12 steps to writing your first novel

As most of you have read by now, I am oh-so-very close to finishing my third rewrite. It's there, I can see the end, but I don't like the original ending so I am now hanging in limbo, unsure how I want to proceed...

But I have to admit that in re-reading my first draft (and second) that it is absolute crap!!! I mean, not just haha, this is SO bad, but truly, horribly CRAP!!! (and I am so not exaggerating) Along with the bit of disappointment that comes with realizing this, I have to say I am also feeling a twinge of pride!

Pride?!?! Yes, pride because darn I have come a LONG way since writing those horrific words! I still love the idea of the book and I still adore my characters and I will make it happen! But really, I can't believe how far I have come in just a short year. At least I can now recognize that it wasn't any good, but I know I still need to work on the how to get it to be better. It's like a twelve steps program!

Step 1: Wow, I just had this really great idea for a book. This is going to be SO easy!

Step 2: Man, this is going great! I have 5 chapters down and my fingers are just flying off the keyboard, double checking word count every two seconds.

Step 3: HALFWAY!!!

Step 4: I am SO going to be a published author! LOOK OUT STEPHENIE MEYER!

Step 5: FINISHED!!!

Step 6: Send it to every agent you can find!

Step 7: Receive rejection letters from every single one of those agents.

Step 8: Find a writing website such as Agent Query Connect and meet lots of other aspiring writers who very nicely (Most of the time) tell you your work is not so great.

Step 9: Want to crumple up all 400 printed and reprinted pages of the first draft, maybe even stomp on them, definetly light them on fire!

Step 10: Start rewriting...and rewriting....and more rewriting.

Step 11: Get out the red pen and do lots of crossing out!!!

Step 12: Realize that this is the hardest, funnest, best thing you have done in your life!!!

One Year to a new woman!

Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I sat before my computer and decided to be a writer. Today marks one year ago that I changed my life!

While I may be forever hectic and forgetful, for some reason I remember that day with absolute clarity! I had just finished reading the Twilight series (All 4 in 6 days) and felt like I needed more! Not another book to read because at the time it just didn't feel like I could find another that would make me feel the way that one did. So I decided I was going to write my own!

I have written on and off for most of my life, poetry, unfinished, horrible romance novels, but something was different this time. I WAS MOTIVATED! I wanted nothing more than to finish this novel and have it be amazing! Now you have to understand, I have never really been motivated about anything in my life. I am content with pretty much whatever life brings me. All I ever wanted in life was to be a mother. I didn't want a career, or to go to college, but it feels like this is it! This is where I want to be, writing this novel that will hopefully someday sell!

So now here I am one year later, almost done with the third (and hopefully) final rewrite with mass amounts of editing to look forward to! I have learned so much and grown in ways I never knew I could. I have made some amazing friends that maybe, just maybe, someday I will be able to meet in person. And I am honestly loving every second of it! I feel like this is what I was meant for, besides being a mom, that has already been accomplished :)

What made you start your very first novel and how has this changed your life?

Realistic Goals

Here are my goals for this year:

#1 LOSE WEIGHT, I mean live a healthier life style
#2 FINISH MY BOOK (not helping when I am blogging and Facebooking and now Tweeting)
#3 FIND AGENT FOR SAID BOOK
#4 SPEND MORE QUALITY TIME WITH THE KIDS
#5 SAVE MONEY (or make lots of money from selling said book-heehee)

Ok, so are these realistic goals? Heck if I know! I would like to say yes! But then here I sit doing a lot of not writing on that book and not exercising for that matter.

Where do you find the motivation to make these dreams happen? What are your New Years resolutions, in April?

My Beginning Game!

I would like to play a little game that really only benefits me :), but I could use some help and opinions and honestly feel free to say what you think. As you know I have done 2 workshops on my beginnings (2 different beginnings) and did not receive great reviews. So I'm brainstorming and doing some messing around and would love to hear what you think!

I'm going to post 3 different beginnings, just a few paragraphs each. You comment and tell me which you like best or none at all if that's how you feel. Do you connect with Sophie? Do you feel anything? Would you keep reading?

