When Time Skips to the Beat

Time does that sometimes you know?

Very nearly done with the typing, and very excited to get down to the nitty gritty of making this book perfect. I've got a bottle of Dakota Red from Private Reserve that I've been itching to use. I've for a conference in July for the job that pays the bills, that will leave me with oodles of time in a hotel room (because really, who schedules a conference in Arizona in mid-July?) to edit.

I've had a thought about genre's lately. Who am I writing for? Who is my audience? I mean, my audience is always me; I write the stories that I want to read, but where do my stories fit in in the grand scheme?
I've always been a little disappointed in the schism that exists between YA and adult literature. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with either kind of literature, but there's a gulf between the two, some missing years and experience that people either forget to write about or are too scared to.
YA books tend to deal with the Harry Potters of the world. They're budding teens full of hormones and anger, but they never swear and their riskiest moments with the opposite sex (or same sex) are stolen kisses they then think about forever. They're light stories, bereft of the gritty details that growing up often entails. Then you move on to adult literature where it becomes permissible to say 'shit' and for all manner of behavior.
But in books there is no bridge. It's almost like if you write a story with a teenage (or early twenties) character, you must write a certain way and ignore whole hosts of behavior. Teenagers are risky, thrill-seeking hedonists who are not adults, but who want to act like them. Yet the literature doesn't reflect that.

So it's confusing about where my story(ies) fit in, because I have three 17ish characters who swear and drink and make life and death decisions and then giggle for days over the double entendre implications of the word "sack." It's a story with really touching and great moments, some really silly moments, but also some extraordinarily dark moments as well. Maybe it's like the BSG of YA lit.

So I'm not a big fan of "hey look what I bought," but I bought this moleskine journal from a place called Modo Fly and they "etch" the journals with artwork done by various artists. It's absolutely awesome. So while I'm doing the editing thing, I'm going to write an anthology of horror stories in it. Just something to do while I edit. But I have some big, super big plans for it, so I'll drop them in here later.

Who Gives a Fuck about an Oxford Comma

I'm totally in love with the song by Vampire Weekend.  I never thought I'd hear a song about grammar that I loved (an even one I hated).  Actually the whole album is pretty awesome.  The funny thing about it is that when I listened to it I remembered having an argument with my parents about the Serial Comma way, way, back when I was in 6th grade.  I was for it and they were not.  Not I'm pretty liberal with where I comma-nate; if I think it clarifies the sentence, I'm for it, if not, fuck it.

I actually managed to get all my editing caught up on the stuff that's typed and I just need to catch up on my typing, which is difficult because there's not a lot of free time.  I'm selling myself more and more on really restructuring those first few chapters into probably just two.  There's a lot of good stuff in them, but I think they drag things out a bit.  On a good note though, I think I'm really improved from my last book.  Not only am I finding less technical errors, but I'm finding less I want to change.  

So of course since I have zero time I got a short story in my head I am dying to write, so I'm going to try to quickly write it.  It's kind of a belated Valentine's day story  mixed with a bit of Lovecraftian Horror.  Of course all my Valentine's ARE horror so it works well.  Maybe I'll put it up here when I'm done.

Word of the day:  Chevalier 

Keep on Keeping on

I read a really wonderful article or quasi-article if you will by Neil Gaiman. I must admit that I'm a fan more of the author himself than his writing. That doesn't make sense....how's this: I like the way Neil Gaiman thinks, the ideas and stories he comes up with, but I'm not a huge fan of his writing style. Either way I admire him and this article is one reason why: Pep Talk from Neil Gaiman

On the writing front, I managed to get Jak to Asgard where he met his first giant. He of course also me the beautifully terrifying Hela and her wee little brother Jormungand, but all three meetings were brief and absolutely horrifying. Before I go back there I need to map out the entire city of Asgard. I'm not an architect I'm a writer. lol.

I'm a bit disheartened that no one has been reading my manuscript. I mean, everyone was gung-ho to see it, and I was happy to have fresh eyes look at it, but it's been nearly a month and no one's talking. They're either just not reading or it's so bad that they're afraid of hurting my feelings. This of course leaves me with mixed feelings.

When I finished the first draft, I was happy to have finished. And while I think it's a good story, a nice story, a disturbing story, I'm not sure it's a great story. I think that Jak and the Giants has the soul to shine that The Last Guardian lacks. So negative comments won't offend me much (ok my ego will feel them) because I will probably agree.

Continuing that thought, I think I'm doing the story a disservice by not being as brutal with it as I need to be. I think I need to really cut and cut and cut. I think it's too fat. I got caught up in word counts, but in the end, I think it may be about 20k to 30k too long. Time for both the novel and myself to go on a diet.

And there it is.

Word of the Day: Literary Liposuction

A case of the Blechs

I am still re-editing The Last Guardian, as I will be probably for the next few months, however I went ahead and sent in the first chapter for consideration. I know that that might be a tactical mistake, but the first chapter is exactly how I want it to be. They expect 3 months minimum to get back to me, so on the off chance that they want the rest of the manuscript, I have 3 months to polish the rest. Instead of waiting until I think it's ready (which I might never feel) I just bit the bullet and sent my baby out into the cold harsh world.

The truth is that it's 120k words. There are two chapters I'm pretty sure I want to cut because they add very little to the story. If asked I could also put my book on a diet and shave off another 30k words....but I wouldn't be happy about it. The point is that I could fuss over it forever. This way I'm forced to make some hard and fast choices, which is how I work best.

On the writing front, I'm working on Jak and the Giants and I've gotten chapter 1 done. I've also done a lot more research and planning since this book requires more research and planning. This weekend I'm planning on really tucking in to this bastard and writing the crap out of it. I pretty much have the bones planned out in my head and, to a smaller degree, on paper, so it should be easy going (it's never easy going).

I sent a copy to my best friend, who's always been my best critic, so I'm waiting to hear what she says. My cousin tried to tell me it was derivative of Something Wicked This Way Comes because it started out in a carnival lol. I told her to get past the first chapter, because the only thing they have in common is that they both have carnivals.

I've got some other stuff swirling in my head: a neo-victorian series, a series of short stories that work back from the death of humanity, a series about shakespeare and some time traveling (the one I already tried to write....I had an epiphany about it) among many other things. It just seems like there's never enough time to write everything I want to write.

Word of the Day: Douche (not the prettiest word, but it's re-entered the public consciousness as a viable derogatory word...it's sounds good rolling off the tongue, it's gross, and it gets past the censors on public TV)

Blech!

The editing still goes. I only have 5 chapters left on the first read through. So far I've noticed that it's 60% solid, 20% weak, 10% that probably needs to be cut, and 10% bloody brilliant. It's funny reading because I'll read a chapter and just feel like it runs and flows beautifully, has only surface mistakes, and when I'm done I'm like "wow." Then I read the next chapter and I feel like I must have written it drunk; it just goes thud. Either way, I think I've fixed most of the glaring terribleness, enough so that I can give a couple of copies to close friends who will sock me with their honest brutality and tell me whether I need to shelve it or keep plugging away and publish it.

Truth is, I know which parts I found troublesome and I want to know if they agree. There's some stuff I think I'll cut and some stuff I'll fix up.

The Holiday's and my brother's wedding have made working difficult. Today just flew away and I don't know where it went. I hope to finish the last five chapters by Christmas. We'll see.

I'm just anxious to move on to actual writing again instead of this incessant editing. I fucking hate editing. My broken earth idea is morphing and changing into something wildly different, so I'm glad I've giving it time to mature.

My new year's resolution is to finish a second book, and to watch tv far less than I do.

peace out people

Word of the Year (2007): Conclusion