Interview With A Character

It occurred to me last week that I needed to pull out a method I had used before (first novel) to add to this second novel and get closer to really being done with it: interview the characters. It might sound strange to "normal people," but some writers use this method of exploring the story and characters, including me. In fact, I can't remember if I came up with the idea by myself and discovered later that it is utilized by other writers or if I saw the suggestion somewhere. In any case, it helped me get to deeper motives, back-stories and learn more about character histories and relationships with each other the first time I employed it. My characters surprised me and really took on essences of their own. It was an interesting, learning experience.
So now it is time for me to do the same for this second story. I tried sometime last week to interview the main character but was unsuccessful. Perhaps I should start with a lesser character.
In any case, I need to do something; there is more to add. I'm not sure what, but hopefully it is juicy in some way or...whoa!- an idea just came to mind, a secret of one of the character's...
Oh my, now I know the theme of the interviews to get them all going!
Yes! I'm "back in business..."

Nothingness

Well, I only sent out those two queries and got two rejections. No biggie. The biggie is that I am so utterly deplete of motivation, I cannot even bring myself to look up other agents to send the query to. And I can't even bring myself to work on the story like I need to. I cannot bring myself to research where needed, tweak where needed, bulk up where needed, format where needed. I cannot bring myself to care about the story being published enough that I work toward it more.
My other (first) novel has actually been calling to me for some weird reason. That one is almost beyond hope and needs 100 times more work than this most recent one. But maybe going back to that one will ready me for going back to this other one? The one thing the first one has on the second is bulk; at 94k it has its plot and subplot and all the words it needs to fall within the average first novel range while the second is at a measly 65k. I don't know- I really don't know what to do (in general) anymore. I don't know if I should even call myself a writer- I don't work at my craft, I don't do it every day, I don't feel passionately about it- I just do it.
There's a whole lot of nothingness going on right now...

Moving On

So I actually sent out two queries last night (at last) and plan to send out more this evening/tonight. Although I had started working on my query letter over a month ago and had seen myself sending out queries last month, I wasn't happy with what I had and couldn't fix it to the point that it was satisfactory, but yesterday, I actually sat down and worked on it again and got satisfactory results.
I really don't give myself much time when it comes to my writing these days; everything's all about acting and modeling gigs. My work tends to have to grab me by the neck and sit me down to work on it. I hadn't actually worked on the letter since the last time I mentioned working on it, but I was certainly grabbed yesterday. I like when that happens. I only wish it would happen more often.

In other news, Script Frenzy was a failure; I didn't even start.
And the only other writing I've done is in my journal and in another blog. Oh, I think I wrote a poem or two last month. Oh wait, and an addition to my second novel (while waiting on a set).

But oh boy, if I get any positive responses to my query letters, I will have to go back to my novel for sure; I have yet to fix discrepancies and add things I want to add and change things I want to change.

Query Time

So I've actually been working on my query letter for the novel for the past couple of days. I'm proud of myself! It's almost ready- I posted it on AW and got some useful feedback; mostly about things I knew I should do/change but didn't feel like adjusting, but now that others have pointed out the same things, I feel more obligated to adjust as needed.
So I'll probably send out queries this month. And if anyone happens to ask for the full manuscript, I would have to write like hell because the last chapter is incomplete; in fact, I did indeed decide to change the ending so I've got some re-writing and additions. And oh my gosh- formatting.

In addition, I am leaning towards exploring avenues for my poetry. There's so much of it and it feels like such a waste for all of them to sit in my books, seen by my eyes only, so I'm looking into ways to share.

I still haven't finished that short story I started, although another addition came to mind today so I might work on it today if my poetry doesn't grab me first (I've been typing them up so that I have an electronic copy in addition to the single book they're written in).

Ooooh- and ScriptFrenzy....yeah...not looking good. I mean, I have an idea and everything, but it's nearly mid-month already. If I don't get the ball rolling soon, I won't be able to do it. But at this point, there's still lots of time.

Decisions, decisions...

ETA- All right! Technically finished my short story less than two hours after this post although of course, it's in need of heavy editing. But I finished it! It's currently at 2667 words. Yay!

The Muse Returns

I've been itching to write this past week, but most of what I came up with stayed in my head although I did add a tiny bit to the novel I've been working on.

But even more exciting, is that as a result of a single incident, a single...tragic- for lack of a better word- incident, I gave birth to a poem, a song, and a short story. It's not much, but for a single, isolated incident? Awesome. Especially since inspirational events don't usually lead to a short story sparking. I especially love the poem and I think I will love the short story when it's complete.

Other than that, Script Frenzy begins today and I wanted to participate but I don't have an idea yet. But anyway, I guess I'll still participate; I'll come up with something.

This month might turn out to be more of a writing month.
I'm feeling the itch!

The Line Between Truth and Fiction

So this novel I've been working on (WIP 2) suddenly came to life even more. It is currently loosely based on the relationship I've had and currently have with my (hopefully) soon-to-be ex-husband. I took the seeds of our discontent and sowed them in this book. But I took things one step further and imagined how things would turn out if we were to stay together. Well, one of those paths have been trodden in real life, and now the story's feeling too close to home for me to deal with it at the moment. I've always had this issue- my dreams, my writing, they all have some prophetic qualities/pieces/themes. At least in this case, it was pure common sense though, and a realistic projection. So it's not surprising that things have turned out the way they have. Something that happened in real life actually inspired me to add more to the story as I mentioned in the previous blog entry, but now, now I feel like changing the ending a bit. I feel like things should turn out differently. Well, we'll see.

65K!

