tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68719416853104746802024-03-18T20:14:50.997-07:00Working On a NovelPeople ask me what I'm up to. I tell them I'm working on a novel.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.comBlogger487125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-27967003038187301692017-06-30T07:35:00.001-07:002017-06-30T07:35:18.294-07:00#43 - Freelance Career Expert Series : Robert McGuire from Nation1099 on...<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/paojwZUoOiQ" width="480"></iframe>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-26238039132277890572015-09-18T04:43:00.000-07:002015-09-18T03:43:14.239-07:00from: ROBERT MCGUIRE<div><br></div><div><a href="http://osbite.com/last.php?ROBERT_MCGUIRE" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">http://osbite.com/last.php?ROBERT_MCGUIRE</a></div><div><br></div><div>ROBERT MCGUIRE</div><div><br></div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-27923742668048651102013-04-02T08:33:00.001-07:002016-11-23T06:53:05.312-08:00Hiatus -- Check out my other projectNot much work on Working On A Novel or on my novel lately. I've been very busy with the launch of <a href="http://www.moocnewsandreviews.com/">MOOC News and Reviews</a>. That's the best place to reach me lately.<br />
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Also <a href="http://mcguireeditorial.com/">McGuire Editorial, my content marketing agency</a>.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-40896057820065048932012-03-22T11:43:00.000-07:002012-03-22T11:43:30.756-07:00Pinteresting coincidenceIt's weird how Pinterest is blowing up right at the exact moment I've become obsessed with old fashioned pin boards. I posted a few weeks ago about my homemade bulletin board, which is now completely covered, by the way, obscuring the fact that I never did get back to the fabric store to buy more of the ribbon for the unfinished border. I have an unseemly pride in the thing and the way it has accumulated layers of clippings from the newspaper, old maps, note cards and sheets torn from large pads of paper.<br />
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In the meantime, I also spent a long time thumbing through and cutting articles and photos out of old magazines from the 50's -- Life, Home and Garden, etc. I don't have any more bulletin board space to speak of, so I used big sheets of sketch paper and glue stick (wish they had had that when we were kids) and made collages. I filled three of them and have them hanging up in spare space in my office. I worked on these in the evening in front of the T.V.<br />
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I did similar clipping and collecting with my previous books, but I didn't have any bulletin board space then, so it all just went into folders and never got looked at. I don't know how inspiring the pictures actually are. (The notecards with the plot are key.) But just the act of looking out for them is probably important.<br />
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When it comes to the Life magazines, it's really tempting to marvel at and cut out the corny ads. That would get old pretty quick, because that's pretty much a bottomless well. And more importantly, it doesn't really help get in touch with the era. I don't think readers then really saw "Pleasure In Prince Albert!" tobacco ads as reflecting reality, however much it might have created desire. So when I was really looking for the occasional articles in those magazines that did some kind of reporting or pictorial on real people. Very very rarely they would have some kind of "day in the life" thing about a person or people from the provinces, and if I squint -- or clip aggressively -- I can pretend it's the particular province my story is set in. I was looking for some face that wasn't Doris Day's or Rock Hudson's or the model driving the new car. I wanted to see what a real person looked like then, and I got a few.<br />
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Anyway, I don't want to sound like a hater, but I couldn't do all this with Pinterest, I think, and even if I could, the result wouldn't be hanging on the wall when I step into my office every morning. I just thought it was funny that I was spending all this time with scissors and glue at the exact moment every other post on Facebook was about Pinterest.<br />
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<br />Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-60978743119934804782012-03-02T11:38:00.000-08:002012-03-02T11:38:47.085-08:00Back to the query letter grindFriday now. I took a week off from my second book to go back and work on my third book. (See previous posts to understand the logic behind that.) Specifically to wage another campaign to get it published. It's been about 3 months since I sent out the first round of query letters, and it was time to try again.<br />
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First I took another pass at my query letter. I'm probably fooling myself, but I think it's a good letter. I didn't change a lot. Of course, in the context of a short letter, a little change can be a lot. I certainly didn't re-envision it. Normally after a few months away from something I see serious flaws and rethink the approach entirely, but I'm not seeing it here. Someone else is going to have to tell me how my letter sucks.<br />
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Then I went over the first 50 pages of the typescript again. (Most agents request 50 pp. or less with the query, and I have excerpts sliced several different ways -- 5 chapters, 4 chapters, 5 pages, 1 page, etc.) I did find a lot of opportunities to sharpen it, but, again, not a total re-envisioning of it. This was red-pen work -- slow close reading on paper and then inputting the changes on the computer file. Then recreating all those different excerpts.<br />
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Finally today I went to my list of agents to consider querying. It's a slow process of picking an attractive prospect, reconfirming the info I have, reviewing all the info out there on them that made them sound interesting to begin with, trying to spot a way to pitch to them individually. Then when I have one I'm ready to query, I have to build the email with just the right material included, subject line, the magic words, etc. At least these days it's almost 100% email whereas when I was going through this with my first book a couple years ago there was still a lot of photocopying, SASE, lines at the post office, etc. Still, it's all pretty time consuming. I've found that even with all the writing done and a lot of preliminary research it takes an hour to get 2 queries reconfirmed and in shape enough to hit the send button.<br />
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Someday when I strike it rich I'll let myself vent. For now, suffice it to say that sometimes I don't feel 100% positive about this process.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-23463934919449030282012-02-28T08:41:00.001-08:002012-02-28T08:41:15.019-08:00Reading slumpsI'm a reader. I read a lot and every day. I'm a frustratingly slow reader, but I put in a lot of hours, so the pages add up. And, as discussed before, I have a weird compulsion for measuring my progress, which is always far short of my goals, one of those goals being an average of 2 complete books per week throughout a calendar year.<br />
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One reason I never reach that goal is that a couple times a year I hit what I call reading slumps. I'll be close to the average I'm aiming for and then fall behind when, for a few weeks, I can't get interested in anything or finish anything. I probably spend less time reading during these slumps, but the more noticeable symptom is that I go through piles of books without reading more than a few pages in each. I procrastinate opening them, am quick to dismiss them and, if I don't dismiss them, procrastinate re-opening them the next day.I don't think this is necessarily because I've hit a run of bad books. Often these are books that I've been looking forward to for a long time. And I don't have any enthusiasm for trying an old favorite, either.<br />
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I try different strategies to get myself going. I try to catch up on literary journals that have piled up. I usually leave the short story in The New Yorker to last, and those tend to pile up. The complete issues of The New Yorker pile up. Trashier magazines. All of these go down a little easier than literary novels during one of these slumps. In general, I can get into nonfiction more than fiction during the periods, so I'll plug away at some history or biography, and I don't feel as bad about not finishing those if I get bored with them. After all, with biographies, you always know they die in the end. I read a couple of brainier journals recently, cover to cover, that I normally would have only read a couple articles from before they got swamped by more urgent interests. They made me feel so smart that I'm tempted to subscribe to them, but I know I'm unlikely to engage with them like that regularly. Another strategy is to build my stamina back up by starting with genre fiction that goes down more easily. I knocked off a couple John Le Carre novels recently that way.<br />
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I can't think of any good reason for these slumps. It's a curious phenomenon but nothing to worry about. It's probably just a
form of fatigue, and it's natural to need a break. What's strange is that it's not a break from reading to anything else. It's not like I'm being drawn more to the TV or movies or the record collection. I do all that stuff the usual amount. It's like a limbo. It's like being hungry and all the usual stuff is in the cupboard, but it all looks more tasteless than usual. Eventually something sparks my enthusiasm again and I'm back on track with too much that I want to read asap and regretting how little time I have to read.<br />
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These slumps usually only last a few weeks, but the most recent one has been protracted -- really since Christmas, so close to three months now. I think I've finished about 4 books in that time, and I've cracked the spines of dozens of others, including all the "best of the year" books from 2011 that I got for Christmas and had been looking forward to. I'm not sure why this one is lasting longer than usual. Other things on my mind, I guess.<br />
