tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24877722290166598712024-03-05T12:29:32.761-08:00A Novel IdeaRachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.comBlogger183125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-67162328960392950652012-05-29T18:41:00.002-07:002012-05-29T18:41:51.275-07:00Rejection!So, dear readers, it seems I have joined the ranks of writers everywhere: just a few days ago, I got my first rejection as a writer.
Don't get me wrong, I've had little rejections along the way, but it was mostly things like a short play of mine not being chosen for a school performance or losing an essay contest.
But now I'm in the sort-of real world. I've started sending stuff to literary magazines. Around the end of last month, I sent a new short play I had written off to a lit mag on a whim. The other day, I got a short e-mail from them saying that they had decided not to publish it, but remarking on things that they liked. I suppose that's better than simply saying, "We've decided not to publish it. Thank you for your submission" and being done with it.
Now I feel like a real writer.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-36569788137449353872012-02-23T10:29:00.003-08:002012-02-23T12:22:57.117-08:00Thesis and Class Excitement!Geez Louise, it's been another month since I posted. <br /><br />HOWEVER, it has been an extremely productive month! I've been meeting with my playwriting/thesis advisor weekly, which pretty much means I get my world rocked by his wisdom and suggestions every seven days. Seriously- he's opening this play up for me in ways I don't know if I ever could have conceived. The first two acts of SOTM are now totally different and I'm really happy about that. I've cut a few scenes, added a few more, and rewritten the scene I've hated for two years to the point where I almost love it. <br /><br />The biggest difference is that it is no longer a children's play in any way. This is startling to me, and surprisingly so; I knew it wasn't for little kids, but I figured it could still be considered TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences.) In fact, recently I've been asked by several people if it is and I've always said yes. But no more. Of course, my advisor says it's never been a kids' play; if it were, I'd have to take all the crazy asylum stuff out, which I don't want to do, and now that I've added some other things... I've written an adult play. WHOA. Rachel, the YA writer, has written something for adults. What is this madness?<br /><br />But when my other thesis advisor, the one who's overseeing all of us theatre seniors, asked me what I thought about this change, I said, "I was never setting out to write a children's play. I was setting out to write a play." Which is true. I just want to write something good and moving. <br /><br />And while I don't think that this play is Pulitzer-worthy, or even submission-worthy at this point, I do have a fan. I asked two recent graduates from my university to direct, and the first one who answered seemed pretty interested. I sent him the play around 11:30 one night, and he had read it and e-mailed me about it by 9 am the next day... saying he loved with the play, that he thought it was beautiful and had a mature voice. I was ecstatic, and it's going to be fantastic to work with someone who's just as excited as I am. Right after the director had agreed to direct it, I got a response from the other guy, one of my friends, who was all about it, too, but I told him that the director had gotten there first and was very enthusiastic.<br />To be honest, I kind of thought I would get someone who was like, "All right... I'll direct this college's kids reading... blahhhh," but instead, both the candidates I asked were really nice and great about it, and it's just awesome to have gotten such a fantastic response.<br /><br />The reading is scheduled for April 23rd, but a month before that, I'm having a private reading, which was cast this week. Hopefully hearing the play in people's voices will give me an idea of the changes that need to occur and also what works, before I present it to a bigger audience. A month is not a long time to make thohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifse changes, but hopefully I can do it.<br /><br /><br />Also in writing news, my Poetry & Fiction II class has been going swimmingly. My first critiqued piece wasn't so great, but I think I've redeemed myself with my last two, which have both gone over very well. I just got back from having my third piece reviewed, and at the end the professor casually mentioned that that should edit it and send it out. Maybe I just will...<br /><br /><br />Also, shameless plug: I mentioned my collab blog last time, and it's been doing really well!<a href="http://ambidexteri.wordpress.com/"> Come on over and read it!</a>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-23148330878204725862012-01-22T12:17:00.000-08:002012-01-22T12:26:01.400-08:00Good News of the Day!Yes, I have been gone for longer than anticipated again, but I return with three pieces of good news!<br /><br />Firstly, if you've been reading this blog for a bit, you may recall my mentioning a sci-fi novel. At one point it went by the the title <em>Quarantined</em>, which was then shortened to<em> Q</em> and then I abandoned that title altogehter when neither of those fit what the story had become. For probably about a year now, it's simply been known as The Untitled YA Sci-Fi Novel. And as of yesterday, The Untitled YA Sci-Fi Novel was completed.<br /><br />Of course, I use the word completed lightly; this draft is finished. But I'm really happy about this. I've been working on this novel on and off, and then consistently this year, for over two years. I made a mess of it in November and spent the last two months cleaning it up and finishing it. <br /><br />I hope to get a NaNo reviewer go over it and get some feedback, then work on it some more!<br /><br />Bit of News #2 is that my friend and critique partner Stuart have started our collab blog. It is a writing blog, including book reviews, and we've gotten great reception so far. Check it out <a href="http://ambidexteri.wordpress.com">here</a>!<br /><br />And Bit of New #3 is that my final semester of undergraduate (and possibly all, but never say never) education is upon me, which means that I will be completing my senior thesis. My thesis is a new draft of my play, Straight on 'Til Morning, culminating in a staged reading of it. My playwriting professor has offered to be my mentor and I'm really excited. I'm meeting with my thesis teacher tomorrow to discuss the details and I really can't wait to meet up with my mentor on Wednesday. I'll keep you posted on how it goes!Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-58288502608232045552011-12-04T08:06:00.000-08:002011-12-04T08:20:00.870-08:00NaNo and a World PremiereI'm still here, I promise. My life has been ridiculously busy. The world premiere of the play I'm in happened on Thursday night and I have my fifth show of the week today. This play is one of the best I've ever been in- possibly *the* best- and working on it has been the most amazing experience of my life. But I'll get to that in a second.<br /><br />If you're wondering what happened with me and NaNo- I won! I nearly dropped out a few times; rehearsals and schoolwork were keeping me really busy, but I just have to win now that I have twice before. So I finished with a little over 51,000 words.<br />I'll just reiterate the tip I gave in the last entry: DO NOT do NaNoEdMo. It completely destroyed my novel and I think I'll have to do a complete rewrite. It just takes your mind to the complete wrong place when you're writing and editing at that speed. Next year, I'll be doing NaNo the traditional way.