something old, something new, something borrowed

Taking a break from FLIGHT for a while so my beta reader, J, can read and critique. I think my query letter is done. And I have no idea how to make my synopsis any better even though I know it is not yet good enough. (Trying to keep that one good eye!)

What to do?
Start working on my new project!

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for a few months but have been too focused to do anything with it. A retelling of a classic story with the emphasis on a different character and what happens once the original tale ended. (My god, that sounds trite!) As with FLIGHT, it will be a bit of magic realism. Unlike FLIGHT, it is going to need a lot of structure to provide the foundation for a very fluid narrative. So, outlining ahoy.

And there we are... my something old, something new, and something borrowed. Just in time for a good friend's wedding next week.

for those moments of self doubt

now what am I supposed to do all day?

Latest draft of FLIGHT with my beta reader: check
Query posted in online forum for feedback: check
Synopsis posted in online forum for feedback: check

Um. Now what am I supposed to do all day?

she walks in beauty

Reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman and there are some sections that are so beautiful it makes me ache. Just about all of Andre Aciman's Call Me By Your Name has that effect on me, too. Iron and Wine's "Flightless Bird, American Mouth"... Glen Hansard's "When Your Mind's Made Up"... My favorite songs are often the ones that make my chest hurt when I listen.

Can anyone tell me why it is that beauty makes us ache? Give me a poetic answer, a biochemical answer.

This ache has been so much a part of my response to the world that I have never before thought to pose the question.

my brain is full of words

Some updates in the world of what I am reading and how my manuscript is going:

Sirens of Titan ended up not blowing my mind the way I was hoping it would. It got about as brilliant as it was going to get by two-thirds of the way through. After that it was just about getting to the ending. Still a really good but, but I was left feeling like it became obvious as it unfolded.

Now rereading Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series. I first read them freshman or sophomore year of high school and they changed my world a little. But I haven't read them in well over a decade. And two things jump out at me as I read from a more writerly perspective:

1. The sparsity of language is awe inspiring. Yes, I know that pictures tell a thousand words and this is a graphic novel. But no, that is not enough. It is a rare cell that captures a facial expression or scene in such a way as to maximize those thousand words. Neil Gaiman can simply flip a story on its head or renegotiate the rules of a world in a few words. It is breathtaking. The reader is never left confused or feeling lost or disbelieving.

2. And this is tied dramatically to #1... the underlying structure to the story is a work of art in itself. The books are like a two-dimensional glimpse of the sculpture beneath.

Now, I wish I could write like Neil Gaiman. Of course I wish I could write like Neil Gaiman. But I am not him. And that is ok. But any decent writer could learn much from studying the structure in Sandman.

So good. Oh, and you should follow him on Twitter.

Onto the writing front: 30 pages left of word-level nitpicking before I hand the manuscript back over to J and plummet back into the evil land of synopses, queries, and pitches. Ugh.

Sirens of Titan

My husband got me to finally read Sirens of Titan. I think my eleventh grade English teacher convinced me that I hated Vonnegut when we read Slaughterhouse Five. (She also managed to ruin The Great Gatsby by telling us all to pay close attention to colors and who is riding in what car at any given time. Turned a great American novel into paint-by-numbers.) So it took my husband a while to make me see that Sirens is exactly my kind of book: literary, fantastical, with amazing characters. I'm about 100 pages in and swimming.

I also came to the Harry Potter series rather late in the game. Back in college, I was too pretentious to read what everyone else was reading. Let alone a children's book. Thankfully I've grown up enough to realize that some of my favorite authors write YA and sometimes everyone is reading "it" for a reason.

So, tell me a bit about a beloved book that you discovered late. What held you back? How did you finally give in?

I am not this melodramatic

On Tuesday night, I went to bed with a lead weight twisting in my stomach. When I woke Wednesday, it was still there -- heavy and churning before I was even awake enough to remember why.

Oh right, that's why.

I posted something I'd written on a forum. Random member #47 tore it to shreds. Shreds. Not just my writing. The story. Told me I was a mid-American housewife with pathetically typical fantasies. Cue all cliches about being punched in the gut.

By Wednesday night, I regained some composure and perspective. Maybe #47 is right and I can't write for shit. Or maybe she's just not into what I write. Or maybe the synopsis I posted is not representative of the novel. I don't know which is true. But the only way I can move forward is to assume that the first "maybe" is false.

Where to from here?

Going back through the novel. I'm doing a word-choice edit. Looking to pair down the number and make sure I don't get repetitive. It's soothing. The process also reminded me of something important: I like my story. The only reason I'm doing this is because I like my story.

After I get through this current round of edits, I will give it to beta reader J. While she has it, I will start that synopsis from scratch. After all, I still have that one good eye.

the business of turning story into book

The latest -- so nearly done -- draft of Flight awaits comments from my friend and book guru, J. To keep from going stir crazy, I've started writing my synopsis (which is like poking myself in the eye), researching agents, and putting together a framework for my queries.

Scary.

In truth, I've been researching agents ever since I realized that maybe this story I was writing down would end up becoming a book. That's when I started reading blogs and forums. There are agents I feel like I already know because I've been reading them for months. I imagine these are also the agents who are deluged with queries from people just like me. So I wonder... what do I do when I run out of agents? There are only a precious handful that I feel I would be querying for a solid reason -- their blog, the authors they rep. Otherwise, I would just have to say, "I'm querying you because I really want an agent real real bad." Umm...

Advice?

And synopsis writing. I don't even want to blog about synopsis writing because I still have one good eye left.

just finished reading Carrie Ryan's The Dead Tossed Waves

I know, I know. What is a pretentious, literary chick like me doing starting her blog by writing about a paranormal YA novel, right?

I'll tell you. Carrie Ryan is brilliant. She creates worlds and crafts story as well as anyone I've read. I find myself telling people, "It's a zombie book but it's not a zombie book. Because that's not what it's about." I find myself reaching more and more towards fantasy, sci fi, and fabulism in the fiction I read because when a writer isn't limited by the physics of the natural world, I find -- at their best -- they can say something more true.

Jeanette Winterson. Joss Whedon. Haruki Murakami. Neil Gaiman. Bless you all for giving me great entertainment while also touching a part of me that reaches out, points a finger, and says, "Yes! That's more real than reality! That's my truth!"

The Dead Tossed Waves and Ryan's early book in the series, The Forest of Hands and Teeth find that truth. Thank you, Carrie.

And the fact that the plot is so rich and engrossing that it made me miss my subway stop? Icing on her cake of brilliant.