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Anyway, I hopefully do feel it coming to an end. I've been putting in a lot more time reading the last few days. Not on a novel yet, but I've been tearing through a couple nonfiction books and worried about how they're still preventing me from getting to other things because they're so long.<br />
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<br />Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-37069130118949825652012-02-21T06:17:00.000-08:002012-02-21T06:19:55.993-08:00Beware the Interview with Beware The Hawk author A.J. O'Connell<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NilMdFCdocmZM5zdgDRCByAfQOS8HlHg1PGpasZQj3lmcPY2zedTJaBHjF3xM-PLpyScqxMzxkqf9-6ZUF2jx2l4xU4s0pQtvMxcf0SzifvMkLs5iWwhLT2x1JbQgTfl80BwYhqtjg/s1600/photo%25285%2529.JPG"><br /></a> <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirqs5IIjTx4Ds5TWuD4b31tuXfzFTWmIIn0ORiOK7lY776io-kPTG3ywlk9WQGWItGMOUXtdj5HMLcLofDlaVEQDJ9yzPKQcL5SWONL_uiQhKFQTdOWKBo1y-OD4EVFrhJBPh9vQh4EA/s1600/photo%25286%2529.JPG"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0_XoQdcOHERXMzy6Y9HYq0fQa4AhvKrXTrgtWeocdV1KJjH3yX42LE66zo40McbWqMJ35ZJNI6Odyq4ZBXr4Zkzf4TuBy58lxV6Sqtl0HKiWrG_xTl8q0Zi4Mg_TYL2nF30x110QhrA/s1600/bewarethehalk_kindle_610by400_72dpi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0_XoQdcOHERXMzy6Y9HYq0fQa4AhvKrXTrgtWeocdV1KJjH3yX42LE66zo40McbWqMJ35ZJNI6Odyq4ZBXr4Zkzf4TuBy58lxV6Sqtl0HKiWrG_xTl8q0Zi4Mg_TYL2nF30x110QhrA/s320/bewarethehalk_kindle_610by400_72dpi.jpg" style="cursor: move;" width="209" /></a><br />
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For the first time ever, <i>Working On A Novel </i>has a guest, someone who worked on a novel and got it published and is working on another novel. And she still agreed to be in a writing group with me.<br />
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A.J. O'Connell's recently published e-book, <i>Beware the Hawk</i> is about a snarky pink-haired courier who
works for a secret anti-government group and gets ensnared in a conspiracy involving her inept co-worker, a hot
mechanic, an iPhone and a leg injury. It was recently published by <a href="http://vagabondagebookscom.ipage.com/bookstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=45" target="_blank">Vagabondage Books</a>. <br />
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She's been all over blog world answering sensible questions about the book, but she's at the world's dorkiest writing blog now and has agreed to answer some dorky writing questions.<br />
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Welcome A.J. So tell us about the gear you use when you write. Number
two pencils? Dictaphone and personal secretary? Macbook Air?</div>
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Thanks for having me, Robert. <br />
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For the most part I use a battered
MacBook, which I've covered with stickers in defiance of Apple's
anti-sceptic aesthetic. There was a time when I did all my first-draft
writing longhand, but at some point in the '90s I found that I could
think better if I wrote on a computer. Originally I took to the computer
because I type faster than I write, and I was better able to keep up
with my thoughts. Now writing with the computer is a habit.<br />
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I use the laptop and Microsoft Word for most writing and drafting,
but sometimes it's impractical. Like when I'm in the shower. I'm like
Wally Lamb in at least this one respect: I get a lot of ideas in the
shower. So I have three diving slates that hang in there. They're little
pieces of white plastic with attached pencils. If I get an idea, I
scribble it down and then I transcribe it when the slate dries. They are
my favorite pieces of writing gear by far.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NilMdFCdocmZM5zdgDRCByAfQOS8HlHg1PGpasZQj3lmcPY2zedTJaBHjF3xM-PLpyScqxMzxkqf9-6ZUF2jx2l4xU4s0pQtvMxcf0SzifvMkLs5iWwhLT2x1JbQgTfl80BwYhqtjg/s1600/photo%25285%2529.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NilMdFCdocmZM5zdgDRCByAfQOS8HlHg1PGpasZQj3lmcPY2zedTJaBHjF3xM-PLpyScqxMzxkqf9-6ZUF2jx2l4xU4s0pQtvMxcf0SzifvMkLs5iWwhLT2x1JbQgTfl80BwYhqtjg/s400/photo%25285%2529.JPG" style="clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /> </a><br />
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I've talked before on this blog about my feeling that the energy I would use capturing every thought that comes along during the day doesn't actually help. Obviously, the writing slate, which is very cool, represents the
opposite theory -- capturing every thought when you have it. Do you
think it helps? Do all those notes help you get the job done? Also,
what's your hot water bill like? Can you use that as a tax deduction now
that you're a published writer? </div>
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Actually, I tend to agree with your "writing time is time to write
theory." I find that notes I scribble in the car or speak into a
recorder tend to be useless. I lose the notes, or the idea I took down
loses its <i>je ne sais quoi </i>because I wrote it down, and thus allowed it out of my head before it was fully developed. <br />
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The shower is a little different. It's my time for problem-solving.
When I get in there, my brain goes to work on trouble spots in my
fiction. I just took a look at my slates. They are covered with little
scenes and writing exercises and attempts to resolve plot and character
issues. Half of those scenes won't make it onto the computer, but a few
of those paragraphs will crack some major problems.<br />
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I don't know why the shower is such an effective writing tool. Maybe
it's because there are no distractions in there. Maybe it's the water. I
will admit to taking some long showers when I really get working on my
fiction, so I should probably check with our accountant about that hot
water bill. </div>
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Can you give an example of what you mean by "issues" or "problems"? I
know when I'm having a problem that I have to stew on, but I have
a hard time talking about that problem with another writer. For
all the anxiety that the growth of MFA programs has made this work too
crafty and technical, I feel like we still have a really limited
vocabulary for discussing the craft. I'm curious if you have any better
luck describing a problem in your work than I do.</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7NilMdFCdocmZM5zdgDRCByAfQOS8HlHg1PGpasZQj3lmcPY2zedTJaBHjF3xM-PLpyScqxMzxkqf9-6ZUF2jx2l4xU4s0pQtvMxcf0SzifvMkLs5iWwhLT2x1JbQgTfl80BwYhqtjg/s1600/photo%25285%2529.JPG"><br /></a><br />
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It depends on the problem. The most common problem I have with my work
is easy to describe, in broad terms. I call it The First Five. It's
plagued me for years. <br />
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It goes a little something like this:<br />
I
have a great idea for a story. I have two or three interesting
characters with compelling problems. I write about five pages of decent
story and then I lose direction. I have a hard time finding something to
drive the story after those first five pages. <br />
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Telling you why I have a hard time getting beyond those first five
pages is more difficult, because each story seems to have an individual
issue that stops me on page 5.<br />
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Recently you saw a story in our
writers' group that's giving me trouble. In that case, I couldn't get
beyond the first five because my protagonist has to make a big decision,
which is central to the story, but I don't know her well enough to know
what she would choose. This seems obvious, after a meeting of our
writers' group and a week or two of distance from the piece. But while I
was writing, it would be hard for me to step out of the creative
process, plunk a finger down on the page and say "<i>This</i> is what's wrong. This is why I can't go on." </div>
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Speaking of our writing group, you shared part of an earlier draft of <i>Beware The
Hawk </i>with us, and I remember one part that didn't appear in the
published version. Readers will see a funny description of
the Fung Wha bus, but you had a more extensive scene on the bus with
more of the funny. I'm not questioning the decision to remove that, but I'm curious to hear about the thinking behind it. Was it one of
those "kill your darlings" situations? How'd you feel about letting it
go? Was it your idea or your editor's to cut it?</div>
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Speaking of our writing group, indeed! It was your suggestion to cut that scene, Robert. </div>
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I
wrestled with the decision to axe those pages. Ultimately, I decided
that they didn't serve my story. As short as my book is, there was no
room for a long scene with no clear purpose.</div>
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I still have that scene, and other deleted scenes. I
may use them for marketing purposes, or for my web site, or for other
work. </div>
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Yikes, is that true? I don't remember, and I really didn't mean it as a
leading question! I hope I framed my advice more openly than that. Like think about
how this scene serves the story OR think about cutting it.</div>
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No worries! You were very professional about your advice, and you were
also correct - the pages needed to go. Also, now you know that I really
do take the advice I'm given during writing group. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">You imply that there was a practical
limit to how long it could be, which I wouldn't have expected with an
e-book. Am I wrong about that presumption? Was your publisher concerned
to keep it under a certain length?</span></div>
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There
are a couple of reasons that I referenced the length of the book. For one thing, the manuscript was solicited to be part of
Vagabondage Press's novella series, so to did have to stay at
novella/novelette size. <br />
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But when I wrote earlier that the cut scene was too long for the
size of the story, what I meant was that it wasn't proportional to the
rest of the work. I had written a short book, comprised of short scenes.
