Still Here! Still Writing!

So I write a post on maintaining momentum, then I vanish for three weeks. Sorry! I've been sick, but I'm all better now. I started out the new year with cleaning off my desk.

My writing new years resolution: to sell a story. Any story. A novel or a short story -- I'm good with either. I need to sell something to the more respectable semipros so I can build up a bit of a bio. Currently, I try with the top four or five magazines and then I tend to fizzle. Gotta stop that.

To get ready, I'm going to pick out my most viable short stories and put them all in one file. I'm going to slap a table of contents on it and zap it to my nifty new Ipod touch. This way, I'll always have them with me and I'll be able to work on them anytime.

I'm also going to get my novella, The Sevenfold Spell, in front of the eyes of the ebook publishers. Currently Sanheim has an anthology going for fairy tales, but unfortunately, they are only for super-hot fairy tales. Spell has sex in it, but I woudn't call it anything close to erotica. I'm just not going to go there. I'm not sure if they want to look at fairy tales stories that aren't hot, but I'll try anyway. Corina Press is a new e-publisher imprint of Harlequin, and they are my first choice. Spell is ripe for a final polish, and then off it goes.

Forging a Legend also will be ready to submit in the next week or so. I have a few agents to try, who have not seen it before, plus one agent whose asked for it twice (never hurts to ask if she wants to see it again, especially since it's been almost two years since she's seen the last version).

Once it is submitted, I'll be working on East of Yesterday and my short stories. My goal? To submit a short story to a market once a weekend until I run out of markets. That will be the absolute minimum.

What are your goals this year?

On Maintaining Momentum

One thing I'm finding out is that reading and revising on a compressed timeframe can be a very valuable thing.

There's this series of chapters in the first half of the book that take place in a town called Conarzon. I have been revising these chapters all weekend, and they are the chapters that have always given me the most trouble. They are also the chapters during which Awesome Agent Who Requested My Full Twice could not make it through. Kristy also warned me that there were momentum problems here, and although I tightened it up quite a bit, I never saw this particular problem until this reading. I wasn't reading it quickly enough -- like a reader would, not a revising author. Right now, I'm devoting major back-to-back hours to reading and revising, and I was humming right along, snipping here, tightening here, down to about 13,000 words from over 115,000.

And then I got to a scene where it becomes evident that it was time for Abriel to leave. As a reader, I was all set up that it was time for her to go, and for the next part of the story to take place.

Except she couldn't leave. There was this dangerous chimera loose, and before she can travel, a hunting party must find it and kill it. Which takes another three chapters.As a reader, this would frustrate me. I would SO want Abriel (and the plot) to move on. Problem is, as a writer, I really like the actual chimera hunt.

So I cut the 6000 words that included the chimera hunt, the aftermath and her leavetaking, and I slowly spliced the leavetaking back in. Abriel must now deal with the chimera on her way back home. She only has one companion, and they are both new to the sword.

Much better, I think! Now, I'm off to write that scene. As it stands now, I have revised almost 44,000 words out of 111,000.

Single-Minded Focus

As I hinted in the comment thread of the previous post, I have a hot query lead which means I need to finish this revision of Forging a Legend pretty close to now. So I have suspended blogging at Debuts & Reviews for the weekend in the hopes to get the most done possible.

I have a question for you. What is "literary" fiction? I'm trying to determine if Forging a Legend qualifies. Justin Allen's Slaves of the Shinar is often spoken of as "literary" and I'm thinking that the tone of his novel isn't all that different from mine. However, I'm not sure I want to qualify Forging a Legend as literary if it holds the novel up to a standard that will make it even more difficult to get published.

So I'll leave you with that question while I get my nose back in my book. I'd love to hear what you think.

Discipline

Tonight, I wanted to work on East of Yesterday. Things are really coming together in my mind. However, I was disciplined and I opened my file for Forging a Legend instead. Nighttime writing time is for revisions. I can draft on the weekends, using my Neo.

I'm really trying to be more disciplined about not hopping from work to work. I recently finished a novella and a short story, and they are in simmer mode, where they will stay for another week or so. Once I started working on each of them, I made sure I finished. I'm trying to be better about this.

