My current work in progress hit 25,000 words today. Almost 100 pages. I remember when my first draft of CHEATER hit that landmark; I was in awe that I’d written so much. That was almost 3 years ago. I’ve learned a lot since then, and now, it seems like not such a big deal. I see it as unpolished, just very basic ideas, and I know a lot of it won’t make it to the second or third drafts, let alone the final version. I know I’ll be picking it all apart and poking and prodding at it before too long. But I think, tonight, I’m going to take a little time to just kick back and enjoy reaching this point.
Word Count August 26, 2008
For those of you who, like me, have been confused by word count expectations for novels, agent Colleen Lindsay of FinePrint Literary Management has an excellent post on this subject. The numbers I’ve heard vary widely depending on the source. Thanks to Colleen for giving us some solid guidelines.
Productive Days August 19, 2008
I am flying along with my current work-in-progress, averaging about six pages a day (around 1500 words). It’s a “skeleton” – a very rough draft – but I’m thrilled with the progress. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this inspired. Though writing YA has a consequence I did not expect – all this thinking about high school has brought on night after night of dreams that I’m back in my teenage years, walking those dimly lit high school halls, suffering through thousands of long forgotten insecurities, and often forgetting to do my homework (the latter was not part of my real high school experience! I was a good little girl).
Writing regularly again has been like Draino for my creative process. The pipes are now unclogged, and I’m being bombarded by cool ideas that I want to pursue. One that I’m particularly excited about is another urban fantasy/paranormal sort of theme. And lots of others are just fun to think about.
Fantasy Writers Research, Too August 13, 2008
Yep – we may create our own worlds and our own rules, but that doesn’t exempt us from research.
Here is a list of some of the things I researched while writing my urban fantasy, CHEATER:
• Traditional and contemporary beliefs about death, the gods and angels of death, and the afterlife, including Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, Indian, Norse, Aztec, and Christian.
• Con artists and their “art”, famous cons and schemes, famous con artists
• The Grim Reaper – folklore, history, and portrayal in literature and film
• Death and mortality rates
• Traditionally held beliefs about Limbo
• All sorts of cool techy stuff like hacking into computers, tiny digital cameras, internet scams…
• Slot machines
• Blackjack
• Las Vegas and Death Valley – that was a fun trip!
• The Lake Havasu region
• Several locales around sweet home San Diego
• Casinos, their rules, their layout
• The Etch A Sketch
• My jobs, that have offered wonderful insight to the inner workings of a bureaucracy (including a nice collection of memos that served as inspiration…)
• Poker
• Charles Babbage, his Difference Engine, and his Analytical Engine
While 95% of what I learned didn’t make it into the book (sometimes 10 hours of research becomes 1 line of text), most of these things play a role. Are you intrigued yet?
Writing Process August 11, 2008
My non-writer friends often ask me, “How do you go about writing a book?”
I used to think writers plunked themselves down, pen (or keyboard) in hand, started on page one and continued on through the end and then – voila! A book! Non-writer friends look at me a little funny when I say things like, “I don’t always know what will happen when I start to write.” Or, “My characters don’t always listen to me.” Or, “Yes, I finished my sixth draft, but I still have a lot of work to do.” Or, “I forgot to eat yesterday; I was writing and all of a sudden it was one a.m.”
I don’t fault them for their confusion. It confuses me, too.
The writing world likes to divide us into “outliners” and “blank-pagers.” This artificial division oversimplifies things. There are too many of us who are somewhere in between. Sometimes, I sit down with a blank page, let my imagination run, and I’m amazed where I end up.
While working on CHEATER, I bombarded my husband Stephane one day with this: “You will never believe what happened today. Sydney found out that so-and-so is actually so-and-so, and then Arthur said blah blah blah, and then this guy showed up, and it turns out that he blah blah blah…”
Stephane squinted at me and said, “Are you talking about your characters?”
I nodded. “Yeah! Can you believe it? I couldn’t!”
Of course, I was half-joking, but the fact is that sometimes my characters take and over surprise me. And sometimes, several scenes start flying through my brain and so I jot down a few notes and this becomes an outline; a map to follow. So it goes for me.