That first long scene disturbed the rhythm of the rest of the book. No
matter how much I loved it, it had to go. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">You and I have something in common -- experience working on newspapers. Do you agree with my theory that once you write for that kind of
regular deadline writer's block becomes a non-issue? (Writer's block is
kind of out of fashion anyway. You never hear writers complaining about
it anymore.) How has the experience of writing for newspapers affected
your process when doing your creative work? </span></div>
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Ah, you share this theory with Anna Quindlen and Kim McLarin. While I was studying for my MFA, I wrote a research paper about
reporters-turned-fiction writers and both authors mentioned this.<br />
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McLarin (who was my mentor, and who wrote <i>Jump at the Sun</i> and <i>Meeting of the Waters</i>)
made this great comment about words not being "precious" once you've
been a reporter, and I agree with her. When you're writing two or three
stories a day for a newspaper, you don't agonize over your language. Not
every word has to be perfect. Your job is to get the story right, to
have the story done by deadline and to make the story fit the space
allotted for it. <br />
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So I do agree, in part. As long as I have a deadline, I do not
experience writers' block, because I have the discipline to sit down in a
chair and work through the problems in my story. But if I don't have a
deadline, and haven't given myself one, I do experience something like
writer's block, although I think it might be more accurately described
as laziness, or an unwillingness to get into certain material. <br />
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Writing for a newspaper has also made me better at tight writing.
The job of a reporter is to tell a story with the fewest words possible.
I've always written short, but journalism helped me strengthen my short
prose.</div>
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This blog has an outsized preoccupation with what music should be
playing when I write. (Something, but not nothing. No vocals, because
that seems to distract me more than a melody alone. So it's usually
classical.) How about you?</div>
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I can't always listen to music while I'm writing - I'm easily distracted
- but music plays a very important part in my creative process,
especially when I'm in the early, dreaming stages of the writing
process. <br />
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Back in the day, I used to make mix-tapes of the songs that inspired
whatever daydream I was working on. Back then, I was a teenager, and I
spent a lot of time skulking around the neighborhood, listening to my
tapes on my Walkman, dreaming up whatever it was I was going to commit
to paper in the evening, when I was done with my homework. <br />
<br />
Now I have playlists on iTunes for many of my projects. When I'm
starting to work on a novel or a long story, I come up with a list of
songs that seem to capture the mood of the piece I'm working on. The job
of the playlist is to keep me in the world I'm creating. I actually
pulled out my old laptop and looked at an old playlist for <i>Beware the Hawk</i>.
It's not the original, which was on a CD or a mixtape and has been lost
in the mists of time, but the songs on this list include Moby's "Run
On," Supertramp's "Goodbye Stranger" and the Beatles' "Happiness Is a
Warm Gun," among others.</div>
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A lot of this blog obsesses on word counts and page counts, and I know
down to the word how quickly I write per hour and how many hours it took
to write a draft. How do you "measure" your work
while it's in progress? Do you want to share anything about your pace,
or do you find that counterproductive?</div>
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Wow. I don't do anything like that; I'm afraid that all the measurements
might distract me from the work. Also, there are days when I can't
produce much at all, and it would be depressing for me to compare those
days against my average.<br />
<br />
When I have a good, clear writing schedule (i.e., the summer), my
goal is to produce at least 500 words a day, a lá Graham Greene. I find
that having a goal of 500 words is attainable and not at all
intimidating. Sometimes it takes me all day to write 500 words, but
often when I set a 500-word goal for myself, I find myself producing two
or three times that amount. <br />
<br />
That, however, is during the best of times. <br />
<br />
This semester,
life has gotten hectic. I have more paid work to do during the day, and
my writing time has suffered. In an effort to boost my productivity, I
am trying something new: for the first 15 minutes of every day, I've
been writing longhand in a blank book. I set a timer and write. <br />
<br />
<i>Note: I started doing this last week, at some point during our interview, so I
wasn't lying for the first question, when I said I never write longhand
anymore.</i><br />
<br />
This has been working well so far. I often write
well past my 15 minutes. I've written much more in the last week than I
have in the last month, and I'm making progress on a short story. For
the sake of this question, I counted what I wrote in 15 minutes this
morning: just shy of 250 words. When I type them up later this week, I
know they will grow by at least another 100.</div>
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It's interesting that you "made a liar out of yourself" during
the few days we've been having this conversation by tinkering with your
process in a significant way. We operate with narratives about ourselves
-- I work best under pressure; I work best with a yellow shade over a
40-watt bulb three feet to my left; I can't work without without my
lucky penny -- but in reality we're always tinkering with our process
and our conditions trying to trick ourselves into writing for another
day.</div>
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It's true, we do create personal mythologies about how we work, when
really, if we're dedicated, we do whatever it takes to keep writing. </div>
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<br />
Another frequent subject of this blog is the books I draw lessons from. (<span style="font-style: italic;">Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Novel </span>by Jane Smiley; <span style="font-style: italic;">Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular </span>by L. Rust Hills; <span style="font-style: italic;">How Fiction Works </span>by James Wood; <span style="font-style: italic;">Writing Fiction </span>by Janet Burroway; <span style="font-style: italic;">Conversation with Toni Morrison</span>)
I've compacted these into a hardened dogma that I judge everything by.
Do you have similar resources that form the basis of how you talk to
yourself about your writing? (Do you talk to yourself about your
writing?)</div>
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It's funny that you mentioned craft books. Just last night I was
looking at my stacks and stacks of writing books and thinking about how I
never really use them. That's not true; I do read them, if I need
something specific from them. There are some books that I find to be
more useful than others. In general, I find it difficult to use craft
books. I read them and I make notes and
I dog-ear pages, and I then instantly forget the specifics of what I've
read, or which book it was in. <br />
<br />
More valuable to me as resources
are the lectures I've attended in grad school, and at conferences and
the handouts from grad school professors. I keep a file folder of
writing exercises, outlines, and notes from lectures. It's worth
mentioning here that I'm a synesthete, and that my own doodles during
lectures and notes (even the placement of the text on the page) help me
to organize information better than any craft book can.<br />
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<br />
I don't have a hardened dogma based on these resources. What I have instead is a rich mental compost comprised of all the craft
books I've read, all the lectures I've taken notes on and all the
interviews I've read or done with authors. I pull from that when I'm working. <br />
<br />
You
ask if I talk to myself about my writing. I like to talk to myself
about my writing, but I limit these conversations, because I feel they
are not always productive for me. At best, I distract myself from my
work with these discussions. At worst, I fear that I will create a
negative feedback loop which will keep me from being able to write
freely.</div>
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Though I've never discussed it explicitly, one of the running themes of
this blog from the beginning has been the challenge of being an
autodidact at writing fiction, homeschooling myself along the way as
best as I could. Your case is interesting because, while you got a MFA,
we're celebrating the publication of a book that was written prior to
that formal program. Tell us about your self-taught years versus your
MFA years.</div>
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This was a tough question to answer. It actually took me hours to think through this response.<br />
<br />
I don't think of
my pre-MFA years as being particularly self-taught. The study of writing
was never my focus. I've always considered myself to be a practicing
artist rather than a scholar. Because of this attitude, I spent a long
time avoiding the study of writing and simply wrote. <br />
<br />
This didn't work out very well for me, because I practiced my art in
a vacuum, or with a small group of other writers who were also
operating, more or less, in a vacuum. <br />
<br />
I worked - I participated
in National Novel Writing Month every year and produced work for writing
groups - but for the most part, I was spinning my wheels. I didn't
have good writing habits. I would experience bursts of productivity,
but the productivity was not sustained. I did write <i>Beware the Hawk </i>during that time, but I didn't finish it until after the MFA. <br />
<br />
I
mentioned that craft books don't
work well for me. In an attempt to correct my writing problems (not
being able to finish anything, not having direction, etc.) I accumulated
many craft books anyhow. I would read them but I wouldn't retain the
information, and I also wasn't sure which books deserved my attention. <br />
<br />
The only books that helped me were actual novels. When I had a good novel in my hands (John Steinbeck's <i>East of Eden </i>and John Gardner's <i>Grendel</i> spring to mind, as does <i>Shanghai Baby,</i>
by Wei Hui) my prose would improve and I would become more productive.
