I ended up having to change my cell phone voicemail message so I don’t sound like a snarky bitch to agents.  Hey, I had months of people calling and calling and calling, sometimes upwards of 6 times right in a row, for someone not me and I got fed up with it.  So I let them know via voicemail.  Yup.  That’s down.  Not a great impression to make so now it’s short, simple and sweet.  Well, as sweet as I can be.

Once I have my synopsis all finished up and all I’m doing is subbing ES, it’s back to work on Diamond Crier.  Well, I’ve already started re-writing it but I’m not even done with the first chapter yet.  But at least I’ve started.  The important thing is I like where it’s going.  It’s just weird how the story dictates the voice.  DC is so different from ES just in style and tone.  It’s a little weird to go from one to the other but I guess I’m lucky to be able to write so differently.  At least I won’t have to worry about books reading the same!

So it’s now turned into a slight portal story.  Just slight.

And Sabina totally doesn’t know that the DC world even exists because her parents escaped during the take-over and took her to ours, ending up in New York City in the Alphabet.

Yeah.

I had this beginning swimming around in my head for a few weeks now and I really like it.  Originally she was a suburbanite with parents that totally acclimated to the suburban lifestyle but meh.  This one . . .

The original usurping of the big guy (how bad is it that I have to consult my own notes to remember the world I created?) stays in, the Sickness is probably going to be eliminated altogether or at minimum grossly altered because the entire world would be destroyed if it stayed as it functions currently.  At the usurping Sabina (now called Sabi) was very young (a year or two at most) and since he’s a diamond crier, her parents took her and ran.  They end up in our world (haven’t figured out how yet), dead broke, homeless and destitute.  Mata, Sabina’s younger sister, is born in our world not too long afterwards.  Her parents end up with mediocre jobs and like in a crap apartment in Alphabet City.  At least they’re not in Raydin.

Until it comes to get them.  Surprise!

Sabina has personality!  Yay!  And not author-induced!  Woohoo!  I’m excited.

I’m realizing, though, that I’m having some trouble with the characters’ interactions, especially the relationship development.  I’m finding it hard to build it up slowly (the romantic relationships) and have the nuances be subtle, or what I see as subtle, like it would be in real life.  But Ketin, Mic, Cab, Talem and Pyle are coming into their own as characters.  I’m struggling a little bit with Lania.  She showed me an awesome part of herself at the beginning of the story but how she’s acting now doesn’t really fit that first part.  She could be screwing with me or she could be saying I’m this and that.  I have no idea.  She’s a difficult one.  Bettis isn’t really even in the picture yet but I’m thinking she will be, just not as her normal self.

I can’t remember if I mentioned these characters (other than Sabina and Cab) in prior posts but they’re all sort of central to the Diamond Crier plot.  Sabina’s the MC, Mic’s her love interest (subtle love interest), Cab and Lania come in a pretty close second, Ketin is the catalyst and Pyle and Bettis are acting as sort of fillers but their changes in character will be needed for the plot.  There’s also Fash, Barloh, Gorvish, Mein, Torle and Jaen (not to mention Jeviar and his wife, Lana) but I don’t need to get into them right now.  They’re a lot easier for me to work with.

I figured I’d share a comparison paragraph from my first draft and my second just to see how much I’m changing it.  This is the second paragraph (technically but the first of any substance) from the first draft–

Sabina called to her mother, and to anyone else in her familial hut, that would listen. She watched as the yellow glow from the cracked glass window flickered: her father walking in front of the fire. Mama, being the first called, was the first to walk over the threshold, looking up into the night sky as Sabina beamed at her. She turned her head back towards the cosmos as the rest of the family followed the woman and saw the stars flitting from one space to another, their celestial tails gliding behind them much like the fox she had seen earlier, although his tail didn’t glitter. This was a night of shooting stars, probably traveling from one of their heavenly villages to another, visiting friends and family.

I don’t think it’s a bad paragraph per se but holy stilts, Batman!  Four chapters of this and it gets old pretty quickly. Obviously I was aiming for something that wasn’t me.  And these are the first two paragraphs from the second draft–

Stars knew how many times she packed and unpacked her bag to make the thing fit but she’ll be Stormed if she couldn’t do it without cutting something off. Not her pachta. She could always leave it behind for Mata. She’d like that. The white djordin fur was so soft when she rubbed it against her face. No wonder they made these cuddly little things out of it, especially since they went in cribs. Yeah, Mata would like that, wouldn’t she?

Right! It was a stretch to think she’d remember her older sister and Sabina wasn’t about to let her grow up thinking she was the first and only daughter. Mama and Papa wouldn’t let her memory fade but she doubted they’d talk about her every second of the day. Besides, Mata had to be beaten on the head in order to remember anything anyway. Pachta or no pachta, she probably wouldn’t remember anyway.

