Novel slews sideways

My novelling group met last night, and we had a really successful meeting. Lots of chatter about different aspects of writing, and I have a million links to email out to different members who asked me for resources. I will do that when I get home, guys!

They also gave me feedback on the opening of my novel, and we wound up talking about a load of other facets of it as well.

Let me back up a bit and mention that I haven’t worked on the novel since about February. I edited the stuffing out of the opening section and submitted it for a competition, and I haven’t touched it since. (I didn’t get shortlisted for the competition, so I can stop hoping about that and move on now).

Since then, I got very disheartened about the whole thing (since submitting it, not since knowing that I didn’t make the shortlist – really, it was a longshot anyway). It felt old and tired, and the story just didn’t seem to want to make the right shape. It stopped feeling like something I thought other people wanted to read; I write because I want to be published, so that makes a difference. If I just wrote for myself, I would have been happy to crank out the first draft and move on.

I have been pondering some fairly radical changes, and the discussions last night helped me make a couple of decisions. The first is that one of the subplots and main points of view has to go. I love my pair of cops, and they will still be in the book, but I think that giving them their own voice threatened to overwhelm the plot of the novel and slant it off-track. Trying to do them and their story justice took up bigger and bigger chunks of space, and I don’t think that was helping matters.

One of my group made a good point that brought it home to me – was there anything that they had to solve, in order to resolve the plot? The short answer is: no. Their presence has a purpose, but the mystery they’re solving doesn’t really impact the main plot. Which leads to the simple question: why give them so much real estate in the story, then?

I’ll miss Charlie’s voice (and I’ll probably bring him into another story anyway), but he’ll still show his head in the story; the police presence is still required. That, I think, will help to focus the story and will also help to sharpen their role in the main character’s plot thread. On the plus side, I have two characters that are fairly well fleshed-out to write in, which makes things easier for me.

The other big change I decided on was genre. I have always said that the novel is Crime (or Mystery) genre, mostly at a loss to pin it down anywhere else. I usually go for scifi or modern fantasy in my writing (like I have with AB), but the nature of this story didn’t require a different place, planet, time or metaphysical rules. It could pass as real-life, with a bit of ninja thrown in (I don’t intend to put in any ninja magic – at least, not in this story). So, because it is essentially a murder mystery, I filed it away under ‘Crime’.

I don’t think I ever felt quite comfortable with that. It’s probably because I know how hard it is for writers to cross genres, and the chances of me wanting to stay in straight crime were not good. (That’s once I’m published, of course, which… okay, it might be jumping the gun here, but a girl can hope.)

I don’t want to go down the magic route – ninja magic is cheesy and would detract from what is a very serious story. I like to twist cliches and stereotypes around into something new, but I think that I would feel that faint edge of the ridiculous if I tried to get that in there. So that rules out modern fantasy.

Which leaves scifi. The story doesn’t need a different time or place, but it can exist in one. Scifi gives me more freedom with the rules of the game that is being played around and with my main character, and I can use that to bring certain elements to the fore if I need to. The more I think about it, the more I like the notion of jumping the story ahead a few decades – less Law And Order, more Blade Runner.

So I have a bit of work to do. The good news is that it won’t be hard to set the story in the future; it doesn’t change any of the important points. If I can get a day this weekend, I will sit down and see if I can sort out the new structure. Then edit last night’s comments in the opening, and start on reworking chapter 2.

Wish me luck!

Novelling… maybe

Here it is again – another novelling group meeting. Hard to believe it has come around again, though it seems like ages since I was here. Of course, I had to Skype into the last meeting because of the sicky.

I’m not sure what I’m going to write tonight. I should really take the time to work on my novel – tonight’s meeting is going to be more like a write-in – but my chronic hand-to-mouth posting on AB makes me want to use the time to get ahead on that. Even now, I can feel myself leaning towards where I can see tomorrow’s post waiting for me to polish it up.

It’s been two months since I wrote anything on the novel. As soon as I submitted it for the competition, I relaxed and took a break – which is fatal, really. I work better with a deadline and under (some) pressure. Bah!

The next couple of weekends are going to be pretty busy for me. There’s the big geek con in town this weekend (Supanova), and after that is Easter in which I shall most likely be Doing Things.

Wow, it’s almost like I have a life. I can’t remember the last time I had such a busy social life, and it had to come along when I was determined to really get my writing going. Not that I’m compaining! I like being busy. I just haven’t got the balance right yet.