But there too, I had problems, because I wasn't sure which novels would
trigger this response. <br />
<br />
I discovered, after several years of this approach to writing, that
what I needed was to be apprenticed to a successful writer. Bill
Roorbach wrote a decent essay about this, called "On Apprenticeship,"
which was published in <i>Poets & Writers Magazine</i> in 1995. Like an artist or a dancer or a martial artist, I needed a master.<br />
<br />
My MFA provided that; for two years I worked with different mentors
who led by example, and who guided my reading, my writing, who were able
to give me suggestions about my habits, and point me to resources that
would help me with my specific problems. The formal education gave me
some context for the work I'd been doing. <br />
<br />
I still consider myself an artist, and I still put more weight on
practicing my art rather than studying it. The difference is this: now I
have a vocabulary to describe what I'm doing, I have a firmer knowledge
of craft and better writing habits. I know where to go for the guidance
I need and I'm a member of a large community of writers who are very
generous with their advice and expertise. <br />
<br />
I'm more committed to life as a writer now, and I also now consider
myself to be a legitimate author. Working with mentors who were living
and working as writers and teachers made me realize that a writerly life
was possible for me.<br />
<br />
I don't think writing, or any kind of art, can be taught. But it can be guided and put into context. </div>
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<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">What a fun coincidence that you mention </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-style: italic;">East of Eden</span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">.
As you may know, the format of this blog is inspired by the journal Steinbeck kept while he was drafting that novel. </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">I've been fascinated with it since I first discovered it 20 years
ago. It's definitely one of those "for fans only" artifacts. If you're
not intensely curious about either the writing process or the trivia of </span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif; font-style: italic;">East of Eden</span><span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;">,
it's deadly boring. But when I'm struggling, I get a kick out of seeing the Nobel prize winner at the height of his
confidence laid low by the trouble of finding a stationary store that
carries the exact
pencils he needs. It's 18-months of daily complaints I'm sure he
never intended anyone to read.</span><br />
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You've mentioned <i>Journal of a Novel </i>before, but I did not realize
that it was written while Steinbeck was working on <i>East of Eden</i>. I've
never read it, but since it's about the creation of a brilliant novel
(Wasn't writing an epic like that daunting? How did he make Cathy so
terrifying when we know so much about her?) and since it's influenced a
respected fellow writer, I am more than willing to pick it up. After
all, it's a journal, not a craft
book.</div>
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I'll loan it to you next
time I see you at writing group. One last question before we finish.
There are a lot of other cool things we could have discussed about your
new publication -- the experience of using an e-book publisher for
example -- but I imagine a lot of that is covered elsewhere. Please
share a few of your most recommended links to learn more about the book,
where to buy it, and where you've had a chance to answer some other
interesting questions.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_d406f5jJg9eKPDEI5QnxLPLbi74njiq3Z4uTXME91WgExMK4iHooa2FzUsit22IgrCnHHY6cCZRjGWBfxhG71t8vn_4hP2i4rvhsMX7MhVX1_WZURT3K2GoRKDZXxy5UkYDI99fhw/s1600/0018_IMG_9274_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhI_d406f5jJg9eKPDEI5QnxLPLbi74njiq3Z4uTXME91WgExMK4iHooa2FzUsit22IgrCnHHY6cCZRjGWBfxhG71t8vn_4hP2i4rvhsMX7MhVX1_WZURT3K2GoRKDZXxy5UkYDI99fhw/s320/0018_IMG_9274_2.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"></span><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">I am delighted to share some book-related links! You can find out more about the book over at </span><a href="http://ajoconnell.wordpress.com/beware-the-hawk/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" target="_blank">my blog,</a><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> where I shamelessly promote myself and my work. The book is available in three different formats (Kindle, Nook and PDF) at </span><a href="http://vagabondagebookscom.ipage.com/bookstore/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=45" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" target="_blank">my publisher's site</a><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">, and in many, many formats (from Sony Readers to Palm devices) at </span><a href="http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/119339" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" target="_blank">Smashwords</a><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">I've done a few interviews and guest posts since the book release, but</span><a href="http://www.booksdistilled.com/2012/02/16/author-interview-aj-oconnell/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" target="_blank"> one of my favorites</a><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> was with Brooke of Books Distilled. She posted a </span><a href="http://www.booksdistilled.com/2012/02/13/book-review-beware-the-hawk/" rel="nofollow" style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;" target="_blank">review</a><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">
of the book and then posted an interview based on the book a few days
later. That was a lot of fun, and made me feel like kind of a celebrity.
</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">This interview, however, has made me feel like a different kind of
celebrity altogether. I've always been enamored of the author interviews
done by the</span><i style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> Paris Review;</i><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> I love reading the long,
conversational interviews with writers like Ernest Hemingway, Joan
Didion and Hunter S. Thompson. Your comprehensive questions, and the
fact that we've been doing this interview over the course of eight days,
really does give it the air of an old time </span><i style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Paris Review</i><span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;"> interview, even if the interview has been done via email. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me. It's been a
pleasure, and you've made me re-examine my own thoughts about writing. </span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-40506540225293610152012-02-15T07:16:00.000-08:002012-02-15T07:16:41.024-08:00Drafting, plain and simple<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGDWfjawjl0_jedgIw88IV4cJG-b0-0lmOtkriAacnuByz4_3Ctz9GRCT2KRrsReFLmSoDNjGP5SjweUPZGjwEQNj9qwtKLa7qFTI2ych2Lhbn4q8TxB1bHXQOFeA378GMRNQ9oH5aw/s1600/DSCF6635.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeGDWfjawjl0_jedgIw88IV4cJG-b0-0lmOtkriAacnuByz4_3Ctz9GRCT2KRrsReFLmSoDNjGP5SjweUPZGjwEQNj9qwtKLa7qFTI2ych2Lhbn4q8TxB1bHXQOFeA378GMRNQ9oH5aw/s400/DSCF6635.JPG" style="clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
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Here's a picture of the new writing setup I described the other day. I like it quite a lot. It feels decedent somehow to be tipped back in a comfy chair with the keyboard in my lap. The recycled (and neutered) CPU, the new screen (very large to me but not to real technophiles) and the wireless keyboard -- a full-size and comfy keyboard that I can really jam on. (I hate the puny keyboards on laptops and I plug a full-size keyboard into my my main laptop when it's at home.)<br />
<br />
1,500 words today. I'm getting in a rhythm over the last week. I'm not convinced I write any faster this way, but it's working for me at a basic level, and it saves the time of retyping from manuscript. I can get in the zone and create. To the extent that I don't as much as I want to, that's a problem with the book and not with my writing conditions.<br />
<br />
I've been jumping around scenes in different parts of the book. That's setting me up for the problem that I was trying to avoid of having a first draft where it doesn't all hang together, but I can't figure out a way to keep going otherwise. I'm afraid of not keeping up some momentum and for the drafting to stall.<br />
<br />
I might call time out soon and go back just to my opening scenes and try to revise them seriously so that anything written subsequently is drafted under the influence of what I come to know about the book through that revision. That would sitting up in a proper desk chair, though, because I'll need to use a computer mouse to do that.<br />
<br />
<img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-723825286554177992012-02-14T17:16:00.000-08:002012-02-21T07:58:26.912-08:00Bulletin board problems and solutions<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoBi_rGeVkEdORrIjKWaZCzB1GbaqJsoeSg0NfaSddn8RVTD_c8vwfK7_HAvfV3M0vMNKPsmiHf4TW8eZVVyiwM8S9w_vdeFrITqzzzxOCuz-zPq4SnLgA8WrfuW67qhyphenhyphenBiROVBmWmw/s1600/DSCF6633.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZoBi_rGeVkEdORrIjKWaZCzB1GbaqJsoeSg0NfaSddn8RVTD_c8vwfK7_HAvfV3M0vMNKPsmiHf4TW8eZVVyiwM8S9w_vdeFrITqzzzxOCuz-zPq4SnLgA8WrfuW67qhyphenhyphenBiROVBmWmw/s400/DSCF6633.JPG" style="clear: both; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px;" /></a><br />
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<br />
<i>Update: See the note at the bottom about how this went wrong after this was posted and how I rethought the design.</i><br />
<br />
Pictured here is my attempt to make my own extra large bulletin board
on the cheap. I think it looks pretty good if you ignore the fact that
there's no bottom border to it because I miscalculated how much ribbon I
would need and haven't got back to the store yet. Another quibble is
with the color. On its own, I think the color and the border look good,
but hanging in this particular room with the too dark paint I have in
here, it makes things pretty gloomy. Doing it again, I would try to find
a fabric a little lighter blond. I could also have tried for a colorful
fabric or a patterned fabric, but I don't have enough confidence in my
design skills to have tried that. We're talking about 15 square feet,
and something too adventurous would have been very noticeable. I choose
this fabric because it most resembled the shade and texture of actual
cork board, and I figured that was a safe starting point.<br />
<br />
The
fabric is covering a big 3 x 5 piece of cardboard. 2-ply of it
actually. It's two sides of a box that a file cabinet was delivered in.
