An eventful weekend

Good morning, world - actually, here in Portland it's raining and stormy as the beginning of A Wrinkle in Time, but if Mrs. Which is about, I may miss her as I run for the bus.

It's been a busy weekend, not least because I'm still rather sniffly.  Saturday was all about revisions plus a trip to the library for five more books, including Jandy Nelson's sublime The Sky is Everywhere.  If you haven't read it, get yourself a copy; it's the most grippingly realistic portrayal of teenage grief that I've ever read, and all the buzz is totally deserved.  I also watched Gone With the Wind for the first time on Saturday night, and my thought process went from "I don't see why everyone is so obsessed with this movie" to "Rhett! Scarlett! Nooooooo how can it end there?"  Sigh.  I do question how historically accurate it was, but the story certainly swept me away.  I may have to seek out more movies starring Clark Gable and/or Vivien Leigh.

For Oscar Sunday, my family bought a whole turkey - mostly because my mom wanted lots of leftovers - and roasted it, along with pear-chanterelle stuffing. I also made blood orange olive oil cake, and it was amazing (quite easy, too, if you know how to supreme an orange).  Then we settled in for the pre-show (lots of yelling at ABC to show the dresses instead of asking stupid questions) and the Oscars themselves.

Happy Monday, everyone - it'll be a busy week.  For now, agent Jennifer Laughran is doing her monthly open thread, so step right up and ask a question! (She also accepts jokes and cute animal picture links in lieu of questions).

Yes, I'm still here

I was absolutely floored by a cold that's been going around - thanks to my already-screwy immune system, these things hit me hard - but a day off work spent sleeping has left me feeling much better.  Now I can stay up writing until the late, late hour of 10:30 PM before I...sack out and sleep.

Lots of fun things ahead for the weekend - more books at the library, new books from Powell's, heavy revisions to CoYA, possibly a query letter revision, and roasting a turkey/watching the Oscars with my family on Sunday.

Real blog posts resume on Monday, I promise!

My Book-Buying Vow

This weekend, I took a trip to Powell's to browse the selection and choose what to buy from Powell's online (I have an e-gift card and some e-coupons).  That's one reason I think we'll never lose physical bookstores altogether; there's no feeling like wandering a building full of books, running your fingers along their spines, pulling out the ones that catch your eye, blocking the aisle as you lose yourself in the first few pages, and trying to rationalize buying yet another book.

The crowd at Powell's was refreshingly robust, even on a blustery Saturday.  I glanced at books about doing your own taxes - ugh - but was loath to spend any portion of my book-buying budget on a subject so readily covered by the Internet.  Instead, I wandered to the children's section, where I saw a display of Boxcar Children books - old favorites of mine.  #1 was on sale for only $3.50, and I have a terribly affliction that makes me round down the price of books, such that I said "That's practically free!" and snatched it up.  The same thing happened when I saw Edward Eager's Half Magic, another childhood favorite, and in rapid succession with Looking for Alaska, How I Live Now, and The Hunger Games.

As I paid for my books (I couldn't resist; I bought them instead of waiting and ordering online), it occurred to me that while I was supporting bookstores, I wasn't really supporting authors.  Those huge discounts that I love as a reader are no good for the writer, especially if I buy the book used.

So I've decided to make a vow.  I will buy at least four new books every year, books that I've never read but decide to risk buying.  I've picked out my first, Shades of Milk and Honey, which is supposed to be so exactly up my alley taste-wise that it could have been written for me.  After that, I suspect the problem will be choosing - there are so many great books out there!

What new novel (published in the last six months) has you the most excited?

I am the very model of a scatter-brained writer

"Nora, none of these socks match," my brother says, horror suffusing every word.
"What d'you mean?  They're all argyle."

"You've got to be kidding me."  He drops one orphan sock - on my bed.  "How do you live like this?

Yes, dear readers, I'm afraid it's time to confess; I am the very model of a scatter-brained writer.  My socks don't match.  My shirts must be no-iron, or I wear them wrinkled.  If I find a mug of cold tea next to my computer, I'm apt to pour out the leftovers and make more right in that cup - or worse, just drink last night's tea.  If I put a peanut butter-based dish on a plate, I'll use that same plate for another peanut butter-based meal two days later.

