So Long ’08! Welcome ’09!

Each New Years Eve, I usually look forward to the next year and plan what I’d like to do, make resolutions, etc, but I’ve never really taken a good hard look back at the year that passed. Several of the blogs I follow have taken this approach, so I decided I’d like to try it.

In 2008:
-I spent the first half of the year developing several dozen new friendships in Tacoma, reveling in the social light.
-I made a spontaneous decision to move to central Washington and followed through with it a mere six weeks later. This was huge for me because 1) spontaneity is not my strong suit (I’m a meticulous planner) and 2) I see it as the first big life choice I’ve made. Going to college and graduating college and moving back to Washington and getting a job were all things I felt I had to do. This move was the first thing I did just because I really wanted to. *pats self on back*
-I spent the second half of the year developing relationships with an aunt, uncle, and three cousins who I’ve known and loved my whole life, but never got to be close to.
-I started and finished the first two drafts of my first book. Although I don’t foresee publishing it, I am extremely grateful for the experience and look forward to developing my writing skills further. I’ve found writing to be both passion and hobby and I feel it enriches my life even if I never sell a book. Also I got 30K into my second novel’s rough draft.

Smaller events of 2008:
-driving a loop around the Olympic Peninsula and seeing the cool temperate rainforest there
-reviving my love of reading (which lessened somewhat in college sadly)
-(re)learning to snowboard and loving it
-getting my substitute teaching license and subbing grades preschool to twelve

Looking forward to 2009:
-I plan to finish my second book and hopefully write my third. By the end of 2009, I hope to have at least one manuscript that I feel is ready to start querying.
-I plan to get outside more. Snowboarding, hiking, biking, camping, whatever… part of the reason I moved out here was to be away from gray concrete and near nature, so I plan to make a more active lifestyle out here
-(hopefully) find a love interest. Hey, what’s a 23 year old girl to do, right?
-generally live life without much of a plan. I’m working on that whole spontaneity thing.

Crazy Days

Well, school finished up last week and I've decided I'm not going back. I would feel bad for "quitting" if I didn't already have a bachelor's, but I feel I've paid my time. So a big hip hip horray for freedom and free time!

In other news, I've joined Critique Circle. I must say I like it very much so already. It's proven to be very helpful. Due to this connection, I'm taking Page Me Petite down since it serves the same function as CC, except with fewer critiquers. :-)

Winter has officially settled in here in Eastern Washington. The snow has been coming down for the past two days and the roads are slick. My job has given us optional overtime hours (which it never does) and my cousin lent me Warcraft III, thus I've had little to do with writing outside of critiquing for others. I've decided to let myself play this holiday season, so writing in earnest will settle in once more come January. I will continue to update Page Me Choice each Monday, read others' blogs, play on CC, and probably edit a prologue based on what others have given me in feedback.

That is the short of all the updates in my life. Hope they didn't bore you too terribly.

Tata from Anette

Are You Pulling or Pushing Your Plot?

I’ve been noticing this contrast in many books I read and then compared my own work. As a writer, I’m more of a puller, whereas I like to read plots that are pushed.

Allow me to explain my thinking here.

Whether a story is propelled forward by characters or events, whether it’s a mystery, adventure, or love story, it is either being pulled or pushed. What I mean by this is that the reader is either being dragged through a series of events (pulled) without really understanding where its going or they are shoved through it (pushed) where you feel like you’re standing right next to the character as an active decision maker in the story.

The former situation tends to happen more with action oriented plots, where the character(s) have to respond to whatever is happening around them, while the latter usually occurs in character driven plots, where the character(s) make decisions that set events into motion. Mysteries can run either way, but I prefer the pushed ones, because then I feel that the character is being proactive and has some control over the situation. I would argue that no genre or category of stories is exclusively pulling or pushing, though they certainly tend to lean one way or the other,

I wouldn’t say that pushing is better than pulling, though I imagine some publishers and editors might. What about you? Do you have a preference as a reader? Do you find your writing falling steadily into one of these categories? Or – and it must be asked – is my rambling making no sense whatsoever? Haha.

In any case, it’s a thought that’s run through my weeble wobble head lately, along with methods of choosing which perspective each story ought to be told from (first, third, omniscient, limited…). But that’s a topic for another day…

For a quick update, I finished Ch 7 of Book B two nights ago, hacked and slashed a short story into prologue form (For Book C - OTS) last night, and outlined Book 2 (AUT) tonight. That’s what’s going on in my wonderful world of writing. I found the F2S round over at Miss Snark’s First Victim to be very helpful. If you haven’t been to Authoress’s blog, stumble on over there the next chance you get.