<br />When I have time, I also need to check out what's up with my word count; Scrivener says I only have 32,000 words, but that's impossible since I had 33,000 words before I even started NaNo. Thankfully, I have this novel backed up several times. I learned my lesson from the Great Word Loss of NaNo '09.<br /><br /><br />Now back to the play. As I believe I mentioned, it's a brand new play written by a very young playwright, a recent graduate. However, her credits are quite impressive, and I'll admit to being sort of star struck whenever I saw her (which wasn't often before this weekend, as she lives in New York and I'm in Philadelphia.) Even though she's only two years older than I, I always felt like a little kid around her because I was so intimidated by her credits and her writing skill. Last night, however, I got up the courage to ask her about something mentioned in her program bio: being produced at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville. I happen to be looking there to do an apprenticeship, and who better to talk to about it than someone who's already done it? <br />As it happens, she hasn't done it; her friend did, but the playwright's work was the one the friend produced. But with that one question, doors were opened. Besides being introduced to the friend when she comes to see the show next weekend, it also finally started up the conversation that I've been longing to have with the playwright about playwriting in general. She's such a nice person and I very much enjoyed talking to her. She asked me if I wrote too, and when I told her I did and gave her the plot of my play, she said she'd love to read it! That was a "whoa" moment for me, and now I'm nervously looking over my most recent drafts to make sure they're not embarrassing. But what an opportunity!<br /><br />The process of working on this play has been nothing but inspiring to my own playwriting endeavours. When next semester starts, I expect I'll be writing a lot more, as my play is my thesis!Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-83455969192523366822011-11-17T13:23:00.000-08:002011-11-17T13:35:34.591-08:00On My NaNo ProgressWhat, me, procrastinate? Why would I do that? No one in their right mind would willingly write a blog entry during NaNoWriMo when they're already two days behind, which will turn into three if that person doesn't finish before rehearsal in two hours. No, you're imagining things...<br /><br /><br />Yeah. <br /><br />To be honest, the situation is not as dire as it seems. Because I made the decision long before NaNo to include editing in my work count, it's much easier to make up 5000 words or so than it would have been in previous years. (By the way, by "editing," I don't mean a word here or there. I mean like really working on a scene and polishing it.) <br />However, as I knew would happen, I'm suffering the guilt over not doing NaNo traditionally. And besides the fact that that's stupid- people do this all the time- I also know that if I were doing NaNo traditionally, I would have dropped out by now, as the show I'm in is taking over my life in a very wonderful way. We open in two weeks exactly, so things aren't going to get any easier. <br /><br />One day, I'll come to my senses, either about being crazy enough to do this every year or about accepting my own decisions without guilt.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-54396578323940520762011-11-14T08:41:00.000-08:002011-11-14T09:02:37.426-08:00CourageToday as I was waiting for my art class to start, a girl came over and asked me if I had time to take a survey. I said sure, and when she gave me the paper, I saw that it was about relationships and technology. A few of the questions asked what my reaction would be if I caught someone looking through my phone/Facebook/e-mail/room/computer without permission. For most of them, my answer was that I wouldn't reall care. Sure, I would be a little annoyed that they just assumed they could, but I have nothing to hide. But for one, the answer was different: my computer.<br /><br />Like all my other technological items, I have nothing to hide on my computer (computer here meaning documents, pictures, etc.), nothing I'm ashamed of, even if I'd rather people didn't see my awkward adolescent years in photographs. But I have a mini panic attack at the thought of someone going through my documents, and that's because of my writing.<br /><br />I've always been protective of my writing. I don't know why. I suppose that a good part of it is definitely that writing is one of my favorite forms of expressing myself, so it's me in those words, my ideas, both good and not so good. I experiement, I explore, and I take chances in my writing. And while I may not be the best writing, I do consider myself a fairly good one. So why do I want to make sure that no one sees what I write?<br /><br />I know that a lot of it comes from my being a perfectionist. I want my drafts to be flawless when I show them to someone, despite that the word "draft" implies everything but perfection. <br /><br />I've had this blog for a few years, and I think maybe one person I know in real life has read this blog, and he found it on his own just recently (hi, Caleb!) I haven't even shared this blog with my critique partner, whom I trust implicitely. <br /><br />I wish I had the courage to share my writing more. I don't think the reactions would be bad. But I think it'll take awhile for me to get up the courage.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-45537824863280177672011-10-22T15:03:00.000-07:002011-10-22T15:29:23.789-07:00NaNo PrepAs I have since 2008, I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. But after three years of being a NaNo purist (writing- or attempting in 2008- 50,000 new words in the month of November), I'm changing it up a little this year... and I'm not completely happy about that.<br /><br />I'm a little OCD- I like to do things the same way, all the time. I make bets with myself: I bet you can't keep this up for the rest of your life. I betcha. And so even deviating from an annual thing is kind of screwing with me. But I both want and need to do it, I think, and it's not an unheard of thing and so is still officially accepted.<br /><br />I'm going to be doing what is usually called NaNoFiMo. I will be finishing up a novel I began to work on in September of 2009 (the sci-fi YA one.) I will probably not write 50,000 more words of it (as it's already nearly 35,000), but I will be adding possibly a good 20,000, maybe more, and I also plan to edit the book in November. <br /><br />There are a few reasons for this choice:<br /><br />1) I really want to finish this novel. I've worked on it sporadically for over two years now, and I really want to move on with it (though not from it.)<br /><br />2) There are a few people (and by a few I mean two :p) who want to read it, and by editing it, they won't be reading complete brain vomit, which is always what my NaNo novels are by December 1st.<br /><br />3) While I'm not busier than I was last year, I'm more worried about the busyness, and I want to be able to concentrate on outside things more than I usually do during NaNo.<br /><br />I want to get as much as the novel done as I can before November so I can edit thoroughly (including rewrites of existing scenes and most probably adding new ones) when NaNo comes along. I'm very much looking forward to this November, however unorthodox it will be.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-37996925546165037432011-10-18T17:29:00.000-07:002011-10-18T18:02:42.548-07:00Starting from ScratchI have once again neglected this blog... oops.<br /><br />Anyway, my WFC class is still lovely, although there is one part that's not so great: the grad students. WFC is a combined undergrad/grad class. Even last year, I would have found this daunting, but I don't feel that the grad students have that much more experience than I do in this class' speciality. One thing about the grad students, though, is that most of them are teachers themselves. This, apparently, makes them think that they have a free pass to talk ALL THE TIME. I don't mean give their opinions a lot or dominate conversations; I'd be fine with that. No, I mean that they whisper and giggle through every class.