Revisionland

Listening to: Jack Johnson, "Holes to Heaven". Gotta say, it's nice to have a laptop with speakers that I don't cover with my hands when I type. Much more logical, yes?.

I'm still stuck in Revisionland.

It seems like I've been revising this book forever, but it's only been since December 8. Yeah, yeah, that's a bit of a long time, but remember that I had Christmas in there. The holidays always screw me up--all the hustle and bustle, all the buying and wrapping and traveling, makes it hard to work.

And then there was the avoidance. Oh boy, was there avoidance.

When I first started writing this one, I had no idea where it could go. Once I flipped the idea around in my head a bit, I saw some possible paths, and I took one. That path, in the end, required me to take a bit of a risk.

The scenes that are in my protagonist's POV are written in first person. Her voice just jumped at me as soon as I started, so there was no getting around it. The story demanded it. Which was fine with me, because I do first person a lot better than I do third. A LOT. While yes, this is something I should work on, I can't really change what the story is asking, can I?

Okay, done with the excuses now.

The story also, however, demanded another viewpoint character--my antagonist. That's one of the downfalls of first person--you can't really tell what's going on anywhere but around the protagonist, and since she couldn't have any personal contact with the bad guy for the first half of the book--didn't even know he existed, really--I needed to throw his POV in to up the tension, as well as help the reader get to know him.

It started out in third person. I didn't really want to take that very risky move of having two first-person viewpoint characters. I quickly realized that his scenes were becoming rather annoying, though--he was cardboard, one-dimensional, and kept spouting all these cliche bad guy lines. "She will be mine." "I would not fail again." Blah, blah, blah.

So I switched all his scenes to first person, sometime last summer. Surprisingly, it seemed to work--it fleshed him out quite a bit, got me much farther into his head. It helped me come up with a plausible backstory that explained his current actions. And that backstory even begged the reader for a bit of sympathy, which I like. I'm not a fan of antagonists that the reader automatically hates.

It was only when I finished and was reading through the manuscript that I realized: his sections were also ridiculously telling. Since he was alone most of the time, and we were stuck in his head, there was nothing for him to do but tell us his plans, hint at why he was doing what he was doing, fume over this and that. I wanted to smack him. I wanted to smack myself.

So I made a plan to add another character to his scenes, a sidekick or cohort of sorts, someone he could talk to.

And that's where the avoidance came in.

This seemed like such a big project, I couldn't help but shy away. The little voice in my head whined, "But we already changed all his scenes! I don't wanna do it again!"

I finally got to work on it, though. And on a whim, I changed the scenes back to third person. If done with care, I can keep the things that cropped up in first person that helped flesh him out. And boy, I'm only halfway done, but those scenes are so much better now. The dialogue in there, plus the character I pulled from the second half of the book and into my antagonist's scenes, who amuses me (he's very impassive, and it infuriates my antagonist, which pushes him to do things he might not do otherwise, just to try and get a reaction from his cohort).

I'm going to try to finish those scenes today--just power right through them. Looking back over how these sections have evolved, I can only say that, once again, writing has surprised me.

I don't care how long you do this--there will always be something that takes you by surprise. And that? Is just one of the many reasons why I love it.

If the glass is full / Drink up! Drink up! / This may be the last time / we see this cup...

...If God wanted us sober
He'd knock the glass over
So while it is full we drink up!

I shouldn't even read book review and publishing blogs. They get me into trouble.

For instance, Galleycat led me to this entry from the Book Examiner, which makes me want to grab Gatsby and a gimlet. I'm seriously considering having a reading party after NaNo, during which I and my nerdiest friends read classic lit and drink suitable cocktails.

Yeah. I'm totally serious. That is how nerdy I am.

Then I'm sifting through back entries on the Examiner and I find this one about the Daily Lit website, which will now be sending me daily bite-sized portions of The Secret Garden (re-reading for nostalgia's sake), The Awakening, Shakespeare's Sonnets, Daisy Miller, The French Revolution, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and both the Wikipedia Tours: Famous Women Throughout History, and Greek Mythology.

Clearly, I have no self-control.

Then I hop over to Bookninja, and find the Internet time-waster of the day, which you can find here. Go and do this, please. I command you.

Seriously, I love the Internet. I love, love, love the Internet.

LOVE.

