progress

Five things make a post

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1) The changes my agent has asked me to do have turned out to be surprisingly simple. Not easy by any means, and certainly not quick, but not terribly complicated, either. What she’s asked me to pare away, unify and change are pretty self-contained as far as the overall plot goes. Except the ending. I’m still thinking about the change to the ending.

2) Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking was a revelation. Rupert Everett’s performance in the lead was startling and affecting. The murder plot–wealthy young girls kidnapped from their homes and strangled–wasn’t terrifically original, but the performances were wonderful.

3) Some weeks ago, I posted links on my main blog/website to let people pre-order Game of Cages if they wanted. I went to every site I’d listed for Child of Fire and dug up a link for all of them… except for Barnes & Noble, because the book wasn’t listed yet. It’s still not listed.

Sure, the publication date is seven months away, but it ought to be listed by now, yeah? If, that is, B&N plans to stock the book at all.

4) I really do not need to be distracted by the idea that B&N might not be carrying my book, along with everything that implies. Not when I have a novel to finish.

5) Isn’t “pre-order” kind of a ridiculous term? Some friends pointed this out to me a while ago, but the “pre-order” happens when I’m planning a purchase. Even if the product isn’t available yet, I’m still ordering it, right?

I think I’m going to spend my time thinking about #5 and #1 instead of #4

I have one beta reader

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That would be my long-suffering agent.

While I’ve been going through Man Bites World, polishing it up, she’s been reading the first draft.* Yesterday, her notes arrived just as I finished my morning revision, and I read through them all.

Well, once the pouting and foot-stamping was over, I have to admit that they’re damn good notes. Almost all of them either make the work more commercial without cheating on the intent of the book, or they address elements that I’ve been uncertain about.

Mainly, they deal with unifying the book. Currently, there’s a “front plot” and a “back plot.” I’ve tried this before, but not in a long-form story that will ever see the light of day. It follows the two-antagonist[2] rule [3], but in this instance the first plot problem that the protagonist faces (ie: the “front plot”) eventually turns out to be caused by a plot problem (the “back plot”) which doesn’t appear until past the mid-point and is so much more important that it overshadows the front plot.

I hope I can make it work this time.

Anyway, the two plots are connected–which they need to be–but the connection is too tenuous. I need to make them more of a web than a strand; the disparate character goals make the novel too diffuse, at least until the last 70 pages or so, when it all dovetails.

Most of the other notes she’s given me are straight-forward enough: punching up this or that character, clarifying a relationship, hanging on to so-and-so’s essential appeal. There are also a few moments that break the tone. I’ll have another look at those.

There’s only one note that genuinely troubles me. One of the notes I got on Game of Cages was “too many secondary characters”–and I don’t mean that I got it once. I revised and combined and trimmed that book, but pretty much every set of notes included something like “I’d forgotten X by the time she reappeared.”

So, in writing MBW, I needed to a) delineate the secondary characters better[4] and b) have fewer secondary characters. Which I thought I did, but garsh, there’s that note again. I believe I need to start making character lists for books like mine, to gauge the point at with no amount of a) can make up for a failure to b).

Anyway, I’m on my lunch break, which means it’s time to take out my (paper) notebook and copy down her notes in my own words. I have lists to make and graphs to draw. Fun!

[1] Which means she’s been enduring my weird, semi-random paragraph constructions and word repetitions. Embarrassing for me, but I think it will help make me more conscious of the way I lay out my sentences as I write. I learn well through shame.

[2] Or more, obviously.

[3] Which I learned by watching endless episodes of DR. WHO.

[4] But god, I thought I already did this. I work really, really hard on this every time.

Polish Progress

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I’m on page 156 of Man Bites World. In two hours, I’ll be putting my son in the bathtub. Let’s see how far I get.

Added later: Page 207! For me, that’s pretty good.

Dammit

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Page 141. And to make things worse, I’m sure I’ve pissed off my wife by working later than I said I would. I’ll have to go home and see.

