Plot bunnies. I think I first saw the term on LJ somewhere, and I was pretty sure I understood it from context, but to make sure I looked it up on the lingo websites where people explain slang. Basically it's a term for the story ideas that keep hounding you until you go and write them. Except when you call them "bunnies," the ideas immediately become cute or charming, and even though it makes no sense, they conjure the image of a serene elderly woman in support knee-highs rocking gently on a porch on a sunny summer afternoon, knitting idly as she smiles off into the distance. Presumably the bunnies are hopping around on the lawn. However you slice it, it's a lovely, calming image.

This is not what happens in my head. Not even fucking close. Allow me to give you tonight's "bunny" encounter as an example.

Between blizzards and Christmas and a general whirlwind of chaos, I have not been able to get to the gym and have only managed the barest minimum of exercise at home. As a result I am in all manner of body hell, constantly high on Vicodin, and wake up crying in the middle of the night from pain. So I declared that today I would get to the gym, end of discussion. I had to wait until Dan came home as Anna is on vacation, and I went at 5:30, even though I didn't want to go.

But when I get there, the gym is screamingly loud. The entire gym—a whole full size basketball court—is crammed with middle-aged women and pounding with techno beat, which wouldn't be so bad, but over the top of this the most shrill, screamingly insane woman is belting out encouragement, and from the pinched nature of her tone I can only assume she is doing this exclusively through her left nostril. My GOD, it was a circle of hell. I hurried into the weight room to escape the sound.

The music and nostril screamer were being piped into the weight room through the speakers at four times the volume of the gym. 

It was some sort of technical glitch (hi, Mercury in retrograde, you fucker), and the front desk apologized, but they couldn't turn it off and there was nothing they could do until maintenance came the next morning. I could get my credit back on my punch card and come back at 6:30 or another time, or I could suffer through.

I chose to suffer, but I was really pissed off. I wanted to go back and demand they turn it down, because I swear they could hear that shit down on Highway 30, but I didn't go and stewed in my fury instead. I imagined the wires in the speakers breaking, imagined the whole system bursting into colossal flame, but of course that did not work.

That was when the bunny showed up.

I don't know how or when exactly it happened. All I knew was that suddenly the nasal screamer was not a woman but a man, and it was not me but a big hulky guy in the weight room, and both were gay, and both hated the other for living the stereotype or resisting it, or something, and then it just started exploding. Same-sex dancing, a dare, a contest, something—there was a brief flicker of trading places, the aerobics instructor learning weights and the body-builder attending a class, and then the same-sex dancing kept coming back, and it got so bad that even though I was reading a really great book on the treadmill (normally I can't do this, but I really, really wanted to read, so I jacked up the resistance and tried to make my eyes move with the movement of my legs), even though it was a really hot sex scene, I stopped reading and started watching in-flight movies of The Exercise Instructor and Weight Room Guy Story. By the time I got off the machine I had rabid urges to run home to You Tube and start looking things up, to find names, to get out Curio and make a page. It didn't matter that I am seriously banging up against the deadline for the short story, that I need to get back to Miles, that I have editing work, that I hadn't even started dinner and needed to do some shopping first. Didn't matter. The bunnies had arrived.

My "bunnies" do not sit and look adorable. They do not nuzzle my feet and lure me to their plots. They attack. They bite. They dig in their teeth and do not let go. I will be making notes tonight on this story whether it's a good idea to do so or not. There was a moment when I could have let it go, a nanosecond where I could have walked away. I could have just thought "That's nice" and let the bunny roll by. But I made eye contact. And then I fed it, and then I let it in. Oh, I can sit there like the lady on the porch, and it can be sunny and pretty and serene.

JUST SO LONG AS I DO WHATEVER THE BUNNY SAYS.  Because unlike Monty Python, there is no running away.

We have officially reached the part of December where I long for January. I love seeing everyone at Christmas, I love making cookies, love, love, love wrapping presents, love the magic and the season and all that jazz, but no matter how I attempt to orchestrate this damn month, every year it leaves me tied up and wasted in the corner by the time it's over. I am always running out of time. Today I'm looking at my to-do list and looking ahead to the next few weeks and I have absolutely no idea how this is all going to happen. So far I have been trusting in serendipity, and so far that has worked, but I feel like I'm doing the tango in the head of a pin. Any second, I'm going to slide off into the abyss.

I'd be okay if I weren't trying to write, but as far as my mental mindset is concerned, this is the same as someone else doing Christmas prep saying, "I'd be okay without my day job." In years past my saying so was just a fancy, a way of playing at making writing real; it was perhaps even more important then, but right now there is a hard reality to that determination. I want Miles and the Dragon stories out the door. I want them drafted, I want them read, I want them submitted to DSP so they are someone else's problem. I like the idea of ending 2009 with all these projects off my desk so that I can start 2010 with the agenda of getting Etsey back in the game and of putting the STB manuscript into shape, because it's the next one going to Dreamspinner after Miles and the dragon short story. Etsey needs an outside home, I'm pretty sure, but that's an assessment I have yet to fully make, and something else to sit and meditate about. But this is all the more reason why I want the 2009 projects ended and done. And the only way this happens is with work.

To be honest, it's very good discipline. There is not time for hand-wringing and carrying on and worrying about whether or not the scene works. There is only time to make it work. Perfect isn't even an option. Functionality is. If later I look at this and think I could do better, well, that will be an interesting mental exercise, and this is all it will be. Or if I work them up and they're turned down? Fine. That's something also to deal with in 2010. None of this matters right now. Right now I am working, I am doing my best, and I am getting it off my desk.

Two projects at once is not my favorite way to go, but there's a rightness about doing so when I'm working in December. Nothing about this month is ideal. You cram way too much into way too little time and nearly kill yourself with the effort. So to balance that I'm working on dual projects, going a bit too fast and being a bit too regimented with them. What I can do is dance my zen as much as I can as I move between them, enjoying the one I am with while I am with it, then putting it firmly aside as I switch laundry, do some dishes, or stop to make cookies with Anna. In the end I think there's more opportunity in this chaos to enjoy the nows; if we can let go of the other things that surround them, there is a potency to each one, to baking, to wrapping, to writing, to editing, and even to cleaning. To visits with family, to traveling, to making business decisions. When done right, it's a beautiful, exhilarating dance.

Of course, I'd enjoy this a lot more if my shoulders were not on extreme strike, but I'll just consider this my pound of fruitcake and keep the pain killers on hand.

Back to work.

The past week was supposed to be my best shot at getting Miles edited before Christmas hit. I had a blizzard and lots of chaos instead. I've been working on the story still, and I almost have the first scene, but I also have some serious burnout. The story is two shades away from feeling flat to me. So I'm going to re-fill the well: with writing something short and different.

Dreamspinner has an open call for submission which I've known about for awhile now but have been too busy to do anything with. I also was leery of the "angel" part. It's hard to do, especially because my belief that angels are incredibly non-sexual beings makes it hard to sexualize them at all, let alone make them gay. Mostly nothing was pinging, so I left it alone.

