My Frankennovel Tale

You may have noticed my absence these past four months. I've been steadily working on what I believed was the final draft of my follow up novel to BREAKFAST WITH NERUDA. For nearly three years I've been accumulating words, adding scenes and chapters, moving things around, and rewriting the beginning. An earlier draft was rejected by my editor at Merit, with the comment the stakes weren't high enough. So I examined the book again, chapter by chapter, and reordered scenes and re drafted from the beginning.

At 72,000 words I thought the book was finished. Yet I accumulated more rejections. While most of the agents I sent this to complimented the writing and the well developed characters, they couldn't relate to the story.

And that was the problem. When people asked me what my book was about, the best answer I could come up with is "about 300 pages" because I had no story.

Had I wasted three years on writing a book going nowhere? Yes and no.

Yes, because I spent 3-4 hours every day, including holidays, on this set of characters and their journey. I worried about Michael, Shelly and the others. In addition, I spent many hours researching environment and oceanography to provide authenticity to one of my characters. (The result of that is I now know how precarious our future is. Dystopian novels are within inches of being reality.)

Yet no, the time was  not wasted because I know everything about my characters-- much more than the reader will know. Most of the 72,000 words are unusable. At least in this story. I may be able to use some scenes in a subsequent story.

So I set aside what I called my Frankennovel, and with the help of a few writer friends' suggestions, started over. The last chapter of my 72,000 piece became the first chapter of the novel that seemed to write itself in three months.

How was this possible? First, I stopped working on the Frankenovel for a couple of weeks. Instead, I read. STORY GENIUS, WIRED FOR STORY, THE ANATOMY OF STORY, and TAKE OFF YOUR PANTS. While reading the first three books listed I learned I had no sense of story, and my book had a theme, but no concept All of these guides include exercises to question what is at the core of my story. The fourth book helped me see how being a panster vs. a plotter is an inefficient ay to write. all these books taught me if you can't define the truth behind your tale in a sentence, there's a problem.

It took me 72,000 words to find the inciting incident. Once I isolated that final chapter from the Frankennovel, I was able to move the real story forward. Same characters and location, but only about 15,000 words of the Frankennovel survived, written in as flashbacks. Other than what is now Chapter One, the rest of the tale is new.

The new manuscript weighs in at 76,000 words. My critique group is helping point out where the book sags and where it sings. The best part is I can now sum it up in one sentence. (which I won't tell you yet...sorry.) Having that logline is a beacon to keep me on track so I don't invent great scenes (like the funny one in Costco) that have nothing to do with the plot. Like Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars film, my mantra has become "stay on target."

Stay tuned. Once this baby is ready to submit, I'll let you know more details. Meanwhile, back to revision.

Happy Writing.

Dialogue with Myself in the Rain

I’m sitting in the coffee shop, not really writing, just messing around. It’s raining too hard to leave, though, and I have a blog I’ve ignored for almost two months. I’m trying to write a session proposal to speak at a reputable writers' conference. It's a big deal. I’m not a big deal. Not yet, anyway.

One thing the conference committee wants on the application form is my ‘expertise with the proposed topic.’ I’m an expert in Being a Failed Novelist.

Yet that’s no longer true. My book came out recently. Perhaps I could skew my talk about How I Booted Out of the Epic Fails. But then my novel might be an epic fail.

How did I get that book contract again?

Oh yeah: Persistence and Plan B.

That title might work. My expertise is in continuing to write in spite of the astronomical odds against me.

There are innumerable reasons not to become a writer where you can avoid facing blank pages and blinking cursors, spending too much time inside your head, and ending up writing in the rain.

One could have a life.

But what is a life without pursuit of what charges your batteries?

Like any ineffable passion, writers write in spite of the rain, in spite of the odds of success and money are so remote that being hit by a meteorite is more likely.

Another question on the conference application is to list three things attendees will learn.

1)                  Writing the novel was the easy part.

2)                  Even if you have an agent, a book contract, or have begun a new project, you need to invest time in managing the details toward the book’s publication. It won’t get done for you.

3)                  Your friends and family don't mind that you write, but they don’t want to hear about the process. So the introverted writer must become part of a community of writers.

The committee also wants my life story in 100 words, a 50 word summary of my presentation, and worst o all, a photograph of me.

So here I sit next to a rain soaked window as high winds knock down tree limbs, contemplating persistence and Plan B, wondering if a photo of my cat will suffice.

Happy Writing.

“Write every day and always have a good alibi.” Les Edgerton

I sit here at a local cafe, under the guise of working as my Facebook page looms to my left on my I Pad.  Right now I’m stuck between scenes. Like a giant wad of gum has cemented my shoes to cracked concrete. It’s not writers block. That's a myth. Anyone can write every day by just putting words on the page or the keyboard. I can repeatedly write ‘see Jane run, see spot run, see Dick and Jane run after spot’ if I have to. At least my brain is connecting to the act of writing. It might be shit, but it’s written. When whatever crisis that keeps me in writing crap phase flames out, I will go back and excise the messy parts. Which is what I am doing with this failed novel, a wretched story that pushes me toward Facebook and twitter rather than engages me.