Why is it that every time I actually keep track of my work progress, I’m disgusted by the result?

“Lurking with intent”

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I’m on page 123. Check that against the timestamp from my previous post to see how slow I am.

In my defense (you knew I’d make excuses, yeah?) I happened to hit one of the delicate parts of the book. Certain scenes with elevated action–very powerful emotions, very intense magic, monsters, whatever–require extremely careful handling or they turn maudlin or ridiculous.

I’m not finished for the day, though. I’m going to take my computer across the street to the diner and work through lunch, then it’ll be time to work at the library.

There *is* something I’d meant to mention in my previous post that I completely forgot: One nice thing about the Game of Cages cover art (I’m not shameless enough to link to it again, don’t worry) is that you can see the guy, and he isn’t standing at the shadowy entrance to an alley or something.

For a lot of years, urban fantasy with male protagonists have been these “lurking with intent” covers, where the protagonist looks like a guy you’d circle the block to avoid. Does he have nothing better to do than stand around in the dark? Get that guy a job or a hobby or something.

Anyway, it’s nice to see Ray standing in the light, with no hint of skulking about him.

Now: food! And more revisions.

I’m supposed to be working

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So of course I’m typing this instead. Here’s my life in convenient bullet-list form, which is how I experience it myself.

* I uploaded a larger jpg of the Game of Cages cover, so anyone who missed it the first time or thought it was too dark or small can really see it now. It’s practically actual size.

* I just put the signed contracts for Russian language editions of CoF and GoC in the mail. Yay! Last night I took a deep breath and sat down to read through them, only to discover they were a civilized two pages long, with one column in Russian and one in English. Easy-peazy.

* As evidence that I am still not caught up on my sleep, I just used the phrase “easy-peazy” for the first time in my life. No, I have not been transformed into an adorable urchin in a 1950’s sitcom. I’m just feeling odd and out of sorts.

* Yesterday I got back on the “read faster” bandwagon with my current library book. As I mentioned before, I read more slowly than any novelist I’ve ever heard of, and at this point it’s a real hindrance on my productivity. The polish of Man Bites World I’ve been working would have been finished long ago if I were someone else; as it is, I’m on page 115 of 381. After I finish this post and one or two other online duties, I’ll post how far I’ve gotten at the end of my work day. Shame is a great motivator.

* If anyone is curious about the book I’m reading, it’s Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, And Why by Laurence Gonzales. It’s a bit of a narrative wander, but the subject is fascinating. So far, I recommend it highly, especially if you’re interested in why people seem to do exactly the wrong thing in stressful situations.

* Someone on Justine Larbaletier’s blog recommended Mac Freedom, a free software download that turns off a Mac’s wireless for any length of time the user wants. My eyes bugged out of my head, because this was the thing I’d always wanted without knowing it. I headed to download.com to read their review of it first, and was startled to see the review say it was a silly program because a Mac’s wireless capability was trivially easy to turn off already.

It took me a moment to realize they meant clicking the little fan in the upper toolbar. Yeah, it’s trivially easy to turn off, but it’s also easy to turn back on when I’m stuck or frustrated. Do they expect me to have some sort of self-control? I’m not made of stone, people!

Okay. More coffee, then on to page 116.

Oh, crap!

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Me am forgetful.

Chapter one of Man Bites World starts on page one, as expected.

Chapter two starts on page 163. Three: 181. Four: 209

At which point I forgot what number I was on and started labeling them “Chapter Next”: 215 (! Four pages?) 231, 249, and so on until the end, every 15-25 pages, the way they should be.

Ummm, maybe I should standardize those before I send it.

Latest state of the self report:

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I was late to the day job this morning (second day in a row) because I got sucked into the revisions of Man Bites World again. Luckily, my supervisor was late, too. We rode up on the elevator together.

