Whaddya think of my iPad Gela Skin? Artwork by the amazingly talented Arian Armstrong. (Remember voting on your favorite last year?) More pictures to come soon -- it should arrive at my doorstep in a few days.
Hurry, hurry postman!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
Kill Your Darlings -- The Mourning Doesn't Last Forever
So, these past two months, I've been neck deep in revisions. Like this ↓
But I have some good news.
I'M FINISHED!!
(with this round at least)
So now I fee like this! ↓
Words cannot express how happeeeeee I'm feeling at this moment! I had an entire weekend to myself. I forgot I was a writer and enjoyed some 3D time in the real world. My eyes, and my husband, thank me!
With a whopping 20,000 words cut, my MS is now down to a manageable length. I had to kill a lot of darlings (scenes I loved but detracted from central plot line), but I'm good with it.
And you will be too.
No, really.
Cutting lovely scenes you cherish hurts for a while, but the mourning doesn't last forever. You'll move on and write more lovely scenes. I guarantee.
Your end reader won't even miss them, anyway. They were for you--special moments you and your characters shared.
And that's OKAY.
Be thankful you had those moments and move on. Write for yourself, revise for the reader. If you go into this process knowing you'll have to kill some of your darlings, revisions will be a lot easier.
I promise.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Contests and Sword Fights and Hair Dye, Oh My! (And My Revision Progress)
So I asked Twitter to talk me out of going blonde last night. They did. Especially @ktubb's comment about if you sneeze too hard, your roots will show. So I went back to my normal dark purple. Only the hairdresser mixed the color too dark. Now my hair just looks black.
*sigh*
There will be no photos of this hair adventure.
Moving on.
I gave fan ownership of one of my MCs to @briaquinlan. I even made her an official certificate. You can see that certificate here. This sparked a lot of controversy online between my other beta readers. There may have been threats.
All I have to say is: who needs men fighting over me when I've got women fighting over my characters?
Best. Feeling. Evah.
Remember that T-Shirt Design Contest @briaquinlan and I were hosting? Well the entries are in! You can check them out here and vote for your favorite. The winner gets her t-shirt for FREE. How fun is that?
--- In other news ---
Revision progress: I've officially cut 12,000 words from my manuscript as of yesterday.
TWELVE. THOUSAND.
I'm feeling pretty good about that right now.
When I originally set out to conquer this novel, I wrote it for myself and a friend of mine. It wasn't until I actually got to the end that I thought about getting it published.
When you write for yourself, you put in a lot of scenes that make you feel all gooey and warm. You're in love with your characters, so you put them in all sorts of situations that make you giggle or gasp or swoon. You over describe your landscapes because you want to be transported there. You want to step into your world and live it out for hours and hours at a time.
In other words, you deviate from the story.
Yes, all these scenes I've cut added something to the overall story, but readers aren't going to care about them the way I do. I spent so much time trying to put 100% of what was in my head onto paper. I wanted the reader to see the story the way I did. But that's never going to happen.
Readers are going to make my characters their own. They're going to take ownership of them. My characters are going to look different to them than they do to me. The house my characters live in, the landscape they travel -- it's all going to be seen through the reader's eyes.
In other words, I'm not making a film, I'm writing a book. There's a huge difference.
With a film, I can make sure the viewer sees what I see. I can be sure the actors make the exact facial expressions I want them to. I can choose my landscape, my setting, and it will be the only one available.
In a book, readers want the freedom to make the story their own. They want to paint the picture in their head. And after they do, they'll either come away liking that picture and wanting to give it a place on their wall, or not. It's subjective.
And there's something so unbelievably beautiful about that.
So while the 2nd version of my manuscript was good, and it landed me my agent, this 3rd version is even better. The story is tighter and more focused. It moves at a break-neck speed. (Well, compared to the earlier versions.) There's more intrigue. It's darker. And the ending gets a fresh coat of paint. I've removed all my "script-writing" description and replaced it with just enough to get the reader pointed in the right direction.
Now my book reads more like a real book, rather than a love letter to my imagination.
And I like it.
*sigh*
 |
| Jill's ready to fight for ownership of Edmund. |
Moving on.
I gave fan ownership of one of my MCs to @briaquinlan. I even made her an official certificate. You can see that certificate here. This sparked a lot of controversy online between my other beta readers. There may have been threats.
All I have to say is: who needs men fighting over me when I've got women fighting over my characters?
Best. Feeling. Evah.
Remember that T-Shirt Design Contest @briaquinlan and I were hosting? Well the entries are in! You can check them out here and vote for your favorite. The winner gets her t-shirt for FREE. How fun is that?
--- In other news ---
Revision progress: I've officially cut 12,000 words from my manuscript as of yesterday.
TWELVE. THOUSAND.
I'm feeling pretty good about that right now.
When I originally set out to conquer this novel, I wrote it for myself and a friend of mine. It wasn't until I actually got to the end that I thought about getting it published.
When you write for yourself, you put in a lot of scenes that make you feel all gooey and warm. You're in love with your characters, so you put them in all sorts of situations that make you giggle or gasp or swoon. You over describe your landscapes because you want to be transported there. You want to step into your world and live it out for hours and hours at a time.
In other words, you deviate from the story.
Yes, all these scenes I've cut added something to the overall story, but readers aren't going to care about them the way I do. I spent so much time trying to put 100% of what was in my head onto paper. I wanted the reader to see the story the way I did. But that's never going to happen.
Readers are going to make my characters their own. They're going to take ownership of them. My characters are going to look different to them than they do to me. The house my characters live in, the landscape they travel -- it's all going to be seen through the reader's eyes.
In other words, I'm not making a film, I'm writing a book. There's a huge difference.
With a film, I can make sure the viewer sees what I see. I can be sure the actors make the exact facial expressions I want them to. I can choose my landscape, my setting, and it will be the only one available.
In a book, readers want the freedom to make the story their own. They want to paint the picture in their head. And after they do, they'll either come away liking that picture and wanting to give it a place on their wall, or not. It's subjective.
And there's something so unbelievably beautiful about that.
So while the 2nd version of my manuscript was good, and it landed me my agent, this 3rd version is even better. The story is tighter and more focused. It moves at a break-neck speed. (Well, compared to the earlier versions.) There's more intrigue. It's darker. And the ending gets a fresh coat of paint. I've removed all my "script-writing" description and replaced it with just enough to get the reader pointed in the right direction.
Now my book reads more like a real book, rather than a love letter to my imagination.
And I like it.
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