Yesterday, my best day of the week was full not of writing but of obsessing. My author copies of Hero were due, and they weren't coming. At the end of the day I ended up driving out to the distribution center and picking them up myself. This is the calm version of the story. Facebook has the slightly manic version, but the true rabid reveal of how upset I was over the lack of my books is viewed in my twitter feed. (Click "more" at the bottom to get to it.) When I finally got to bed, I was flush with an emotional up and down and generally a bit too wound up for my own good. The chronic pain that has dogged me all week didn't help. So I lay there in bed, waiting for the heating pad to loosen up my hip muscles so I could sleep, and all of a sudden I saw a dragon walk past the interior of my mind.

It got my attention. Not because something odd walked across the stage in my head (this happens every day) but because it wasn't dragons like my WASP background trained me to see. No, this was an Asian dragon, red on a white background, and it was lumbering away from me. And then it came back. And then it came again. And honestly, that's the last thing I remember before there was a snarl of thought and creative explosion. I got up, scribbled some notes on my markerboard and Googled a few things, and then this morning when I should have been cleaning and doing laundry, I did this.


This is Bao. His full name is Bao-Bo Jansen. He absolutely hates his name, which he got by being adopted by well-meaning Presbyterians who wanted to give him some of his native culture. He was "Bao" at school, which you can just start guessing the names he got called. Now he works at some company I haven't named yet, and he just gets along, generally unhappy but working hard because that's what he does. He has a tiny crush—okay, a pretty hefty crush—on the guy who works the Starbucks counter in the mornings. But he's not going to do anything about it, because Bao doesn't date. He just does his job and takes care of business with internet porn and tries to stay out of the way of Jael, his snide and insulting senior manager.

But Bao has been dreaming a lot lately. Specifically he's been dreaming of dragons, the Asian kind, and they seem to be trying to get him to do something. Bao, who hasn't been to Korea since he was four months old, doesn't know anything about Asian culture, and he doesn't want to. But when the dragon starts appearing at work and then sucks him—and everyone at the Starbucks stand—into an alternate dimension, he figures he'd better start learning how to at least speak dragon fast.


This is all I know of the story so far. But I have a collage and a soundtrack and lots and lots of storylines bouncing in my head. It has to be less than 10k, which after writing for brad_hanon is going to feel like really stretching my legs. And it also means I'll still be 2-3K over.

But it shouldn't take too long, I can still edit the other, and however you slice it, I've gone from dull and cranky to full of life. Yay.

My body is revolting tonight, so after writing a whiny journal (which you, blessedly, will not have to read!) and popping a Vicodin I am ceding the evening to... well, I'm not sure who. To being cranky, I guess, which is a what, not a who. Today was not so much a day of rest, either: after hurrying to take a sick snowblower in to a place which could not fix it, rushing to fellowship (that's Unitarian Universalist for "church"), then dashing down to Des Moines to attend a Central Iowa Authors NaNoWriMo wrap-up party, then rushing to buy Anna more fish and then rushing home to see Dan quick before he went off to work (stint of five overnights, blarg, but this is his last)—well, really, even without my body deciding I should have only minimal feeling and much pain in my right leg and left shoulder, I don't think much was going to happen. Still. I wanted to keep up with the reportage on my attempts to edit Miles and the Magic Flute live!, so here is what I got done yesterday but did not have time to post.

I have 243 words of a new opening. I do not put any faith in this being the actual opening, but I do think it's a fantastic start, not so much because it is so witty or clever or well-turned, but because there's some gold in there. Take a look.

As openings go, I think that first line is a bit more melodrama than I want. Sometimes that's good, and I may go with that sort of thing in the end, but this story is not really melodramatic. It's more of a knife edge you don't quite see coming and yet when it actually gets you, you realize you kind of did suspect a little. It's creepy, it's dark, it's sad, but it's plucky, too. Some of that is in this, but it's too forced right now in my opinion.

I also don't like how tell-y it is. I do love the juxtaposition of his past life with his present, but I think I'd rather start him right away in action and have this stuff leak in through the scene. That could also be something he tosses out at Patty. It's okay for now, but it's not ideal, and I will cut any of that I need to.

BUT. BUT. What I love? That fucking toaster oven.

When I sit down with this again tomorrow, I'm zeroing in on that appliance and milking it for everything it's got. I love the image of him working on it. I love that he's out in the cold working on it, that he's used to being in Atlanta and now he's in Minnesota. I love the grimness of the task, the humiliation of it. I love the physicalness of it, and I'm itching to work with it, to see what happens when he messes with it. I can feel six or seven different possible scene arcs forming out of it, and I have no idea which one will work. Plus the theme of this is partly that Miles needs to repair his life, and to become humble: to accept the life in front of him, the people in front of him. It's so perfect I'm bouncing in my chair. I'm totally running with that toaster oven.

This is what I love about revising/editing. I love finding the way to a scene that works. I hate when I can't find the way, when I'm banging my head against it, or when I end up with false starts. Which this could still be. But the thing personally I have come to learn about writing is that no word is sacred. Some ideas are, but even those need to be somewhat fluid. For myself, however, I will never be resolute on keeping a turn of phrase or a line. Whenever I do that, I run into big trouble. For me the story is the STORY, the characters and the ideas. I want functional prose. I want words that are servants, not stars. There are genres that are about the turn of the phrase, and that's fine. I will never write that way, however, and I really won't read that stuff, either.

So I don't mind that I wrote 243 words and got a toaster oven out of it. Actually, I could not be happier.

Well, I'd be a lot happier if my body didn't hurt so much tonight. But a Skelaxin, a second Vicodin, and some heavy sleep will fix that, too. And then tomorrow it's just me, a Scrivener document, and a toaster oven. With snow outside my window.

Bliss.

I've heard writers say that blogs and websites can be full of extras like a DVD, including cut scenes and director's commentary equivalents. You know, I really love this idea, and keep hoping it will catch on, because on the one hand, it's interesting to see someone's process, and on another hand, as a writer I find examining other writers' processes instructive. But I'm not stumbling on too much of this.

I get why, because it's a bit The Great And Mighty Oz revealed as a bumbling fool behind the curtain, and it requires some exposing of flaws. Well, as for that, I am full of flaws. Chock. Full. So I'm cool with that. And in that spirit, I'm going to try this and see where it goes. I would have done it with the NaNoWriMo novel, but it just didn't need the kind of editing that would be interesting. So I'll try it with Miles and the Magic Flute, which is in finished draft form but needs some serious hot oil help. My plan is to post the entirety of the first scene in its rough draft state, and then I'm going to MST3K my way through it, picking it apart, appraising it, and eventually laying out my plan for a redraft.

The scene in full can be found here. It's about one thousand words, and the story as best I can give it to you is this: Miles Larson has come back to Summer Hill, Minnesota after being laid off unexpectedly from his job. He is living in a trailer with his friends Patty and Julie, lesbian partners who run a pawn shop on the outskirts of a very small town. Unhappy and with a considerable chip on his shoulder over the turn his life has taken, Miles is having a hard enough time adjusting to reality without it bending on him all the time. Because something strange is going on in the forest beside Patty and Julie's trailer. It's a frosty Minnesota October in Summer Hill, but in that forest, it feels like summer. Miles would also swear someone—or something—is in there with him. He writes his perceptions off as paranoia and signs of his deteriorating sanity, but then a strange silver flute appears at the pawn shop,

and everything changes.