The box wasn't banged up much, so that when I sliced off one side with a
box knife and trimmed were it was crunched, I lost about a half inch
around. I used a t-square and yardstick to square it more or less. The
ribbon on the edges hides where it's not even. Then I used that one
piece to trace and cut out a piece on the opposite side of the box. I
glued those together with plain school glue. I wanted 2-ply so I
wouldn't be worried about the thumbtacks driving all the way through,
and it gives it a nice amount of heft. Once I had the fabric I used a
staple gun around the back. The staples don't work very well in
cardboard, but with enough of them there isn't too much pull on any one.
To keep the fabric from bunching, I went in a cross cross pattern when
stapling -- 12 o clock, 6, 3, 9, 1, 7, 4, 10, etc. Then I wrapped the
ribbon -- 1 1/2 in wide in my design -- around the edges and stapled
them.<br />
<br />
The hard part was figuring out how to hang it. I
have plenty of picture hanging hardware and figured it would be easy to
use spare parts from that, but it turns out those all depend on putting
threaded screws into the wood of a picture frame, and that doesn't work
with cardboard. My first few workarounds failed, and the whole mess fell
down a couple times. I decided I needed something long and flat that I
could tape down to distribute the weight and then the hanger, whether
wire or a hook, would be attached to that. I ended up with those two
elements in one piece. I took 1 of the 2 silver metal levers off a large
black binder clip. I gave it a little bend so the closed end would stick
out from the lateral surface of the back of the cardboard. Then I
applied a crisscross of long strips of packing tape over the prongs so
they were held in place on the cardboard and the closed end was exposed.
Which I then simply hung on a nail. (Don't forget to drill that pilot
hole, of course. No point in screwing up the plaster.)<br />
<br />
Total
cost, about $17 with the ribbon and 3 yards of fabric I chose. And it
should look like a nice bulletin board once I get that other 5 feet of
ribbon I forgot. (Naturally, they'll be sold out of that color or
pattern when I get back to the store, and I'll have to start over.)<br />
<br />
Why
I needed a giant bulletin board . . . that should be obvious by looking
at it. I have only the barest sense of what might go in the first draft
of my novel, and this is already covered. I don't feel like I have any
wiggle room to move stuff around or to make my outline any more
detailed.<br />
<br />
Getting to this point has been a little bit
of a saga. Let's just say that I strongly recommend against the
miserable squares of cork they sell at office supply stores with little
scraps of adhesive tape. Every morning I woke up to find more bits of my
novel littering the floor, and my closet door is covered with the
remains of the awful adhesive.<br />
<br />
<u>Update</u><br />
Whoops. Attaching anchors with packing tape didn't work after all. Nor did duct tape. It's fallen down about 5 times now. In short, whether I'm using a hook or a wire, attaching it to the flat back surface of the cardboard doesn't work. I'm figuring out belatedly that I need to be working with both sides of the cardboard or -- possibly -- with 2-plyness of it. The most elegant solutions should have been done before I attached the fabric or before I glued the two pieces of cardboard together. Put another way, I should have designed all of it before starting to build it.<br />
<br />
So I've got a less than elegant solution going now, which should be easy for someone else to improve on. Basically, I have two holes punched through the cardboard and fabric with anchors on the front attached to wire running through to the back. In my case, the two objects are . . . . binder clips again! Brass ones that match the color okay. The two clips appear to levitate alongside the vertical surface of the board and, in theory, they add extra functionality.<br />
<br />
Binders clips is what I happened to have. Another option that occurred to me is decorative drawer pulls, which could be used to hang things from. I suppose if I wandered the aisles of an office supply store other ideas would occur to me. Large rings like flashcards with holes punched in them are strung on. Maybe a pair of some kind of small white board as long as they had their own firm anchors on the back.<br />
<br />
Another possibility -- if the fabric hadn't been stapled on yet -- is something that goes under the fabric and isn't functional. My wife suggested the brass brads that we used to use to bind loose leaf paper. Punch those through from the back and fold the arms flat on the front side, then twist the picture wire around the head of the button on the back. Do they even sell those brads anymore?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 50% transparent; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-45580664008287650932012-02-13T07:20:00.000-08:002012-02-13T07:20:32.860-08:00Realism and the fantastical offshoots1,000 words today. I'm settling into the routine of composing on the computer with my new set up. It doesn't seem to be any faster for now. I feel like I go back and revise a lot more. Maybe because writing longhand is slower I get the words closer to right as I'm going along than I do when I'm typing. We'll see.<br />
<br />
I've been thinking about my struggles with this book and the seed of a theory came to me this morning. On the one hand, my comfort zone is 20th-century realism. Everything I write tends to get heavy fast. On the other hand, my idea for this book -- and my wish for it -- is something more playful. I won't say more energetic -- because, done right, realism should have a lot of energy to it from the emotional stakes -- but I want this to get its energy from other sources. More fun sources maybe.<br />
<br />
Does that mean I want something less dark? No. I don't equate realism with dark, and I don't particularly want to avoid having it get dark. But I do want it to be fun along the way.<br />
<br />
I love magical realism and entertain the idea sometimes of ginning up a project that would use its techniques in a setting and sensibility that makes sense for me. But this project isn't it.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I wish I was a fantasy writer. It would be fun just to have a monster or alien rear its head up and keep my characters from too much navel-gazing. But that would be cheating in a way if it weren't integral with what else I'm doing. Integrity is a concept I've been thinking a lot about lately. I don't mean it in the modern sense of having values or being moral upright or being honest. I mean it in a sense that is connected to the related word of integrated. The parts of a story should be in alignment with one another -- an idea I think I got from L. Rust Hills. Put another way, it's not enough for a piece of writing to be good, it must work according to the rules established elsewhere in the story and it must work in concert with the other elements of the story. The character should pressure the plot should escalate the theme should reveal the setting should pressure the character and so on. Going too far with my longing for the fantastical would be a form of escapism in a destructive sense. It wouldn't have integrity.<br />
<br />
Yet the longing is there. I suppose another way of thinking about it is the traditions of the grotesque and the gothic. Aberrant elements in an otherwise recognizable world. And I do have some of that going on in my story already. But that still doesn't get to the longing for playfulness so much.<br />
<br />
The touchstone I keep returning to is <i>Kavalier and Clay</i>. I love the way it mixes high seriousness -- including the evolving interior emotional space of fully developed, human, complex characters -- with flirtations with the fantastic, including comic books and magical and spiritual folklore. Early in the book when Joe climbs the fire escape and we see it through Sammy's eyes and he appears to fly up it like a superhero, I'm not sure what to think there. Does Joe break the laws of physics? Does Sammy hallucinate it? Is this an example of Sammy's overexcited imagination? The uncertainty right there of whether or not we're staying in a realist frame is part of the fun of the story, and forever after I keep waiting for the comic book characters to come to life off the pages that the realist characters are drawing.<br />
<br />
Well, I'm gibbering here, because I'm struggling with something, but I have the sense that the thing I'm struggling with is key to finding the heart of the book I'm working on. I'm looking not for the fantasy mode but the fantastical offshoots within realism. How to create it and how to sell it.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-79297080708329901352012-02-11T06:08:00.000-08:002012-02-11T06:08:05.970-08:00Internet and research<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
Yesterday, while writing at my new
set up, I ran into one of the first occasions where there would have been some benefit to
having the internet handy, and I thought it was an interesting
illustration of how much things have changed in the last few years. I’ve
noticed before how often I rely on Wikipedia and Google for a quick search
for something – a confirmation of a detail, a quick lesson on some technical
matter to make sure I have the vocab right. (What did we used to do?) That definitely speeds things up,
though arguably it makes a writer more focused on technical issues than on
getting into the imaginative space where some real magic can happen.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
Yesterday as I was drafting I came to a spot where I wanted
to use a real-life song title. I had a sense of the era and style and also of
the rhythm of the language that would fit. My recent custom would have been to
google “pop hits of 19__,” click a link that looked like it would provide a
list, quickly scan the list until I found a title I liked for my purposes
and then get back into my draft and kept going.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
But, now, no internet. So,
instead, I was up and out of my chair wandering around the house looking for
reference books and CDs that could help. (I don’t do a very good job of keeping
my library organized.) It so happens that I have a coffee table book called
“The American Songbook.” (Not actually on the coffee table, natch. I used big books like that as subject dividers in my LP collection.) And after thumbing through that for a few seconds I
was back at work. That’s case was a lucky break. It’s not the Library of Congress in
here or anything, so I imagine there will be a lot of times when I don't have the book I need and I’ll just have to
make a note on research to be done later. Like writers used to do before the
internet, I guess.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;">
Also yesterday, I did not check my
email while I was writing or check Facebook or watch any funny videos or tweak my
Pandora station. I just wrote. Itching all the while to turn around and turn on my main computer so I could do those things, or get on blogger and tell this goofy story, but not actually doing it. Until now. But now is not my writing time, so I'm cool.</div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-11918801635679514702012-02-09T07:04:00.000-08:002012-02-09T07:04:57.094-08:00The neutered computer at last<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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I developed a new set up for
myself over the last week. I got a recycled CPU which I have neutered so that
it can’t get on the internet or do anything else really except MS Word. (I’m
considering loading music files from my other computer to this so I can play
the kind of background music that I find helpful, but now that I think of it, I
guess there are no speakers of any kind, good or bad, in this set up.) I
replaced the very old CRT style monitor with a new flat screen, 20-inches. It
was the cheapest one in the store and not state of the art, but it’s the nicest
one I’ve ever had, and I can see this word doc from across the room. (Which is
key to this next part.) And I upgraded from the original old keyboard to a new wireless
keyboard, which is f-ing amazing. It’s not state of the art, either. It’s about
the cheapest one I could get that is wireless and that has a wrist pad. (Essential.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Here’s where it gets really cool.