Okies, that’s enough for this girl. Time for bed.
(Don’t give me that strange look, I’m nocturnal!) :-)

-Anette

Page Me Choice

Howdy everyone!

Just a couple quick updates to usher in the new month. Yes, it's December already. Scary huh?

Update 1: I've changed the goal wordcount of Book B to 80,000 since NaNo is over and a more realistic length is in order. On a sad note, that makes me much further from that goal. But I must reach it, because my cousin will kill me if I don't finish Book B. He loves it.

Update 2: I've spent a couple days tinkering around with children's books. Yes, I totally realize this is distracting me from my main goal - that being publishing YA fantasy novels - but it was interesting. My grandmother really wants to write kiddie stories and I think it would be fantasmic to make online "read alongs" for little kids, since they are supposed to read 20 minutes a day and many, if not most, parents don't have the time or inclination to do that with them. 'Tis a project to play with.

Update 3: I've created two new blogs, neither of which will be as active as my main one here (I think). The first, Page Me Petite, is a place where I will post flash fiction, short stories, and kiddie fiction I write. Since my main interest is novels, I feel comfortable sharing my shorter work with others under a Creative Commons license. The blog is by invitation only, though so if you want in, you'll have to ask. The second new blog, Page Me Choice, is my personal writing gym. I get to exercise my skills whilst entertaining whoever would like to read along. "Choice" is an open blog, in which I write little episodes and then ask the readers to make a decision, which I base the next post on. Sound fun? Read along...

Anyway, I know that probably sounds like I've loaded my plate too full, but I'll manage, I promise! I've decided to stop taking classes at the college seeing as I already have one degree and I'd really rather focus on writing. It's what bring joy and satisfaction into my life anyway and it would be nice to just live life to live life rather than planning to live life.

If you find you enjoy Page Me Choice, please do invite your friends to read too. The more decision makers there are, the more fun it can be!

Finding My Focus

This holiday weekend, I was given the opportunity to gain some perspective on both my life and my novel (AUC). Since this is a blog about writing, I'll not tire you with the details of my life. :-)

I spent a long time preparing to write AUC, which resulted in many characters with conflicts that weave together throughout the story. I like this, because it makes the reader feel like everyone is real and that the main character is not disproportionately interesting, but it does set me up to lose my focus. Add to the mix the fact that AUC was my first full novel and you have a recipe for author-blindness. :-)

Up until this weekend, I've stuttered and stumbled when people ask me what my book is about. It's long and multilayered. How could I sum it up quickly without going into a whole spiel? I wished for ages that I could come up with something clever to match taglines like "A girl falls in love with a vampire" or "A boy goes off to a boarding school that teaches magic" or "Four kids fall through a wardrobe into another world"

And this weekend, I've finally found my focus. It should seem obvious, that the main character's main conflict should be my focus, but with everything else going on, I seemed to lose myself. When my grandmother was talking with me about the various story ideas I have, I told her AUC was really about a girl who gains confidence and finds herself - a sort of coming of age story. The second those words left my lips, I felt the figurative light-bulb turn on. Oh! Right! Why was that so hard before?

So today I was perusing Lady Glamis's blogs and saw that she'd been tasked to write a summary sentence for her novel (15 words or less) and I decided to try writing one for mine. This is what I came up with:

"An unconfident teenage girl discovers her true potential while on an adventure of world changing proportions."

Does that appeal to you? I know it's vague, but what can you do in 15 words? I even cheated and used 16! Have any of you found it difficult to summarize your book for curious people? Ever written a snippet summary?

Anyway, I'm happy. Now when I go back through for Draft 3, I'll know how to focus the book so the reader isn't as disoriented as I was...

It's Alive!

I feel like Dr. Frankenstein.

Before I begin querying for AUC, I am sending Draft 2 out to several test subjects – ahem, I mean, friends – who will hopefully give me some useful feedback. Once I’ve collected the test data – or criticism (constructive, of course) – then I’ll run AUC through the wringer to produce a Draft 3, which hopefully far exceeds Draft 2.

