Rejection Bingo!

With apologies to Kameron Hurley, of Brutal Women, who thought of it first:



Thanks to Karen L. Simpson for linkage to Kameron's version!

And, Abruptly, I Have a First Draft

I just finished the last scene of my WIP.

The knowledge I might hit this benchmark before the end of the week has been tip-toeing around my brain for several days. Like anything that might give my inclination toward slacking off an idea, I tried to ignore it.

Now I'm done, I can give myself permission to relax and even to talk about the work--I tend to not do much of that, because I'm bashful about anything I write that isn't fully polished yet.

What I really want to talk about, however, is doing things you always said you'd never do.

You know when you read a book, and it ends, and the story's not done yet? And you have to wait a year for the next book? Yeah, I really hate that.

Yeah, I just did that.

My novel has a cast of fourteen major characters; it's an orca of a story. Several months ago, I realized there was no way I was going to finish it in one volume--not unless my agent could convince a publisher to make an offer on a 170, 000 word book. By an unknown author. In this economic climate. Heh; ye-ah...

So I located a good place to break the story, and that's the point I wrote up to tonight.

My next steps are to outline the second book, edit this one completely, then send it off.

But oh man, it bugs me I actually ran afoul of one of my own pet peeves! The book's even got a cliffhanger ending. I loathe those.

But I really like my story. And I believe in it. I also know a lot of things I don't like about (certain) series books don't bother other fantasy readers one bit. It's really not a problem for me to have written a two-book story.

I'm just going to have to roll with it, so please raise a brick of chocolate with me and toast the birth of my new novel!

Like all newborns, it's still pretty weird-looking and stinky, but that's okay. Tomorrow, I give it its first bath!

Great Art...

...gives you the impression that it breathes. Therefore, these sculptures qualify.

Driftwood Horses

Thanks to Julie Weathers for linkage!

Meaty Monday: SiWC 2009; Psych 101 For Fiction, Eileen Cook

On Oct 23-25, 2009, I attended The Surrey International Writers Conference, which is one of the best conferences in North America for improving your writing skills and learning about the publishing industry. The conference is extremely well-run, focuses on craft, and includes (for free!) one ten-minute agent/editor pitch and one ten-minute author/editor "Blue Pencil" clinic.

I'm going to summarize the useful information from my workshop notes here on the blog, but I'm going to have to break it up over several weeks' worth of Meaty Mondays, because there's LOTS to cover.

These summaries will be in point form, because my notes aren't much more than that, plus doodles.

This week:

Pysch 101 for Fiction, by Eileen Cook

This workshop focuses on Emotional Intelligence (EI). Studies find the smartest people are not necessarily the most successful. We all know smart people who make poor decisions. Emotional intelligence is the non-cognitive abilities that allow a person to adapt, cope and function, and while IQ is static (other than the fact it does decline with age), EI improves with time.

In fact, on EI tests, children rate as psychopaths. They just haven't learned the world isn't all about them yet.

The following scales rate different areas of EI.

We'll discuss each, and I'll offer a few ways you might use this to flesh out your novel's characters. One fruitful tactic is to think in terms of your character having a weakness in one of the following areas, and their growth arc consisting of them learning to do better in that regard. Remember, EI is not static; it tends to improve. Therapy is one way to improve it, but life experience can accomplish the same.


* Emotional self-awareness: You know what you feel and you know what caused that feeling.

Examples of poor emotional self-awareness:

1) A child is injured, and their parent is yelling at the doctor. The parent isn't really angry, although they think they are--they're terrified. This is poor emotional self-awareness because they don't know what they are feeling.

2) After a lousy day at work, you shriek at your spouse/child/room-mate over a small infraction. This is poor emotional self-awareness because you're not accurately identifying what caused your anger. It wasn't the infraction; it was the bad day prior to that.

You can use poor emotional self-awareness to create conflict. The victim of the emotional outburst probably knows the reaction is misplaced and thus will feel persecuted.