 Now when he's in the forest, he doesn't think he's being followed, he knows it—hell, he sees it, because a huge, scary beast-man is coming at him, looking ready to tear him apart. And when a striking, white-haired man on a silver sleigh appears to rescue him—well, that's when things get interesting. And very steamy.

Now I'm going to pick it apart a bit, after the cut.

( Go behind the curtain, if you dare! Or are just interested. )

People often stare at me and regard me with extreme suspicion when they find out how much I write. I never know how to respond. I usually murmur something about how I don't have a formal day job, how I don't watch TV, or I just titter and change the subject. The real reason I write so much? Because I can't stand not to. Life when there is not fiction simmering hot in the back of my brain, when the door to a story is not open, is hands-down the worst version of the world I can imagine, so I don't stay in that state long. I will be opening up Miles and the Magic Flute for editing by the end of the week, and after that it will be a knock-down fight between STB and TSV. But right now is the fallow time. It's time for horribly dull things like laundry and dishes and organizing. It's also time for awkward things like pimping myself on Facebook because Hero is out on Friday. Which is a good segue to direct you to my fan page. (Whore, whore, whore!) Soon I'll start Christmas shopping, and cookie baking, and that's all good stuff. BUT. Right now, it is the time for mourning. A novel has come. A novel has finished. It's like that moment when you get off the roller coaster ride you stood in line for three hours for. Yes, it was wonderful. And now it's over. You have the sad.

My twitter feed is full of other writers mourning their loss. Our local group, the FATABULOUS CIA AUTHORS, is experiencing not just End of Novel but also End of Local Write-Ins. Every night for the month of November there was a group of friends and fellows getting together in coffee shops, writing, laughing, cheering, and dancing for Demon TV. Now it's over. It's like when you get out of college and suddenly your 50 best friends do not live down the hall and wave at you in the bathroom. It's awful. And really, there's not much to do but sit with that and wait for it to go away. The best cure I know for End of Novel is to start a new story, but you can't just put one down and pick up the next one, not quite that easily. You can, but it still takes a few days for the excitement to start again.

So my best recommendation is a distraction. To that end, until you go Christmas shopping, until you start baking, or until you open a new document and start a new "once upon a time," here are some things to do. In honor of my NaNoWriMo novel, here is Lady Gaga's "Poker Face."


EMBED-Lady GaGa - Poker Face - Watch more free videos


And because she's referenced in Double Blind (that's my novel again), here's a little roller disco loving.

Really, how can you be sad when you're in Xanadu?

Okay, yes. Your novel is still done. So is mine. You can't skip the DDD days, because End of Novel is always a downer. But you can always go reread it, and you can hum along with Oliva and Lady G while you do that laundry you put off for a month.

If nothing else, know I'm right there with you, waiting impatiently for that door to Story to open again.

Notes to self:

1. Worrying about pacing when you are writing your first draft is a very dumb thing to do. If that's a harsh statement, fine, dial it back: it's not helpful to worry about pacing when you are writing your first draft. But it's caustic, too. It slows you down and screws you up. Yes, fine, it means more work later. Deal with it, Cullinan. Sure you got a pass on Special Delivery on that one, just like you asked for. On this one you didn't. Cope. You don't get a pony every Christmas. And anyway, you might find you like this way better. You usually end up happy with the road you took once you're back at the inn again. Also, if you DON'T ignore the bad pacing and bad sequencing and get to the end, you won't ever get to fix it at all.
2. Yes, maybe the boys are too angsty or sopping at times. You can edit that too.
3. This whole list is going to boil down to "finish and then you can edit." Really, you need to keep going? Okay. Oh, you want to address THAT one. Fine. New number.
4. Yes, the story will end. Yes, it will end before 200k. You're being dramatic. Stop. Yes, it's feeling like the rewrite of STB you had to abandon because it would not end. Yes, it's because you used more than one POV this time. Yes, it's harder this way. But yes, it will end, and sooner than you think. You have that little outline there--and it works, you know it does. Of course you won't stick to the outline. You never do! But it will help you get to the real ending. Just keep going. You want to be done by November 30, and you're closer to that goal than you think you are. Or, rather, you are as close as you think you are and not as far away as you're afraid you are.
5. Just keep having fun. It's okay to have fun. It's okay to write stuff you cut. It's okay to have to rewrite whole sections. It's fine. Just stop typing this entry and go write. Don't try to be first in the class and hardly have to edit. Don't do anything but write the story that shows up when you sit down. You'll edit later. You'll rewrite later. You'll go batshit crazy analytical. Right now you are writing the most fun, most engaging characters you've written since Charles. Just go party in Vegas for another twenty thousand words or whatever it takes and pay the credit card later. You have more credit on this one than you give yourself credit for.

(This post, of course, revealing that while I am so glad that other one meant so much to other people, it was aimed squarely at my own head as well.)

I would like to take this moment to put out a public service message, a gentle reminder to all authors, be they participating in NaNoWriMo or not, be they in the opening stages of their novels, slogging through the middle or juggling the chaos of the third act. Yes, even you poor slobs who are afraid you have not just no acts (or don't know what they are and are worried now that there's something ELSE to fail at, thanks a lot) but no plot, no antagonist, not even any real character, just a hot mess and a sore shoulder and enough angst to even turn off David Boreanaz playing Angel. Yes--that bad. The message is this: I'm sorry, even given all this, you still don't suck. Or, perhaps more accurately, you don't suck any worse than anybody else writing a novel. You don't even suck worse than a best-selling uber-author writing her eighteenth-zillion novel. Because this doubt, this fear, this everything is normal. It's part of the gig. Because it's not your novel that is sucking. It isn't even you. It's the process of creating, and it always happens. Always. To everybody.

Look, here's the thing: you started with An Idea. Maybe it was A Fucking Great Idea. Maybe it was just a quiet little one, humble or worse, simple. You were going to write a story, anyway. You either knew what it was or knew the shape of it. You had an idea about it, anyway. And so you started, and it went well at first, or you faked it and at least had a good time. And then it went a little off the rails. That's okay, you said. It's fine. These things happen. You rolled with it. "It's just a draft," you said to yourself. Then you said it again. Then you taped it do your monitor. Then you started posting blog posts about it, or giving impassioned speeches to the checkout clerk at the grocery store, explaining to them that drafts are messy and this is the way it goes. Maybe they even forgot to scan your milk and you got it for free because they were so freaked out amazed by your unstable appearance brilliance. Or you just told the dog, who always understands and empathizes. Whatever, you got through. Or you just put the thing away and watched Glee again because it makes you feel good. The bottom line is, you got by.

But now here you are. Now you are sitting down with this un-story, this mess, and you are seriously afraid. You're afraid that you don't have what it takes. You're afraid that your idea, be it great or humble, just isn't going to fly, or that it is actually a good idea but you don't have the chops. You can see this, and worse, you can see that it is there, glaring at you, and you know it has always been there. And you are absolutely terrified that you are the last one to have been able to see this, that there are meetings probably in every country of the globe where they whisper and cringe at what a spectacle you are making of yourself, because how awful is it that it's so painfully obvious to the entire human population and even three other star systems that clearly YOU are never going to be able to do this, but just don't know. And no one can bear to tell you, so you just go on, tragic and pathetic. You think, now that you see it, that you should just quietly shut down your computer and close your notebook and pretend this never happened.