Ok here goes:

#1-This is my original starter-Preface critiqued by Mary Kole with some tweaks

I shouldn't have followed him, but I couldn't let him go without me.

I didn't like the look in Jaxen's eyes when he came to tell me goodbye, though I didn't know that's what he was doing. I struggled not to run into his open arms, the fear on his face held me back.

"I love you, Sophie," he said for the first time. "I have to go now. I'm so sorry."

Without a word I let him walk away. I watched until his tall form became nothing but heat waves on the horizon. My heart shattered with each parting step. I wanted to scream and beg him to come back to me...but I didn't.

And now I lay with blood pooling in a sickening puddle beneath me. I wasn't ready to die. I wasn't ready to leave him.


#2-The original chapter 1 start-not good feedback from Miss Snark's first 25

Wind carelessly messed his blond hair as he swooped in behind a herd of cattle. Sunlight sparkled all around him and I found myself frozen, staring in wide-eyed fascination. Like a movie scene playing in slow motion, he leaned low over his white steed, moving as one with the impressive creature. Chiseled muscles strained against a t-shirt stretched too tight across his chest.

A gust of wind from the running cows whipped my hair from beneath my cowboy hat, assaulting me with the stench of dirt and manure. He pulled hard the reins, the horse skidded to a stop mere inches from me. Dust swirled around me. I couldn’t blink, afraid he would disappear before I could memorize every feature.

Dangerous black eyes stared down, sending shivers of awareness through me. I lifted a hand to my forehead to block the bright light. That hauntingly familiar gaze traveled from the tip of my worn cowboy boots coming to rest on my too-full lips. I couldn’t read his expression. It was hard and soft all at the same time.

His mouth quirked up at the corner, but his eyes remained piercing, “Watch yourself,” he said, his voice tight and controlled.

My knees went weak and my mind exited the real world. Strange tingling sensations rippled through my stomach and I stumbled backward just out of the way of a stray cow.


And #3-Brand spankin' new-never been critiqued

I wished I could go back to the time before the accident when I was happy and carefree. Before my brother’s death devastated the whole town. Before my parents curled up into a little ball and let the world pass them by.

But I couldn’t find that girl anymore. I wasn’t her. She wasn’t me. And try as I might, I could not move on. His memory hung in every corner of every place and I could not escape it.

I had become that person, the girl that every one coddles with the sympathetic smiles and the “How ya doin’, hon” pats on the back.

I didn’t want to be her. I wanted to flourish, to grow wings and fly far away. Away from the never-ending rain and my parents who had forgotten they had a second child, a less popular and outgoing child, but she still needed their love.

Another Contest...part dos

hmmm...so far I have not received good comments over at Miss Snark's. DARN IT! So the preface didn't work and neither did the first chapter. Time for some serious rethinking!

Beta Readers

I have been hearing and reading a lot about beta readers lately. You need them, use them, they are helpful. Great. How do find them?

Do you use beta readers? Are they people you know?

Here's my vision of a beta reader: I send my story in a neat little package to someone that I have never seen or talked to. They read it and write down things they like and things they don't like. They send it back to me in the same neat little package. I never have to see them or talk to them.

Now, of course this probably isn't how it really works, but I am slightly shy (no laughing from the people who know me) and would be incredibly embarrassed to see the person, don't ask why!

And, naturally, my mother and my sister think "it's so good. I can't believe anyone would not like this".

My husband's friends, who have just discovered that I write have asked me to send it to them and they would give me their honest opinion. WAY too humiliating for me. First of all, it's totally a chick book and second of all, what if they think it's horrible and laugh? And what it they do tell me the truth, that they hate it? Nope can't do it.

So who do use? Where do you find these people? I don't want a critique, I want a random person who likes my genre to read it and tell me yay or nay. That's it!

Rewrite and revisions

As most of you know by now, I was selected in Mary Kole at Kidlit.com's workshop for beginnings. If you haven't heard, go check it out http://kidlit.com/2010/03/16/workshop-submission-1/

It was truly an amazing experience. What better way to learn what you are doing wrong than straight from an agent you intend to query (And boy was mine filled with stuff I was doing wrong, I mean, I'm pretty sure it was the whole entire thing!)?