Yes! Finally hit 65k on my 2nd WIP (NaNoWriMo project). The story had been telling me it was a 60k one all along but I had a meeting with it and was like: book, I know you want to be 60k, but that can't work here. I need at least 70k but we'll start small; let's aim for 65k shall we? And then bam- my ultimate muse for this book gave me inspiration last night, so much so that I got up in the middle of the night to write, first time I've done that in I don't know how many years. And it fits! It doesn't feel like just padding. I actually think I was misinterpreting the book when it told me it was 60k; I think it just meant as it was. But now, I can see it expanding further; in fact, I think that's what the book was telling me when it was not allowing me to finish: that there were gaps to fill in, more writing to give. I kind of knew it, but I didn't think it would have been much to add, just a little piece I hadn't fit in anywhere yet (and finally have!). But there it was- more. And I'm so happy with it! Thank goodness today is a holiday (and so is Monday!) I have a lot of time to work on this book. I'm excited! Real progress!

I don't feel like I'm closer to the end still though. I feel like there might be even more to give. Well, we'll see.

Fin!

Ok, I finally went back to the story and cleaned up the ending chapters. I did it after reading "The Fountainhead" (I've found that reading helps send me back into writing mode). Besides the problems mentioned before though, I remembered another problem I had with finishing this book: other stories kept bugging me! There's this big project I have planned and little by little, ideas and pieces of it come to me and it's almost demanding that I concentrate on building it, abandoning all other writing tasks.

But a funny thing also happened recently: I miss my first story. You know, the one I wrote and hid away because of its atrociousness. It started nudging me. It wants me to come back to it. It wants me to finish it (had the same problem with the ending chapters). So maybe it won't turn out to be a trunk novel after all? I don't know.

In the meantime, I'm okay with what I cleaned up on the one I was working on, but there are still some unfinished parts. Because I want to expand it beyond the 60k, I came up with a few incidences that I currently have in pieces. I need to iron those out and then perhaps I will finally feel happy about it and feel that it's complete.

Another thing: beta 2 said she loved my story (I mentioned that the important thing was that she liked it and she corrected me)! She didn't get to read the end and it would be too much for me to ask her to reread it in order to get back into it so that she could read the end so I ended up just summarizing the end for her. Oh well. I think beta 1 won't get to finish either- she's on maternity leave and looks like she plans to just hold on to the last set of chapters she got for whatever reason, but it doesn't matter- they both expressed a great appreciation/affection for the work, and neither of them are the type of person who just lies to please people which is why I picked them; I knew they'd be brutally honest if they had to be.

So anyway, I'm still almost finished with this project I guess. A little further along but essentially in the same place. I think I will sit myself down and finish it this week. I feel lonely after finishing "The Fountainhead;" I either need to read or write to counteract it.

Fin?

Gah!
So one of my readers caught up to me about a week and a half ago and has the last couple of chapters to go (24-28). But I haven't given them to her because I haven't fixed them yet and I'm having a problem with it.
At first I thought I would have a week of fixing while the readers read the given section over a week, but beta reader 2 zipped through the middle to almost-end section faster than I expected, leaving me little time to revise.
The thing is, the climax has been reached, so she's not pestering me for the last couple of chapters; the major things have happened and/or been explained, and if she had had the last couple of chapters, she would have probably gone straight through the last section she read to the end since I think it flows that way and would pull the reader to just go on and finish.
So anyway, I'm having trouble finishing it. The raw material is there from the first draft written in November, and so far, I have improved some of the chapters while some remained pretty much the same, but most of it is virtually unchanged from the first draft; in fact, I have rewritten only one chapter so far, and rearranged another. But this last group seems to require a lot fixing. Or perhaps that's just how I'm seeing it, making a mountain out of a molehill. I just feel there should be more, but the story keeps telling me it's a 60k story; I doubt heavily I can squeeze even another 10k out of it, much less 20-30 k for an average-length first time novel.
So I guess I just have to listen until my subconscious says otherwise, and go ahead and strip the last couple of chapters to their essence, then add on if necessary.

I just realized all I just said doesn't necessarily go together and make for a cohesive blog entry.

Anyway, basically, I'm stuck on this ending part. Come on inspiration! Visit me this weekend!

Oh yeah, beta reader 1 finally got 11-15 yesterday. After that, she has 16-23, then will be in the same place as beta reader 2, but lucky for br1, there will be no wait time like there was for br2. As soon as she's done with a given section, I can hand her the next.

Beta Progress

So I've been sending the book to my betas in parts and here's how it's going:

My two betas got and were done with chapters 1-6 at around the same time and therefore received chapters 7-10 at the same time. But one has far surpassed the other- Beta 1 is still on 7-10 while Beta 2 has finished that group, received 11-15 (Monday), finished that group in one day (in one sitting over a very short period of time), demanded more, and has received 16-19 (Wednesday). Now I'm struggling to hurry up and polish up the next set, especially since I wanted 16-23 to be read as one since it's part of the flow. But that's ok- I can't control how readers read it and break it up anyway.

Both Betas really liked 1-6, but I guess 7-10 is a bit dull since one is still on it while the other said that it's not "as hype" as the first group but it was understandable. Still, she felt she was getting to know the characters instead of just puzzling over my "hook" event. As for chapters 11-15, Beta 2 said: "I love it!!" So I guess the pattern I've created so far is: intense!-lull-intense!-lull. And yup, thinking about it now, this next set is intense!, leading up to the climax. Then it's the lull again- tying up everything in a neat bow. So basically, I'm almost finished! And one of my readers is right along with me!
I'm still excited about this although I've calmed down a bit and not liking the pressure to finish up as much as before. I really wish I was able to fully finish it before starting the betas on it which is what I was technically supposed to do I guess, but I needed the motivation. And damn, it's been working!