Well, that's an option. But personally, I advise against it.

Do you want to know the dirty truth about story? Do you want to know the real gritty truth that no one will tell you? The shocker so awful it will curl your hair and turn it white? Sure, you're still reading, so I'll tell you. The truth is that the people who finish novels are the people who face that gate I just described above and then keep going. The people who finish novels are not the smartest people or the most creative or even the most aware. In fact, this might be a case were a little ignorance helps a lot. The people who finish novels are the people who go all the way to the end. They aren't the people who have the best plots or the most amazing characters. They are not the people whose very existence is so compelling that muses descend from clouds and teach them how to overcome their obstacles. They are the people who simply go on. They see that pit above, the pit that exists in every single story of every length and every shape and every level of "worth" and "skill" and "value," and after they see it, they find a way over it or around it and they go on until the end.

That's it.

A finished novel is a finished novel. It is not the novel that mirrors the vision you had for it. It isn't the one that your mother or your mentor or your partner approves of. It's almost never the one that you approve of. It's flawed. It's got a shitload of errors. It is lopsided and probably has more holes than swiss cheese. It's a big fucking mess. But it has a beginning, an end, and stuff in between. That's it. That's all it has.

You want a great novel? Edit. Rewrite. You want an even better novel? Write another one. You want to be a master? Keep writing. Every damn day, whenever you can, however it works. You want to find the way over that shitty trap I described above, the gaping pit of awareness that tries to steal your soul and eat your novel? Then walk up to that pit and stare it down. Find out what you're made of and what your novel is, and swallow the horrible, gut-wrenching truth that no novel is perfect, no, not even yours, not even your favorites that you love so much, the ones you know you can never be as good as. Every one of them has that pit in it, the place where you are tempted to turn away and have to decide if you have the determination to go on. Some people get good at jumping over it. Some people never find the courage to face it. Some people spend their writing career or a good portion of it trying to stare that demon down.

But whatever you do, no more of this shit where you say your novel is bad, or you aren't smart enough or whatever. That isn't what this is about. This is about writing your story. This is about getting through. This is about practice, about strength, and above all, about will. You'd be amazed at how little plot and character have to do with it when you're talking about getting it done. Because you never know--they might be there. You might be surprised. And you might not. You might find that this one was practice. But that doesn't mean you can't finish it.

You finish a novel by getting to the end. The people who finish novels are not the people who do not suck or even the people writing the stories that do not suck. They are simply the people who don't quit. So don't quit. And you'll be fine.

Seriously. Quit staring into the pit, and I swear to God, it will truly be that easy.

See you on the other side.

I usually have two points of crisis during the composition of a story: during a Groundhog Day-esque rehashing of the intro as I try to find my way into a story, and at about the mid-point of the story where I feel like things should be more coherent than they are and where I panic because I can't see how the damn thing will ever end. I have also hit that point at 100k on stories that end up being very, very long, and that's another ball of wax entirely, but the feeling is the same: panic. Despair. Heaps and heaps of doubt. On this particular NaNoWriMo story, I'm blissfully not feeling quite the angst I normally do, though I am feeling a little bit of the "hurry up, you're plot is wandering!" panic that for me is really omnipresent, ambient noise. But the other nag I'm getting right now, the one that always manages to trip me is this one: "You're just making all of this up."

As an at-its-face statement coming from the peanut gallery of a novelist's internal editor, it's actually pretty funny, because that seems to be the whole point, but it's only funny if you're not inside my head. Typed into a blog entry it's cute; coming at me as I prepare to turn the corner on 50k (I'm gunning for 100k, and this is now a day job, so them's the stakes) and I get that nag, it's not so laughable. The long version of the accusation that I am making all of this up is that I don't know my research, that my characters aren't real, that the plot is implausible, or, in short, that I have made a mistake. That despite my best efforts otherwise, something in this story is untrue, and if the whole world sees it, they will know it and call me on it, screaming MISTAKE!!!!! and I will probably die. Or something. It'll be bad, I know that. And it's almost inevitable that something's wrong, of course, because I'm human, and I make so many mistakes anyway, and why did I think I could write a novel? Who cares that somebody bought two of them and your first one is coming out in about a month? Isn't that worse? You want to put MORE mistakes out there for public consumption? Why are you bothering? Why don't you give this up and go put a load of laundry in. Do something safe. Do something, anything but this.

Anybody else got that going on in their head? Are you getting the remix where it's not so harsh, just telling you this is dumb, that you have better things to do, that really, what does this matter, what the HELL does a NOVEL matter? Is it telling you you're bored, that you could be outside in the nice weather, or watching a movie, or something, anything but this?

If so, get your stake or your sword or whatever weapon you prefer, because these bastards are going down.

Yeah. We're making this up. So what? That IS the point. Yeah, our stories have "mistakes." They're called our visions and our creativity. They're our voices. Yes, if we want to try to sell these novels later, we may have to do some fact checking. Yes, some things may be so integral we have to pause to double-check as we write. But even with that, yes, we may write a whole scene based on no-limit poker that isn't right and we'll have to rework it later.  We can check that. Later. Right now is the magic time, the writing time, the spinning story out of absolutely nothing, of not just thin air but nothing at all, less matter than black holes. Maybe nobody would want to read this. Maybe our facts are actually heinously off. Whatever. This is ours. This is OUR story, right now.

Regarding the boredom--that's just the light version of "this is a mistake." You said you were going to write a novel because you had a story to share, right? Because you had a vision, a voice? Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, writing takes a lot of practice. Yeah, you might write 50,000 words that later you don't use any of. But you're practicing. You're here.  You're showing up. This is hard, and you're doing it. You're cooler than the people who don't do it. The people who always say they want to write a novel but don't. The people who have dreams but don't act on them. Just by showing up, just by writing even the crappiest novel ever written, even that alone puts you several cuts above. But your story isn't crap. Nobody's is crap. No voice is a bad voice, no story is a bad story. It's yours, and when you write it, you create it. Out of nothing. That's a miracle. That is a fucking miracle.

Yeah. You're making all of this up. Every word, every idea, every character. Even if you're writing fanfic, you're writing something that hasn't been there before, unless you're just transcribing something else word for word. You're writing. You're creating.

So the next time your internal editor sneers, "You're making all this up," turn to her (or him) and say, "Damn straight." Then stake the bitch and get back to work.

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Ten thousand words is normally not a milestone in a story: usually I have to get to 20 or 30k before I will safely say I've hit my stride, and sometimes even that is early. But I've hit 10k on MILES AND THE MAGIC FLUTE, and while I'll put no money on anything at all staying, I will say that I have a functional story.  

It's also great heaps of fun. I struggled a bit to get going, but once I revisited the intro yesterday and put the whispering forest frame in place, it's really cooking. Here are some random details I can share so far.

