I (currently) have only one 1st-person POV scene. And that’s just not right. So I’ve been considering my options.
So I lean toward #1, but in rewriting the scene it seems to lose something.
Another excerpt from where I’ve been working lately.
This one takes place in the fitting room, where Linnea, the Lindorm‘s Bride-to-be has been fussed over for hours. She, of course, has to wonder if her wedding dress will also be her shroud, until a mysterious old woman comes to her while she (Linnea) is alone.
When the queen and Prince Torbjorn return to the room, the king and Hjalmar (special forces) captains are with them. The captain Tykone is a friend of Linnea’s from childhood and tried to protect her from being offered to the monster. Rickard, the other captain, has reasons to think less of Linnea.
As mentioned before, Sarsé is this kingdom’s female title of respect and/or rank. The prince has just told Linnea to say exactly what she means, despite his mother’s objection.
We would do this during NaNoWriMo and it was effective but I never really tried it on my own. But it works.
Sunday afternoon Natasha kept begging me to come play dolls with her, so I set my timer for ten minutes and told her I’d come when it went off.
Knowing I’ve only got a few minutes to cram as much creativity into as possible really worked for me.
And while I’m on the topic of “You already have the truth within you” I’m having to remind myself about the whole “box up your editor” advice. Being in the awkward place of simultaneously creating and editing (yes, I know this is horrible, I don’t currently know an alternative that won’t increase my work later) I’m having to remind myself about letting go of perfect on this new material.
~ ~ ~
It makes me think of a line that horrified my sensibilities when I first heard it:
“Cs get degrees.”
The guy who shared this bit of wisdom with me was pointing out that no one cares that you killed yourself maintaining a 4.0 once you’re holding that piece of paper. At least for the field he was interested in.
It makes me think of conversations I’ve had, or interviews I’ve read, where another writer will boast that he gets it “right” (or so close to right) the first time that revision is virtually unnecessary.
Here I see the finished piece of writing in the role of the degree.
No one cares how few drafts it took to bring the piece to this level of quality. They look– consciously or not– at what it is, not what it is for only x-drafts.
And that (mostly) eliminates my sense of competitiveness.
Sure, being quick helps (especially when you’re blogging and want to get your thoughts down quickly so they quit cluttering your brain while you’re trying to write fiction…) but speed is so far from my primary goal as a growing writer that I don’t want to be tricked into releasing something too soon.
I have, more than once, thought of my novel as my “fourth child.”
I am sorry if that seems irreverent or distasteful to some, and of course I don’t value my writing more than my true children.
The plain truth is I live with the nebulous thing nearly as much as the offspring I can hug, and it’s the best way I’ve yet come up with to categorize it.
But with that parallel in mind– of art being a sort of offspring (and the reverse, also, of children being works of art), I’d love to share this parenthetical comment by Joyce Carol Oates. I see a direct parallel between it and the conversations I sometimes have with other mothers.
A study should really be done of artists’ private systems, that cluster of stratagems, both voluntary and involuntary, that make daily life navigable. Here we would find, I think, a bizarre and ingenious assortment of Great Religions in embryo— a system of checks and balances, rewards, and taboos, fastidious as a work of art. What is your schedule, one writer asks another, never What are the great themes of your books?— for the question is, of course, in code, and really implies Are you perhaps crazier than I– and will you elaborate?
~ ~ 1 ~ ~
Looks like it’s going to be another chilly entry into the new year: -30° and colder since two days after Christmas, and a bunch of highs near -40° through at least next Monday.
Anybody whose been complaining about your winter weather can be reminded now: It could be worse.
I’ve lived here most of my life, am very content indoors and we rarely have much wind on these cold days– So “it could be worse” even for me.
For example, this could (and has!) happen(ed) during a week when Jay had to drive to work each morning. Thankfully he has this week off and we can hibernate if we so choose.
And the best part is a week of this and I’ll have no qualms about bringing in all the bedbuggy stuff still outside. (Jay says he does, though, so I’m not sure what will happen.)
~ ~ 2 ~ ~
My “big” resolution, or goal, or… whatever you want to call it:
Nothing new this year. Not even books– used or new.