I also need to be better about submissions. I do fine for novels -- I query dozens of agents, then I revise, then I query dozens more. I don't seem to ever give up (except for the trunk novel). But for short stories, I fizzle out at about five submissions. Which just about gets me through the pro magazines, where I have almost zero chance of acceptance anyway. I really have to force myself to keep submitting. But honestly, I wonder if I shouldn't just display the short stories on my website and forget about trying to sell them. At least that way, some people will probably read them. But as far as novels go, I think my plan of drafting one work on the Neo and polishing another work on my computer might satisfy my apparent need for variety.

I started working on Forging a Legend in 2004. That makes it five years, now. But in the same amount of time, I wrote another novel, a handful of short stories, one novella and 20,000 words of two additional novels (East of Yesterday and A Hollywood Miracle), both of which I do want to finish. A third novel start, Any Woman, is trunked, probably permanently.

There must be some reason I keep going back to Forging a Legend. And the biggest reason I can think of is I really want to finish it. I love Abriel, and I love the story that I've come up with for her. Book 2 -- if I can ever get the chance to write it -- really ends with a bang and it's got twists and turns you'd never expect. Wait till you get to meet Husband #2! And Book 3 is where I finally get to tie up the many plot threads that I laid the foundations for in Forging a Legend.

Have you ever written anything that has stayed with you like this, and resisted all your attempts to set it aside?

Novella Finished

I finally finished my novella version of "The Sevenfold Spell". I sent it off to my writing mentor and I'm putting it out of my head for a few weeks. This is the first time I've ever written a happily-ever-after, and I had to write it four times before I ended up with a version I liked. It still needs lots of work, but my head needs a subject change.

I came up with a great new foil for East of Yesterday. Kimber An taught me about foils in one of her amusing Protagonist Cafe posts. My two main characters are twins and while they squabble, there wasn't enough conflict in the time travel scenes. Now, they're going to have Mike's annoying semi-friend along for the ride, for what they think is only about 80 miles. Boy are they in for a surprise. Brad (the new character) is a major jerk, and he's going to be a huge thorn in their side. Should be fun.

But I'm not ready to write that yet. I asked myself which story would give me the most bang for my buck (or time)? And I decided that the answer was . . . Forging a Legend. I've had enough distance from it that I think I can work on it again, ONE FINAL TIME. (Yeah, I know I've said that before.) And when I'm done with this revision, I'll be sending it directly to publishers. And I really need to get it done before January or so, when all the NaNo novels will start swamping every publisher in existence.

Then, I'll have had closure with all these novels, and I'll be able to work on East of Yesterday with a fresh brain.

There's a certain agent . . .

. . . and if you read agent blogs, you know her name. She's requested at least partials for both my books . . . twice. And she keeps rejecting them, usually with little encouraging notes at the bottom. I suppose it's a good thing that she keeps requesting to see my stuff. But I do wonder if I'm beginning to be a pest. Oh, well. (Heavy sigh.) I do have other queries still out there.

I won't be making another round of agent queries with Forging a Legend without a contract. However, I will be submitting directly to publishers soon. I've been dithering about a recent rewrite. I sent it to one of my beta readers and she really liked it--in fact, she said she loved it. However, I thought of another way to frame it, and so I made a copy of it and was attempting to make this latest frame work. However, I don't think it will. I really don't want to do another major rework of it, and if I attempt this latest idea, it will require exactly that. So I'll be going back to the rewrite that my beta reader read and will be sending it to another beta reader this week.

One of the things that's been on my mind is the fact that I'm glad I'm branching out into another genre. Historical fiction may be harder to write, but it does seem to be more friendly to females. You guys know that I am intimately familiar with debut novels due to my work at Fantasy Debut. However, the bulk of epic fantasies that have come out since I started FD have been written by men. If you count small presses--old Juno Books and Avari Press--then I can think of a few. If they're not by men, they're about men, such as Naomi Novik's novels. The only exceptions seem to be urban fantasies and YA fantasies, both of which I have not written.

But some of the biggest names in Historical fiction are women like Phillipa Gregory and Diana Gabaldon. It also has a wider readership. I'm also hoping that by the time I am ready to query, this recession is over and time travel historicals are the next big thing.

Maybe--if I get very daring--I'll serialize Forging a Legend at Fantasy Debut. I have a large readership there; I might as well see what they think. What do you think? Good idea, or bad?

