The Beauty in Ugly

My re-write is DONE (for now). I figure I've probably written over 200,000 words to get a polished 90,000 word, 370 page manuscript, but that's just how the process works. At least for me. Maybe it's different for others, but I don't think so. The first ugly draft has to exist before it can be beautiful.

So for those of you who read and critiqued my ugly early drafts, thanks. I wouldn't have learned as quickly without your feedback. I'm not one that re-reads books very often. If a book grabs me, I'll read it again a few years later. But in writing The Devil's Key, I've re-read the story so often that I can scroll right to the page where certain events happen without having to search. That's a LOT of re-reading and there were days when I was so sick of it.

I'm not now, though. Now, I'm excited. It's becoming beautiful. The choppy parts are smoothed, the extra dialog tags are gone, the characters are deeper, and the plot is tighter. I even have moments when I forget that my characters aren't real people. Jeff thinks I'm half crazy sometimes. But of course, I am. I have six kids, I'm general contracting a house, and I'm trying to break into the publishing world, each of which requires a certain level of insanity to try in the first place. So I must be three times crazier than everybody else. But seriously, I love the creative process that goes into writing and if I had my wish, I'd write six hours a day, publish a book a year, and putter around in my garden whenever I wasn't operating the mom taxi.

Now on to find an agent...

Third re-write, fifth revision

It's amazing how many people are writing books - like one person in ten. Seriously. It seems like every other day I meet someone new who is in some stage of writing one. So naturally, I ask questions. It turns out that some folks only have a story idea and haven't actually started writing (an obvious flaw in logic there, but whatever). Others have made it past that hurdle and are part way through. A few actually make it to a first revision. It seems most quit at or before this stage, which is a good thing or agents would drown in a flood of query letters and wouldn't accept any at all.

But now I'm on my third re-write and fifth revision. Am I there yet? Will this revision be THE ONE? No idea. Honestly. I hope so and I know I need to send out another round of queries to put some action behind that hope, but I'd rather skip it. I hate the query process. I wonder if agents can tell a first-draft newbie from a writer who's slogged through several re-writes. I hope so. Are they willing to invest a little time to help a writer grow, or do they have so many prospects that they only accept perfect work? 'Cause if that's the case, I'm doomed. I don't think there's any such thing as a perfect draft. So why am I trying so hard to produce one? Oh yeah...I don't have an agent yet. So my goal for this next month is to finish revising the last one hundred pages of my story and send it off to Elizabeth while I research more agents to send it to.

Silence

I'm still slogging through this revision of Devil's Key. I want the draft I send back to Elizabeth to be as good as I can make it because if she doesn't like it, that's it. I won't have another chance to have her be my agent. I have yet to hear back from Samantha McFerrin about Princess Pots, nor have I heard from Adams Literary about Devil's Key. Those are the only two queries I have out right now and I've heard nothing but silence. I'm hoping it's a golden silence and not a deathly silence, but time will tell. I have learned that immediate responses are almost always rejections. Not that I'm counting days or anything (38 and 22, respectively), but I do hope to hear back before New Year's. Adams Literary's exclusive runs out the second week in December. But I have enough to keep me busy until then. My goal is to finish this revision of DK in the next three weeks and get it to Elizabeth before Christmas. Clock's ticking.

Janette Rallison

I met Janette Rallison last week. She's so cool. She was invited to speak at my children's Jr. High and High Schools, but she also spoke to the young women at church. I introduced myself and started asking about writing and the publishing industry in general. Then I invited her out to lunch. Being a kind, helpful person, she offered to review my first three chapters. Hooray! I handed them over two days later. Embarrassingly enough, I'd never read any of her books. So I stole Lindsey's copy of It's A Mall World After All and read it straight through. It was very cute (and clean), which are elusive qualities in today's young adult literature. If you are looking for a fun YA read, I definitely recommend her books.

Anyhow, Janette met with my writers group on Thursday evening, returned my marked up chapters, and offered valuable feedback. THANK YOU JANETTE! I internalized more about fiction writing from her in four hours than I did at an all day conference. So I'm back to the editing chopping block. However, now I am focused with specific things to fix. I only hope that once the surgery is over, my story will have new life.

Revisions, revisions

A year ago, if someone had told me that in order to write a book, I'd have to re-write it three times with several rounds of revisions in between, I might have quit before even beginning. It's truly a labor of love because even if I find an agent who sells my story, I'm not likely to earn more than 1 cent for every word I wrote. That's some seriously low wages. Once I'm done with this round of revisions on Devil's Key though, I won't do any more until an agent or publisher requests them. I'm finally at a place where I'm comfortable with what I've written and can honestly say that I've enjoyed the process. Hopefully, the lessons I've learned this time around will reduce the number of re-writes with the next story. Maybe. But as Shannon Hale wrote on her blog, the first draft has to exist before it can be changed into the draft that you keep.

Sci Fi Romance

As I was discussing books with an acquaintance, she offered the opinion that 'most women like romance novels and don't read science fiction.' WHAT??? How could she think that? I seriously had no idea. I grew up reading tons of sci-fi. As an adult, I'm a literary omnivore, but still love science fiction. Kevin J. Anderson's Saga of the Seven Suns is my current favorite sci-fi series. So here's my question, what do you read?

Inspiration

A belated congratulations to Joelle Anthony, whose book Restoring Harmony, will be gracing bookstore shelves sometime in the near future. Way to go! And truly, hearing a success story is inspiring. It means that maybe all these frustrations and rejections are just part of the normal learning curve. It means that persistence pays off. It means that I still have hope that one of my stories will be published some day. Maybe.

Doubt and uncertainty offset hope and confidence in my roller coaster moods about my writing. I get SO excited about a project, only to be dashed to pieces by an editor or agent. But each time I crash, I learn, so I guess it's worth it. Thank goodness for friends and sisters who put this Humpty Dumpty together again, every time. You ladies rock!

The funny thing is, I woke up this morning with a story bug and couldn't settle to the grant I'm writing right now until I jotted my thoughts down. Sure, on a day I have NO time to write for myself, I can't get going until I do (the grant deadline is in less than a week). No complaints though, it's a cute little story. I was okay after the writers conference and e-mails from Elizabeth. But as the days have slipped past without any blocks of time to write for myself, and really, no idea how to improve the efficiency and quality of my writing efforts in the few stolen moments I snatch now and then, I've become increasingly frustrated. So now that I've had my little release, back to the dreaded grant. I want Jeff to get tenure soon so I won't have to do so much academic writing. It's not nearly as fun and adds so much stress to my life.