Archive for » December, 2008 «
I learned quite a bit in 2008 that’s made me open my eyes not only to myself but to the things around me. I’ve become a happier person for it which is always a good thing. For many years I was very pessimistic (I blame Walmart and probably will for quite some time, not to mention living in New York, that’s an acclimate or die type of town and I firmly believe you have to harden to live there otherwise you won’t survive) and while I still can’t seem to escape some of that pessimism, it’s greatly reduced. There’s no reason for it and I only brought more of it on myself. Well, aside from my optimistic improvement, here are a few things I’ve learned over the course of the year:
I have more than one book in me. I think this is a very legitimate fear for many authors. They’re afraid that they write their first novel and there’ll be nothing left. Finite. Done. I never really feared that because I was confident in turning my ideas into novels but I confirmed that confidence by writing two separate first drafts for YA novels this year with at least one sequel for each brewing, not to mention two other novels/series in the works. I still have editing ahead of me but that doesn’t take away the fact that I have two completed drafts under my belt.
I’m a young adult writer. Never even considered it until I started writing it. Or, actually, stopped ignoring the inkling to write in that persuasion. When I first started writing Diamond Crier, I wanted it to be “traditional” fantasy, darker, high stuff that the “good guys” wrote. When you’re walking bind in the area, you have to start somewhere Might as well aim high, right? Because that’s smart. Then I started reading fantasy and really started listening to what I was writing. Four and a half chapters in I gave up forcing it and let it write itself. Oh how thankful for that I am. The voice is me. The tone is me. It’s what I’d read. I’m so glad I listened to myself.
California is where I want to be. I traveled there twice this year and it just makes me want to relocate myself out there faster. I’m really looking forward to not having spring allergies anymore.
I really am lucky when it comes to jobs. Not many people interview for one position and get a much better one completely by happenstance. For that I am grateful and because of that I need to be a little more determined in my job. Really, I think I am but it’s within reason. I don’t feel the need, nor do I have the need right now, to be in early and stay late every night. The work I do when I’m there is proof enough that I’m earning my keep and I do put in extra time when it’s needed. But I’m feeling, not competition but more like self-imposed pressure. I get through my work quickly and therefore don’t normally have a backlog of stuff whereas the other two in the same position do. I always feel like I’m not doing enough and should be doing more but, from what I understand, it’s the nature of the position. They’re of the type that they’d rather you take it slower and get it right than just jump head first and screw up constantly. I’m conflicted but I’m grateful. Especially in this economic time, and considering I work in the insurance industry, I need to thank whatever god may exist that I’m gainfully employed.
No post on teen series today. Getting to Barnes and Noble has been a bigger hassle than I thought over the last few days. I’m hoping to get there by the end of the week. But never fear, I always have some trusty back-ups to keep the blog running. Not like I was solely dependent on that one post or anything but it’s something I’ve wanted to talk about for a little while now (since I really noticed the types of series that exist in the teen arena).
Reading First is a reading comprehension program at the core of the No Child Left Behind fiasco. If you’re unfamiliar with No Child Left Behind, let me give you a brief run down. All schools fall under this bill and are subject to student testing in order to determine the funding each school receives. If the school as a whole passes the testing, they’re fine and dandy. If they don’t, they get a warning. That warning dictates that if the school fails again, their government funding will be yanked. If the school passes, they’re good to go until they start failing again. If they fail a second time in a row, their funding gets revoked.
How can a school operate without government funding, you ask? How is this not leaving children behind? Good question. Vouchers are then passed out to the parents of the children in these failing schools admitting them to enter other school districts if they so wanted. Of course, that’ll perpetuate the cycle and cause those overflowing schools to start failing. When that starts happening, vouchers for private schools start getting passed out, allowing the children of these failing schools to attend private school at the cost of the tax payers. In other words, privatizing public education.
FYI, in my home town alone, the Board of Education has to run 13 schools on the budget for 11 in a deficit.
Not quite regularly scheduled posting but pretty close. I’m still pretty afraid of shopping areas with it being the weekend after Christmas and all but I’m thinking tomorrow on the bit of research I need for the post. Or I’m sure the Barnes and Noble website could help me out but I’m more concerned with what’s on the shelf.
Anyway, yesterday I completed the first draft of Earth Shatterer, my NaNo-written novel. I had even less to finish than I thought and it came in at just over 55,000 words. It’s a little scant when it comes to editing wiggle room but my idea for this story was much more concise, not to mention it was my second book. And if you’re thinking, “well why didn’t you just finish it in November,” to that I say bite me. An extra 5,000 words and I would have been in a straight jacket.
Since Diamond Crier was my first, I did a lot of experimenting with my writing, spent four and a half chapters alone finding the voice and the rest of the book figuring out where it was going to go. Well, not that so much but allowing it to blossom far beyond what the original intention was. With 83,000 words on that one, I have a lot hacking to do and a bigger deal in trying to figure out what goes and what stays.