• It's set in Minnesota.  I'm not sure why, but as soon as I placed it there, it felt happy to be there.  
• There is a magic forest. Beside a trailer park.
• Miles escapes a satyr by leaping into a silver sleigh which glides magically through the forest. It's driven by a man who pretty much looks and acts like a slightly nicer Lucius Malfoy.
• At this point I honestly don't know what is going on. There's something fey, and I know there's something with the satyr, but I don't know whether Terris (the Lucian carbon copy) actually has Miles's best interests at heart or not. The not knowing really has me jazzed to keep writing.
• I'm pretty sure Miles is going to flit back and forth between the trailer park and fairyland (really, at this point do I need any other reason to get back to the computer and keep typing?).
• There will be all sorts of fantasy bits, like dancing at a ball and fireworks in the garden and all manner of magical stuff.
• Sex sounds like it ought to be humming, too.

Mostly, though, this is feeling like a fairytale, like Hero.  The draw here for me is once again the excitement of a fairy story set with a protagonist we do not normally get to see, and the fact that the plot will have a sexual arc is just a plus.  If I can get another 10K down, I should be able to pick it up without any trouble at almost any time, and maybe maybe will finish it before Nov 1. If not, there will be plenty here to pick up after.  Or I can start late with NaNo. Or do both.

But I definitely have a story, and it's very fun. And I have absolutely no idea what is going to happen, which is possibly the best part of all.

 I'm 286 words into a new project.  Completely, utterly new, born of an idea I had last night while I lay awake because my arm was throbbing like all hell.  So far a guy named Miles has stapled his sweater to a shelf and is dealing with a customer who came into the pawn shop where he's been working since he got laid off.  He will shortly find a magical flute which, when he plays it, will open up a portal into another dimension where a handsome prince will appear to him on either a sleigh or a carriage.  Can't tell which yet, but I know the horse is white and is wearing bells.  I'm thinking a sleigh.  Anyway, the prince will take him to a castle, where he will try to woo Miles, but Miles is going to play the flute again, and the rats will take him to the goat man who lives in the walls.

Could be a new story.  Could be a drug trip. (I did take Vicodin AND Skelaxin last night.) Only one way to find out . . . .

Prewriting is a tough subject to talk about, because it's even more personal than drafting, and maybe that's a good place to start: whatever prewriting you choose should reflect not just your writing style but your personality.  And because it's NaNoWriMo and you plan to do all your writing in a contained period, you'll want to strive to make your prewriting as focused and efficient as possible.  But really, the most important part of all is to make it personal. As such, all I can talk about is what I do, but I'll do my best to unpack it in a meta-way so that I'm identifying why I do it as much as if not more than what I do.

Prewriting by definition is the work you do before writing story: it's the way you get to know the story and/or get yourself in the place where you can sit down and write it.  For some people this is charts and graphs and maps.  For some people it's doing dry-runs of scenes, playing with characters and letting them talk.  For some people it's quite literally letting characters talk in the form of autowriting (basically opening up a document and letting the character answer you back when you ask them questions).  In Heidi-land, prewriting is music and visuals and a hell of a lot of daydreaming, and when I'm prewriting for NaNoWriMo, my prewriting approaches something close to tribal ritual.

I've done the outlines and the maps, and eventually usually do have at least a mental plan of how the story is going to go, but I've stopped bothering with putting it down on paper because it never happens the way I outline it and I end up just wasting time.  If I'm stuck on a scene I'm known to fill the 4x6 foot markerboard across from my desk with brainstorming and even a rough sketch of beats (that's like a bullet-point march through the main actions of the scenes), but even then, just for the one scene, it never happens like I plan.  But this brings up an important point: prewriting is the work you do for your brain as much for your story.  If you need an outline to feel okay, then you write an outline.  Just don't be upset (and don't resist) if the story wants to go somewhere else when you sit down to write it.  Make maps, make plans, and seriously, do sit for hours and bask in the brilliance of your plans.  Maybe even indulge in an evil laugh or two, because you'll need that ego later.  

I make playlists in iTunes.  Currently I only have one (that will change) and it's 119 songs strong.  I'll delete some of those songs later, and add others, and I'll parse it out into "moods," and given the lack of instrumentals in that one, I'll be scouring my hard drive for something appropriate or running back to iTunes.  However it happens, though, sound is key, and it's my first lesson in letting go.  It's not unheard of for me to pick up music for a story playlist that I have previously detested.  My life has also gotten a lot easier (but more expensive) since they put the Genius suggestion bar on the side of my iTunes player, because I can start with one song that leads me into a whole new world of sound. The playlists I create go with me wherever I go, and I listen to them while I do dishes, laundry, drive around to pick up my daughter or even grocery shop.  Certain songs usually start to stand out, and they'll eventually get put on repeat while I sit in the quiet and just let them wash over me.  I don't know what the music does exactly, but it seems to paint some sort of underlayment color on my psyche, and at the very least it's fertilizer.

The other thing that I do is make a digital collage.  I'm a Mac girl, and so I use Curio brainstorming software.  I'm several versions behind now, but honestly, they're improving index cards and all sorts of things that are fabulous, but I just slap images up there and layer them, so I'm happy with what I've got.  Sometimes I photoshop images in Adobe, but not always: basically, I just google the crap out of the internet, hunting down character images and something to stir the story every time I open my desktop. Currently this is what I'm working with:

(click a few times to make it big)

I've set it as my "cover art" on my NaNoWriMo page even though technically it's too big and would make a lousy cover.  This isn't about making a cover (though I did send the HERO collage to the art department with the spec sheet when they had me fill it out). This is about facial expressions and colors and the general feel of it.  For whatever reason Ethan needed to be shirtless (lower right), but it's the haunted, dead look on his face that really catches me when I see the image.  Even the fanned out hand of cards is important.  The logline makes me roll my eyes (though it's not half as bad as my novel summary on the NaNoWriMo profile page), but that's because at this point any text I push on this story is just that, me trying to drive.  And this brings me to the meat of my prewriting and why everything I do is practically voodoo: for me, prewriting is about getting out of the way.

I've studied a lot about the how-to of writing.  I've read about beats and arcs and I know far more than I should about plot.  I don't think that any of that academic knowledge is bad, and I think I use it more than I know.  But what I also know is that if I write from that cold place, my writing is dead.  Other people can manage it, but I can't, and my stuff sucks when I try.  The only constant for me about writing is that it must feel like racing at ninety into the void.  It must feel so dangerous that I sometimes literally curl up in a ball and feel cold with terror.  I get so sucked into it that I often have to be dragged kicking and screaming back into reality.  For me drafting isn't just a dramatic ride, it MUST be, or it doesn't work.  I don't for a second think that all writing must be that way, but mine does.  I've sussed that much out, and I've made peace with it.  

That's the advice I'd give anybody about prewriting: know yourself, know your work, and find the way to get the two to make nice.  I come at story as brassy, loud, and rather bossy.  I think the story approaches me from a mystical standpoint because it's the only way left, the only gate I haven't guarded.  My fear is being out of control, so that's what it gives me.  When I write, I learn things about myself and the world, and the only way that happens is if it comes in a way I'm not expecting.  It makes sense in an abstract way, and even if it doesn't, it's what I've got.

Prewriting for NaNoWriMo has to be fast and efficient.  I'm starting now and have a month, but usually I'm drafting by now.  Usually when I draft I write at least six or seven openings: I do the first third of the story so many times that I usually have to take a break from it after a month because I'm so sick of it.  Usually I find the story by wrestling with it, by cursing at it, and by pleading with it.  Usually I spend a lot of time trying to drive, declaring THIS IS WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT! and it lets me do that for awhile until it's bored, and then it throws a wrench at my head and it's back to the beginning again.