* Assertiveness: The ability to non-confrontationally stand up for yourself.

With respect to your characters, consider: At what point would they finally stand up? And would they stand up for someone else but not for themself?


* Self-regard: Generally liking yourself.

Note part of this involves having insight into both sides of yourself. You recognise both your strengths and weaknesses. It is possible to have too much self-regard, and too little.

Consider what your character is ashamed of--their dirtiest secret. If they have too much self-regard, they will try to hide and deny it, even to themselves. If they have too little self-regard, they will try to hide it but will also berate themselves over it.


* Self-actualization: Realising your potential and pursuing what gives your life meaning.

Do your characters know what gives their life meaning? Are they pursuing it?

Examples:

1) Scarlett O'Hara thinks she loves Ashley and must have him. She pursues him. In fact, he's a stand-in for what Scarlett really wants: to be like her mother--the classic Southern Belle that Scarlett idealizes. This is poor self-actualization.

2) Scarlett O'Hara will do anything to keep her home. This gives her life meaning, she knows it, and she is willing to do quite distasteful things to keep it. This is good self-actualization.

It is possible for a person to be good at this in one area of their life and poor in another.


* Independence: Being self-directed in one's life without being insensible to external wisdom.

Examples of poor independence:

1) Someone who has to ask fifteen different people for advice before they manage to make a decision.

2) Someone who not just ignores advice, but fails to comprehend its worth in the first place.

Note that women tend to score better overall than men on EI tests, but independence is one area where they tend to score poorer. Women are more likely to distrust their own judgement.


* Empathy: The ability to understand what triggers emotion, and the ability to recognise emotion.

Examples of poor empathy skills:

1) Person A is being passive-aggressively angry. They slam cupboard doors and stomp around. Person B asks, "Are you okay?" Person A says sarcastically, "Yes. Fine." If Person B believes that statement, then Person B has poor empathy skills. They don't recognise emotions.

2) Person A says something blunt to person B, who then takes offence. Person A cannot understand why, since it's not something that would upset them if the situation were reversed. Person A thus has poor empathy skills; they don't understand the ways their actions can provoke emotion in others.


* Interpersonal relationships: You can establish and maintain mutually-satisfying relationships (note this involves more than just romantic relationships.)

If your character makes bad relationship decisions, try to come up with the reason for why she can't see that fact.


* Social responsibility: You're willing to do something that doesn't benefit yourself.

Are there causes your character cares about? Something that matters to them? Something they'll sacrifice for?


* Problem solving: Ability to identify problems and implement effective solutions.

How does your character cope with problems? Do they know what their problem is, or do they mistake it for something else?

Examples of poor problem solving:

1) A woman thinks she needs her ex-boyfriend back, but what she really needs is to get over her anxiety about doing things on her own. This is an example of not knowing what your problem is.

2) A man wants his ex-girlfriend back, so he tells lies about her to scare off other men. This is an ineffective solution; he doesn't comprehend how this is counter-productive to making his girlfriend want him back.


* Reality testing: What you experience is not necessarily reality. "Reality testing" refers to how much you let your inner beliefs/insecurities/mood colour what you believe to be true about the world.

Ellis outlined the following to describe the relevant mental process:
A = Activating event
B = Belief about that event
C = Consequences

Example:
Person 1 and Person 2 like each other but are shy and insecure. Person 1 bribes his friends to--while they are standing in front of Person 2--act excited over a party Person 1 is throwing. This is so Person 1 can oh-so-casually (and without risking rejection) invite Person 2 to the party.

Person 2 assumes Person 1 is just being polite because she happened to be there when his friends mentioned the party. She doesn't believe Person 1 could really like her, so she doesn't attend the party.

A = Person 2 is invited to a party. This is fact.
B = Person 2 interprets that invitation incorrectly. This is belief.
C = Person 2 reacts to her belief, not the fact, and this affects reality.