This means not starting any new projects in 2009.
By contrast, in 2008, with an already-full life, I
The natural result of “nothing new” is no recreational buying. No buying “on spec” (my gift shelf is well-stocked, my kids’ grow-into boxes ready, my homeschool books boxed and waiting.), and maybe even no buying without a list.
That last detail’s going to take more thought.
It means finishing the projects and books I’ve started (and bought to start), and training my mind to think first of what I have– even before the Library or other borrowing– because this isn’t first about saving money. It’s about re-training my thinking. The purpose of the exercise is to shift my thinking from “outward” and “exploring” to being more home- and contentment-centered. Satisfied.
I have told myself I can buy books this year once/if I finish what I’ve already bought, but considering I’ve glutted myself a bit in the last two weeks, leading up to this challenge, that is even less likely to happen than is was last year when I tried the first time.
It is sobering to re-read that post and know my goal is exactly the same a year later. But I also know that I made choices that led to discarding the effort, so (Lord willing) I’ll make a more purposed attempt this time around.
The first thing is to not go into a bookstore– because I *will* find something I’d like to buy (Yesterday I made sure to empty my B&N gift card and buy the one book left to complete the last of 2008’s series’ collecting). The rest I guess I’ll figure out as I go along.
~ ~ 3 ~ ~
I just introduced the idea of “chore charts” to the kids yesterday, and made one for myself as well.
Since I felt it would be either overwhelming or depressing to actually list everything I must do, I just made a 3-point chart for me:
I like having such a short list to look at; especially since I sometimes make serious to-do lists on the side. My three little stickers at the end of the day feel so fulfilling I have no questions about why this works for children.
~ ~ 4 ~ ~
Starting the book Opening Your Child’s Spiritual Windows tonight raised a lot of questions in my mind. Most about the nature of my relationship with my children.
Slantwise about the legitimacy of my writing and my desire to read so much YA fiction this year. I (mentally) compared Fire Arrow with OYCSW and can see the value so much clearer in the second.
But unless I feel the call to write being withdrawn (which I haven’t) I have to assume they both are important. Not because I expect FA to change my life (as OYCSW might) but because I need to be faithful to develop the skills God has called me to build.
~ ~ 5 ~ ~
I forget now where, but recently I read someone who insisted the way you become a better writer is 50% by writing and 50% by reading.
Thinking on the implications of this I determined to keep it “before my eyes” (hence my massive reading goals). I want to keep this in mind, because if I let my approach to the craft slip too much into writing alone (however important I know that practice to be) I fear I’ll fall into an underlying arrogance; that I might imagine I can improve simply from within, without external input.
And that goes against everything I say I believe.
~ ~ 6 ~ ~
My reading list– all books (though not all the books) that I have waiting on my shelves– is in my new right-hand column.
I have a new page listing what I’ve finished, what I’m reading, and a few thoughts on each as I go along
No reviews here, and no spoiler-warnings either: just the notes I want to keep for myself, and they won’t be spoilers for me. Consider yourself duly (dully?) warned.
~ ~ 7 ~ ~
I *love* my new blog template. It’s set up with all the changeable options (fonts, colors, widths) in an actual menu, so I don’t have to go digging though the style sheet to find them.
Anyone who’s tried to wiggle their own template details will understand when I say:
Absolute *delight* to work with.
More 7 Quick Takes at Jen’s place.
My favorite show this year of is Chuck.
Disclaimer: While the violence (people are shot, occasionally) is incongruously “clean,” the producers haven’t tried to shift away from the standard draw of the sexy female spy, so if that’s gonna bug you, know yourself. Nevertheless, I appreciate that the male MCs are remarkably appropriate in their spectrum of reactions to her.
This show is a delight both comedicly and for the storytelling. Our sweet, bumbling, ah shucks title character is smart enough to think on his feet, even when the computer in his brain (roll with me here) doesn’t give him any practical answers for getting out of the trouble “knowing too much” gets one into.
Latest great line: “Wow. Those 7 years of MacGyver finally paid off.”