My regular reading chair in my office, about a body’s length away from the desk
where this computer sits, is a comfy IKEA chair without arm rests and with a
little spring to it. I have a footstool, also. I am now sitting in that chair
with the wireless keyboard comfortably in my lap with my legs comfortably up
and my eyes comfortably tracking this on a screen that is about 6 feet away. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I’ll use a thumb drive to
transfer this over to the computer that is on the internet. That’s not
practical for something I would need to do regularly, but for working on my
book, it makes more sense. I envision composing this way instead of by longhand
from here on out. Faster composing, and it cuts out the retyping entirely. I don't know for sure that I'll be able to make that change. Composing longhand is a long habit.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Most importantly, whether I’m
composing or retyping from manuscript or working on rewrites and revisions, I
won’t be able to get on the internet! Which is a good thing. I’ve
strongly desired this for a couple years and am so glad to have finally arranged it.</div>Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-91002871713082477972012-01-18T07:19:00.000-08:002012-01-18T07:19:37.934-08:00Returning to "second" bookThis week marks my return to working on the book I set aside about 18 months ago to work on the children's book. This one was at one time known as the second book, but it hardly exists at all and the book I wrote in the meantime is in fact the second one I ever actually finished. Someday there will be first and second books that gets published, which won't correspond with this order either, and my reading public will understand my first and second books to be different ones entirely.<br />
<br />
Well, for perversity's sake, in this journal at least, which is supposed to be in the spirit of how I talk to myself about my writing, I'll keep using the terms that feel right when I talk to myself. I'm working on my second book now. For the second time. That's how I think of it, and to hell with what makes sense.<br />
<br />
I don't recall how much I've shared about it before. For the record. It's an adult novel, not children's. I started working in the sense of making notes on it in Sept. of 2009. I started working in the sense of drafting just about 2 years ago in Jan. of 2010 when I was overseas for extended period. That went very poorly for about 9 months and then I started working on the children's book. (i.e the third book.) I returned to work in the sense of making a lot of notes and thinking about it a lot a couple months ago, and my goal was to return to drafting this week. Which I am, though it's been a less than wonderful start. More on that in another post.<br />
<br />
As in the past, I don't like sharing too much of the plot in this space, but I guess the working title doesn't give too much away. Let be known hereafter as Backroom Records.<br />
<br />
Here is an arbitrary and therefore tentative timeline. I'm going to aim for 150 working days, which is about 7.5 months. Let's say August 31 is my intended deadline for a first draft. Before the fall semester begins. That's based on a really wild guess that I need about 150,000 words of new material and a feeling that I'm going to average about an hour of writing a day. There's no reason to think that any of these estimates will hold up for even a week, but it helps me to have them.<br />
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I can say this: it feels to me like it should be a long book. So I'm starting off by giving it one good reason never to be published, and that's just one of the ways I'm trying to make myself worry more about the writing than anything else.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-51014133745859732932011-09-16T14:36:00.000-07:002011-09-16T14:36:25.977-07:00Draft 7 revisionsTypically once the book is typed in a revision of a draft involves marking up a complete print out and then inputting all those changes into the electronic copy. I'm on the second half of that cycle now creating what I call the seventh draft.<br />
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This draft is going well, I think, but definitely a lot slower than I predicted. I thought I would have it done by the beginning of September, and it looks like I'll be about 3 weeks off. It's the first half of the cycle that was slow. Inputting the changes is, on the one hand, more tedious, but on the other hand, doesn't take the kind of creative energy that is available only in small doses. Today, for example, I put in about 5 hours versus 2 on normal working days. I feel exhausted, for sure, and am looking forward to the weekend. If I didn't have paying work to worry about, I'd probably finish up in one more long day. I do have a lot of distractions, though, at exactly the wrong time.<br />
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Judging by the pace over the last few days -- about 20 pp/hour -- I guess I have about 6-7 hours left. It's just a question of when I can get those hours.<br />
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So, when I'm done with this draft, what does that mean? I should know better than to try and answer that question. Every draft feels like it has to be the last one until I get a little distance from it and start to see a less rosy reality. But I feel like this draft is the last one.<br />
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I have a roster of readers lined up, and I'll distribute it to them. And in the meantime I'll probably start working on summaries and pitch letters and researching agents.<br />
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So, I guess I'm about a week from this book being done enough to consider sending it out. Yikes.<br />
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I really am very tired.<br />
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<br />Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-69685271921426682512011-08-25T07:54:00.000-07:002011-08-25T08:06:14.252-07:00Summer reportIs that the longest layoff from this journal yet? Shame on me. There has been plenty going on that I could have written about.
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<br />The summer wasn't super productive. I had a real crisis with my first book, which I had planned to revise over the summer. I spent a lot of time on a completely new book idea. I had a few meetings of my writing group. I waited around a lot for my readers to get back to me on the "current" book -- the children's book. And I've launched into the revisions of that book.
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<br />Where it stands now . . . I continue to have problems with the opening, but it keeps getting better with each attack, I think. Of course, I always think I've found the solution with each draft and then get knocked down again. I'm set up for another knock down now.
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<br />After the opening, I feel like the book is in strong shape. I'm reading it through on paper and making revisions, and it looks like all sentence-level sharpening. Nothing major needed. Except for that damn opening.
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<br />That work is going slower than I expected, and I'm busy with other things, so I'm behind the schedule I set for myself. In fact, I was supposed to be done tomorrow. But I think it will be at least 2 more weeks, maybe more.
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<br />I call this the 6th draft, but as I've said before, the dividing line between one draft in another is mostly arbitrary.
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<br />The other thing I could talk about is the feedback I'm getting, particularly from child readers for the first time, but I'll save that for another post.
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<br />And the other thing I could talk about is some of the good books I've read as part of my ongoing learning about children's literature. I'll say just one thing now: Cynthia Voigt. How could I not have known about her before? I am so jealous of her talent.