Random Updates

Wow; it's been over a week since I last blogged. Busy week. We spent the weekend at a homeschooling convention. Homeschooling is our last choice because we tried EVERYTHING else. Most schools won't take my daughter and the ones that will are either bedlam or frightfully expensive. My daughter can't learn in bedlam--who can?--and our resources are better spent elsewhere than tuition. So, homeschool it is. Or rather, "nontraditional private school" since we aren't technically homeschoolers.

Not conductive to the muse. So I am editing. I finished incorporating Katie's edits into Forging a Legend--thanks, Katie!-- and now I am polishing. Lots of things have changed since 2005, when I wrote this novel, including my word choices. So I'm going through the whole thing, paragraph by paragraph. The lovely Lisa and Kristin have both volunteered to reread it when I am finished. I don't know what it is about this book; I'm just not willing to give it up.

Regarding East of Yesterday: I'm feeling grateful that I had a grandparent born in 1895. She was very old when I was in high school--much older than my friends' grandmothers. No one else had a grandparent born in the previous century. She had WONDERFUL stories when I was growing up. She always called Woolworth's the "five and dime". I learned all about the lunch counters that they used to have there, and various other details I was able to incorporate in this brief scene:

A waitress stopped before him. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Mike," he said before he remembered to use his last name.

She seemed unfazed by his informality. "Well, Mr. Mike--what'll it be?"

"Oh, some coffee and scrambled eggs, I guess."

Someone joined him on his right. "Morning," he said as he opened his paper.

Mike glanced at him. He was in a suit similar to his. "Morning," he replied.

The waitress thumped a teacup and saucer before him, and filled it with coffee. He looked around for creamer, but all he saw was a little metal milk pitcher. He took it and poured some in, then dug some sugar cubes out of a bowl with a spoon and dropped them in.

He decided to start his housekeeper search here. He would probably be seeing these men every morning, after all. It would be a step above hiring someone through an ad.

"Anyone know of someone looking for a housekeeper job?"

Silence. Then a "Nope," and a "Not me."

Mike stirred his coffee and wondered how long it would take for the sugar cubes to dissolve.

"If you don't mind a Negro, I know someone," the guy on his left said.

And ugh--an agent has had the complete MS for Starcaster for almost four months!

I've Decided - It's Historical

Despite the warnings of my fellow bloggers, Kimber An and Katie, I am writing a novel that fits into the classification of "historical." It's my time travel fantasy, but I've decided that it fits into the genre of "historical" more than anything else. It's about as much fantasy as Outlander by Diana Gabaldon is. No one considers Outlander a fantasy, although it has fantasy elements to allow for the time travel. My novel is much the same. Therefore, when I shop it, my top choice agents will represent both fantasy and historical.

I even have settled on a historical-novel-sounding title: East of Yesterday. That's definitely not a fantasy title.

Since it's a time travel novel, I'm not limited to one particular era. Here are the eras I'm writing about so far:

• Colonial St. Augustine, during which time it was under British rule,
• The last Spanish occupation of St. Augustine,
• St. Augustine during the Civil War, during which time it was occupied by Union soldiers,
• St. Augustine during the and after the 1914 fire,
• St. Augustine during the 1964 Civil Rights demonstrations,

These eras are visited by Henry, a Colonial-era farmer, as he travels "north" in time. Ashley and Mike take a road trip south in time, starting in Columbia, SC and ending in St. Augustine, all of which I've already written about in the posts below. They meet in the 1920s--except they've met before. It has been so much fun to write.

So my novel covers almost 250 years. Since the South was segregated during the 20s, I'm also writing about that. Right now, Ashley is interviewing a young black woman who was fired from her last housekeeper position after being falsely accused of stealing a ring.

Since the novel is recent history, I'm wondering if I should avoid any historical names. The Flagler family was very prominent in St. Augustine during this timeframe. Do I mention them by name, or do I invent a different family? They won't have a big role in the novel, but they had such a huge impact on development in St. Augustine (and much of the East Coast of Florida) that it would almost be remiss to omit them.