So in preparing Draft 2, I may have went a little overboard, but I wanted my test readers to feel like they were reading a complete novel. I wrote a back cover blurb and made a front cover. Then the blurb looked plain, so I had to design a back cover. Then I made a hook page (you know, the excerpt that sometimes appears before the title page). So I put all these, along with the ms into a three ring binder, with the “covers” in the clear pockets on front and back. As a result AUC looks like an actual book (sorta) and as I feel like a proud mom. The fact that I’ve written a full novel never really sunk in until I was loading the binder with almost 200 ms pages. I was thinking, “Wow, I really wrote all this. All those words… all those filled pages… I did that.” It seemed unreal and real in the same moment.

Now hopefully the quality matches the quantity and AUC can make it into real bindings. Since I went to the trouble to make a cover blurb and a hook page, I’ll share them here. I’m not completely happy with the blurb and I’m sure a professional could do a far better job, but it’s my attempt to sum up the book without giving too much away while still attracting interest (a daunting task). I’d love to hear what you think of each.


Back Cover Blurb:

__She Always Wanted To Help,
______But Never Felt She Could…
_____________…Until Now

Shy dreamer Paige Moss is forcibly yanked from her ordinary, yet danger-ridden life, into a part of her world that was supposed to exist only in myth and legend.

She encounters a colony of fabled creatures that’s tense with discord as it gears up for battle, with Paige’s older sister as its commander and her home nation as its contender.

Paige must sort through layers of intrigue and outright lies to discover who’s at the heart of the conflict, a task that’s complicated by the fact that her own beloved sister tops the suspect list.

When the lives of those she loves are threatened, can Paige muster enough courage to save them?



Hook (Excerpt) Page:


A few months ago, I laughed at my mum for being paranoid. Only after several of my classmates and neighbors became victims did I smarten up.

___Adrenaline pumped through my veins and I ran harder than I’ve ever run in my life. I could still hear their pounding footsteps behind me. Glancing back again, I saw that they were gaining on me once more.
___I ducked into another alleyway and pulled on the first door I came to.
___It opened easily.
___I threw myself inside and ran through the kitchen of the pub and out through the bar room. Dozens of dining faces stared at me as I shot past them and out the front door. I doubled back into the same alleyway I started in, hoping that all of my pursuers followed me into the pub.
___The alley was empty.
___I figured if I could make it to the end and turn down the street before the thieves came out of the pub, I might make it. Hope stirred, but I still felt woefully exposed.
___I was almost at the end when the thieves jumped out of the pub door to block my escape. My feet scuffed to a halt and reversed quickly to retreat. Their expressions were fearful. Wait. Fearful? Yes, eyes wide, mouths hanging open, and they too were backing away. I couldn’t understand why.
___Claws grasped my shoulders, sending a spasm of pain through me. My feet left the ground, swinging wildly as if I could still run away.


So there you have it. Based on one or both of these samples, would you pick up my book?

As a side note, I am sad to say I lost my NaNo challenge, what with job changes, exams, and a myriad of other excuses distracting me. I think if I were juggling a couple fewer things, I’d have gotten through it, but at least NaNo gave me a good jump into Book B. I’ll likely not get any writing done until December, so my NaNo total stands at 22,600 words.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Devaluing the Valuable

I have spent the last few weeks devaluing Book 1 (AUC) in light of how much better Book B seems to be going. So much so, in fact, that I’d whittled my experience and the resulting work down to nearly worthless.

It was only when I went back to proofread parts of AUC (because a friend requested to read it) that I remembered how much I like the story. There are flaws in it, certainly, but as I laughed at the idiosyncrasy of the characters or the ways the events wind, I realized my merriment might be shared by others.

Yet even without that, the learning process that came with AUC should not be devalued. No, never that. Because without a first book, there cannot be a second or third. Without a beginning, there can be no progression.

I’d gotten to the point where I thought that AUC was only worth the lessons and practice I garnered from it, viewing it as something that would never graze the fingertips of a potential agent, much less see print.

But I’ve renewed hope.

Although I am unsure as to which direction I need to take AUC in order to fix the problems I see in it (mostly because I’m not sure I have the right perspective to say for certain what the problems really are), I now see the value and potential in the story as I saw it while writing.

I don’t think myself a writing genius by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes when I reread a scene, I’ll find it hard to believe I actually wrote it because it seems beyond my capabilities.

Have any of you found yourselves in similar predicaments – having written something, and then forgotten its worth, only to find it later as a lost treasure?

PS: If my diction or syntax seems unusual today, it’s because I’m writing this blog while watching Interview With a Vampire. :-)