Every episode this season (and I do mean every episode– I checked) has had me embarrassingly on the edge of my seat and has resolved (however implausibly) from elements solidly presented beforehand and belonging in that world.
The interesting thing to me is how Chuck (the character) has grown from the first season. At the very beginning he was little more than a victim of (highly improbable) circumstance. Anything he did well was basically stopgap (“It’s never. safe. in the car!”) or a fluke.
Now the writers have matured him into a mostly pro-active component of the team, allowing his actions to be both effective and detrimental to the case of the week.
~ ~ ~
I am thinking of this just now because I’ve been mentally compiling a collection of information that highlights my novel’s biggest weakness just now.
Linnea (my MC) is in this folktale where stuff happens to her: throwing her world wildly upside down anytime she starts to get comfortable. I would despair at how ever to reconcile this to the “proactive” model of MC if I didn’t have the example of Chuck.
Trust me, the stuff he’s yanked into is improbable– but his reactions and what he precipitates as he talks his way out of them most definately is his own.
So as cheezey as it sounds (to the TV snobs), I have been using the examples of planting and set-up from Chuck to remind myself I can have both improbability and cohesive “self-determination” in the same story. It’s becoming a fun combination.
I know I am not the only writer with this issue, but every now and again I get an itch to buy a pen.
Doubtless this is our version of geek-/nerdness (take your pick. I know the distiction is more important to some).
I have spent tooooo much time at Office Max, taking advantage of some patient clerk allowing me to try out any number of pens.
For future attacks– if I ever run out of what I bought today– I need to remember that the way to deal with this is to go down to Value Village and buy one of their 99-cent bags of pens.
I bought two today and have 17 new implements (not counting what I gave to my kids and DH) with 4 or 5 tips, and I am looking forward to my hand-work today. Plan to finish the sequencing on the fanale I began here.
Again, from Jen’s idea.
~ ~ 1 ~ ~
Jay’s talking about wanting a pellet-burning stove. I’m asking where it will go.
I’m asking for a double bed with drawers. It will take up less room (in our little room) than the queen-sized bed (we never use all that space anyway), and let us get rid of at least one dresser.
Both changes will make more room for book cases ;) Eventually.
~ ~ 2 ~ ~
The cast list was sent out last week, and my name was by “doting mother,” which comes just before a list of “my” seven children (a boy, three girls and my own three kids). This might have seemed really cool, except just a couple days before Jay had fielded a call while I was out, inviting me to play “the matron.”
Leaving aside the self-image rearrangement that I looked more like a “matron” than a lady (hmmm?) the description of the role he was given created some questions that have yet to be cleared up.
~ ~ 3 ~ ~
I have my latest project (with Christmas for the deadline): dollhouse dolls.
I was so excited to see Barbara Curtis‘s post about the hugely discounted M&D dollhouse that I bought it the same day (it’s still going for under-retail now, but then it was $47.99, I think). Local retailers ended up being out of the little dolls, so now I am in the process of making little flexible family members to live in said house.
It may even turn into an “entrepreneurial opportunity” as one owner of a sold-out shop emphatically affirmed her store would be very happy to offer locally made dolls.
(We’ll see how interested I am after I finish our own bundle)
~ ~ 4 ~ ~
I was at Barnes and Noble yesterday, considering all the delicious ways to spend a gift card, and the oddest thing happened as I cruised the section of the children’s department where I read the most.
I felt a claustrophobic tightening in my chest. Just standing and looking at books was making me dizzy, and not in a good way.
This I’ve noticed only once before: when perusing the Lloyd Alexander section in my local library. Dude’s got a gobzillion books out!
I can only suppose the feeling is a goulash of emotions: anticipation (someday I’ll be there), anxiety (when will that be? When will I be done?), overwhelmed-ness (at the prolific-ness of other writers), and maybe even jealousy (at the freedom they seem to have in order to be prolific…)
I had to make myself be still and pray, waiting for God settle my mind and emotions before I could finish looking for the book I wanted that day.
Unreal, but making me again thankful I have a God who’s bigger than my emotions.