That's my usual way.  During NaNoWriMo, though, there is this declaration that I will do the whole thing IN A MONTH, and as such, the prewriting voodoo gets deeper and weirder, and everybody plays nicer.  I don't try to drive as much.  The story doesn't hide as much.  I "write" in my head, watching internal screenings of plot lines, enjoying them (and my own brilliance) until the sparks die, the brilliance fades, and I sit with the failed ideas, trying to decide why they didn't work.  I get to know characters by thinking about them.  I find plot by imagining.  I listen to songs over and over and let plot form from them; I stare at images and glean details of character from tics in cheeks and sparkles in eyes.  

I do some maps.  I have a Scrivener file with imported Web pages talking about Las Vegas.  I have a cast of characters and the name of the fake casino and a map of where Ethan is from.  Mostly I have this stuff because I forget names a lot, and I want to be able to reference things as fast as possible during November, and by having them in Scrivener (even the web pages), they go with me even when I move the file to the laptop.  I have a pretty good idea of what the first scene will be (at least for now), and I think I know the plot.  I'm reading a ton about poker, and we're planning on visiting a local casino on Saturday, unless it snows. (!!!!) But mostly what I am doing is soaking in story.  I'm riding on instinct, letting the story tell me what it needs.  If it wants Beyoncé, it gets Beyoncé.  If it wants to learn poker, I learn poker.  It really wanted a trip to Las Vegas, but I had to say no to that, so I'm watching lots of movies and looking at images online.  

I'm helped a lot, yes, by the fact that this story is a spin-off of one I'm just wrapping up now.  I've actually never written something completely cold for NaNoWriMo: it's always a redraft or a sequel.  If I wrote something cold, I'd probably spend some time in October writing dummy scenes, setting up characters in role-plays or even just dry-runs because that's the biggest way I learn character.  Or I'd do something different because that's what the story tells me, because that's how I write.

Bottom line once again is that I prewrite the way my story and my process tell me I need to.  November is about drafting at high speed.  October is a month-long meditation on process and self.  Frankly, sometimes October is scarier.

Do what works.  Do what feels right.  And have fun.  Writing story is going into a world that no one else can access.  It's a sacred trust, yes.  But it's also the best and biggest and most you-centered party you're ever going to throw.  Wear killer shoes, and dance until you can't stand up anymore, and even then, keep wiggling while you lay in exhausted bliss on the floor. NaNoWriMo is the month when anybody who shows up can write a novel.  October is the month where you convince yourself to believe that in whatever way works best for you.

 There is nothing quite as nerve-wracking as sending your MS out to good, critical betas who you know will not pull punches and WILL tell you if you have gotten it horribly, horribly wrong, but there is nothing quite as beautiful as being told by not one but both of them that you have done it absolutely right.  (With some work to do, yes, but overall it's clear you hit the high notes and made a pretty tune.)

rosemaryinwheat  and munchkinian , I do not deserve either of you, but I am eternally grateful for you both.

Today has kicked my ass.  If I can get a second wind here I will post the full chapter one of SPECIAL DELIVERY as a Tuesday Teaser.  Tomorrow I will do a NaNoWriMo Prewriting post  for cryslea, and I will also fold in all the beta stuff quickly to send SD off to Dreamspinner to see if I can do two in a row.  For the next half hour, though, I'm going to hug myself and be grateful for such intelligent, generous friends.

(Dan, I'm glad for your beta-ing, too, but even you admit you are more fan than critic.  But you proofread like nobody's business, and Kurt cries for you, too.)

This year will be my fourth year participating in NaNoWriMo, and I'm absolutely psyched for it, more this time than ever.  Because of the way my writing has timed out, I have the whole month of October to prepare for it, and part of my preparation this year will be doing some meta-discussions of both NaNoWriMo in general and my process regarding it here on my blog.  This is the first installation.

I'd heard of NaNoWriMo for at least a year before I was willing to try it, and I approached it very dubious as to its efficacy.  The idea that I could write an entire novel in one month seemed not just impossible to me but unwise, and in the interest of full disclosure, I only achieved 50k AND a completed draft last year.  I've also gone well over 50k every time, two of those years going either over or almost to 100k.  But the real value for me in NaNoWriMo has always been in the focus and the drive and the fact that no matter what I cannot stop or go backwards.  

My normal process is to cycle through the first 1/3 of a work three or four times before settling on a direction, and I have kept this process to this day, except for the novels I have written during NaNoWriMo.  When I write in November, I have to keep pushing, keep letting the twists happen, and I have to keep writing even when I don't think the thing makes sense.  All three times I have done NaNoWriMo I've pushed myself through difficult spots in the novel, spots I would have stalled on or walked differently around had I been working in my traditional pattern, and the work I've done during NaNoWriMo has always been the sort of work I know I could never do under non-NaNoWriMo conditions.  I've tried to replicate it and came close with the draft I'm editing now, but really, there's nothing that compares to declaring to the whole internet I AM GOING TO WRITE FROM NOV 1 TO NOV 30 NO MATTER WHAT.  Every year I've paused at some point, and I think at every year I've had a point where I've almost quit writing, usually citing that I've gotten to 50k so technically I've won.  Every year I panic and think the thing has to be way off the rails, that I've blown it, that it just isn't going to work.  Every year it does.

During NaNoWriMo I found the courage to get a solid 2/3 of a story I'd been stalling out on for 3 years.  During NaNoWriMo I wrestled through a dark, dark depression and a bone-deep conviction I wouldn't be able to write anymore.  During NaNoWriMo I delved deep into dark places and paved the way for a major protagonist shift which would define not just that novel but pretty much everything I've written since.  And last year during NaNoWriMo I wrote 93,000 words which were a complete draft of a sequel to the novel from the year before; I've yet to be able to get back to that one to polish it up (ostensibly that was the goal for this October, but I fear that's not going to work now), but I did the kind of work in those thirty days I could normally expect to take ten months to do.  This year I intend to write a full draft of another m/m romance, hoping that by the time I finish it, it can be my third novel sold.  (I haven't yet sold two and haven't sent it in yet, but I am thinking positively.)

There's a magic to NaNoWriMo.  I don't know if it's the energy, the public nature of it, the format, or if it's simply that it's not my usual method.  The rules are that you begin a draft on November 1 and finish by 30 with 50,000 words or more.  There's no revision, no backing up, no erasing.  It doesn't have to be--and shouldn't be--perfect.  You can write alone, or you can join online and/or local writing groups.  You can have writing buddies and post excerpts and post "cover art."  You can get advice or moral support in the forums, or you can ignore the networking nature of NaNoWriMo entirely.  The magic is there however you do it, and I've participated in all the ways mentioned above.  After hooking up with my local chapter last year, I will always be at the write-ins and local meetings; I love having a local, live writing community, and I love the diversity of it.  We have THE best ML, and the Central Iowa Authors simply rock, both in talent and personality.  That said, I enjoyed NaNoWriMo even when it was just me and my stats page.  However you do NaNo, it's still NaNo, and it's always great.