<br /><br />It's no secret that I'm a bit of a nerd and a bit of a teacher's pet, but I don't really think I'm being either when I say that this is distracting and very rude to our professor. Sometimes there are so many of them conversing behind me (because, of course, that's where they all sit) that I really can't hear the professor, and I can tell she gets distracted by them sometimes, too. I'm not sure why they think it's acceptable behavior. I get that they're teachers, but in my mind, that means they would understand how distracting they're being. Would they allow that in their own classrooms? I highly doubt it. Sadly, I don't have the nerve to turn around and tell them to shut it.<br /><br />Besides my irritating graduate classmates, I'm still loving WFC. We did an exercise about beginning a story in which we had to write three different beginnings going off of the same prompt. It was really interesting and I liked my results. I was hoping to get that back today, but we had to use the same prompt result for this past week's exercise. On this one, I didn't do too well. See, I have two problems. One is that, as I'm sure I've mentioned, I am horrible at writing on demand. I'm all about making myself write even when I don't want to, and I'm not a slave to a muse. I do find it difficult to write when I have to start from scratch for a specific assignment, though. My brain goes into panic mode and I can't think of anything.<br /><br />This time around, there was the added difficulty of taking the beginning I'd already created and plotting out the novel that would result from that composition. The beginning I had written was not novel-length worthy. It was probably more short-story worthy or, to be honest, just exercise worthy. There wasn't enough conflict presented in the intro to merit an entire novel, and I couldn't fathom one that I could just make up. I started work on that assignment the day I got it. A week later (meaning last night at 11 pm), I still had next to nothing.<br /><br />So what did I do?<br /><br />Oh, just threw in a random road trip. Yeah... I felt pretty crappy handing that in to my professor. I guess it was better than giving her nothing.<br /><br />I also was almost denied being able to use my WIP as my to-be-critiqued piece. I asked my professor today how long she wanted the required synopsis to be and she told me that she would prefer I wrote something original for the class. Thankfully, I think my telling her that it is still very much a WIP (as opposed to a novel I finished over the summer or something along those lines) made a difference, and she's letting me use it, thank God. At least for this novel, I know exactly what's going to happen for the rest of the book (well, in general...) so I can easily write an outline for this one.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-82810786676614964972011-10-05T17:44:00.001-07:002011-10-05T18:09:29.405-07:00Children's Lit ClassWow. Hi. I've sucked at blogging lately. I have excuses- start of school, having bronchitis for a month (still got it), three trips to New York city in three weeks, my brand-new computer crashing (and taking a good 15 pages from my novel with it) etc. But I'm not going to detail them.<br /><br />I want to talk about my children's writing class. I almost didn't get to take this class because it runs at the same time as my required stage make-up class. Fortunately, my advisor is letting me work around this and take the writing class. It meets once a week for three hours and I'm totally in love with it. <br /><br />We cover everything from picture books to YA novels, including writing for magazines and non-fiction books. At the moment, we just finished reading and discussing <em>The Tale of Despereaux</em>, which I loved (and had never read before.) We're reading so many great books and I get so excited during every class. During yesterday's class, I had a bronchitis-related fever and I still thoroughly enjoyed myself. <br /><br />The thing I love about it is that it inspires me not just to write, but to write what I love, and outside of it, too. Sometimes it's hard to be a YA writer in a school full of people (and a group of friends) who don't read YA, but my teacher is so passionate and supportive of children's lit that I feel I'm given permission to do my work. Also, after reading Despereaux, I think I'd like to write a middle grade novel some day.<br /><br />As with my last writing class, it's a critique class part of the time. I'm not being critiqued until November, but I need to start getting my stuff together now. One scene that I wanted to present was deleted when my computer crashed, so I need to start putting the pieces back together. I'm excited to get their feedback, though. The response from my professor on my first (ever) non-fiction magazine article was much better than I expected. I was afraid to look at her comments, but aside from a few words suggestions here and there, it was received quite well. At the end, she wrote that she could see it being published, which caused me to happy dance in my brain :) <br /><br />Speaking of things that cause happy dances and inspiration- if you haven't bought Maureen Johnson's <em>The Name of the Star</em>, DO IT NOW. I've always been a fan of MJ; she hasn't written a single bad book. This one, though, is simply amazing. She writes with a bravery I can only dream of. Plus, it takes place in London (almost exactly where I went to school, down to the street) and there are ghosts. What more could you want?Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-37822842031413151822011-08-28T17:13:00.000-07:002011-08-28T17:27:02.761-07:00:)Right now, I'm editing part of my critique partner's novel while he's editing mine. This has actually never happened before, and we've been having fun saying that we can't be mean to one another because we have each other's babies. There is a big difference between what we're reading, though. I have the latest (of many) drafts of the fantasy novel he's been working on for years. He has the fourth draft of my second complete novel, which is contemporary suspense. I've read almost every draft of his novel; this is his first glimpse of mine.
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<br />I've mentioned how honest my friend is about my writing. I mean, he told me straight out that the intro of this book sucked. In fact, it sucked so much that it actually made him much less eager to read the rest of the novel. He has started it since, however, and is teasing me with Facebook messages that say things like, "Just thought I should tell you, I'm reading TOSOL again. The darkness is overwhelming." When we got together last, he asked me who I was reading when I was writing the novel. I mentioned John Green, and he nodded. "You can see his influence," my friend said, totally making my day. Another thing that did so? Him saying he was pulled into my novel. I was practically dancing.
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<br />I think this all goes to show that a) one can recover from a bad beginning and b) I am growing in my writing. :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-75617263849905153572011-08-17T19:26:00.000-07:002011-08-17T19:38:36.865-07:00That Awkward Moment When You Realise Your Novel Has Already Been DoneI'm sure it's happened to most authors, but I had the terrible realisation that my story has already been written, even if it's in a different form. I was watching TV the other day when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISQoXygdLHQ">a movie trailer</a> came on... and there was my novel.