~ ~ 5 ~ ~
Once that was over I propped myself in one of the cushy chairs by their circular fireplace and worked some more on the timeline of my novel. I had two distinct packages emerge in the process, and solved a squished-time dilemma (I’ve needed an extra day and just found where it belonged).
So, I have to give Jay’s fireplace idea some credence. There’s a lot to be said for watching the flames. It’s like a shower for your brain. At least for me, having something visual and real, but inconcrete, was very useful.
~ ~ 6 ~ ~
I’ve decided I like to eat too much for weights or Pilates to be enough exercise.
Not that I eat a lot (I imagine I’ve got that under control) I just like, a lot, to eat. And the stuff I want to eat, that I’ve been eating, has maintained me 13-lbs above my target weight (trust me when I say my target is not unrealistic, or even low, for my height).
The trick, as with all exercise, is finding something sustainable.
Free weights and Pilates are doable because I can take from books and do them in my living room. The walking with my dog has been put on-hold because sub-zero walks are far from the motivating delight “normal” walks are.
I’ve considered a step, as I like the space requirements and exercising to music, but I’ve not taken the plunge yet.
We did see one in the same place Jay noticed a pull-up bar he wanted, so we may end up getting both together. Maybe for a new-year’s project.
~ ~ 7 ~ ~
After looking yesterday at all three furniture stores in-town, Jay decided he wants to build the bed frame himself.
His goal is to get the main support and frame built this weekend (so we can buy a mattress and get our bed off the floor) and to design it so that a later-constructed set of drawers may be slid under it whenever they are completed.
This was the design we liked best out of what we saw, only most of these drawers were simple “friction” drawers, where you needed to drag a wooden box out of a wooden hole.
Jay knows he can do better than that, though he/we might not even have bothered, truly, if it weren’t for the exorbitant cost of new furniture. If I’m paying over a thousand dollars for an item (we’re pushing a house-payment here!) I expect to get *exactly* what I need.
I suppose we could be considered unreasonable consumers. But there you are: Jay will take on a project, same as me, when he knows he can do it as well, or better, then what is otherwise available.
So the bed will come before the fireplace– but I expect the next time we’ve saved some house money the fireplace will be next.
Ahhh! There’s something so *fresh* about creating whole new scenes.
Put up another 1500 words tonight. Finished another “pink” section.
~
In case anybody cares, I came up with a new color system before I left Bermuda. It was there I had another “reorganization” that caused me to shuffle around a bunch of my second half and necessitated creating a half a dozen new scenes. Creating place-holders, that is. Scenes that still needed to be written to complete the story properly.
I have the scenes numbered and titled (some with self-amusing or inside-joke sorts of titles) in Excel:
It is exciting to watch the overview change to a solid block of color.
Left to-do (before the whole book is at the same level, and I start the “real” revising/proofreading part):
This might sound like a lot, but that is only 9 out of 29 scenes, which emphasizes I’m 2/3 done. Or caught up, or however you want to say it.
This time I’m only energized.
The last time, you may recall, I choked as I thought I was nearing the end. It just didn’t feel *right.* And it wasn’t right. This time everything seems to fit together ever better as I go along.
It’s a good thing I don’t believe in jinxes, or I wouldn’t dare be so delighted.
I’m currently working out a timeline for my characters– what happens when. Just realized I was “plotting.”
Heh.
~
Since I split my story into two simultaneous novels (We’re on round three, if you’re coming in late) I’ve been juggling what happens when, and trying to work out tricky elements like travel times and (Bluah) geography, making sure the groups’ encounters happen within the same calendar.
The idea is that I don’t need to write #2 at the same time, but I sure as heaven need to know what’s happening when or the next novel will be a scramble to fit rather than a natural fit.
Since my new division, the split has settled and whatever part of the story that “comes” to me generally nestles into one or other of the pieces and moves it forward nicely.
My biggest challenge with time (I’m not directly dealing with it yet, but I’ll have to soon) is how to deal with “jumps” in time to skip over the nothing-important-happening bits. I have several options I’m considering, but haven’t yet decided what fits best.
It’s made me notice how many novels and movies take place in one un-interrupted chunk of time, and look for intelligent transitions.