and you're not in a seaplane - and another fifty thousand would move that into striking distance of the 80 - 100 Kwords I'm hoping the story can be told in. I've not sat down for today, and yesterday only offered about ten words, so I'm well behind the benchmark! But I can make up the ground.

Tune in next time when I talk about Beta Readers, and how no writer can be without them. Or how I can't at least. YMMV.