Maybe it's because for those thirty days you're so busy you can't worry about who will buy this or whether or not it makes sense or if you're "doing it right."  Maybe it's just the intent, the mental space you create by declaring that this month, this time is just for the novel.  It helps that so many other people are doing it too, both for energy but also I think for the permission: they are saying, tacitly, "This can be done, and therefore you can do it, too."  

NaNoWriMo offers hope. They call themselves the "Office Of Letters And Light" for a reason: these are the people who say, every year, "You can do it.  Whoever you are, whatever your limitations, you can write a novel in one month, if you want to.  And we're here to help you do it."  Writing, the loneliest profession in the world, the solitary, silent act, suddenly has a herd.  The exercise of creating a whole alternate universe that exists between "once upon a time" and "the end" doesn't just have a cheerleader, it has  bar graph to show you how far along you've come.  All you have to do is show up and make words.  No, it isn't that easy--except in November, when, for thirty days, it is.

So three cheers for NaNoWriMo and all the novelists participating in it, for the first time or the fourth or the tenth. If you're thinking about participating, I encourage you to do it.  If you need a writing buddy, this is me.  If you want an LJ forum for a friendly watercooler, this one's mine, and I encourage you to come on over.  But if you want to write a novel, this is the place to start, and this is your moment.  

NaNoWriMo is magic, and its greatest gift is that once you participate you realize that you are, too.

I have sent SPECIAL DELIVERY to three betas; one has returned his comments, one is mid-way (or so?) through, and the other just got the email this morning.  I've read through it twice for surface editing and have fussed with bits of scene to deal with issues Beta One discovered which I agree are worth investigating.  I've told Dreampress I have this story, they've said they'd like to see it, and please send it with a synopsis because they use it for a lot of things.

*headdesk*

If there were a "get out of synopsis free" card, every writer in the world, I suspect, would dive-bomb for it, and there would be blood on the victor's hand.  Once I get into a synopsis, I actually enjoy it, but the moment of beginning to write one is worse, in my opinion, than the blank page before you start the novel.  At least for drafting I get to tell my Virgo side to go suck on something, because THIS IS ART, GODDAMN IT.  Even when it's time for editing and she comes out with the rubber gloves and a scrubber, the stuff is already there, fluid and strange and beautiful in its mess.  Synopsis?  Fuck.  I need the Virgo here, and I need any and everybody I can find to get this albatross up and flying.  

The first terror of the synopsis is trying to figure out how to say in 6-12 pages what it just took you 60-100k to say; you immediately think, if I could have said it in six pages, I'd have written a short story!  But of course it must be done, and so you sludge on, trying to boil your baby down to the bones.  And that's the second terror, and for me it's the worst.  It's the moment where you find out if there ARE bones.  Never mind that you called the story done.  Never mind that it felt right or that it looks pretty.  In the synopsis, you find out how much of this is structure and how much of this is just fat rolls and extra feathers.

That's how it goes for me, anyway.  I never like writing the meandering stuff that starts, "Sam is a nursing student in Middleton, Iowa, who isn't happy with his life."  God, I'm already yawning.  I want to find the heart of the thing.  I want to find the soul, and the spark, and I want to SELL IT.  That's the part that's diciest in this venture: just because Dreamspinner bought HERO doesn't mean they'll want this one.  I'd love to be optimistic and just dash this off, assuming it's already sold, but would it not be the eighth circle of hell to undersell this and LOSE the surest sale I've got?  In one way, the pressure is off, but in another way, the pressure is even higher.  I WANT to sell it to this publisher.  Which means I want the synopsis to sell my book.

Which takes me right back to the blank page.

There are a zillion articles on the web and in books on how to write a synopsis.  Everyone has a formula.  Everyone has a method. Me, I have to just do it.  I start with my own amalgam of all the methods I've ever read burbling in the back of my mind, add a dash of panic and then stir in some Heidi Hysteria, and off we go. It's the mini-version of writing the book: I worry about whether or not there is plot.  I worry about whether or not it makes sense.  I worry about pacing and character and development.  I worry about both how they come across in the synopsis and whether or not the actual book itself is as sound as it should be.  I also delete many, many paragraphs that sound great and flow nicely with the synopsis but do not actually happen in the story.  At some point I will unquestionably cry, even if I don't think I'm upset.  And then, if the old patterns continue, all of a sudden it will gel, and I will gasp, and then laugh, and then I will hug it in euphoric bliss.  

Then I will come back in a few hours and edit furiously, no longer blinded by whatever weird high got me through to the end and convinced me it was fine.

That cycle will repeat a bit until either I get tired or it feels done, and then I will try not to look at it anymore until I send it, at which point I will deliberately not think about it until I have to.  I didn't even know where the synopsis for HERO was on my hard drive; when I found it, I started reading it to see if it would give me ideas, and after a few sentences shuddered and thought perhaps it would be better to just never open that again.

I guess if I have any method it is to be as honest and as clear as I can be about what my story is, go back and try to erase the obvious Stupid, then eventually surrender and admit that I write novels instead of synopses for a reason and hope for the best. Undoubtedly I will chronicle the joys and pains of writing a synopsis for SPECIAL DELIVERY (you know, the story I despaired had any plot at all?) in my twitter feed over the next few days.  Feel free to follow along or run away screaming.  

I've been trying to write a post-sale post for days now, and I'm going to give up trying to make it articulate or pretty and just give you what I know since Tuesday.  I've signed the contract, which is the big news, and I mailed it out yesterday after a series of emails with the publisher, learning more about the house, the genre, and the new-to-me world of digital publishing.  I'm now on a Dreamspinner author loop, where I am planning on being silent as a stone as long as possible so I can get a lay of the land. 

Announcing the sale has been fun, but sometimes it feels like coming through a door sideways. I'm aware that in most of the publishing circles I've hung out in for years that presses like Dreamspinner are considered to be less than par, that they're "settling" or worse. I think some of that stigma has faded as traditional publishing has begun to go down like Eddie Izzard's flan in a cupboard, which is good.  I also know that a lot of people at this point were just glad to see me in ANYWHERE.  I wish I knew the way (outside of this blog) to explain that actually I wouldn't trade this house for anything right now. Small is good to me, though in point of fact this house is growing: they've just expanded their line, which is why HERO is coming out in December of this year or January of 2010 instead of June or July, which would be more then norm in publishing. I like the focus on m/m a lot.  I like the professionalism I've experienced on every level.  No, the money is not huge, based as nearly all digital houses are largely on royalties instead of advances (though I do get one of those, too), but I like that, too.  I just like all of it, and it feels very good, very home, or potential home, so far. 

The most awkward come-out has been on Facebook.  It's actually gone fine, but that place has become the absolute strangest cross-section of people in my life, and I wasn't sure how this was going to go over.  I tried to be cagey and just say I'd sold a novel, but people wanted details, and I figured I could only hedge so long, so I gave in and wrote a "note" telling the whole story of how I got here and what kind of story I'm writing and will be writing in the future.  The comments so far have all been positive, and I don't expect that to change.  I'm sure there have been some eyebrows going up, but that's okay.  I don't want to apologize for myself, and I don't want to hide what I do, which is why I'm using my own name.  My proudest, proudest (going to cry right here at the computer) moment was yesterday when my in-laws called me on the phone from their vacation to congratulate me, and they each took a turn.  Tom said, as he always has, that "he's going to buy a whole bunch of them and give them to everyone."  I paused, then said as gently as I could, "Tom, not everyone might want to read this kind of book."  (I'm envisioning Dan's conservative aunts falling over in a faint when they get to the part where Morgan has to bring Hal to multiple orgasms to get a drug of out him.)  Tom didn't even pause.  "Well, I'm at least getting a book to put on my shelf.  This is a big deal."  They have always been my staunchest supporters, outside of Dan. They're behind everything I write, and I think they're honored, not ashamed, that it's their surname I'm using on the cover.  (Yep, big bawling baby right now.)  I love them so much.  I hope they see that name as an honor to them, because without Cullinans, I could not have done this.  