~*~

Ok, I wrote all of the above last week, and then forgot to post it. I was in the middle of dealing with all these questions when Katie's feedback for Forging a Legend arrived in the mail. I just wanted to send a public thank you her way for her wonderful feedback. She discovered a VERY LARGE inconsistency resulting from a deleted scene that I probably would have missed despite a rereading because I'm just too close to the novel, and I've read it too many times. So now I'm sitting here trying to decide whether I put the scene back in, or rip some more scenes out, with possible more repercussions down the line.

Writing -- it's a wonderful, crazy life!

Forging a Legend Rewrite Complete!

I finished my revision of Forging a Legend. For those of you who have read it, Verit is now a first-person point-of-view character, and his POV is the framework through which the story is told.

My problem is I'm too close to the story. I'm wondering if any of you want to read--or reread-it. I need to know if the story still bogs down in the Furdi chapters. I've cut about 8000 words.

Here's the first chapter. It is short. If you've read it, it refers to things that don't happen until the third book, only bits of which are written.

Chapter 1
The Fallen God
Verit

It took me many years to forgive her. For most of those years, I wanted only to kill her.

Then one day, she showed up at the doorstep of my hovel one day with that husband of hers behind her. Once, I lived in a castle on a cloud with a vista that seemed to encompass all the world. Now, because of her, I was here, forced to scrape an existence out of the stubborn earth.

For a moment, we just stared at one another. Forgotten was my wish to kill her as I absorbed the impossibility of her presence. She looked to be about fifty--the age I felt, although we were both much older.

"I never renounced you, you know," she said.

I opened my mouth several times before I managed a reply. I lived the life of a recluse by then, and had not spoken to anyone in months. "I know. You just stopped believing."

"You can't compel belief. You can't give it if you don't have it."

"So you told me, once."

We were silent for a moment.

"This is for you." She handed me a square package, wrapped in sackcloth and tied with string. "If anyone deserves an explanation, it's you," she said. She turned away.

"Do with it as you will."

She walked away, her husband beside her.

I took the parcel inside, set it on a table and stared at it. An explanation. I hadn't realized until that moment how very much I wanted an explanation. I untied it with increasingly eager hands and yanked away the layers of sackcloth.

It was a codex. No, many codices.

I opened the top one. The brittle sheets of papyrus were crowded with words. I flipped through it, reading phrases here and there.

It was her story.

It was clear that the words did not come easily. She was no writer. Parts of it showed heavy editing. In many places, words had failed her and she had simply drawn pictures instead. In these, there was no sign of hesitancy, no stray marks, no rubbed-out lines.

Her drawings demonstrated her true genius. In these, I saw the world through her eyes. The aqueducts of Ulrith. A Furdi shepherd on a clifftop. A snarling chimera. The placid lake of Fermere. The pyramid of Thesk with his bright light shining through the storm. The arena within the pyramid.

A dying god.

At the bottom of the stack was a scrap of papyrus, upon which she addressed me directly.

"I would have done none of these things had you not made me what I am."

She was right. She would have lived the simple life of an artist, had I not intervened. I had seen that as a waste. I saw her only for her heroic proportions, for her strong arm, and I made her into the legend I required.

She became a myth all on her own.

Do with them as you will, she had said. I saw nothing for it but to write, to take her words and pictures and stitch them into a coherent whole. I took her story and rendered it in my words, while adding my own side of the story.

Therefore, what follows is my last great act as the Lord of Truth.

She had started with her childhood, but I see no need for that. The divorce. That is the true beginning of her story.

If you'd like to read more, please let me know at tia dot nevitt at gmail dot com, or leave a comment below. Thanks!

Fun with Cuts

I did a 6,000 word cut today. I'm so proud of myself!

Actually, it was several cuts. I had already red-penned my manuscript, X-ing out long passages and removing entire subplots. When I took the MS to my computer today (it was a day off!) I discovered even more passages that could be deleted.

Now, of course, I'll have to read through the 4 chapters that are left to see if 1) I can cut anything else and 2) if what I left still makes sense.

I'm thinking of skipping the whole agent hunt and just submitting directly to the publisher. I've already sent this novel (Forging a Legend) to several agents more than once. Tor, Baen and Ace Books all still take unsolicited manuscripts. Submitting to all three of them will take about a year. I also could go for some contests, but not very many are for novels. I have two languishing short stories I could enter. "The Sevenfold Spell" was supposedly going to be accepted (good news), but I think the magazine is now defunct (bad news). The other--"Petroleum Sunset"--I just haven't sent anywhere lately. I know. I can't sell it if I don't send it.