Another manifestation of reality testing is that people look for things that reinforce their own beliefs. For example, you can predict what news stories will stick out in a person's mind after they read a newspaper if you already know what their political beliefs are. (JJ's Note: I noticed this about myself while at the conference. When a presenter mentioned something I already believe to be true, I really sat up and noticed that.)

As an interesting aside, brain scans show that if someone says something you disagree with, you will stop listening to the rest of what they say and begin thinking about your rebuttal instead.

Poor reality testing is useful for creating misunderstandings in novels. Something happens, a character interprets it incorrectly, then acts on that understanding, which leads to consequences that affect reality.


* Flexibility: You can adjust emotions/thoughts/actions to suit changing situations.

How important is security to your character? Do they melt down over an unexpected flat tire, or whirl into competent crisis-management mode?

Note a person can be flexible in certain areas of their life and not in others.


* Stress tolerance: Just what it sounds like.

How do your characters cope with stress? How does stress manifest itself in them? People sometimes don't realize they are under stress until they notice physical symptoms of it, such as headaches due to hunching their shoulders.

You can give the reader indicators of stress that allow them to sense the character's emotional state even before the character has done so.

(JJ's Note: Stress reveals a person's inner character, too. You find out if someone is nasty, whiny, or valiant when you put them in crisis. During Bob Mayer's talk (yet to be posted), he mentioned part of the training for the special forces is to be put into lose-lose situations repeatedly--not to torture the soldiers, but to see their inner character revealed. Do they have what it takes to be in the Green Berets? Their opinion isn't relevant; you need to see their inner mettle by putting them in crisis-mode.)


* Impulse control: Choosing your actions based on what you predict the consequences of your actions might be.

The frontal lobe may not fully develop until 25 years of age. Thus, teens who are convinced the whole world saw their latest embarrassment, or that their life is over because their crush is dating someone else, or who simply show poor impulse control and don't know why they do the stupid things they do, may be manifesting the fact their brain hasn't grown into the EI skills of a mature adult yet.


* Happiness: Contentment and the ability to have fun.

What does your character like? What's fun to them? What makes them happy?

Would others describe your character as happy?


* Optimism: You believe, in general and even after set-backs, that things will work out or even get better.

Note THIS is one of the biggest predictors of a person's success! Optimists tend to keep going, because they believe set-backs are not permanent, and this persistence is what gets them to their goal. (JJ's Note: Bob Mayer also stressed that "grit" can trump talent and intelligence when it comes to reaching your goals.)

In closing, people ALWAYS do things for a reason, even if that reasoning seems insane to other people. Examine your character's EI, and try to find the reason behind them acting the way they do.

Extra note:
WANT versus NEED:

WANT is the engine that drives the story. It's your character's goal. NEED provides the underlying emotional issues. The reader doesn't care about your character getting what they WANT; the reader cares about the character getting what they NEED.

Great Interview

Meredith of The Writer's [Inner] Journey posts an excellent interview with editor Gina Frangello. The whole post is both informative and intelligent, but this was my favourite line:

All editors are familiar with the experience of rejecting a story or collection or novel only to find it later taken on by another editor whose opinion we greatly respect, seeing that work garner acclaim, and then wondering why we let that manuscript “get away”...but if it doesn’t punch you in the gut, you were not the right editor for the project.

(Emphasis mine)

Thanks to Lisa Voison for the link!

I gots me some linkage!

You've all read the post already, but I'm still tickled to report that Robert McCammon's webmaster contacted me and asked to reproduce last week's Meaty Monday post on Mr. McCammon's website.

If you want to re-read the post with different background colours, voila:
Meaty Monday Redux

A Ka-Boom of Birds (That's the Technical Term. Really.)

I have no idea how one counts birds in a flock, so I'll just blindly believe the claim: Here's 300,000 starlings flying in a windstorm.

The patterns they make are fascinating--very reminiscent of ink in water, or the shock wave produced by a jet when it goes supersonic.