Right. Maybe I’ll see if I can get the next few days’ AB posts sorted out, and then look at the novel. Yes. It’s a plan!

Perhaps I should post today’s post first. Hm.

I love lists

I had a time management course at work a couple of weeks ago, learning how to make the best use of my time, how to plan, and so on. Useful stuff! Nothing I didn’t already know, and most of the stuff I do already. I do like to be organised when I can be.

Lists are a good thing. All those bits that I have to get done laid out, and can be ticked off in a productive manner. It gives my OCD side a happy glow. 

So far today I have edited and scheduled up this week’s AB posts, poked Twitter with a stick and tweeted like an overcaffeinated loon, and sent out emails to my two writing groups to prepare for this month’s meetings. 

Last night I did the final edits on my novel and sent the submission in to the Debut Dagger competition. Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on it and helped me pull it into shape!

Still to go this weekend, I have to set my PC up for VPN access to work and test it. This is in case the rail strike goes ahead on the 16th Feb, as it is currently scheduled to do. No way I’m getting to the office if that happens, so I might as well work from home!

I also have to read and comment on a couple of writing pieces for my mum, take apart the vacuum system built into the house so I can clean it out, and plan the writing group meeting on Friday. I want to get a few more AB posts done, too, to give myself a bit of breathing space.

I’d like to start putting up some of the writing info that I amass for my writing groups on here. I’m finding that a lot of the same issues come up when we do exercises and workshop pieces. I’ve already got one piece up on the local writing forum, but there’s not much activity there at the moment. I think I’ll put them here too. No harm in that, right?

Right. So there’s my list for this weekend. Best get on with it, I suppose. ;)

Novelled out

Today, I have been over and over and over the prologue and first chapter of my novel-in-progress. I had over 500 words to strip out of it, and lots of comments from the novelling group session last Tuesday to take into account.

It’s been weird – I had to restructure the whole opening of the first chapter – but good. I’m learning to pick up on my writing habits, some of which are good, some of which aren’t. I managed to bring it under the wordcount limit for the Debut Dagger submission, though, and I’m happy with how it’s coming out. I think it’s stronger now.

Then I had to go through the synopsis and get that into shape. That was harder, and I wound up rewriting the whole thing (as in, retyping it from start to finish). It’s very stripped down now, but that’s the point, so that’s okay. It’s still missing a subplot or two, but there’s only so much that I can do in 1,000 words. Luckily, they’re not expecting it to be accurate. ;) If I remind myself that it’s a selling tool and not a true representation of the story, then I can make peace with my obsessive need for accuracy.

It’s tempting to submit it now – I’ve got it all formatted correctly and set up. But no, I think I’ll let it rest for a day or so, read it over for those last-minute OMG typos, and then submit it. 

I don’t know if I have a hope in hell in this competition, but I might as well try. I’ve learned lots in the process already, and hopefully that’ll put me in a good position for completing the second draft. And it feels good to kick off the submission ball, even if I am going to be waiting for it to hit me in the head on the rebound.

Nightowls gathering

This week has been a bit crazy all over the place – I meant to post about this a couple of days ago.

The first meeting of my new writing group was on Tuesday night – the novelling group that a few of us from NaNo decided to get together.  We’re hoping to keep up at least some of NaNo’s momentum, to encourage each other to keep writing, to get to the end of the story, to edit and polish, and to submit.  I don’t know if we’re all aiming to submit these novels, but we all want to work on these works of ours, and we all want to improve on what we’re doing.

As first meetings go, it went all right.  Floundered somewhat to start with – I haven’t run a meeting like this before and it showed.  The fact that we all ordered dinner kinda got in the way, too, but that’s okay.  It was nice to eat and chat, and I didn’t mind that at all.  We were all catching up after the Christmas/New Year break, too.

I threw in the first few chapters of my novel to see what they made of it, and got lots of useful feedback.  I need to cut about 550 words out of the prologue and first chapter for the Debut Dagger competition, and the feedback I got will help me do that, I think.  I’ve looked at that particular part of the novel so much (and rewritten it from scratch about twice, including one change of tense) that it desperately needed fresh eyes.

So I have a lot of work to do this weekend (as the Dagger’s deadline is in about a week).  Which is good!  I’ll get that done and submitted, and then can relax a little bit in that regard.  But not completely – I am determined to keep plugging away at it.  I have lots I want to do with and to it, so I won’t be short of work there.