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<br />I don't know if I've ever mentioned what my current novel is about, but it's a sci-fi YA about a fifteen year old girl who contracted a disease two years before the novel begins. Unless a cure is found, it will kill her within the year. If you watch the trailer, there are similarities.
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<br />Of course, a few days later, I've calmed down enough to see that there are more differences than similarities. Yes, the characters in the movie contract a mysterious disease that kills quickly. But it's more quickly than in mine. It also hits a lot more people- the disease in my novel is extremely rare. I also only tell the story from a patient's point of view- I never go into the minds of doctors or parents or friends. Still, it freaked me out a bit.
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<br />I guess there are no original ideas... and I wouldn't stop writing my novel either way.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-8176450393214692492011-08-05T15:08:00.001-07:002011-08-05T15:28:22.801-07:00Writing TogetherMost readers of this blog know that I've done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) since 2008. NaNoWriMo has a sister project, Script Frezy (or Screnzy), which takes place in April. I've always wanted to do it, and when I was living in London this past semester, I had the month of April off from university. What a perfect opportunity, I thought. I had an idea that I had scribbled down while on a train from New York City in May of 2010 but hadn't developed. <br /><br />One of the great offerings of NaNo and Screnzy is that they have leaders for every location involved in the projects, and these leaders organize get-togethers so that participants can meet up and write together. I'd always wanted to attend one of these, but was unable to do so until I did Screnzy this past April. Transportation was a problem in previous years, but London is so easy to get around, even (or perhaps, especially) without a car, that I was able to attend most of the writing sessions.<br /><br />While at these sessions, I discovered the joy of writing with others. Writing has always been a solitary thing for me- I don't write with anyone and I show very few people my writing. But meeting up and writing with the new acquaintences in the Costa at Piccadilly Circus made me extremely productive. There's something driving about sitting with other writers who are writing. You feel you need to keep up, and there's just this inspiring atmosphere. <br /><br />I loved attending these meetings, but due to traveling around Europe in the same month, I didn't get to go to all of the meetings. However, I got so much done in that environment that I was determined to bring it home.<br /><br />I've talked a lot about my critique partner and friend on this blog, and this summer, I suggested to him that we write together. He assumed I meant our collaboration novel. I told him that, while that would be nice, too, I thought he should try just writing his novel while I was writing mine. I found out just this week that he wasn't too sure about that; he'd never done it and wasn't sure it would work for him. We've gotten together a few times since then and he told me he loves it. It's even better to work with him because he knows me and he knows my writing, and vice-versa. It's a really awesome experience to be able to talk through hard places; last time we wrote together, I needed to have my character transition from homesickness to determination in what she was doing. On my own, I probably would have just moved on to a different section, but with my friend there, I was able to discuss the section, read him what I had, and he gave me this great idea that helped me finish not only the section, but the chapter. For his part, he asks me things like that, too, but mostly uses me for a dictionary/thesaurus :p <br /><br />If you're wondering what I was working on during these sessions, it was not TOSOL. Though my friend has given me suggestions on how to fix that awful introduction, I'm waiting to get some edits back from other readers (my friend is currently finishing up edits on his own novel to turn in to me in a few weeks.) I was instead working on the novel that used to be called <em>Q</em>/<em>Quarantined</em>. It no longer bears that title, but I haven't yet found a replacement. I did, however, discover something interesting about said novel: it's officially science fiction. I never, ever though I'd be a writer of science fiction, but I'm definitely having fun with it!<br /><br /><br />In other news, the lovely Deirdra from <a href="http://astorybookworld.blogspot.com/">A Storybook World </a>has granted me the Powerful Woman Writer Award. I'm honored to be given it, and you should go and check out her blog!<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxrHjPrSEgbfBG53qb6xUhQinsz5fYG5OryVekf-ayLy73xEoimAm7SHW80tDA6tGeFTEpuW4SQ_CxKzeaEDDjFXSlgztQcV0t4EviGIfdgGaGF7oybsVoUWL9xu1VKDnj9HZscwpHb_-/s1600/powerfulwomanwriteraward.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 256px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDxrHjPrSEgbfBG53qb6xUhQinsz5fYG5OryVekf-ayLy73xEoimAm7SHW80tDA6tGeFTEpuW4SQ_CxKzeaEDDjFXSlgztQcV0t4EviGIfdgGaGF7oybsVoUWL9xu1VKDnj9HZscwpHb_-/s400/powerfulwomanwriteraward.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5637502138853622642" /></a>Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-21883262371114027832011-07-19T18:02:00.001-07:002011-07-19T18:25:52.379-07:00Rude AwakeningI've talked a lot about my critique partner, and he and I continue to work together this summer (in fact, he just sent me a poem of his this afternoon.) Though I was very nervous about it, I sent him my novel. As I believe I've said before, I really trust his opinion, as he is not only a talented writer himself, but is willing to be honest with me.<br /><br />I was in a wedding this past weekend, and while I was at the hotel, he and I were chatting over Facebook. I complained to him about how much I hated the intro of my novel- it's one of the last parts I wrote, and though I've fixed it up a lot, it's still clumsy and just bad. My friend wrote, "Do you want to know what I honestly thought of it?" "Yes," I replied. "It sucked. I'm sorry, it just sucked so much that I had to be blunt about it."<br /><br />And while it seems blunt, and maybe it was... I wasn't upset. In fact, I smiled because I was glad he was willing to be so honest with me. I was fine with this all night. But the next day, the day of the wedding, I started freaking out. It was like I was going through the seven stages of grief. <br /><br />Shock: A combination of "wow, that was a blunt way to put it" and "I can't believe I let people see that."<br /><br />Denial: "It's not really that bad. My other reader liked it, so nyeh!"<br /> <br />Anger: "There's a ton of important information in there! I can't put it anywhere else! What does he expect me to do?!"<br /><br />Bargaining: "I'm going to take the novel back, from both him and Chloe. Then they'll forget about it and it'll all be fine."<br /><br />Depression: "I am a sucky writer. I will never be published. I've peaked with this crappy intro. It's all over."<br /><br />Testing: "I'll rewrite it. It's not a big deal."<br /><br />Except... instead of acceptance coming next, I just went backwards. I was in a complete tizzy. I wasn't mad at my friend at all- I'm still not. I was upset with myself. <br /><br />He and I met up the other day face to face. I was so upset and embarrassed about the intro that it took everything in me not to cry as he talked it over with me. He was the true friend/critique partner that he is and helped me brainstorm ways to improve it. Then, he highlighted all four pages of the intro and hit 'delete.' I thanked him profusely and still tried not to cry.