I have a litany of excuses

“I’m Bringing Sexy Back” is playing in my ears and I would rather dance

Twelve more inches of snow are headed this way

I have a nearly endless supply of student papers to grade.

I’m tired.

All of these are valid reasons not to write, but what worries me most is I may have lost interest in my novel. I am rewriting a failed (truly failed) manuscript that would not even rate a 1 on Goodreads.

I have reordered scenes, changed the focus to the more likable character, introduced more scenes and characters, yet I’m still not doing this book any favors.

My BFF and editor Elizabeth tells me I am my worst critic. Maybe I need to hire her to read this draft. But it’s so bad I don’t to subject anyone else to the horrors within.

So I will keep writing. And eventually I will find the solution to this books, or, worse case scenario, abandon it. A relationship with one of your stories is like a love interest. Sometimes the best thing to do is break up.  Yes, we've been together for years, and we know one another well. But do we still love one another? Yes, I cheated on you with another novel, but that story yelled louder. It shoved you down to the basement and it took you more than a year to crawl back up those steps. Both of us changed, took on new interests, and met new people. We may be over one another. Stop whining, okay? Why don’t we date for awhile and decide if we can commit fully to one another? Meanwhile, some of my Facebook friends require my attention. You will find me there.

Hope your writing is going better than mine.
Happy Writing.

I'm Not a Slob...I'm Just ADD

This afternoon isolated to clean up my desk area. I don't actually have some office. iWeb I moved into my house I intended to use one of the spare bedrooms, but my desk didn't fit through the door. It's a lovely piece of,furniture, an old fashioned roll top desk with a slide out shelf for placing papers. But the desk is also  monstrously large. So a corner of the living room serves as my home office , and that space is almost always cluttered with bad manuscripts of failed novels (my own. Sigh)  writing magazines, books, journals, and miscellaneous loose pages on which I have written stupendous ideas to use later. I also keep a paper bag for recycled paper nearby. This week I am on vacation so I am determined to clean this mess up.

I recycled two pieces of junk mail, then came across a photocopied article one of the Rock stars of Reference from our local,library gave me last week. I sat down and read through it. (Did I go back to cleaning? No. I started writing this blog post. I am hopeless.)

The article, from Book List, is a Will Manley column about graphic novels and their role  in developing young readers. Libraries are undergoing changes with lightning speed, and more of my school library colleagues have fallen into black holes, leaving behind ghost towns filled with lonely books and magazines. Some libraries have taken action to attract clientele by promoting graphic novels for kids who claim to hate reading in the hopes of leading them into more text based stories. Yet, as pointed out in  the Manley piece, "that's like saying you can get meth addicts into a rehab center by baiting them with [drugs] and expecting them to go clean."

If we want to develop a culture of readers, we need to read. And not just in Language Arts classes. The Common Core standards schools are adopting are not new. They are just a new name for teaching all subjects through narrative. (A new fangled name for ancient dialogues in Plato's time, and the Renaissance education.) It's the way I was taught in the late 60s and 70s, learning of the relationship of all things. As my former student Aaron miller once said during a eureka moment, "everything's connected !" 

I'm not sure this post has anything to do with any of the Scintilla prompts, but since everything's related, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Back to my stacks of papers....

Happy Writing.

I May Not Be the Brightest Crayon in the Box, But I Know Enough To Color

I don’t know about you, but I have to have music plying when I write. Right now The Doors are performing Light My Fire (timeless and cool.)
but i digress....
Recently I posted about the indomitable Les Edgerton.(July 21) This blog is not supposed to be a Les Edgerton fan club page, but his book HOOKED has the writing gears turning..

Writing is a lot like dieting. We KNOW we need to eat less and move more in order to lose weight. As writers, we KNOW if our beginnings suck, the rest of the story suffers, even that heartbreaking stuff in the middle, and the tear jerking ending. Why? Because readers won’t have enough patience to slug through three pages of chaff to get to where the REAL story starts. Yet many of us, myself especially, craft these dawdling, elegant beginnings where we take the reader on a sluggish raft to the beginning of the story.

If there were prisons were writing crimes, my FBI poster would read, WORDINESS. : Addicted to back story, takes three pages to three chapters to get to the point at which the story begins. (That was a wordy sentence. See what I mean? What am I going to do with me? I could have just said, uses too many words.)

During my incarceration here in writer’s prison, for which there is no parole, I read Les Edgerton’s HOOKED: write fiction that grabs the reader at page one and never lets them go . It’s a book about beginnings.

