One More Detour on the Writing Road

Middles are the worst. They don't call it 'the mess in the middle' for nothing.

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dancinghorse.livejournal.com

I like that technique a lot. It's fun, too, to get inside a different skin.

Congratulations!

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The more I think about it, the more I like it. Human-idomeni tensions are running higher than high, and this will be a good way to show that as well. I may get some questions (most likely from agent) about not starting the book with several chapters in Jani Kilian's POV--something about it requiring at least three chapters for a new reader to bond with a character and accept them as a protag.

I don't know--you can accomplish that in a paragraph if you know what you're doing. And if I don't, well, it's most likely the last book in the series, and I can do as I wish regardless.

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dancinghorse.livejournal.com

The way I figure it, it's a series, it's at the end, anybody new coming in can deal, and the regular readers will get the point.

Besides, you can break any "rule" as long as you know what it is and why it is and how to make the "deviation" work.

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Say it ain't so!

Not that I'm not eager to see anything else you'll do, but - it seems your universe is just really opening up, and so much may lie ahead...

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We'll see. Jani 5 will pretty much bring Jani's story arc to a close, and so far no other characters are offering to take up where she leaves off.

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>We'll see. Jani 5 will pretty much bring Jani's >story arc to a close, and so far no other >characters are offering to take up where she leaves >off.

Sigh.... what kind of bribes does your imagination accept? Let me know the coin and I'll pass a hat! :-)

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Glad to hear you're making progress on Jani 5 - that online heriones poll earlier in the week had given rise to feelings of withdrawal! :-)

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What may seem like a long time to you will feel like six minutes to me. Nothing compresses time like having a book to deliver.

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A book from you every six minutes would be just dandy, thank you! :-0

Are you under contract deadline, or self-imposed?

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*argh* I don't even think plots can download from my backbrain that quickly. In fact, I know they can't.

My contractual deadline for this book is past. This contract was signed back when I thought I could manage a book a year, and before I hit the major stumbling block with CI. So even though editor has told me to take all the time I need, I guess there's always a chance that the plug could be pulled if I don;t deliver this year.

Editor is not being uncommonly generous with her timelines. My dad passed away in December, and I've been battling through that, on top of the usual professional worries/doubts/concerns and more immediate-to-me worries/doubts/concerns. I'm a member of Novelists Inc, and this month's newsletter has a great article about trying to write...or dealing with not being able to write...after losing someone close. I hate to see anyone else go through this, but it's a relief to know I'm not alone.

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I hadn't realized your loss was so recent. It's impressive that you're getting on with so many things at once, so soon. Self-awareness probably has a lot to do with it- recognizing your grief and its effects. I didn't do so well with that one.

Keep on keepin' on. We're rooting for you - and Jani.

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And I don't know whether my Mail response got through, so here's it goes again...

>I hadn't realized your loss was so recent. It's impressive that you're getting on with so many things at >once, so soon. Self-awareness probably has a lot to do with it- recognizing your grief and its effects. I >didn't do so well with that one.

In some ways, I had no choice. I needed to get back to work (they did allow me to pretty much stay home for dad's final month). Figure out finances. Get house repairs taken care of.

The urge to change careers is a carryover from before Dad got sick, as is my edginess concerning the writing game. I have been warned, however, to not make any major decisions for six months to a year because even though I may think I'm thinking clearly, odds are that I'm not.

We'll see. I don't think I can wait that long for some of the things I want to do.

>Keep on keepin' on. We're rooting for you - and Jani.

Thanks.

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Aargh - I had a long response all written, then clicked away to see my next email and lost it.

Nothing else got through.

I think the six-month rule is a good idea - when circumstances permit. If they don't - I found the decisions I made in that period were deeply in accord with my nature - more so than usual. "Iddish," you could say. It was as if my superego went on the vacation the rest of me needed. Not bad, not wrong - just a little extreme.

Later I heard very similar stories from male friends who'd been through the experience - that the loss of their fathers engendered something like a need to demonstrate independence, boldness, vitality. I don't know what issues typically come up for women.

I think, if eggs need breaking, you break 'em, six months or no. And cleaning up the glop just becomes part of the recovery process.

FWIW.

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Sympathies on losing your Dad.

I find beginnings the only part of a book that's easy for me; if I could make a living based on compelling opening chapters, I'd be doing pretty well.

But middles are a trudge, and endings are out and out hard. Not unusual for me to rewrite an ending a half dozen times just on the basis of large scale stuff, not counting all the language polishing after.

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>Sympathies on losing your Dad.

Thanks.

>I find beginnings the only part of a book that's easy for me; if I could make a living based on compelling >opening chapters, I'd be doing pretty well.

>But middles are a trudge, and endings are out and out hard. Not unusual for me to rewrite an ending a half >dozen times just on the basis of large scale stuff, not counting all the language polishing after.

The last book must have had 5 or 6 beginnings, all of which I felt were solid at the time I wrote them. Learned that meetings aren't usually the best way to begin books, among other things.

Middles are a slog, and difficult in their own right, but there is at least a foundation on which to build. Beginnings set the stage for the story that comes after, and if I don't hit everyone's marks just right, I find myself going back a couple of months later and rewriting to catch up to the middle that snaked out from under me and took on a life of its own.

Part of this is due to the fact that I'm a seat-of-the-pants plotter in a three-chapters-and-outline world, but part of it is because I just have trouble with beginnings. I admire writers who can hit on just the right tone and pace right from the start and follow through. I feel like a one-step-forward two-steps-back writer by comparison. Sometimes I don't know my characters as well as I think I do.

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I'm a seat-of-the-pants plotter too. And get to know my characters as I go. And often get what I think I know wrong. :-)

IOW, I get the right starting tone, but not always the follow-through. That takes drafts and drafts and drafts.

You know what's funny? I always felt I had to defend the way I write in the adult SF/fantasy world. But then I started also writing YA, and discovered that the kids' book writers who apologize are the ones who do outline, while everyone around them is telling them to just start writing and find the story. :-)

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I don't believe anyone should feel they need to apologize for how they write. I think it's an inherent part of how your brain constructs a story. You do whatever works. I think the trouble I have with outlines is an illo of what happens when you try to cram a square peg in that round hole. Even though my outline seems pretty solid at the time, in the end it's more a guideline, like Judy said.

I think writers who maintain, 'this is how it should be done' do other writers, both vets and beginners, a disservice. I take comfort in finding others who write as I do, but I'd never give an outliner a hard time unless they tried to convince me that theirs was the one true path.

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Heh, as an aside, I wonder if there's a correlation between writers who do/don't outline naturally, and the tendency to read instructions manuals/directions. It just hit me that I'm not a natural outliner, and when I build something from a kit or buy a new piece of equipment, I either lay out the parts and piece the thing together visually or otherwise try to work out what is what. I only read the manual as a last resort.

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Heh. Manuals are last resorts for me too, what I turn to when I realize I can't just figure it out.

I think that's partly because I'm a fairly tactile learner--gotta touch things, use things, to understand them. Which may or may not be one of the reasons I write the way I do, too.

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