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Writing process, bookses and news
Aug. 22nd, 2013 02:16 pmI finally got the book proposal wrangled and am planning on sending it out to the acquisitions editor tonight. It has had things that no other book of mine has had, namely an outline and a synopsis before I've actually written more of the book than the first 20k words or so. It also had some very thorough beta editing, which was really helpful in enabling me to figure out where I had gone wrong (thanks, Rachel Gold!).
Getting to this point involved rethinking how I write, particularly long work. Up until this point, I have been a true pantser: write a scene, build on it, write another scene, eventually go back to the beginning and rewrite what you've done so far, rinse and repeat. I realized that this was just going to take too bloody long to get this done so I wrote up a general outline consisting of world building elements, including what happened before my story started, what I thought was going to happen and my main characters, their relationship to each other and their motivations to be doing the things I thought they should be doing. I learned a ton while doing this. Did it take care of all the hand waving from the original short story and the partial sf erotica novel now on its way to becoming an sf erotic romance? Not yet. But at least I understood where I was falling down. Then I wrote a synopsis. Then I went to work on my first three chapters. I incorporated my understanding of Rachel's feedback, and I gutted both the synopsis and the chapters and wrote them again. Then revised them again. What I'm sending out this week will be seventh draft or so. What changed? The verbiage, the way my protagonist presents herself 9she was more of a jerk to start with), portions of the overall plot, worldbuilding, (hopefully), the giant gaping holes in my original concept.
So it goes out the door because a. I told the editor she'd have it by now and b. because I have to dedicate the next few weeks to Mom move stuff and all that goes with that. And I'm not done yet. Regardless of whether or not this publisher accepts the book, I'm going to write it now because I like it a lot better. I'm also going to try something similar with Blood Moon. Then, we'll see what happens from there.
in other news, I just got asked to be on a panel at the SE Wisconsin Festival of Books in Waukesha. I'll be talking about LGBTQ writing and activism in the Midwest on 9/21 in the late afternoon. More news about it when I have, but I'm very psyched and flattered. :-)
Getting to this point involved rethinking how I write, particularly long work. Up until this point, I have been a true pantser: write a scene, build on it, write another scene, eventually go back to the beginning and rewrite what you've done so far, rinse and repeat. I realized that this was just going to take too bloody long to get this done so I wrote up a general outline consisting of world building elements, including what happened before my story started, what I thought was going to happen and my main characters, their relationship to each other and their motivations to be doing the things I thought they should be doing. I learned a ton while doing this. Did it take care of all the hand waving from the original short story and the partial sf erotica novel now on its way to becoming an sf erotic romance? Not yet. But at least I understood where I was falling down. Then I wrote a synopsis. Then I went to work on my first three chapters. I incorporated my understanding of Rachel's feedback, and I gutted both the synopsis and the chapters and wrote them again. Then revised them again. What I'm sending out this week will be seventh draft or so. What changed? The verbiage, the way my protagonist presents herself 9she was more of a jerk to start with), portions of the overall plot, worldbuilding, (hopefully), the giant gaping holes in my original concept.
So it goes out the door because a. I told the editor she'd have it by now and b. because I have to dedicate the next few weeks to Mom move stuff and all that goes with that. And I'm not done yet. Regardless of whether or not this publisher accepts the book, I'm going to write it now because I like it a lot better. I'm also going to try something similar with Blood Moon. Then, we'll see what happens from there.
in other news, I just got asked to be on a panel at the SE Wisconsin Festival of Books in Waukesha. I'll be talking about LGBTQ writing and activism in the Midwest on 9/21 in the late afternoon. More news about it when I have, but I'm very psyched and flattered. :-)