<br /><br />I'm better today- still embarrassed that I let that writing see the light of day, but I'm saner :p I know I was upset because I really like the story and I want to publish one day in the probably far future. I need to accept that this might be another practice novel. That thought upsets me, but I know it shouldn't. TOSOL is only my second completed novel and I know published authors write practice novels, and most likely more than one. I'm being unrealistic.<br /><br />I'm not giving up on TOSOL- I still love the book and I still want to work on it and I still want to get it published one day. Maybe it is a practice novel. Maybe I'll need to work on it for a decade or two before I can do anything with it. I don't know. I guess we'll see. But while my readers work on that, I've got a few other projects to keep me going! :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-56597632010409151572011-07-05T18:21:00.001-07:002011-07-05T18:25:53.659-07:00LOOK!So I've sent my novel off to my two readers, which makes me excited and nervous. And the other day, I recieved this little gem in the mail:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeNaRYOl3C8jjDxk6PuREa3D3YisluyygyKDKeCPHPapfhXm5OlE4dhlH3JD_dAJ546GLrJunEebLYCboq7Nia8Nf90a_XgWIoxajiE-B-rJex3N5J1IoximZwRYWXUo3aB_UdvqtqAzPD/s1600/DSCF50931.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeNaRYOl3C8jjDxk6PuREa3D3YisluyygyKDKeCPHPapfhXm5OlE4dhlH3JD_dAJ546GLrJunEebLYCboq7Nia8Nf90a_XgWIoxajiE-B-rJex3N5J1IoximZwRYWXUo3aB_UdvqtqAzPD/s400/DSCF50931.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5626043585618595010" /></a><br /><br /><br />It is an actual, honest-to-God copy of MY book, bound and printed like a real book. I got it from a site called CreateSpace, and winners of NaNo got them for free. As I've said before, this is not the version I'd sell to anyone, even my family, but I wanted to preserve that version of the story and I'm so glad I did it like this. I was so excited when it arrived (seven days earlier than anticipated.) All I did for awhile was hug it to my chest.<br /><br />There are some things I don't like about the layout, but that's my fault, not theirs. They asked me to select options, I did incorrectly, and they followed what I said. No matter, though, because I still love it.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-39974151164343733722011-06-25T17:19:00.000-07:002011-06-25T17:33:37.208-07:00Finished!Last night at 10:20 pm, I finished the fourth draft of TOSOL. It was kind of a race to the finish line- my goal was to be finished by today, but I also knew that my friend (who is reading this draft) needed it and she seemed to be a bit stressed, so I thought I would give it to her early.<br /><br />I'm not as happy with the draft as I could be. There are still two or three HUGE changes that I didn't make. One of them was something I've talked about before, that being the MC's mother being crazy. I was really stressing out about that, and I <em>do</em> plan to apply it, but after wailing about it to my critique partner, he finally said "Just leave it the way it is, let me read it, and we'll work it out together." This is why he's awesome- after that, I was able to step back and focus on the rest of the novel.<br /><br />The revision was really hard, especially at the end. Even though I'd cleaned it up in draft three, I <em>really</em> cleaned it up this time. I made that timeline I posted a picture of, which was invaluable to figuring out what happened when. I cut some scenes and did a complete facelift on others, and I added a few, too. <br /><br />Now that I'm "finished", I don't know what to do with myself. If I was ever bored, I'd work on my novel. Now... what? I think I may start plotting the rest of next year's NaNo, or at least time-lining out what I already have, since time is such a problem for me.<br /><br />This morning, I put in the draft for my free proof copy from CreateSpace. They work with NaNoWriMo and give every winner a free proof copy of their book. I didn't do it last year because my book was nowhere near ready by June. While I know TOSOL will be undergoing major changes in the next few months, it's at a place right now that I want to preserve. I really like the MC's mother as a sane woman and I want to keep that draft somewhere before I have to dissolve her mind in the next one. Of course, just as with the films I'm in, I'll probably get the copy and hide it somewhere, but at least I'll have it!Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-62797053684285785612011-06-20T15:56:00.000-07:002011-06-20T16:05:49.410-07:00ReworkingFor the past two nights, I've been doing something, writing-wise, that I've never done before, and that is tearing out scenes, rewriting them, and MAYBE sticking them in somewhere else.<br /><br />Of course I've rewritten scenes before, I just recently pulled some scenes out (something I don't do a lot, unfortunately), and I've added new scenes. But last night, I knew I needed to buckle down and start finishing (start finishing? Odd and possibly incorrect pairing of words...) a few certain scenes in TOSOL. <br /><br />The reason that this problem even exists is because I write out of order. While pacing-wise, the scenes were in the right places, they were almost the wrong scenes in the right places. My main character degressed from the maturity she gained halfway through the novel because I never revised the third training scene. In others, information was repeated or confusing.<br /><br />This has happened before, but usually I'll just type away at them, cutting and rewriting until it seems like I've fixed the problem. But in order to fix this one, I needed to see all of the related scenes at one time so I could pick and choose what I needed from each one, as I knew a few would have to be combined with one another. I copied and pasted all of the specific scenes into one document, printed that out, and then tried to figure out what I needed. Once I knew the requirements for the first scene (which included much less from the original first scene- that'll be going in the third- and a ton from the fourth), instead of copy and pasting from the same document, I just retyped the whole thing. I'm so grateful I did this- copying and pasting allows me to be lazy, and I realized as I re-typed that if I had done the first option, I would have missed fixing a lot of tiny things.<br /><br />Right now, I'm still trying to fix those scenes, but it's getting closer to the end. I'm actually kind of on a deadline right now: I really want the free proof copy of this version of the book, and one of my readers will be sans internet after the 26th of this month, so I need to get it to her before then. Rush rush rush...Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-32579513095045621532011-06-08T08:56:00.000-07:002011-06-08T09:06:57.580-07:00My Novel is Playing Tricks on MeJust the other day, I was revising in a very happy manner. Things seemed to be falling into place, and in a lot of ways, they still are. But in addition to the joy I can feel while working on TOSOL, I've also begun to feel the inevitable hate that (and, it seems, most writers) feel for their work at some point.