Catching Up

Haven't read GalleyCat in a while, so I found a few gems over there today.

Book Cover Mashup over at bookninja--hysterical.
Go ahead, judge a book by its cover--or at least, guess its Amazon ranking based on its cover.

Found yesterday:

This is old, but it's new to me--and gave me a laugh. How to Write a Book. My favorite step:

14. If you’ve worked hard three days in a row, take a hard-earned day off. And it looks like snow tomorrow, so you might as well take the whole weekend. But a day off from writing is not a day off from complaining!

Also a few months old, and maybe I posted it before, but I just found it in my email archives. It's funny enough to merit the risk of a double-post: Writing a Novel, a Love Story.

There. Take a break and enjoy yourself.

The Avoidance Troll

I've needed to get some editing done for days. If I'm going to be ready for NaNo, I need to have all these other chores out of the way.

But there's this little troll, a short little stumpy little wrinkle-faced little jerk,* who sits next to me and whispers, "But wouldn't it be better to do something else? Forget all those silly chores. Clean! Play video games! Read! Anything but work."

And I listen, because his gravely voice is so very convincing. He's right--I DO need to play video games!

(Two hours later) No, wait. I didn't need to do that. I needed to do work! How could I possibly listen to that little brat? WHY? He has sucked so many hours from my days with his too-tempting ideas.

So today, I'm locking him in the closet. Oh, don't worry. I gave him some bread and water, and a few books and a flashlight. I'll get some serious work done, and then I'll let him out...

...eventually.

*So much easier to blame my problems on imaginary friends. Really, it takes all the pressure off my shoulders.

Off and Running

Listening to: Rise Against, "Life Less Frightening"

For several days there, I was really avoiding my revisions. Probably that whole "character motivation" thing. I had no idea how I was going to pull that off, and I knew it would be somewhat difficult, and I haven't written anything new in this novel for at least two months. That's usually a recipe for procrastination. Plus, you know...I've got Christmas coming up, and more doctor appointments than I can shake a stick at.* Fun!

But I finally settled down and skimmed through the MS a few nights ago, searching for the perfect spot to slip in something--I wasn't really sure what, yet--to explain my antagonist's actions. We see so little of her, since the novel is written in first person from the protagonist's POV (natch). So I sat down and thought--who do her actions hurt the most? Then I brainstormed until I came up with a reason, something from her past, that would make her hate that person/group. And I wrote it.

Easy as that.

It might not be any good...I don't know, I'm too close to it just yet. It might totally disrupt the flow. It might just suck. Gotta give it some time, then look at it again.

But in the meantime, I've shaken off the procrastination and am off and running with the revisions. The big, hard part is over, and now I have a hundred little things and ten medium sized things to fix.

Lesson for next time: Get the tough part out of the way first, and the rest will follow.

_____________
Going to a reunion show for my friends' band tonight, which should be really fun. Maybe a hockey game tomorrow. And lots of cleaning and maybe even some baking in the meantime. So, what are your plans for the weekend? Anything fun on the menu?


*But I finally got some good news last week--I have no cavities! My 6-month cleanings and teeth checkups are always a source of anxiety, because I've heard two-digit numbers and the word "cavities" in close proximity before. And I have three crowns. But for once, I walked out of the dentist's office and knew I didn't have to come back for six whole months! It's funny...they know me so well there, because they used to see me so much...they know how many siblings I have, that I'm a writer, what I write, and mine & TH's nickname for the dentist ("McDrilly"--they always used to talk about Gray's Anatomy while working on my teeth). They freaking know me. Maybe this little break will give them a chance to forget....

A Fun Way to Spend an Hour (No, Not *That*)

Listening to: Dispatch, "Riddle"

Let me point ya'll to this (Note: it may take a few moments to load, the site seems pretty bogged down). It's a vocabulary quiz that donates 10 grains of rice to a hungry person for every correct answer. Seems pretty legit to me, and it's a good way to unwind.

Seriously, I stretched my vocab muscle and donated 300 grains of rice last night. This is sheer brilliance.

Daily Dose of Cute

Not much to report here--just procrastinating before I resume my daily 1000 words--but this is too damn cute.

We had a hedgehog when I was younger. Adorable little creatures, if a bit shy. And I think they're illegal in PA, or at least that's what everyone said.