Last year, if you recall, I attended the Oregon Coast Children’s Book Writers Workshop (OCCBWW,) and the critiques only focused on the first page. Each participants’’ first page projected in the room for all to see, naked, our flaws magnified.) See August 2011 postings for more highlights of the OCCBWW)
Here is my first page shredding
http://bit.ly/LOiQoY

My drafts are always horrible. Sometimes it takes a year to look at a manuscript with fresh eyes. Even in its fine tuning and several drafts, my novel CHASING THE DRAGON, suffered by a tepid beginning. Les’s book helped me see the point of entry was wrong.( In an earlier draft, I had this three page prologue containing an incident a couple of years before the story begins, but at OCCBWW, I was advised to cut it and start with action.

In rewrite I had my protagonist, Kicker, walking into her house and get yelled at by her mother and stepfather. It was a three page scene. It was okay, but it lingered.

Les helped me ask, Where does the reader become engaged?
When Kicker has a flashback to her tattoo the night before. Duh! Put her in the tattoo parlor and start there.

The following is from my latest rewrite of the opening of CHASING THE DRAGON. Please don’t steal it.

Getting the tattoo hurt worse than she thought it would. Kicker Stevens pulled at the left sleeve of her plaid, flannel jacket to relieve the pressure on the one inch tall barbed wire tattoo around her left bicep

Kind of wordy and blah. With some tinkering, here is my rewrite:

Kicker rolled up her sleeve and studied the barbed wire on her left bicep, her skin swollen around the tattoo. Getting it turned out to be a bigger deal than she imagined, but there was no turning back. The ink etched her closer to becoming a full- fledged Flygirl.

I’m tempted to rewrite almost everything I have written, at least reexamine it. While the draft contains energy and passion, the real writing happens in rewrite.


Your assignment, besides reading Les’s book, is to reexamine the opening page(s) of a manuscript that you are having trouble selling. The flaw might be page one.



Happy Writing.

I AM NOT SHOUTING AT YOU WITH MY ALL CAPS

AS PROMISED, I AM SHARING MY ATROCIOUS FIRST PAGE. MY COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS TO MAKE IT EASIER TO SEEMichael Tate sat in the school library, which was quiet except for the hum of the copy machine and computers. The old battle ax librarian was old school and she demanded silence .Normally the hush didn’t bother him, but he was caught up with his assignments and would have liked a diversion to avoid thinking about what his sister Cassady had said to him last night.- HERE IS A MISSED OPPORTUNITY. INSTEAD OF THE LONG DRAWN OUT DESCRIPTION OF THE LIBRARY AND THE LIBRARIAN, WHO ARE NOT IMPORTANT TO THE ACTION, I COULD HAVE JUST STARTED WITH LAST NIGHT.Michael sauntered to the front desk and grabbed the newspaper. –I AM TAKING WAY TOO MUCH TIME HERE WITH SUPERFLUOUS DETAIL-The headline blazed: BODY FOUND IN HOME, VICTIM DEAD POSSIBLY ONE YEAR. Last night he had seen this story on TV. THE HEADLINE IS INTERESTING, BUT IT COULD BE WOVEN IN TO THE DIALOGUE.
THIS MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD PLACE TO START MY ACTION“I can’t watch the news anymore,” his mother, said as she and Michael went to the kitchen before dinner.
“Why not? “ Michael’s father asked.
“A mother was accused of putting her daughter in a microwave. The baby was burned from the inside out,” she said.
“Gross,” Cassady said. She was helping their dad Frank fix dinner. Their mother rarely cooked. “She could burn water,” Frank liked to say.
“There was also a woman found dead in her house after a year,” Michael said.
Cassady scrunched her face. “Michael!”
Michael sat on a stool at the kitchen island. “The only reason they found her was thieves broke in and someone discovered the body while they were ripping her off.”
(I DID GET COMPLIMENTS ON MY DIALOGUE, WHICH IS NOT ABYSMAL)Michael’s sister carried four plates and silverware into the dining room. “Thanks for ruining my appetite.” She spread the plates around the table and picked up the silverware. THE PANEL ALSO LIKED MY VERBS“It wouldn’t hurt you to skip a meal,” their mother Grace said. OKAY HERE IS A TELING DETAIL, WE SEE THE CONFLICT. THE PROBLEM IS, WHOSE STORY IS IT? MICHAEL’S? HIS SISTER’S? HIS PARENTS’? DO WE EVEN CARE?
OVERALL THIS FIRST PAGE FAILS ON MULTIPLE MANY LEVELS. AS A WRITER I NEED TO DECIDE WHOSE STORY IT IS AND WHAT THE CONFLICT IS.
I MIGHT ABANDON IT, EVEN THOUGH I HAVE A CONSIDERABLE AMOUNT OF THE “STORY” WRITTEN. YET ABANDONING MANUSCRIPTS IS NOT A FAILURE; IT’S A LEARNING OPPORTUNITY NOT TO REPEAT THE SAME MISTAKES.
Sorry about the all caps.:)
Happy Writing.