So here is some questions that arose for me: When you are given critique like this, how much do you take and change? Do you think, OK, I'm going to do every single change she suggested? Like for me, she instantly didn't like the idea of the preface, so do I take it out and start at chapter one? Of course you all don't have any idea what my chapter one is like, but on my blog I do have the very first paragraph of ch 1. So that would be the beginning of my story. any thoughts? Anyhow, my point is it is one persons opinion, how much do you let it affect you?

I did get a lot of positive feedback from others and most agreed on one place that they liked and felt I should start, which leads me to believe that would be a good place to begin, but then I still have the preface.

WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO? Send me some feedback while I'm mulling this revision around.

Tweeting Twitters!

So I bravely confronted the new frontier of blogging! I like to think I'm fairly computer literate, I do work on a computer for a living for Pete's sake, but seriously when it comes to this, I am clueless!!! I am happy to say I think it's going ok so far...So I only have 12 followers, I am darn happy to every single one of them!

But, I find as I snoop around on all these blogs I have started following; agents, published authors, new writers and so on, that maybe, just maybe, I need to be on Twiiter.

WAIT WHAT?!?!? I have no idea how to Tweet and retweet (Ok, I just think it's funny to say it), and frankly, it scares the heck of me!

I would love to hear your point of view about Twitter and if you have any advice, please chirp it on over (hah...Oh, man sometimes I crack myself up) No really though, I could use some help with it. Give me some thoughts...

Voice Journal

I found this great blog post at www.alanrinzler.com called: The writer's toolkit: a voice journal for character development. So I thought I'd spend a minute or two (well, ended up to be more like 30) to sit down and do this exercise.

Wow did my pen fly across the paper! What a great way to really get to know your character! I found out things about Sophie that I didn't know before and she really laid it all out for me. I would recommend this to every writer out there, whether you have just started or are on your fifth rewrite, take a moment to ask your MC some questions. This may never have anything to do with your story but it's your baby and you have to believe in them so much that they become a real person and have real stories.

Here's a little of what came out in mine:

I wanted to know just a little about Sophie, this is what she told me. My name is Sophia Layne, everyone calls me Sophie. I'm 17, but I'll be 18 in June. A gemini. I'm not a typical gemini though. I don't do the whole split personality thing.

I'm a Senior at Sandy High School, soon to be done with it(not soon enough). My bestie, Renee and I are moving to Cali after graduation to go to UCLA. We made a pact when we were 7 to move away from this rain-soaked town. So naturally, California seemed a good choice. My grammy lives there, right by the campus. She is absolutly my fav person(beside Renee and my other bff Brandon), even though I don't get to see her much. She was my main comfort after Matty died.

I still wonder if I will ever truly get over that. He was so young and promising and the best brother any one could ask for. I never knew depression before I lost him. In fact, I never know loss of any kind. My small bubble that I lived in had never experienced death, not even a fish (that's because my parents refused to let me have a pet).

There was more, but I don't want to bore you too much ;)

Deadlines

So the hubby comes in to find me reading a new book (one of many lately) and says, "WHen are you going to finish your book?" "I don't know," I shrug. "Maybe you should set yourself a deadline and really stick to it. How about 2 weeks?" "Pffft," I scoff at him. "Ok, are you half way done?" "Pfft," I scoff again. "Ok, 3 weeks then."

AS IF!!!! Does he seriously think I can have this masterpiece (cough) done in 3 weeks? But then I get to thinking, maybe that's not such a bad idea! Ok, maybe not the 3 weeks, but really setting a deadline for myself and following through! I have no work in the near future, if I spent half the time on it that I do playing on Facebook, I could really get something accomplished!

But what is a realistic timeline? How long does it take to whip out the next 200 pages? Do you set deadlines for yourself and then actually follow through? What are some tricks that keep you on task?

Show vs. Tell

Show vs. tell

This may be the death of me.

I have such a hard time with this. Ok, let me a sentence up here and tell me how it could be show vs. tell:

I made my escape through the garage door and stumbled to the orchard, cursing these beautiful sandals pinching my feet.