Yesterday at dinner, my wife started talking about our plans for this evening–we’ll be checking out the gingerbread house displays downtown, as well as having a nice dinner and maybe ride the Westlake holiday carrousel. I’d completely forgotten about those plans. This morning, when I called her from my desk to catch up with whatever, I’d completely forgotten about them again. Note to self: don’t take the usual bus home tonight.

Anyway, Newtonmas is next week. The boy’s birthday party is this weekend. Shopping is not finished. MBW is still not finished, although I expect to have a draft I can send to my agent very, very soon. Unfortunately, I can’t work on it this Saturday because of the party.

Did I mention my trip to the dentist? I had a cavity that needed filling, and while it was the best visit I’ve had in a long, long while (a new guy took over this practice and I think he’s great) it was still a lot of added stress and pain.

I’m also criminally behind on my sleep. What this all adds up to is that I’m stressed, exhausted, forgetful, and negligent of my own needs. I can’t keep more than three things in my head at once (and the health care reform bills insist on being one of them no matter how annoying the news gets), and I spend most of my time feeling slightly sick.

So you can imagine my state of mind this morning when I received an invitation to Norwescon. Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. It was Oh, hell no.

For those who don’t know, I’ve never been to a sf convention. I’ve been avoiding them partly because of cost and partly because they seem to be large social events full of people who already know each other. I don’t do well in crowds and I’m not comfortable with big groups of strangers.

Also, just yesterday I was reading Booklife by Jeff Vandermeer (btw: I’m reading Booklife and it’s interesting. More on that later) and he said it was best for authors to skip the types of promotion that make them uncomfortable.

“Perfect!” I didn’t say out loud on the bus. “I guess I don’t have to mingle with large crowds of strangers now!”

But then this email came today, and I’m currently over-fucking-whelmed with crap and you know what? I’m going to go anyway.

What the hell. It’s not until April, and considering my crazy schedule I will only be able to attend on Saturday, but the truth is that it scares me and makes me uncomfortable, and that’s reason enough to give it a go. The real downside is going to be the loss of my most productive writing day. Whatever. Once I do it, I can say I did it and never do it again.

They’re asking me to be on programming, which is a big huh? but okay. They’re also asking me to list people I don’t want to be on a panel with. I’m tempted to make up a name to two as a joke, but maybe they don’t have time for that. How am I supposed to know who to avoid?

Anyway, as grim as this post sounds, everything will be fine. I just have to buckle down a bit more and make sure I stick with sensible choices (for instance, going to bed when I’m stressed out instead of wandering my apartment like a ghost). But all this is doable and my wife has been very understanding. I just have to get through it.

Sorry this post is so long.

On the perils of being well-rested

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Saturday, I worked on Man Bites World. I had a good day, but I didn’t finish. Afterward, I met my family for dinner at a little Greek place and we caught two buses to Green Lake. Well, after three long, draining days of story revisions, I was a little too befuddled to appreciate the evening lights along the path around the lake, and the musicians (including a very large ukulele band playing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree”). It was a long trip across town and there was, as usual, pain.

I returned home exhausted and slumped off to bed at 9pm. I woke up on Sunday at 7 am. Great, right?

Except I’m a night person. I keep an early schedule because of near-continual exhaustion, and without that exhaustion I can’t sleep. I was up until 3:30 last night. (What I should have done is more revision, but I knew if I started that I would never ever go to bed.)

Yay for a screwed up day! I strongly suspect I’ll be back on my old schedule tonight.

I’m back in the Starbucks again

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… but I’m about to leave. The section I’m revising is going to come out much shorter now, which is a good thing, since I’m 11K over the word count I promised. It doesn’t matter in a substantial way, but it makes me less anxious.

But I’ll be getting up in about five minutes to head to the library for another interview, and this time it may be on video. Maybe not, but maybe. I shaved, just in case.

Nervous? Me? No!

Update: No video! Phew! It went pretty well, I think. I went fumble mouth once or twice, but it wasn’t too bad.