Earth Shatterer was much more concise. It was pretty fatless from the beginning, the action came as it was needed and the plot propelled itself forward. I got lucky with this one. I don’t have much whittling to do. That’s not to say I won’t have a lot of editing to do but at least I won’t have to hack down to about 55,000 from 83,000 words. That’s a mighty hack.
The two books, I know, will be two different editing experiences but I’m looking forward to it (although I’m plotting my procrastination now). The new year will begin the editing process and I think I’ll edit the two before I start on something new or the next book in the sequence. For one I don’t want first drafts piling up with no editing done. I would like to find an agent sometime this century. And two, I don’t see a point in starting the second book to either series before I have everything put together and organized in the first. Since I write without looking back, I’d almost be writing the sequel blind and I’m really trying to keep my sanity intact, especially while I’m editing. Plus it’ll give me a chance to catch up on my fun writing. I miss my fun writing.
On a completely unrelated note, I have custom fields! Fun! Now I just need to figure out how to use them.
I don’t know what it is about this layout that doesn’t like pictures. I’m sure I have some conflicting code somewhere which is why I can’t center any images, or flush them to the right. Left seems to be the only default I have with this thing and right now I just can’t be bothered to try and fix it. On top of that, my cursor seems to have disappeared, as it is wont to do in this thing. I have no idea why. But the real reason why I’m rambling like an idiot is because posting just pictures screws with my layout and I get the prior post’s little date bubble hovering next to the images. Again, I have no idea why. Maybe because I’m the human equivalent of throwing a bucket of water onto something electronic.
So here’s hoping this is enough rambling because I just ate a few too many Jelly Belly jelly beans and I have a bunch of Christmas presents to wrap and probably not enough tape to do it. I may have to resort to clear packing tape. Oh I’ll be the loved one of Christmas gifts this year for that.
Enjoy your holidays!
Over in a Twilight discussion thread on Absolute Write, it’s been brought up a lot that Meyer readily admits she’s too lazy to research and just wings things as she goes along . Of course, that has a tendency of creating tremendous plotholes in her writing, the most prominent (which isn’t saying much since a lot of the plotholes are prominent) being her own vampires. This also steps on the toes of researching within your own work, not just without. Yes, if you’re going to distort a creature, you need to have a basis of understanding about it before you can manipulate it. But once you manipulate it, it still needs to remain consistent within your own body of work. How Edward is supposed to be a walking piece of granite yet can still produce seminal fluid and venomous spit (while the women are completely sterile and can only hawk loogies of doom) is beyond me. But it leads me to ask, how do you research?
Me, I’m lazy as anything. I don’t like to research. But as a self-respecting author, I’m not going to let a manuscript that’s reflective of me go out into the world with fallacies the size of the Grand Canyon because I just couldn’t be bothered. No author that gives a damn about their work would. My methods of researching, though, vary from story to story.
For Diamond Crier, that’s mostly internal research and making sure my world’s consistent. Considering I don’t edit along my writing way, that’ll happen when I start the revision process. I do need to do some geographical research and see if the land I have mapped out will actually work but mostly it’s research within my own little world. Nothing prior to writing it.
Earth Shatterer, while that story idea was brewing for a while, I didn’t plan it out because I didn’t really know what I was going to have in it until I wrote it. It’s set in an area of California I’m familiar with so I’m done with that part. Then varying creatures of Fey decided to pop in while I was writing it. Again, since I much prefer to punch out the story first and foremost, I’m not going to dive into fairy lore until I start my revisions. I know very little about Fey simply because I was never that interested until now. I know what I want my Fey to do but I need to make sure I’m doing the distortions properly. On top of that I have internal research to do as well, what with the Other Side and all.
With Coney Island Psychic I started reading books on Coney Island prior to my starting writing it. I’m still reading Coney books and I’ll probably be reading Coney books while I write it (once I start it up again) and when I’m editing it. I’m trying to capture a particular feel and the history of Coney can play a huge role not only in that but the stories themselves so I need to know what’s going on. Considering I’m only a few hours away by train, I ddi visit the area, took pictures and experienced Coney (and its surrounding neighborhoods) first hand. That helped immensely. I think this work is unique in that I’ve been pretty constantly researching for the story. I haven’t done that with any of the others.
Oh to be twelve-years-old again. Reading this reminded me of reading all those Goosebumps stories and Alvin Schwarz’s Scary Stories series and all of that. A bunch of my friends and I would collect books of scary stories (all different kinds) and share them during recess and at sleep overs. I would have loved this then and dammit, I love it now!
The story focuses behind the eyes of the main character with the same name as the author (which I’m not sure how I actually feel about that) as he meanders along at school and in life. Then the Cirque du Freak comes into play, a forbidden freak show that only two have passes to, that changes Darren’s life forever. This isn’t your ordinary freak show by any means. When the emcee of the show announces that you may get hurt, he’s not lying.
Aside from the overabundance of exclamation points (a few too many, really), the story is riveting and really captures the attitude of Darren. It’s never stated just how old he is but I think it’s safe to say somewhere around twelve. Could be a year younger. But Darren is truly a vessel for his age at the beginning of the story but reshapes himself into an adult by the end when he has to decide which life is more important, his or his friend’s, Steve.