My first draft is always a skeleton – it has the bones but is missing a lot of the meat and the style. It’s accompanied by an ever-expanding outline of ideas and storylines that I’d like to follow. Sometimes I try to rein my characters in and whip them into place, and sometimes they run wild and it’s all I can do to keep up.
I like to think of it as the competing sides of my brain striking a healthy balance. I’m ridiculously driven, logical, and organized, which helps me tie up all those loose threads in my stories and to finish what I start. But my creative side is in there too, and when I let that loose and allow things to develop organically, I get some of my best stuff.
Finishing a book is one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and it took my whole brain, a lot of tears, sweat, and some blood (damn papercuts) to do it.
But this I know for sure: Finishing a book felt just as good, if not better, than scoring the game-winning basket, acing that microbiology final, and getting my physical therapy school acceptance letter. No matter what happens with CHEATER, I will never forget the feeling I had when I first saw a book I wrote printed out and nestled in a manuscript box.
Young Love August 8, 2008
I’ve started work on a new story that I’m pretty excited about. My mind and pen have been wandering aimlessly for a while now – I’ve spent months mulling over ideas and then rejecting them because they don’t feel “right.” This new one is something that was actually inspired by a dream. It’s not an urban fantasy/paranormal – like CHEATER or a few of the short stories I’ve done lately. But, we’ve had the most AMAZING week getting to know each other, and, I’ll admit it, I’ve fallen in love. (See my previous post where there is a link to another writer’s blog on how writing a book is like falling in love.) It’s a YA story, a romance. So a warning to my young friends out there (and your parents) – I may need some test readers in the next few months!
Something fun August 6, 2008
I just came across this hilarious post on how writing a book is like falling in, and then out, of love. Check it out!
Why I Write August 5, 2008
Because things don’t seem quite real until I’ve written about them. Because I can’t not write. Because it gives me a deeper understanding of our world and the human experience. Because I love words. Because a well written sentence, a well chosen word, gives me a rush of happiness. Because I want some part of me to live on when I am gone, even if it is only my family that reads it. Because it’s cheaper than therapy. Because of the high I get when I’m writing – I feel like screaming and crying and laughing at the top of my lungs, and at the same time like sitting peacefully and watching the world go by. Because I am happiest when I’m lost in the worlds I create and letting my characters’ voices flow through my pen. Because I think I’m good at it, and I want to do something I love and something I’m good at for a living. Because I don’t want to look back on my life and wish I’d followed my dreams – I want to follow them now. Because only when I am writing am I truly, fully, completely me. Because the craft of writing fascinates and challenges me. Because this is what I want to do more than anything else in the world.
My First Blog May 27, 2008
At the last two writers’ conferences I attended, I heard over and over again that to make it in today’s publishing world, a writer must have a “web presence.” So, here I go!
I now have a website and my very own blog! I find the prospect of blogging a bit intimidating – funny for a writer, perhaps, but I’m accustomed to writing, editing, re-editing, scrutinizing, editing some more, showing what I write to my husband and once he’s assured me that he loves me no matter what (and that what I’ve written is brilliant), it’s back to the drawing board to rip apart what I’ve written and begin again. With a blog, publishing something is as easy as writing an email. I could vomit on the page and, voila, send it out for the world to see!
But, alas, I must set aside my phobias and join the world wide web.
I’ll start with where I am in my writing career. I, like many writers, have written all my life: journals, short stories, a few uncompleted novels. I was always one who preferred writing a paper to taking an exam. I’ve done a bit of technical writing, and some advertising copy. But it’s creative writing that really gets my juices flowing. I completed my second novel (the first is in a drawer) in April, and will soon start looking for an agent. This part of the process is excruciating, because it is out of my control. So, I’ve done the only thing I could do: I’ve begun another novel.
My goal is to post a blog two to three times a month. Topics will be mainly writing related, but I’ll probably throw some traveling-related articles in as well!
For now, thank you for reading!
Carol
Carol Callicotte 