<br /><br />Right now, I like my characters, but I don't like their choices. Well, that's not true. Individually, their choices seem brave, sometimes selfless, and often something I wish I could do. But looking at them together, I'm starting to sense a message that I'm not sure I want to send. I can't even really say what it is, because I'm not entirely sure myself, but it runs along the lines of being rather anti-feminist, and I don't want that. I didn't set out to write a "I am woman, hear me roar" novel, but most of my characters are strong females and I think it's counteractive to have the cumulative message be what it seems to be.<br /><br />I could be wrong about this. After all, it's been read a few times and no one's mentioned this. I'm very Type A, so there's a good chance that this is all in my perfectionist head. I also noticed that this "crap, am I being antifeminist?" worry only began to dawn after I began reading Libba Bray's fabulously empowering Beauty Queens. <br /><br />My novel's also teasing me, as all of them seem to do, with knowing things about myself that I don't even realize. As I was revising yesterday, I started to see new meaning in some of the scenes I'd written, meaning that had always been there, speaking things I believe in or am scared of, but that I never consciously wrote to represent that. It's scary the way these things happen some times.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-83556862965029247092011-05-26T14:21:00.000-07:002011-05-26T14:44:44.913-07:00I'M FREE... SortaToday I took my last exam here in London, the one for which I have been studying about five hours a day, every day for the last month. In the last few days before the actual exams, I studied less and procrastinated more, mostly with my biggest procrastination tool, writing. I'm telling you, those hours during which I was supposed to be studying were hours that I made some serious progress with TOSOL. I finished writing a scene that should have been very simple; it was just a conversation, not much moving around and definitely no combat (just that should have made me breathe easier.) But as easy as it seemed, it's a scene that's given me the most trouble of late. I can't decide if it's because it really was difficult or my inner critic was in good form. Either way, it took me a good week and a half to write the 4000+ word scene, writing and deleting sentences over and over again. However, now that's it over, I'm pretty satisfied. While there isn't much action, there's a lot of information given, tension built, and questions asked... or at least I hope so. <br /><br />I had hoped to get the fourth draft to my two readers by the beginning of June, but I don't think that's going to happen. I have almost five days before my family arrives in England (!!!), and of course I'll be spending my time with them until we leave on the twelfth. Besides all of those excuse-y reasons, there's still a ridiculous amount of work to be done on this draft. I've already made a ton of changes, all of which I'm happy with, but there are other changes, some huge, some tiny but still significant, that need to be made before I can even think of sending them off. Those will take serious time to accomplish in a way that won't make me cringe as I hit the 'send' button on those e-mails to my readers.<br /><br />In other news, I know I haven't been doing WIP Wednesday for, well, a really long time. This is for a few reasons. The first is that I learned that posting on the internet is technically using your first publishing rights, which can hurt you if you want to get that work published in the future. Since both of my current WIPs are two that I want to publish, I've decided against posting sections from those. (If anyone knows differently about the publishing rights thing, please correct me.) The second reason is a little more vain: through my England blog, a few people I actually know have discovered this blog. *waves to people I know* *hides* I created this blog under the safety of being anonymous (though I suspect at least one person I know discovered it nearly a year ago), and in real life, I'm very shy about my writing. This has also made me a bit reluctant to post my work. (Note to said people: it's not you. It's me. I'm ridiculously shy.) It's not that I'll never do WIP Wednesday again... I just don't know when it will be back. <br /><br />Until my family gets here, I am free to write as much as I want, so I think I'll visit a cafe or two over the next five days. I write so much better in a cafe environment, and hopefully I'll get a lot of work done.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-72039311334442754632011-05-15T04:04:00.000-07:002011-05-15T04:13:52.745-07:00ProgressWell, I finished writing the combat scene. It's not great- my lack of experience (in both writing these scenes and combat in general) definitely shows, but it's okay for now. My critique partner is good at writing combat scenes, so hopefully after he reads the novel, he'll have some suggestions on how to make it better. <br /><br />Since I finished that, I've been working on more additional scenes than I realised were going to be added. One thing I'm definitely not good at is cutting scenes. I'm fine with writing scenes and not putting them in- I do that all the time. But cutting things after they've been in there for awhile? Not so great. I may have to do this with TOSOL, though- my last reader pointed out two or three scenes that, while well-written, don't give any new information and therefore aren't necessary. In fact, I just now made the decision to cut a scene. See, I'm growing right in front of you :p <br /><br /><br />I'm still feeling guilty about not working on my script while here in England, so I vowed earlier today that this coming week, I will work on it at least a little bit. I've been focusing on TOSOL because two people are waiting to read it, but I really want to get some of this script done as well. <br /><br />Now back to studying- I'm terrified of this English-style exam and I've been studying my butt off for the pas week and a half.Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-55627649389580666012011-05-04T11:42:00.000-07:002011-05-04T11:51:54.031-07:00A New ObstacleOh, this novel is killing me. In a good way (sort of), because all of these challenges are leading me to a better and more realistic novel, if it all works out and I write it well enough.<br /><br />Now I have a new obstacle. In the end of the novel, right before everyone dies, they need to fight back. I didn't have them doing so and both of my readers wrote "WHY AREN'T THEY FIGHTING?!" And why don't I have them fighting?<br /><br />Because I've never written a combat scene before. Not a real one. I've had characters captured and hurt, but said characters have always had zero knowledge of any combat skills and didn't have the skills or the chance to defend themselves. In TOSOL, Lyddie has limited (still some) knowledge/skill, but her aunt has more, and the villain has even more. Even though Lyddie is disarmed fairly easily by the villain, I need to know how one can fight with her prop as well as how she can be disarmed. These are all things I'm not good at, so I've taken the coward's route and avoided it... until now. <br /><br />The muses are not smiling down upon me. I've been trying for days to write this scene. The pace is all wrong, and it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, despite the reading I've done on the subject. <br /><br />Ugh. And I thought writing the make-out scene was hard. Any suggestions on how to write a fight?Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-26947114064666569082011-05-02T15:23:00.001-07:002011-05-02T16:03:18.222-07:00I'm Growing (I Hope)I think I'm growing as a writer, slowly but surely. It's been happening over the years, of course, but over the past eight months or so, I've been recognizing signs that I am. I have been told that one of my downfalls as a writer- of novels, of scripts- is that I miss great opportunities in my story. I set up a great "in" for something to happen... and then I don't think to try it out. It's never on purpose- I just never recognized that there was such an opportunity. But over the past few months, I've noticed that I'm catching more of these, seeing new avenues that I've never seen before. <br /><br />I decided that for next years NaNoWriMo, I'm going to finish up <em>Q</em>/<em>Quarantined</em>/whatever it's going to be called once I'm finished with it. Long-time readers may remember that I started this project back in September/October 2009. I've been working on it on and off since then, and as of now, I have around 31,000 words. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words, and while I'm not sure that Q has 81,000 words to it, I chose to finish this project partially because I know I will be challenged to try new approaches to the story to get those 50,000 words. Plus, whether or not is has 81,000 more words to it, I know it still has a lot; I have so much still to say about the story, and I'm excited about that. <br /><br />Also, I've found that one of my favorite things to do as I figure out a story is to write a scene or two from a different character's perspective. This allows me to see the same scene from a different angle. For example, for TOSOL, I wrote about Lyddie's mother's capture from the mother's point of view. It didn't go into the novel and I never planned it to, but knowing what happened to her was really helpful, and I can look back on it now months later as I reassess and completey revamp her character. I also wrote a flashback scene between Lyddie and her sister that occured right after their mother had been taken. It's adorable and touching, and while it didn't make it into the novel, I know that they had that moment together and it helps me to write other scenes between them. This is something I never did when I was a younger writer.<br /><br />I've spent the past couple of days since making my plot chart working on some new scenes. I have a few that I need to write, and as I work on them, I feel like I'm looking at them with a better eye for wording and the like. This is not only from writing, I think, but from editing. I know that if I'm not careful, this "eye" will turn into my usual Type-A1 fear of not being perfect, but I'll try to stay away from that, as that's what <em>keeps</em> me from writing, not spurs me on.<br /><br />I'm excited to see these changes happening in my writing and I hope they continue. I know I've got a long way to go, but growing bit by bit all brings me closer to my ultimate goal- to be published. And I'm not going to lie- I got an e-mail from a girl who I was in a creative writing class with in the fall. She and I have a lot in common, but we've both been too shy to communicate in anyway but over the internet. I had written and asked her if she was taking any writing classes this semester, and in her answer, she wrote, "I hope you're keeping up with your writing- you're so good at it." Even little stuff like that can make my day :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-34435269847832740462011-04-30T13:16:00.000-07:002011-04-30T14:31:57.965-07:00BlehhhhThe title is probably as articulate as this entry is going to get.<br /><br />I'm at the "talking to myself" point in editing this novel. There was one time this afternoon when I just threw up my hands and cried "WHAT IS GOING ON?!" at the computer screen (but really at myself.)<br /><br />My novel needs sosososo much work. Last night, I spent hours making this:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoNvzd_8DsG327jx7EsnpfUmmqWSbsBzlon8QH_r6L-3OtFKppH1RxZWPKRA16puVF8HFv0x21yaobCWnENTn7V9OT2JZGan9vKrg7_HJpn9ecmPmi_vVXEAf_wIo7153F2BIxELsEBFG/s1600/DSCF4260.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVoNvzd_8DsG327jx7EsnpfUmmqWSbsBzlon8QH_r6L-3OtFKppH1RxZWPKRA16puVF8HFv0x21yaobCWnENTn7V9OT2JZGan9vKrg7_HJpn9ecmPmi_vVXEAf_wIo7153F2BIxELsEBFG/s400/DSCF4260.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5601477141433801522" /></a><br />It's a timeline of all of the events in TOSOL, because the more I read through it and the edits, the more I realise the problem is that I write out of order; times don't line up. And while it is definitely a fixable thing, it's going to be really hard and take a long time. I want to cry. The only thing that's keeping me working on it is the love for this novel, even if I do feel like I hate it right now. I can't believe I let it be seen in a state that was even worse than what I have now. Ughhhh.<br /><br />I'm just having major writing frustrations right now. It's not just the novel. I didn't win ScriptFrenzy. I petered out at 69 pages, mostly because the plot didn't have enough to it; what I do have is a lot of repetition. This is okay- it's the same problem I had with my first NaNo. You just have to learn how to do it. But I feel like a little bit of a failure for not finishing, and as much as I repeat to myself that the only person I made a promise to was myself, I still feel a physical weight over not finishing.<br /><br />And then there's my other play, SOTM. I feel guilty for not working on it for a month or two. March was taken up with essays and April was filled with travel, but why am I not devoting time to a play that takes place in London while I'm <em>in</em> London? My time here is running out (only a little over a month left- eeee!) and I want to apply the atmosphere here to it while I can still feel it around me. <br /><br />Basically, all there is is frustration right now...Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-11545691668482786992011-04-20T14:13:00.000-07:002011-04-20T14:30:12.241-07:00Writerly DespairI am going through it big time.<br /><br />Here's the sitch: I exchanged novels with a fellow writer. Hers was really good and I hoped that because of this, she would give me a top-notch editing job. She did- it's nice without being sugar-coated and brutal without making me cry. She pointed out all of the things I knew were there but didn't want to see and some other stuff that I didn't even know needed to be fixed. I am extraordinarily grateful for this review.<br /><br />But after reading this review, I know that I have extremely daunting changes to make. Some of them are more on the mundane side- my character has an important job, and I wasn't sure of everything that went into it, so I wrote just the important details and left a lot of it out. My reader pointed out that I really do need to include this and change the stakes a little bit (or a lot, depending on how things work out.) While this will definitely be work, it's not terrible. Same with making her boyfriend there for more than romance. And then there are the really hard changes- or, in this case, the one that's so hard, it actually makes me want to cry. That's how much I don't want to do it. <br /><br />See, in the story, Lyddie's mother has been absent from her life for eleven years. Lyddie was told that her mother ran off and so Lyddie has hated her for most of her life. Toward the end of the book, Lyddie discovers that her mother has actually been locked in an underground room since her mother went missing. In the original version of the novel, I had her mother be very rational- perhaps a little emotional, but very logical and calm. Someone pointed out to me that eleven years of solitary confinement would not allow a person to act like that. A person would be driven out of their mind. I ignored this- I didn't want her to be crazy. Besides the fact that I just didn't want it for her character, there was also the issue of this happening towards the end of the novel. It's already a huge reveal that Lyddie meets her mother. Now she had to be crazy, too? No. I wouldn't do it. I kept the mother rational and sent it off to my reader.