Starting revisions

With a first draft written in November (NaNo), another one finished in January, and a third book nearing the half-way point, I decided it might be time to start thinking about revisions.

First let me state that writing like this is a recent process for me. Formerly, I used to start writing something, get a couple chapters done and run out of steam or get distracted by finaling in a contest and having to polish a full of (a.k.a. finish) a different book for an editor.

With a manuscript at Harlequin and a moratorium on entering contests, I don't have this distraction. I'm delighted that I've written more in the last 3 months than in the last year. Shutting off my internal critic and tasking myself to dump a book out of my head in thirty days has given me great satisfaction.

But it's a very small part of the whole process. After the first draft is when the real work begins.

I'm collecting advice from author workshops I've attended. I ordered a book on revising.

I printed out the book. Marked his POV with blue flags. Her POV with pink flags and all scenes with secondary characters with purple flags.

Next, I'm working to nail down the character arcs for in there comes my conflict. I'm helped by Archetypes and Enneagrams.

I'm going to read through the book by the weekend and make notes. I'm afraid there's going to be a whole lot of things I need to fix. But by organizing the process into steps, I hope the first round will go relatively smooth.

Frankly, I'm intimidated by the sheer enormity of what awaits me and my ability to do the book justice.

How do you handle revisions? Anything in particular make the job easier?

Confessions of a Contest Addict

For the last 3 years I've entered a ton of contests. It's ridiculous, really, how much money I've spent to have people tell me what's wrong with my writing.

I told myself this year that I would save some money and not enter any, or at least very few. So, here I am, it's the beginning of February and I'm getting twitchy.

I keep telling myself that entering a contest that doesn't have good final judges makes no sense. I miss polishing madly before a deadline. I miss having no stake in waiting for the finalists to be announced. And to be completely honest, I miss that thrill of finding out I finaled.

I'm trying to be practical. It's no fun.

Anyone want to guess how much I spent in contest entries last year?

A new month, a new book.

I've updated my WIP bar on the side. I've gone from done to starting all over again. A new book, not a revision. I'm saving revisions for the end of March, beginning of April when I've had a little distance.

In the last story, the characters had built in conflict because of a past relationship. Reunion stories are fun to write. So much baggage to deal with.

This story requires me to dig a little deeper for his conflict because it isn't based on past events, but current situations. That makes it harder to write compelling conflict. My hero just isn't tortured enough yet. That means I need to establish what he believes in. What his values are. And make certain the heroine is the exact opposite of those things.

My hero is big on image. From childhood, he learned from his mother how important face is. Everything he's done has been guided by not what he wants, but what he believes he should do given the circumstance. Since many things run contrary to his desires, he has struggled long and hard to be disciplined.

Enter my heroine who is going to blow the lid off. She's going to drive him crazy and get him into one scrap after another. It should be fun.

I don't usually write a free spirit as my heroine. Already she's taking over the book. Both the hero and I might be in for a crazy ride.

We all put a bit of ourselves into our characters. I'm definitely more like my hero in this book. I'm modeling the heroine after my daughter.

Do you have particular characteristics that you write into your hero and heroine? Ever feel like stretching into something completely different?

The end is near

Of the book, that is. Do you have trouble wrapping things up? I'm wandering around with my characters in love and engaged looking for that final little thing that says, the end.

Having trouble finding it.

Anyone else have the same problem? What do you do?

Creating Believable Characters

Thanks to Laurie Schnebly Campbell and her wonderful Enneagram book I was able to lick my post Black Moment issue from yesterday. I took her on-line class on Fatal Flaws a couple years ago (grrrreat stuff) and had a bunch of notes on the 9 Enneagrams, but haven't used them lately because I'd been having better luck with Archetypes.

Funny thing about this book, the Archetypes weren't working. However, the Enneagrams are spot on.

When I type "The End" I'm going to spend some time thinking about these two ways of creating characters. They overlap in a lot of places, but have a little different way of looking at character traits, flaws, etc.