There are just so many more interesting things to do.  Sure, if I blast some music, I can force myself to fold laundry or load the dishwasher or shelve my books or clean up my desk...but halfway through the laundry I'll have a great idea, and cleaning my desk inevitably unearths something fascinating to distract me.  If I really cared, I suppose I'd do it (as evidenced by frequent running of the washing machine and periodic dish-washing binges), but for the most part, I don't.

What's your writerly housekeeping style?  Do you leave it all for later, or can you harness mindless tasks for brainstorming? (Or are you lucky enough to have someone who does it for you?)

Beginning...Again

I'm still mostly in research mode - I'll probably finish Pedaling Revolution on the bus today - but I have started work on the book's beginning.

Beginnings are strange creatures.  I try not to stress about the beginning too much, because I know it can and almost certainly will change in revision.  Instead, I like to start at a point of conflict, when everything is about to change in some (usually horrible) way for the main character.  Whether or not the novel eventually starts there, the conflict throws me right into the story and gives me a nice boost.

Plus, at least now I know that my MC is a guy.  I write female characters almost reflexively, but from the first minute I thought of this character, he's felt male.  We'll see how that works out.

Where do you like to start your novel?  Do you spend hours crafting your opening scene, or just throw it out there and figure you'll fix it in revisions?

Beginning the Research

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone.  If you're feeling like a V-Day Grinch, it's always nice to spread a little love to others, even if it's more caritas than cupiditas - you can volunteer, drop off a donation at a local shelter, or buy someone a hot meal.

Yes, I'm in a disgustingly good mood, because I got an awful lot done this weekend - wrote well over 10,000 words and finished CoYA.  At last, I'm free to begin a new project!  (CoYA has to rest before I can start editing, and The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People is with a reader now)  I'm going to work on the Bike Project, which will be re-code-named Cycletopia from now on.  Leaving aside the issue of plot (I have a vague one, I need to finesse it), there's still some major research for me to do.

You see, I have a confession to make.  I am not what you would call an avid bicyclist.  Yes, I learned to ride a bike as a kid.  Yes, I had a bike in college - I rode it to the grocery store, draped plastic bags of groceries on both handles, and wheeled it back to my dorm.  While in Berkeley, I was told by six different people to buy a bike...and never got around to it.  I did ride in Amsterdam, which was glorious - out along the Amstel River on an extremely windy day - but I'm not well-qualified to write a bicycle story.

So, research.  I just read Joyride: Pedaling Toward A Healthy Planet by Mia Birk, a longtime Portland crusader for bicyclists.  Next on my list is Pedaling Revolution: How Cyclists are Changing American Cities, by Jeff Mapes.  These are good general books, and I'm doing a little more targeted research on the Internet using the time-honored method of searching things on Wikipedia and then branching out using the references at the bottom of the page.  Luckily, I'm also getting a bike soon - my need for research happens to coincide most conveniently with my actual need for bicycle transportation in my life.

I'll probably spend a few days writing short bits, scenes of character development and that sort of thing, to get to know my characters as I research the world.  I'd like to break ground on the new novel next weekend, but that may be wildly optimistic - we'll see!

How do you research when writing a new book?  Do you think it's necessary, or do you prefer to let a world develop organically as you write?  (Or do you write things that you already know well, and avoid this pesky problem altogether?)

Finished!

I just finished the first draft of CoYA.  Yes, really:

It's definitely a very rough first draft - characters evolve, and one disappears for a significant period of time before I remember that he exists and bring him back in.  I'm going to put it away for a little while - a week or two, perhaps - and then I'll map out the plot, the major character arcs, etc., and figure out what needs to be done to strengthen each one.  Oh, and I'll take out some of the extraneous junk.  And fix the tenses - I started writing it in present tense, morphed into past tense because it's more comfortable, and stayed there.  I think it would be better in present tense, though, so I'll need to switch most of the book.

For now, though: HOORAY!  I FINISHED IT!

Attack of the Secret Project!