After the session, I put together a post for the forum about writing synopses – I did some research prior to the meeting and might as well share!  I’m hoping to get more things like that put together and posted up for people.  Should I put that sort of stuff on here too?  Might be good to have all my writing ramblings together in one place.

I’m trying not to add another thing to my list here – I really have enough to do at the moment, and I’m already riding the raggedy edge of my energy.  I need a list of ‘when I have time’ things.  In the meantime, there’s some novel-ripping in my immediate future.  Where’d my red pen go?

Whipcrackin’

I had a very productive weekend, all told.  Rearranged my room to put my desk in a better corner – coincidentally, closer to one of my pinboards.  The cats are thoroughly confused but appear to like the new configuration.  I took the opportunity to sort through and organise all the stuff that had been piling up on my desk, so now it’s clean and usable again.

Got the next week’s AB posts all edited and scheduled up.  I had to rewrite one this morning after some feedback from the lovely Julie – I was having a dilemma over what to do with a couple of the characters, and changed my original plan.  It gave me the chance to throw another spanner in the workings of Faith’s little group, which is always a good thing.  Or at least interesting.

And I finally got down to really editing through the first portion of the novel yesterday.  I’m being pretty ruthless at the moment and it seems to be shaping up pretty good.  I’m shuffling a few things around, and patching up after that is proving to be a pain. 

It’s almost time to submit it for feedback, though.  I’m considering taking out one of the subplots and POV threads, but I’m really torn about that – I love the characters involved, but I need to work out if they’re really any use within the story.  I like what they add, but I don’t know if it’s really necessary, or, worse, a distraction.  Hopefully a fresh set of eyes or three will help me work that out.

Phew.  So much to think about.  I’m really tired today, but I’m determined to crack on with, well, everything.

Went to see Bolt yesterday, too.   I am in love with the hamster.  I’m gonna go get my ball.

Weekend- where?

I have no idea where this weekend is gone.  I had such plans!  Or, well.  Some, at least.

I made a start on the novel editing yesterday.  It felt good to finally get going on that, and it has been long enough since I wrote it that I can come at it with fresh eyes.  The beginning section is fairly solid, which is good, and doesn’t need a huge amount of work.  So far.

Didn’t have a full day of it, though.  I was pretty tired, and there was family stuff going on, so I decided to take a break and spend some time with the folks.  Seems ages since I took a break from everything – AB has eaten up the past few weeks, and before that it was NaNo.  So it was nice to take an afternoon off completely and not think about all the writing stuff I should be doing.

Today was a bit like that, too, though I hadn’t meant to do that either.  We had guests over for lunch, and they only just left.  It was good, though – lots of talking and (yet more) eating.  I’ve done nothing writing-related today and it feels a little bit strange.  Well, okay, I put a couple of posts up on the forum, but that doesn’t count.

I do feel a bit more energised with regard to my writing projects, though.  I think my brain needed that break.  

The next few entries for AB are starting to clutter up in my head – I should get them down into text tonight.  Or at least start it, so I can pick it up tomorrow on the way to work.  Time to start the Aftermath section.  Wheeee.

Productive me!

I’m feeling productive this weekend, despite being thoroughly kicked by the CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).  I’m shaky and drained and dizzy from time to time, but luckily with it enough to be able to do writing stuff.  Sometimes it shuts my brain down so much I am reduced to watching TV, but the application of coffee appears to be staving that off.

I fought with pre-Christmas traffic yesterday to run some errands with Mum – finally got a Christmas tree and a few other seasonal essentials (including a Santa Claws hat for the cats – pictures pending :D ).  Finally managed to pick up some corkboards for my room – I have been wanting to get some of those for ages.

So now all of my little filecards for the novel are off the spare room floor and pinned onto corkboards.  It took two of them to get the whole scenelist up and in order.  And I have in no way managed to obsessive-compulsively colour-code all the pins.  Aw, at least it’s pretty.

For some reason, the corkboards are warping when I hang them up.  I’m happy just having them there – I’ll fix them when I can be bothered.  I’m just glad that I’m all organised there, and I’m ready to get stuck into editing this novel thing into some kind of order.

Have to sort out AB first, though.  I’ve just finished editing through the next set of posts.  I’m in the middle of posting up the start of the end of the world – it’s scheduled for this week.  Better get moving with that if I’m going to have time to do any actual writing today.  Have to get ahead of myself if I’m going to have time for novel-editing!

Apparently, I like a challenge.