So that's where I am.  I've been reading contracts and trying to sound sane and professional in my emails, and alternating between being quietly giddy and hopeful and crying.  Actually, it's hard to think about, but I have to, and thank god for my Virgo, because coping means planning.  The thing is, Dreamspinner allows for (and wants) an aggressive publishing schedule.  I asked my editor what her ideal Dreamspinner author looked like, as in, how much does she publish, and her answer was "a novel or novella every three months." By no means was this a requirement, but that was the ideal.  THAT is really, really fast for somebody who drags her feet like me, and probably a good challenge.  I'm feeling a bit pleased, because I could actually meet that for awhile: SD is almost done (and would fit the line), I'm set to write another for NaNoWriMo, and these really do come out a lot faster.  I don't want to lose sight of the other works, either SMALL TOWN BOY or the world of Etsey, but ultimately, work at Dreamspinner would only help them.  Plus, I really like this work.  It sure beats subbing for preschoolers.  It does mean I have to stop fudging on my exercises, and at some point I should try to run a trial of a spoken word software, but I have my doubts I could compose that way.  Anyway, the bottom line is that I have a lot I can do, a lot I need to do, and finally, finally, FINALLY I am not just putting stuff out there for a maybe or potentia. For the first time, my writing is actually going somewhere. That's where the crying comes in.  People, I've been writing without a measurable audience since I was twelve.  I am now thirty-six. That is a DAMN LONG TIME to go unpublished, especially since the first novel (at twelve) you've been assuming that was where it was supposed to end up.

The icon above is an image I bought from iStockphoto, which I've used on my website.  Why yes, I have one!  I've been working on it for a month or so, to the relief of my poor brother who has been asking me for years, "NOW are you ready for a website?"  He's been parking heidicullinan.com forever, and as of yet it still redirects you right back to where you are right now.  But this is the trial run.  I'm still working on some of the wordings, and I worry that it's kind of lame, but it's a start.  It looks a bit like it's set up on a few of Anna's building blocks, all wobbly with funny format, but that's because I'm using iWeb and my MobileMe server space. Hans will make it look more stable.

The best (tongue in cheek?) page is the Fiction page. I stayed up until 1AM last night writing blurbs for all my stories. Notice I am mostly works in progress, though in my defense, several of them are pretty damn close.  I feel like most of the blurbs still need work, and I really laugh at the ones for TEMPLE BOY and SMALL TOWN BOY.  Half the people are missing! But they don't fit in the blurb. The TEMPLE BOY one is really rough, because I haven't revised it yet.  That is what I'm hoping for October, but first I have to finish SD.  Which means I should stop blogging and go work.

In the meantime, that's where I am.  Slightly suspended, trying to respect the moment while also trying to kick myself in gear and work like hell.  And really, really looking sternly at myself, because I absolutely HAVE to start getting to the gym again.  And clean the house . . . .
 

More importantly, I have 300 words into the first scene.  And they begin thusly:

As Sam stared out the living room window, feigning attention as his aunt lectured him, he saw a bright blue semi at the bottom of the hill.

I wanted to incorporate the penultimate draft's opening because I always liked it (I posted it here once: it was Sam ogling Mitch out the window while his aunt lectured him) but it wasn't going to work because I needed this scene to do different things.  This opener needs to set up Sam where he is at the start of the story and hint at where he's going to go, and show us why he needs to go there.  And introduce the town, and prominent players, and needs to hint at the antagonist, who isn't going to physically appear until over half-way through.  Well, I have my doubts that he's the proper antagonist, but he's the best I've got, so I want an echo of him in the opening.  In short, as usual the whole thing hangs on the opening scene, and the opening scene is never right until the end.  Technically this one won't last, either, but it has to start somewhere, so this is where it happens.  

There is substitute teaching for me today, which will be full of preschoolers, and it will be all day.  I am in no way excited about this because I'd rather be writing, but unlike writing, this gig today will bring in almost $100 at the end of October.  Theoretically writing could do this and maybe more by then, too, but theory and YES, WE PROMISE TO PAY YOU are two different things, and Tina needs a merry-go-round at her birthday party.  (That's an obscure Mommie Dearest joke, but I promise you, four people reading this are laughing, at least on the inside). My having risen at five to write will undoubtedly come to haunt me later in the day, and I don't have high hopes for my ability to participate well in the One Iowa phonebank later tonight, but we'll see.  

My goal is to finish revising this and draft submission stuff by the end of the week.  In reality I will be happy with the end of the month.  Then I turn all my focus to TSV revisions and to TEMPLE BOY revisions, while all the while learning about poker so I can write about Randy in November.  

Off now to see if I can make it 500 words before I go in to work.  I should really do a few exercises, too, since at this moment my hips and pelvis are revolting and I'm 60% numb there.  You know, really, after a year?  So long as I can muddle through and function and am not SCREAMING with pain, I don't even care.  You can live at around 3-4 on the pain scale and dive occasionally into 5 or 6.  It's the seven and up that kill you.  Numb?  Whatever.

Onward.

There is no time more desolate or lonely than the time between when the contact high of the drafting is waning and when you've rested enough to pick up something and seriously wrestle with revisions again.  I wish I could say I joyfully leap into home improvement or knitting or simply enjoy sitting around reading, but honestly, there are a few days where it's just hard to not be living in whatever world it was I just left. I suspect some of that is because the imagined worlds don't have sore backs or plumbing that breaks or a million other issues ranging from the mundane to the serious: none, that is, which aren't directly related to the plot.  Actually, that's my main complaint about Real Life.  The plot could use some work.

I want to revise "The Boys of Pleasure," which I started yesterday and saw both that bradhanon  was right and that there was a way to fix it, but I was too tired to really grasp it.  I started rereading SPECIAL DELIVERY, and I can see some of what is needed, but that baby needs a big morning with the iPod and the whiteboard and a side order of John Nash to get the job done.  I want to work on TEMPLE BOY, but it's not yet time, because that will be very engaging, and I need to finish the other two first. The thought of writing a synopsis for TSV makes my brain bleed just yet.  At this point I can basically do poker/casino research for the NaNoWriMo book and play Hoyle.

Oh, yeah I'm reading, and trying to rest, but it's not the same.  I really do like working more than anything, when it's what I want to do. Anyway.  I figure by the end of the week or early next I'll be back on my feet.  Trouble is, what to do until then . . . .

It's a pretty bare collage, but this is the WIP I'm going back to.  Found the model for Sam on Tumblr and was inspired.  Also, it makes a nice desktop.

(Click to make big)