Miscellany first: I know Fridays were supposed to be Friday reads, but...I'm pretty much just rating books that I like over on the 100-Book Year page, rather than writing reviews.  However, on a totally unrelated topic, I do have a guest post over at the National Novel Writing Month (OLL) blog, about reading and trying to analyze the quality of my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel, The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People.  A hundred thousand words, and I seem to be totally unable to judge it.  Plus, it's...not really YA, so I can't ask my usual critique partners to read it (um, can I? guys?).

The Secret Project: Okay, look, I'm not technically writing this right now.  I still have to write about 15k of CoYA.  Researching certain kinds of slang and figuring out the infrastructure for my world does not count as writing.  Plotting does not count as writing.  Making lists of people to interview does not count as writing.  Writing first lines and snippets of dialogue...curses, I guess that does count as writing.  But I'm not really writing it.  I haven't devoted my whole brain to it yet.  I don't know for sure that it'll be my next project, although the way I'm going, it sure seems likely.  So, what is it?

I can't quite describe it, because...well, because I haven't written it yet.  But hints are fun.  It was not on the list of possible projects after CoYA, because it hadn't infected my brain yet.  It is near-future YA, light sci-fi/dystopian.  It involves bicycles.  Real bicycles, not toys like the picture, obviously.  At my current job, I interact with a lot of bicyclists, and it's gotten me interested in both bike racing (...as a spectator) and bike advocacy, and it's kind of that in novel form.  Um, it may possibly have a guy protagonist.  I'll have to write more to see if it feels natural, but so far, my narrator is pretty male.  I hereby code-name this idea...the Bike Project.  Yeah, I'm open to suggestions for better code names.

Clearly I should get more sleep.  When I don't sleep enough, my brain is defenseless against new ideas.  Have you been attacked by any "plot bunnies" (to use popular NaNoWriMo parlance)?  How do you fend off ideas when you're trying to concentrate on something else - or don't you?

How I Revise, Pt. 1

A few pieces of business first; you can see all the final first line entries in their polished glory (the contest is now closed - winners will be announced Monday, February 14).  If you missed the news, beloved Redwall author Brian Jacques has passed away.  He was one of the first formative influences on my writing, as well as my favorite author from 4th grade until well into middle school, and I still remember how excited I was when I figured out you could order the British version of his book from amazon.co.uk about six months before the American release.

On to content!  I'm in the throes of revision yet again (I should just accept that I'm perpetually revising, though at least I make progress through the various projects), so I figured I'd talk a little about revisions - what works for me, what doesn't, how I try to do it, and how I end up doing it.

Step One: Initial read-through.  After leaving a draft to sit for as long as I can manage - days in some cases, months in others - I sit down and read it.  Ideally it's printed out, but that's not always possible.  I correct little things if they bother me, but nothing that takes too much time.  Mostly I look for things that don't make sense or just plain suck; I circle/highlight them to fix later, and usually write a few extremely sarcastic comments.

Step Two: Rewrite.  If the novel has parts that need major fixing, I rewrite.  It may mean writing a new scene from scratch, writing new lines of dialogue, or conceiving an entirely different scene that should replace the extant one, but I do it.  This takes a long time, because my first drafts can be very rough.  Not breaking-the-fourth-wall rough, but it's close sometimes.

Step Three: Feedback.  Once I've fixed any major issues, I send it out to critique partners and trusted readers for their opinions - not line edits, but a sense of whether or not they find the story and characters compelling.  If I feel that the story is worth fixing further, I move on to...

Step Four: Intensive revisions.  I do a much closer reading of the novel, looking for anything that is subpar, and fixing it.  Ideally, this goes from macro to micro, fixing major problems ("this character doesn't really have a reason for existing") before minor problems ("this line of dialogue implies that these two characters slept together. Is that what you meant?").   Often involves a lot of rewriting.

Step Five: Critique.  I get detailed feedback from my beloved critique partners.  I often cycle through steps four and five multiple times, until at last my critique partners say "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD NORA JUST SEND IT OUT".  That brings us to...

Step Six: Submission.  Fairly self-explanatory.

I've heard a lot of people say good things about other revision methods - for example, the not-fixing-typos-you'll-probably-cut-anyway method - but I can't revise if I'm distracted by spelling and grammar mistakes.  I also don't have the uninterrupted time for strategies like Holly Lisle's one-pass revision; I'm often revising for one or two hours, tops, before I have to a) go to bed, b) go to work, or c) run the errands that I can't do during the week.