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<br />Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-14040433331543664912011-05-19T12:51:00.000-07:002011-05-19T13:25:30.601-07:00Using Lulu to print copies for feedbackI'm trying something that might appear a little self-aggrandizing or precious but that I really think makes sense. I'm using one of the new online vanity/self-publish/print-on-demand services to print drafts of my books for my readers to comment on instead of just printing out the typescript.<br /><br />After comparing prices and other factors I decided to use Lulu.com. What I should be getting in the mail in about a week is a few copies of a trade-paperback size version of my novel, formatted with margins customary for trade size, front and back, and perfect bound. I'm expecting to be pretty cheap-looking, on the cheapest possible paper with one of their boilerplate cover designs. (I could have taken the time to design or have designed a better cover, and I could pay more for premium paper.)<br /><br />The first major reason I decided to go with this method is price plus convenience. My 294-page typescript at $.9/pg cost almost $30 to print at the copy shop, plus between $6-13 to mail it to a reader if they don't live nearby. Plus the cost of a mailer or the hassle of finding a box in the basement to pack it in. It's almost always at least two trips in the car.<br /><br />Lulu prints it for around $10. (In the layout I chose, it comes to 234 pages.) Shipping is $5 on the low end for one copy. The big drawback is that I might lose a week -- still to be seen -- waiting for it to be printed and mailed. I sprung for some faster and more expensive shipping, and even with that it is a savings. Plus they have lots of different coupons floating around for percent off the order or free shipping over a minimum amount. I ended ordering 3 copies to be sent to me to hand deliver to readers nearby and another single copy to be mailed directly to another reader. Hopefully everyone will have them in their hands by this time next week. I might have lost a little time through this method, and maybe I'll end up thinking the week was more important than the $100 or whatever I saved.<br /><br />The second major reason I decided to go with this method is because I have a hunch it will actually help my readers give me better feedback. For naive readers who don't normally work with draft typescripts, having a ream of copy paper dropped in their laps might be intimidating, and I think that might affect how they read it. It might be even more of a factor with children, which is an issue with some of my readers, since it's a children's book.<br /><br />For example, I often coach my "naive" readers on how to develop feedback and give it, since they might be afraid to say anything critical. One of the ways I do that is to ask them to imagine that they are reading a real published book that they paid $15 for. Then I ask them to mark in the margin as they go along whenever they become aware that they are not in fact reading a published book -- where the illusion is broken. When you're reading 300 pages of single-sided copy paper, which looks more like homework than a book, it's harder to get into the illusion to begin with. Children might not understand that this thing is supposed to be a book instead of a chore.<br /><br />This is all just a crazy theory. I have no idea if it's really true. But it just makes sense to me somehow that the more I can create the familiar experience of reading a book, the better feedback I'll get on it.<br /><br />The process is maybe is just slightly time consuming, but not in a way that I mind. I had to download a template for the book size I chose. Then I pasted the typescript in there. Then I did some fussing with where the formatting I had didn't carry over. (Usually where it involves margins; I had to re-center the chapter titles.) I full justified the margins, fiddled with the line spacing. (I know for professional designers, this is a key issue, and I didn't really know what I was doing, so I just guessed. Same with the type size.) Assuming any future revisions happen in my usual typescript, then I'll have to redo all this work to update what is getting printed by Lulu.<br /><br />Then I wrote a kind of intro letter explaining what this thing was. That replaced the memo I usually include with the printed typescript to focus the comments from my readers. Then I uploaded it to the website, which involved creating an account for myself -- careful to make the project private instead of for sale to the public. Then I designed the cover. Select from one of the template styles. Select a color. Select a layout. Type in the title and other info. (I have a draft summary, so I pasted that on the back cover like you would see on a paperback.) None of this needed to take much time, but I indulged myself in making it look as good as I could. I even played with having a cover illustration by doing a quick search on google images, saving one, uploading it Lulu and pasting it onto my cover.<br /><br />It occurs to me that there's a third benefit to this. I've found that just the act of printing out my book in the past forces me to imagine how other people must see it, which fires up different critical faculties and helps me see it in a new light. Same for putting it in the mail to someone or just knowing that it's in someone else's possession. With this I think just seeing my work perfect bound with wide margins, etc. -- impersonating a book, basically -- will make me see it in a different light and give me some ideas about what else it needs.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-32791126930701860872011-05-19T12:19:00.000-07:002011-05-19T12:51:07.785-07:00Done . . . in a senseAs I've said before, the lines drawn between drafts are arbitrary, and the "finish line" itself is somewhat arbitrary. I won't really think of it as done until it gets accepted for publication, the publisher is no longer accepting input from me and it goes to press. But right now -- since yesterday morning -- I do think of the book as done in an important sense, though that other finish line is still a long way away.<br /><br />One, I finished what I was calling the fifth draft. In getting through that I probably had some of my lowest moments. For about two weeks straight I did nothing but go over the first four chapters repeatedly trying to deal with the preface/exposition/starting problems that I wrote about earlier. It was a lot of heavy rewriting and revising, printing it out, discovering it wasn't working and trying again. I was convinced I had written a catastrophic weakness into the opening, but I finally found the solution I was looking for, and I finally got my wife's approval of it.<br /><br />Second, I finished up addressing every problem in the book I know how to identify on my own without sending it out in the world to some more amateur or novice readers and to hear what they think. By amateur or novice readers, I mean people who didn't see it in earlier drafts (e.g. not my wife), or people who I'm not expecting to coach me on the next draft (not other writers). It's ready for purely readerly responses -- including from child readers, since this is a children's book. I have some readers like this lined up and have set in motion the wheels that will put the work as-is in their hands for a response.<br /><br />Of course, their feedback will lead to more work and the first of hopefully very few additional drafts, but I can't help thinking of this as crossing a threshold that, while not meeting the strict definition of "done," feels like it deserves the badge anyway.<br /><br />And I met my timeline, too. Back in January when I was starting the rewriting and revision process, I anticipated that it would happen in fewer drafts in name but with essentially this kind of work in character, and my goal was to achieve that before the end of the college semester. Yesterday afternoon is when I collected final materials from my students. Later that afternoon I handed a printout of the typescript to one of my readers.<br /><br />That means it took just about 8 1/2 months exactly with breaks and it almost exactly coincided with the academic year. As noted before, I forgot to record my exact start date, but it was approximately Sept. 1, 2010. The drafting vs. rewriting was split almost exactly down the middle. The first draft was done 4 months and a week after I started.<br /><br />For the record, it is now 294 pages (with front matter) and 70,355 words. I had it down close to my goal of 65,000 words at one point. In the last few drafts it yo-yo'd between 66k and 71k. The last revisions I made in the last week pushed it up about 2k to the current. I'm not too worried about it being too long. 65k was a good goal, but 70k doesn't read too long I think. In general, I think it reads pretty fast. I was aiming for what I imagined to be a sixth-grade reading level, and I think I shot a little low. And, apart from the technical reading level, I think it's pretty punchy. It's certainly dialogue heavy, which always reads faster.<br /><br />I'm not sure when the whatever is next will be. It will surely take a few weeks at least and probably half the summer to hear back from some of these readers. I'm sure it will be good for the work to let it sit as long as possible. I probably ought to have let it sit more during the revisions so far than I did. Of course, I'm eager to get going to the next stage, but I guess I'm feeling less impatient than I have between other drafts. It feels kind of like graduation day and the start of a deserved summer break, not least because of the coincidence with the academic calendar, and I'm not looking for excuses to start draft 6 tomorrow.<br /><br />The schedule for the next step will be partly determined by the other project that I plan to focus on during the first month of the summer. More on that another time.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-31953869793051153212011-05-09T07:53:00.000-07:002011-05-09T08:06:44.334-07:00Aarrgghh!So frustrated.<br /><br />My supposed solution to the opening didn't survive even a glance from my wife. The flashback, even with the bright lines of chapter breaks around it, feels too confusing still.<br /><br />So I'm making another run at combinations of previously rejected solutions. One, I just cut out the preface. Two, the book starts with Chapter 1 in the present action. Three, "essential parts" of the preface are woven into the first chapter as exposition and flashback, hopefully without too much sense of interruption. Four, the major scene from the preface is salvaged almost in its entirety by putting it in a spot later on Chapter 3 where I had never considered it before.<br /><br />The result, so far, by the way, is reduction of about 1,200 words. I guess that must be the sum of the preface that didn't cut pasted in anywhere.<br /><br />It's a messy patch job for now, and I have no real sense of whether or not it works. Does the book get to the action soon enough? (Which was the whole point of having the preface.) Does the escalation of the character's understanding of her problem still move at the right pace? Does the interplay of internal and external conflict still work? Does it even make sense anymore at a literal level?<br /><br />And my careful balance of the chapter lengths . . . gone. Ch. 3 is now 19 pages.<br /><br />I'm a little bit exhausted by the work. And I'm not feeling great about having to do it. I want this problem to be behind me so badly.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-83158784853473543712011-05-06T04:54:00.001-07:002011-05-06T05:16:08.671-07:00Starting draft 5, struggling with openingIt's been an eventful week. My wife read the complete book, as I wrote about earlier, and my new writing group had its first meeting. I'll write about the mechanics and the vibe of that some other time, but it was really really nice to talk seriously about our work together.<br /><br />The important thing for now is that they read and commented on the first 20 pages. As it happens, those were positioned as Ch. 1 and Ch. 2 when I gave it to them and as Preface and Ch. 1 when I gave them to my wife. I've talked about my trouble getting the story started, and unfortunately this experiment showed no difference in that positioning. Both versions read with the same "start/re-start" problems.