Linkage found via Geekologie.

Mystery Google - The Russian Roulette of the Internet

You get the search results of the person who typed something in before you.

Mystery Google

(And based on what I found, people are already using it for self-promotion. Oh, humanity. Don't you ever change.)

Linkage found via Geekologie

Now this is a Chinese proverb I can get behind!

"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."

Thanks to Linda Grimes and Kathy Chung and for linkage!

Last Day To Be Devoured By Cthulhu! (Vote Before You Get Slurped.)

Just a reminder that today is the last day to vote in Writtenwyrdd's Cthulhu Horror Contest!

The race is extremely tight and could use some tie-breaker votes.

Yes, I have an entry in there. No, I won't tell you which, because all the stories are so good I'm already composing my gracious loser speech sincere congratulations for the winner.

Please go vote! A plushie Cthulhu's fate hangs in the balance!

Meaty Mondays: SiWC 2009; Panel: Bestsellers Deconstructed

On Oct 23-25, 2009, I attended The Surrey International Writers Conference, which is one of the best conferences in North America for improving your writing skills and learning about the publishing industry. The conference is extremely well-run, focuses on craft, and includes (for free!) one ten-minute agent/editor pitch and one ten-minute author/editor "Blue Pencil" clinic.

I'm going to summarize the useful information from my workshop notes here on the blog, but I'm going to have to break it up over several weeks' worth of Meaty Mondays, because there's LOTS to cover.

These summaries will be in point form, because my notes aren't much more than that, plus doodles.

This week:

Panel: Bestsellers Deconstructed

All the authors have been New York Times bestsellers.
I use the following abbreviations to denote who is speaking:

DM = Donald Maass, moderator
TB = Terry Brooks
MS = Michael Slade
DG = Diana Gabaldon
AP = Anne Perry
RM = Robert McCammon
RD = Robert Dugoni
RS = Robert J. Sawyer

Funny stories first:

- Terry Brooks came in early, decided he wanted to sit beside someone he hadn't met already and swapped his name-tag on the table. Then, out of pure mischief, he began swapping all the other name-tags around, including promoting Michael Slade to moderator.

- Michael Slade is a loose cannon and hilarious, and he apparently is a talker because both the moderator and other panelists teased him, throughout the workshop, about keeping his remarks short (which he actually did.)

- Michael Slade, Robert Dugoni, and Terry Brooks were/are all lawyers by training. At one point, Terry Brooks joked that of the three of them, the guy who writes about elves is the sanest.

- Anne Perry and Robert J. Sawyer got into a brief, energetic argument about the health care debate in the United States. Amusing, since neither of them is American.


Panel starts:

DM: Talk about your beginnings.

TB:
- I knew from 10 years old I wanted to be a writer
- I knew fantasy was a good fit mainly because Sword of Shannara was the first book I actually finished

AP:
- all you need to succeed is a great agent

(audience laughs, because DM is AP's agent. DM steps over and pats AP on the shoulder with a very smug expression.)

AP: (continues)
- I knew mystery was a good fit for me because the non-mystery books I had written previously were weak. My first mystery had a stronger plot
- I wanted a soapbox or a pulpit; since a woman couldn't be a minister at that time, I became a writer

RD:
- I wrote Jurymaster and was rejected--including by you, DM

DM:
- so you keep reminding me

RD:
- then I wrote a non-fiction that was published
- this led to Jurymaster finding a home

DM to RD:
- you were a lawyer--did you write what you know?

RD:
- I didn't know much, so no. I wrote what I could learn, not what I knew

DM: Did you do it for the money?

AP:
- never do it for the money.

RM:
- write books you care about
- I became a journalist to make a living at writing, but my boss refused to let me write anything for the paper. It was a dead end job, so I realized I had to do something else, and I wrote a novel

DM: Where do your ideas come from?