Better but I’m still not digging the opening.  I’ll leave that for the third draft.  Hopefully I won’t have the insane amount of rewriting to do then and I’ll get all the major kinks worked out in this rewrite.  I definitely wasn’t expecting this and if I remember Earth Shatterer correctly, I won’t have to do this kind of rewriting for that one.  Right now I am filled with chagrin.

And yay for me!  I think.  It would appear I’ve won a copy of Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side from the IB Teen Blog but I’m not 100% sure.  The comments section of Beth’s interview on that site was the entry ballot and there are two Donnas on there, including myself.  If she’s going by handle, then it’s me but I wanted to confirm to her before I got all excited.  How embarrassing would that be?  So, it looks like I won but I’m not really celebrating yet until I know for sure.  I haven’t been contacted yet or anything so we’ll see.

Now onto the editing oi.  I knew DC would need some serious editing but I didn’t think it was going to be this bad.  Well, not bad, really, just a lot more than what I imagined.  My situational timing is off and I’m focusing on the wrong events, and on the wrong characters, in some parts so that needs to be fixed, on top of a total rewrite for the first four and a half chapters, not to mention I still don’t know where this story is actually going to start but the idea is becoming clearer the deeper into editing I get.

I’ve figured out that reading this particular manuscript is like reading (or feebly attempting) to read Old English through to Middle English.  I’ve said about the tone before that it’s a drastic shift at the four and a half chapter point.  With hindsight I thought the shift was much more drastic than what it actually is.  It is drastic, but the language I was trying to get away from is more tapered.

How is that like Old and Middle English?  Have you ever read either of the two?  Old English is indecipherable without a translator.  That’s pre-French influence.  Beowulf was Old English and I know some copies of the book have the modern and Old side by side when reading.  I have no idea why since the most you’ll be able to make out is an ‘is’ or maybe a ‘he’ but there you go.  As you move into the French influence (post-1066), you see a gradual shift into something more Chaucer-like, as in The Canterbury Tales.  But TCT is actually closer to Early Modern English than Middle English.  If you look right at the cusp of Old and Middle, you’ll see there isn’t much of a difference, but it’s there.  You still can’t really read it, but the later you go in years, the more it makes sense.

That’s how this manuscript is.  The language that I really want to get away from is lingering longer than I thought but it is gradually fading despite the fact that I’ve left the old tone and voice behind.  I’ve been able to pinpoint excellent examples of each character buried in the wording but the re-write is looking pretty massive at this point.  That’s not to say I’m not going to do it.  Screw that.  I’ve come this far already.  I’d have to kick my own ass if I gave up on it.

The thing is, and I’ve known this in my heart since I finished it, ES has a much better chance of getting me an agent.  Aside from the fact in terms of editing, it’s nowhere near DC, it has a male protagonist, which the YA market is desperate for.  Look at everything that’s been released within the last year and is going to be released in the upcoming year.  Majority by a long shot is all female protags.  So that alone gives me a leg up and, as it stands, I think it’s a better story than DC, as much as I hate to admit it.  DC needs a lot of work but right now, I don’t see it being my agent ticket.

But my glitter pens will still be used!  I will not give up!  You can take our lives, but you can’t take our freedom!  What?

So I started editing Diamond Crier on Monday, like I planned.  Yay for keeping to my schedule!  I’m finding that while some of the language, if I do say so myself, is quite nice, it’s nine different levels of stilted.  What was I thinking?  That’s supposed to be the voice of a ten year old?  That’s some mighty vocab for a kid.  I don’t know what I was reaching for but I think I had some misconception in my head on what fantasy should sound like and went for that.  Oh thank god I consigned to the pull four and a half chapters in.

While the language is on ten foot stilts, I’m amazed that I wrote it all because it’s something that you’d find in one of those pretentious navel-gazing novels that could win awards.  Most of it isn’t that good and is just one giant contrivance but some of it really took me by surprise.  Of course, it has to die for the sake of the story but I’m keeping the parts I really like because I have this odd fear that I’ll never write so naval-gazingly eloquent again even though I know that’s not the case.

That’s not to say YA can’t be eloquent.  It certainly can but this was not YA and wasn’t anything other than reaching way too far over my head in the writing department.  Or rather reaching for something that just isn’t me.

Not much by the way of editing is getting done to the first four and a half chapters because I know they need to be completely rewritten to match the tone of the rest of the story but I’m seeing what needs to be hacked completely, what’s a massive info-dump and what might have potential in the rewrite.  I’m still not sure where the story actually starts but hopefully rewrite will shine some light on that.

Ok, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead as I’m not too sure what it is I wrote and I think I just heard my dog yak on the stairs.  Lovely.  He’s sick too.  Blah.  Editing with a clogged head is not good.