<br /><br />So this morning -- the official beginning of my work on draft 5 -- I've been trying to tackle that, and it's not going great. First, I tried just cutting the preface to do without it. (I start another "experiment" doc in these cases and when I settle on something paste the result back into my main doc. ) That idea was no good, because there's stuff in the preface I really need. I tried changing where in the timeline of the story the preface event happens -- so it's during the present action and basically the second or third major episode instead of prefatory in tone or placement. That creates a bunch of other problems, though. I tried cutting it but blending in the stuff I didn't want to lose as exposition in pieces, but that takes us out of scene too much in the Chapter 1/present action.<br /><br />Finally, I tried just swapping the preface (which, if I haven't made this clear, takes place two years before the main story) with Chapter 1. So the preface is called Chapter 2 and is basically an extended interruption/flashback from Chapter 1. Then there's a hard chapter break and we resume the story back in the present with Chapter 3, f.k.a. Ch. 2.<br /><br />Described that way, it sounds awful, but so far that looks like the best solution. It's certainly the most intelligible. I'm going to let it sit and see if I can get feedback from my wife on it. I really only did a patch job, so if I go with this, it will require some a lot of revision to straighten out detail consistency and redundancies.<br /><br />If this doesn't work, then what I'll need to do is not just rewrite the opening but completely re-envision it -- not a job I'm anxious to do. If my students could see me now, they'd be getting a chuckle, because it looks like I'm evading the kind of hard work that I've been haranguing them to do.<br /><br />I have a feeling this is mostly going to be set to stew over the rest of the weekend without much actual work. That's OK. I need some more distance on it before really tackling the next draft. I just wish I was able to work on two novels at once so I could keep myself busy with the time I have.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-26442509915009918982011-05-02T07:45:00.000-07:002011-05-02T08:00:00.101-07:00Done with fourth draftI'm calling an end to the fourth draft and doing the "save as" and "create a new folder" and all that stuff to establish the fifth draft, which I'll start soon.<br /><br />These are really arbitrary boundaries between one boundary and another. For example, during the "fourth draft" I went all the way through the manuscript twice. How is that not two different drafts? It has something to do without how much of a mental reset I'm doing. I guess a lot of the time, the stuff I'm doing on the second time through is stuff that I was aware needed to be done and that I postponed, so I consider it part of the same workload. I'm just not doing it in perfect sequential order. Like if a page needs for a paragraph to be added, a decision about whether to change a character's name, close fine editing of the sentences that are there and a read to see if there's a way that I can punch up the language, I might have the energy to focus on about half of that on one pass through and leave the other half for later. But since I was aware of all of it, I think of it as work on the same draft. Then, at a certain point, I either am aware of no problems any more or aware only of problems that I feel like I need some psychic distance from in order to tackle, then I feel like I'm moving from one draft to another.<br /><br />That's where I am now. One major thing that has happened is that my wife read the entire typescript, front to back, for the first time over the weekend. (She had heard me read the first draft aloud as it was written and had looked at specific sections as I struggled with revision.) Discounting some for her bias, she has me convinced that I'm close to finished. The changes she outlined are not a lot of work, so my plan is for draft 5, whenever I get to it, to be a very short process and to look not terribly different from draft 4. (There were probably more differences between the two different passes of draft 4.) I have another reader lined up and I want to get it into their hands within a couple weeks if I can.<br /><br />I'm also getting feedback this week from my writer's group, but that's only on a small section of it.<br /><br />If I'm lucky, I'll get in three working days this week, but I don't know.<br /><br />In any case, by not exactly the route I had planned, I'm getting to the destination in about the timeline I had hoped for last January -- to have it "done" by the end of this semester, which is in about 2 1/2 weeks. That's assuming I don't discover a crisis during work on the draft 5.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-7982928928939329982011-04-28T10:58:00.000-07:002011-04-28T11:11:40.884-07:00Regulating the chaptersSo far this week the work has gone like I planned it. Two days off for other stuff, and two days on the book. I worked on that troublesome section like I planned -- on paper and then on the screen -- and since then have been sweeping up other messes.<br /><br />Mainly I've been following through on some ideas for how the chapters are organized. I think a couple drafts ago I noted that I had chapters as short as 4 pages and as long as 22. I got things a lot better organized than that awhile ago, but I still have as of now a range of 8 to 18, with a bigger stronger cluster around 11 pages. Before this morning I had gotten it down from 32 chapters to 27 chapters.<br /><br />I had been considering the idea that my first chapter should really be positioned as a preface, and I made that change today. In addition to renumbering everything, it meant fussing a little with the tone in the openings of the preface and the new chapter 1.<br /><br />And I had been considering re-slicing the breaks between some other chapters, which I went ahead with today. That leaves me with 24 numbered chapters plus the preface for a total of 25.<br /><br />Meanwhile, every time I make these changes, I'm revising my outline. Too OCD, maybe, but it makes me feel better to know it's up to date. It includes details on page-length of each chapter, which changes whenever I combine or break chapters.<br /><br />Thus I know the spread that I detailed above, and I know the flow is much more regulated. It also shows me some opportunities for revision. I had two chapters that are 18 pages long. They weren't necessarily too long, but that seemed as good a place to start with shortening the book as any. I tackled one of them and knocked out 3 pages and 1,000 words this afternoon. I plan to try the same with the other tomorrow. That would mean every chapter is between 8 and 15 pages, which seems really nifty.<br /><br />That's tomorrow, and the end of the week, and then . . . I don't know. I'm getting close to printing it out again for a fresh read and/or to share with my next reader. Maybe it's time.<br /><br />With all my revising, the total had crept up to 71,600 words. I'm at 70,600 words now. I doubt that I'll get it back down to my original goal of 65,000 words, but I plan to close the gap some.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-30101128962337145572011-04-22T06:46:00.000-07:002011-04-22T06:53:57.279-07:00Done, but not really, with fourth draftIf I was kidding myself, I could claim to be done with this draft. Only in the sense that I turned through the last page of the printed out typescript and entered the changes marked there into my newest computer file. But like I was thinking about yesterday, what I really did was push through to the end on the superficial stuff so I can circle back around to focus on some harder stuff. I think I'll do that after breaking for the weekend. Actually a little longer because of some distractions from my paying work. I'll pull out the relevant chapters and just read them with as fresh a perspective as I can.<br /><br />After that, I'm not sure, but I I'd like to see if I can find sentence level improvements before calling an end to this draft. I'll have to think about it. And there's always a certain amount of sweeping up to do of miscellaneous notes and corrections. Gotta check for consistency on the name of the character remaining when I combined two. Stuff like that. Renumbering the chapters. Anyway, I doubt it will be more than another week total.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-25439216252395108092011-04-21T08:09:00.001-07:002011-04-21T08:13:18.109-07:00ImpatientI have about 45 pages to go to get through my notes on this draft, but I don't see it happening before the end of this week. I'm in a section that needs more careful attention, and I find that I keep neglecting it because I'm always impatient to get done when I'm at this stage. I need to slow down and take each part of it fresh, one day at a time and not to try to force it. It's too easy to talk myself into accepting the material as it is instead of pushing myself.<br /><br />I have an idea that I could fix that process problem by going ahead and pushing through to the end of the draft and then returning specifically to this section -- printed out fresh to read with a clear mind -- instead of starting at the beginning and working my way up to this section when I'm in a state of exhaustion and impatience. Maybe I'll try that.<br /><br />Funny the mind games a writer has to play with themselves to sneak up on the work.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-85504886471626622682011-04-19T08:24:00.000-07:002011-04-19T08:32:22.873-07:00A little slowerI hit a section that needs more careful attention. That combined with distractions from real life are slowing me down. Right now I'm at page 152, so slightly over half way through. So far I've grown it by about 18 pages and 4,500 words. If I end up adding a total of 9-10,000 words, I'm going to be pretty upset. I think I've done the major sections that require new material, though. Everything from here on should just be the "creeping" additions, though I shouldn't underestimate those.<br /><br />What I've been struggling with is the transition between Part I and Part II, which comes almost exactly at the half-way point in the book. The problem is that there isn't much in the way of suspense or unresolved mystery to call the reader over the bridge. I wrap up too many of the problems without establishing enough sense of drama about the main conflicts that arc through the whole story. I think I've got good fixes in place now, though, again, I won't really know until I've let it all sit for a time and then read it again fresh.<br /><br />I'm also getting rid of a character by combining two. They were too similar, and their separate roles in the plot could easily be carried out by one person.<br /><br />What I don't understand is what Charles Dickens did in those situations when he was writing in serial form. You get 2/3 of the way into a story and then realize you could/should pull one character out of the story entirely or that you haven't laid the groundwork for what you're going to have him do.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6871941685310474680.post-89482534423309630602011-04-15T08:29:00.000-07:002011-04-15T08:34:02.263-07:00CruisingI'm still in the fast-moving stage as I discussed yesterday. Got through about 50 pages this morning. And I stumbled on one little change in a detail that, when I follow the ripples of it through the plot so far, add a lot of fun nuance, so I'm really pleased with the work this morning. It feels like I amped up the power quite a bit with some small changes.<br /><br />So I'm at a little less than half-way through the whole thing in 5 days. I'll guess 5 days plus the weekend to get through the remainder. I do expect to hit some more slow spots later needing more careful attention as the conflicts I set up get resolved.Robert McGuirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03768991730119419896noreply@blogger.com0