RM:
- I don't know

TB:
- (waves hands vaguely in the air to tease RM)

RM:
- They're natural to me. I grew up on ghost stories and the Southern Gothic vibe. Towns down there are built around cemeteries

DM: How do you pick your protagonists?

MS:
- my heroes are a compilation of the 1000s of cops I have met
- I represented, and got acquitted, the first prostitute charged with solicitation in Canada (after the law was redefined from vagrancy to solicitation). Word went out among the prostitution community, and I ended up representing 500 hookers in my first year of practise
- I used to ask them to describe their weirdest john
- my story's villain was a compilation of about 250 of the worst stories of sexual predation I heard from these women

RS:
- I overheard DM once describe MS's books as novels which first make you read until 3AM and then make you throw up

MS:
- (chortles and seems delighted by that description)

RD: (sitting beside MS)
- Can I change seats?

TB:
- how did he get paid [by those prostitutes]?

DM:
- Ahem. We were talking about protagonists, remember?

RS:
- my book is about the world wide web becoming sentient and our fears of technology
- a book must have something of intrinsic interest in it to hook the reader. Even your grandma doesn't really care you wrote a book. People care about what's in the book, not you.
- I chose my protagonist because she's so different from me. I wanted it to be hard for me to write in order to keep it interesting for myself

DG:
- choosing Lord John as a new protagonist was an accident
- I tried to write something that was less than 300,000 words--a short story
- I mentioned to my agent and editor I had almost finished, and my short story would be 90,000 words. They exchanged glances, then pointed out that's the size normal books are. Hence, I have a new novel coming out.

AP:
- my protagonist is based on a member of my family who died before I was born
- my protagonist is a chaplain in WW1 faced with offering comfort in circumstances where there is no comfort. He finds the only thing he can offer the soldiers is: "I will not leave you."

DM: Outliner or intuitive writer?

RM:
- intuitive
- I have signpost scenes, a roadmap of sorts. I know my beginning, middle and end. Otherwise, I just write
- (describes a scene from Mr. Slaughter where an elegantly dressed man in a powdered wig jumps through a 2nd floor window to escape justice)
- that image sums up the savagery and elegance of the age, which is what the book is about

MS:
- outliner. My outlines are 50-60 pages; they used to be 100 pages
- A murder starts with a motive. The motive bifurcates into many elements of evidence
- I find the motive, sort out the psychology, then map backward to the story's victims
- every scene guides you toward the killer's motive
- profilers look at evidence, then decide what sort of mind would leave that pattern
- I don't see how anyone can write a mystery without knowing the motive ahead of time

AP:
- outliner

TB:
- also an outliner, but not the way I used to be
- in the last 10 years, I've started only with the beginning and end of the story laid out ahead of time. Between, I write intuitively

DM: All of you write books with a high-impact effect. How do you know when a story is big enough?

TB:
- when I can't stop thinking about it

AP:
- in the film industry, they ask you to sum up what your story is about in two sentences
- whatever it is about, YOU have to care passionately about that

DG:
- for me, stories form like sugar crystallizing out of a solution. I start, and they grow until they are big and deep enough

DM:
- you must have great faith in the process

DG:
- (she essentially says she trusts her abilities)

RS:
- like TB said, when I can't stop thinking about it, it's a big enough idea
- when I tell the concept to my friends, and they sit up all night talking about the ramifications of it, I know I have a winner
- I check for news stories that relate to it, and ask myself: how much of the zeitgeist of this idea is resonating in the culture right now?

DM:
- when my authors get a new idea, they immediately start FINDING all sorts of connections in the culture

RS:
- it can't be topical, however, because a book takes three years from idea to bookshelf
- (he makes a comment about the US health care discussion being over in two years)

AP:
- Really? Two years?

RS:
- it will succeed or fail by that point, yes.

(They argue.)

DM:
- (stops the argument) As you can see, these people care deeply. Great passion typifies great writers.