So, with a little over 10k to go, I'm off and running again.

This weekend, I'm going to attack my synopsis for a final read through and do some editing on the first 3 chapters. I'd like to have a half way pulled together proposal done by the end of the month. Fingers crossed.

Then I'm going to take my daughter out of town to celebrate with a night in a hotel, a little swimming, and some good food.

Welcome to the black moment

I've hit that all is lost moment in my story.

The heroine has completely screwed up all her relationships thanks to her stubborn need to take care of everything herself.

The hero has yelled at her because of this fact and walked away.

She's staring after him realizing the only man she'll ever love hates her.

And I'm wondering, where the hell do I go from here?

Now, if I was a plotter, I'd have the rest of the book all figured out. In fact, I would have had the entire book laid out scene by scene.

I'm not a plotter. I'm a pantser. Although I will admit I've tried plotting. I suck at it.

Here's how I wrote this book.

Chapter 1. I stared at the blank screen not knowing how to get the hero and heroine together for the first time. See, this is a reunion story. They had a chance meeting five years ago and spent a long weekend whooping it up (if you know what I mean). His father cheated on his mother for 15 or so years and that's my hero's backstory and inner conflict. Naturally, I had to make the heroine married the first time they met. She had left her husband, but it didn't much matter to our hero. He's got issues.

So after no contact for 5 years, how do you get them together? I wasn't going to make it a coincidental meeting. I decided to throw them together because she provides a service he needs. Enter his best friend and an outrageous bet. It popped into my head out of nowhere and actually gave me the idea for the next book about the 3 brothers. There's a wager in the first book so I thought, why not have that tie them all together.

Once I got that much figured out the rest of the book flowed. He doesn't trust her but he never got over her and has unfinished business (i.e. he wants to have lots of sex with her so he can get her out of his system.) She had a miserable marriage and has sworn never to remarry, but she also has unfinished business with him (see above.)

That conflict got me through most of the book, but it wasn't quite enough to carry the entire story so I threw an ex-husband with money problems into the mix to shake things even more. And his parents are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary and renewing their vows. Wow, that's got him all stirred up.

Now, I've hit the 3/4 mark. The black moment. And I have to get them back together, but first, they must apply the things they've learned about each other and about themselves so they might overcome the barriers that keep them apart. It's just that next meeting between them that is going to be tough. You have to get them back together without resolving all their issues because they've not completely evolved yet.

Got any advice how to proceed?

Up In The Air

***SPOILER ALERT***

Saw it.

Loved it.

As someone who takes disappointment hard, the movie resonated with me on a lot of levels.

It's hard going through life open to hurt. Taking risks both in your personal and professional life can mean you lose more often than you win.

Trying to find a life partner. Trying to get published. You have to open up and take chances.

Watching Clooney's character take on an protege, find a lover, rediscover his family, I both cheered his growth and held my breath waiting for the axe to fall.

His character fascinated me. He claimed he wanted an empty backpack, nothing pulling at him, yet the care with which he treats the people he's hired to fire shows he has a huge heart. He offers comfort and compassion, but refuses to need it in return.

The theme of the movie was loyalty. It's explored in a number of ways. He was loyal to Hilton, Hertz, and American Airlines. They in turn, had his back. He was firing people who'd been at their jobs for years and years. His protege has trouble with her boyfriend who'd promised a future together. His sister is separating from her husband. His lover is only looking for fun.

In the movie, his goal is to reach ten million miles. It will make him only the seventh person to achieve this. He considers the plane his home. It's the place where he belongs. But as the movie progresses and travel is threatened, it's then that he reaches out to the people in his life. He starts to reassess what's truly important. Only to suffer a grave disappointment.

I found it interesting that he started and ended the movie in the same place psychologically even though he goes through a lot of perspective altering growth.

This was a complex, character driven movie that I want to see again. And I'm going to read the book because I have the feeling that it would be a very rich, thought provoking story.

Have you seen it? If so, what did you take away?