<br /><br />The draft came back and my reader made the same comment the other person had- the mother was way, way too level-headed for her situation. I wrote to her, basically saying, "But it's so late in the novel *whimpercrybeg*..." She answered, "That's okay. Make her insane. I want to see some crazy." <br /><br />I still don't want to do this. I am pretty much having to drag myself in this direction. Because more than one person commented on it, I know I have to make her crazy, but I still reallyreallyreally don't want to. I love this character the way she is. It's so tragic to me that Lyddie will never get to know her real mother. For more technical reasons, I'm not sure how to get the mother's story out now- no one else knows it and it's going to be difficult to have her spit it out coherantly when she's crazy. And then there's the fear of me writing crazy poorly. I've never really done it- at least not this kind. In Remembrance, I did psychotic crazy, but this is different. This is splintered mind, hallucinating, unpredictable, mental breakdown crazy. <br /><br />I suppose this is what they call killing your darlings. I thought I'd done it before, but it's never made me this conflicted. I'm so sad to let go of the character I initially created and replace her with a broken version of the woman, but I know I have to to make the novel realistic.<br /><br />Any words of advice?<br /><br />(In other news, I'm 59 pages into my Script Frenzy script!)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-32756994722667971242011-04-10T12:56:00.001-07:002011-04-10T13:02:36.315-07:00Editing Can Be So RewardingPart of the NaNo experience for me includes editing someone else's novel. I didn't do it my first year, but I also didn't win that year, so I don't think I understood. But since NaNo '09, I've edited at least one other person's novel. This year, I did three, and it's been awesome.<br /><br />I just finished the third one a day ago. It was good. Really good. Like, if I pulled it off the shelves and bought it, I would be happy with it good. The author, a girl the same age as myself, asked me to return it to her within two weeks (it was pretty short.) The only reason I didn't have it back to her after two days was because I thought she would think I was a freak for reading it that quickly and/or suspect a shoddy editing job.<br /><br />But no (or, well, I hope not.) I sped through that story because I couldn't not. It was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that I considered e-mailing her and asking her for mine back because hers made it look amateurish. <br /><br />It wasn't perfect. I definitely made some suggestions about it. But still, wow. When she e-mailed me back, she told me that I was the first person to read it. I felt honored. <br /><br />Yes, I've read some crappy stuff that resulted from NaNo (and I am by no means excluding my own work from that statement.) But stuff like this makes it worth it. <br /><br />Plus, editing is the best procrastination tool I have :)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2487772229016659871.post-31278255338420894922011-04-07T09:07:00.000-07:002011-04-07T09:25:20.765-07:00Exploiting My Family For My Novelling NeedsSometimes, you have to use what you've got! While I certainly have many entertaining stories of my family's escapades that I could turn into a book, I'm pretty sure no one would find them funny but us. No, the kind of exploitation I'm talking about is knowledge exploitation.<br /><p>I've posted excerpts of the novel I call Q here, and so most of you know that it partially takes place in a hospital. When the novel begins, the main character has spent the last few years of her life living in one, and therefore I need to know some things. The nice thing is that I don't need to do any disease- specific research because I made up the disease from which Eliza is suffering, which therefore means that if I want her to suffer from some symptom (and boy, do I make her suffer), I can just do it without being afraid some med person is going to read my book and get annoyed.<br /><p>But there are still many things I've kept the same or close to the same to today's medical world. The novel is slightly futuristic, but not too much so- I've set it in 2025. Therefore, though Eliza isn't anchored to an IV stand, for example, she does still need an IV, and I needed to figure out how they worked.<br /><br /><p>I had posted a question on the NaNo boards about IVs, asking if someone could pull one out of their hand. The (paraphrased) resulting conversation occured:<br /><br /><p><p>Me: blah blah blah, need info, help please.<br /><p>Person 1: [insert helpful info about IV needles here.]<br /><p>Person 2: Uh, highly implausible. Plus, what would keep someone in the hospital for years? And wouldn't she need an IV stand?<br /><p>Me: Well, I made up the disease, so some of the symptoms require her to stay at the hospital round the clock. The novel also takes place in the future, so I've "invented" a device that allows her to have an IV but not the stand.<br /><p>Person 2: Wouldn't she need a port of some sort? And you didn't invent it, we have something like this. (<em>Links to picture that doesn't actually relate to what I'm talking about, so I'm not sure why they bothered</em>.)<br /><p>Me: Person 2, perhaps she might need something like that today, but like I said, I've set it a little bit into the future, and in this future, we're more medically advanced.<br /><p><p>It went on, and in the end, I got some helpful information from other people and I've figured out that part of my story. But after the frustration of Person 2's "yeah, but"s, I decided to ask a person who knew and could answer me in real time- my sister!<br /><br /><p>My sister's a freshman in college, studying to be a veterinary technician. I was telling her about my earlier conversation and she gave me some helpful advice. Then I started talking to her about TOSOL, partcularly the end where Lyddie is killed with an injection. I told her how the villain went about doing it and she gave me some tips to make the process a little more medically sound.<br /><p>A conversation I had with my mother (who is a respiratory therapist) about the very same scene in November:<br /><p>Me: Hey, Mom, what's the thing called on a syringe that you push down?<br /><p>Mom: What, you mean a plunger?<br /><p>Me: Ugh, is that what it's called? That's a really ugly word. Are there any different ones, because that just won't work at all...<br /><br /><p>In the end I had to use "plunger," even though I hate it. Of course, I don't need to be incredibly medically correct- this is a novel, not a medical textbook. But I couldn't very well write "he depressed the pushy-downy part of the syringe." However, there are parts of med procedure, like the preparation of a syringe, that I'm leaving out, simply because a) it will slow down the scene and b) the character doesn't know or care to know that he took off that piece because it was a protective covering. She's about to die, she has other concerns.<br /><br /><p>Either way, though, I'm grateful to have some medical knowledge in my family to exploit when I need it ;)Rachelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00046973789031899869noreply@blogger.com0