RD:
- readers don't care if the writer cares deeply about something. They care if the PROTAGONIST cares deeply about something
- if I write about something that touches on, e.g. the Iraq war, I'm not really writing about the war. I'm writing about the characters whose lives have been touched by the war.

RS:
- but why set your book in a hot button zone at all, if you think that's not really what you're writing about?

RD:
- my book is about the lawyer who can't lose taking on a case he can't win
- (he explains how American law prevents people injured in conjunction with their military duties from suing the government, then notes how sweeping that is--a woman raped by fellow soldiers can't sue, a man experimented on with drugs without his knowledge can't sue, etc.)

MS:
- (I really can't reproduce this adequately. Michael Slade launches into this insane, hilarious and very mercenary explanation for why it's okay his book about the Vancouver Olympics is coming out six weeks before the Olympics actually start. His rationale boils down to: "Vancouverites hate the Olympics and will thus buy my book about a serial killer wreaking havoc upon the Olympics out of shadenfreude.")

DM:
- in other words, if you're angry enough [about something], your book [about it] will be gripping

DM: How do you keep testing a character to the limits when you're deep into a series?

AP:
- take away the thing your character loves most

DG:
- the essence of a character stays the same, but they do change with time. I re-imagine my protagonist regularly, so I can find new ways to test her.

DM to RM:
- do you (an intuitive writer) know what will happen to your protagonist deep into your planned 10+ book series?

RM:
- Yes. I can see it.

DM:
- see it?

RM:
- I can see a few scenes from those books now

Audience question:
- What do you love about writing now? Is it the same as when you started? What keeps you going?

AP:
- that I'll get the next novel RIGHT.

RM:
- that I'll top myself

DG:
- my favourite book is always my WIP or my most recent, because I like to think I'm getting better

RS:
- ditto, regarding topping yourself

AP:
- (makes a joke about what that means in British slang, i.e. cutting your own throat)

RD:
- I've always wanted to be a writer. It was the books I read as a kid that convinced me.

DM:
- (to audience as well as panel) aren't we all inspired by the irresistable books we read as children?

MS:
- Agatha Christie did it right. She closed off all the threads before she died. I want to do that.
- Also... (tells a story of a woman who told him she had put off suicide to read his latest book. He made a pact with her that if she continued to put it off, he would keep writing (i.e. not retire) for her. She still comes to all his Vancouver signings, so he knows she's keeping up her end of the bargain. He intends to also.)

Audience question:
- What has been your biggest obstacle?

RM:
- my first books were bad--

DM:
- you actually refused to let your first four books remain in circulation, correct?

RM:
- yes. I was lucky to get published, but it had its downside. I had to learn to be a good writer

RS:
- self-doubt. My father was an economist and brought me statistics to back up his assertion that writing was an unwise dream to pursue
- I view myself as trying to minimize my death-bed regrets. Even trying and failing would have been better than never trying at all.

RD:
- self-doubt coupled with a big ego
- craft is an important part of writing, and I had to learn that

MS:
- I had huge debts, and a daughter, and I switched to writing in the middle of this. Everything rested on this one roll of the dice. I sometimes wept with fear and self-doubt because if I failed, I knew I was completely screwed
- to keep myself going, I remembered this: when I was a kid, I created a book in my room and took it to Bill Duthie, who opened the first independent bookstore in Canada.

He took the book and said he would read it. When I came back the next week, he claimed to have lost it. I kept coming back to ask about it, and when I was almost hysterical, he produced the book--bound professionally with my name on the spine.

He said, "I wanted to see if you were serious about writing. You're published now, but this is a print run of one. You have to do better. I want to sell your books on my shelves someday."
- In my moments of self-doubt, I dug that book out and kept telling myself, "I can do this. After all, I've already been published once!"

DM: (To audience)
- These people are not motivated by money. They are motivated by their passion. They infuse their stories with conflict and emotion. And they have all struggled with self-doubt. (pauses, smiles) Sound familiar?

Panel ends