What's your preferred revision method?  Got any strategies to recommend?  We're coming up on March, which is National Novel Editing Month - will you be taking part?

Blogfest Contest!

I'm participating in Brenda Drake's It Was a Dark and Stormy Blogfest Contest (check out the rules, prizes, and other entrants here), which means posting my first line for everyone to critique!  The source is Kinesthesia, a 70,000-word YA alternate history - what I refer to on my blog and Twitter as "The Novel".  So, here it is:

Meri could remember two brief, shining moments in her life when she’d thought maybe she’d be happy after all.

Leave your feedback below, and don't forget to read and critique the other first lines - one of my critique partners, the lovely and talented Shayda Bakhshi, is also participating!  

Moving Day…more like Moving Week

At long last, I’ve moved from my parents’ house to a fairly awesome house in SE Portland. I’ve been gradually transporting my stuff for the last few days, and now I just have to…unpack it all. 

One of the piles of stuff still remaining

I’m still writing steadily, though I confess that I’ve gotten a little distracted by having all my books out again – the poor things have been living in boxes since August! Eventually, I will have bookshelves and a proper desk, but for the moment…well, I have stacks of books (not a convenient storage option if you want one at the bottom) and a piece of plywood balanced on top of one filing cabinet. If I put something heavy on one side of the “desk”, I have to put something of equal weight on the other side to keep the entire thing from sliding into a catastrophic mess. 

 I’m keeping the heat at 65 degrees, which is fairly chilly unless you’re running up and down the stairs every five minutes with stacks of books in your arms. Then it’s downright toasty. Still, every once in a while it’s hard to resist the lure of the (gas) fireplace…

 Yes, that is a NaNoWriMo Viking helmet on the mantel. I feel it gives the room a certain barbaric panache – and makes up for the total lack of other interior decorating. The fireplace is only a few feet away from what I have dubbed my “project table”, a construction of more plywood and some two-by-fours painted an alluring shade of green. Top with some computer stuff and assorted things that haven’t gone anywhere else, and you have the ideal workspace!

Well, I’ve got more of CoYA to write and yet more boxes to unpack, so I’ll say farewell. Anyone have any advice on how best to survive unpacking?

The Perils of Discovery Writing

There are plenty of names for writers who don't plan their stories out ahead of time.  Pantsers.  Commitment-phobes.  My personal preference is "discovery writers", a term I first heard on Brandon Sanderson's fantastic podcast Writing Excuses ("fifteen minutes, because you're in a hurry and we're not that smart").  I like it because it feels so true - I do discover the story as I write it.  Most of the time, that's exciting and fun...but every once in a while, it throws me for a loop.

Take The Brothers and Sisters of Interesting People, which I wrote this past November for NaNoWriMo.  Originally conceived as literary fiction (hahahahaha) set in Amsterdam, featuring a circle of friends that revolves around the extremely selfish twin brother of a Dutch soccer star, this book was supposed to follow a twenty-something woman in the circle trying to live her own life while still supporting her friend.  Along the way, she was supposed to fall a little in love with a man in the circle of friends after seeing him sober for the first time (he's an alcoholic).  Oh, and the story would start when they all met and then skip ahead five years.

There were just a few problems.  I started writing, and promptly discovered that my alcoholic preferred club drugs (and those only occasionally), and while my protagonist wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating crackers, she was a whole lot more interested in a lesbian friend in their circle.  Even worse, my soccer star's brother turned out not at all self-centered; he simply had an extremely involved model of friendship - fully reciprocal - in which friends would always come to each other's aid, no matter what else was going on.  He and my protagonist, it turned out, really did make great friends for each other.

Oh yeah, and I never made it five years into the future.  I hit 100,000 words as I brought the first major test of their eight-week-old friendship to a close, and that was it.  Discovery writing is tough - sometimes by the end of your first draft, your first fifty pages don't make sense anymore - but I find it incredibly rewarding to watch new ideas reveal themselves as I write.  Plus, who am I kidding?  If I write an outline for a novel, that's the last of it I'll ever write.

Are you a discovery writer, an outliner, or somewhere in between?