A Frame for Forging a Legend

After reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, I found myself thinking about Forging a Legend again. I'm thinking it needs a frame.

Blog newcomers have not read much about my epic fantasy, Forging a Legend. It has been rejected over 50 times. I wrote an epic at a time when epics are a hard sell. My beta readers liked it and one agent liked the opening chapters enough to request the full manuscript.

But that was it. So on the shelf it went.

At the start of a new prologue, Verit is a fallen god who has become a recluse. His nemesis, who is Abriel, my protagonist, shows up. She gives him a bundle of journals where she has both written and drawn (she's an artist) her story. She tells him that he deserves an explanation for what she has done.

Verit takes her memoirs and drawings, and he writes her story. He interjects his own side of the story where appropriate.

To do this rewrite, I'll have to rewrite all the Verit scenes as first person. I have a few scenes in the POV of Thesk, Abriel's antagonist for book 1, but at least one of them will have to go. I had an epilogue, but I think it will have to go as well.

But Abriel's story--which currently takes over 95 percent of the book, I can leave untouched. So it may only take a month or so to accomplish this rewrite. I do believe I'll start now.

Happy Reader - Again!

After she finished reading Starcaster, Lisa Nevin demanded more! So I sent her an e-copy of Forging a Legend. I'm thrilled with what she had to say! Plus, she read the first three chapters of the second book in the series.

She really has fired me up to get querying again, but I'm also thinking about submitting to those few major publishers who take unsolicited subs. That way, I can just plunk it in the mail and forget about it for nine months while I write another book.

Any advice? I've already queried 52 agents for it (some of them twice).

Abandoning My Novel

A quote attributed to Leonardo DaVinci goes like this:

Art is never finished, only abandoned.

After some final tweaks, I am abandoning FORGING A LEGEND for the second time. This side of a sale, it's done. I'll work on my query and synopsis, but I can't think of anything else to change in the novel. Well, other than a panicky reread in case I forgot something, or in case some trivial detail clashes with another trivial detail, which I've talked myself out of doing. I have other novels to write, other short stories to finish and market. It's time I get on it.

Let the querying begin! Wish me luck.

Busy Writing

When I'm not posting here, you can bet your bippy that I'm writing. I've been feverishly writing a short story--which I usually don't do. However, I'm quite excited about this one. It's called "Spin" and it's derived from the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. It has inspired other fairy-tale based stories. So far I have ideas for Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast, Snow White and The Little Mermaid. Can you tell I have a little girl? However, these are not children's stories.

I think I've finally learned how to write a short story. "Spin" has had some very positive feedback from my critique group. I'm thrilled!

I've updated my Forging a Legend website with the excerpt that I sent to the novel contest in January. Someone sent me an email from the site, pointing out some possible problems with my old excerpt, so I figured I'd better get my tush in gear and update my website. Therefore, I have done so.

Now I need to visit some of my blog buddies.

More Dream Casting

Abriel's first sword mentor is named Naria. Naria is of an extremely fair-skinned race, so I needed to find an actress with the right coloring. One came to mind immediately.

Naria - Cate Blanchett


She's another one who'd have to be uglified, because Naria is supposed to be severe-looking. But her coloring is perfect.

My Dream Cast

Inspired by Lisa Shearin and Raven, I've decided to put up my dream cast for some of the characters in Forging a Legend.

Abriel - Angela Bassett

Ok, Angela Bassett is probably way too beautiful to play Abriel, but I'd want her anyway! Look at those arms! She'd be perfect. Plus she's got great screen presence. She was the only reason I liked the movie, Strange Days and she'd make a kick-ass Abriel.

Verit - Val Kilmer

Dye his hair black and he'd make a great god of Truth. He's got that ability to pull off a hugely conceited character, as evidenced in Top Gun and Willow.

Thesk - The Rock

For another godly character, Thesk, the God-King of the city-state that bears his name, I'd want The Rock. He already looks like a god in this photo, and we know he makes a great villain.

I'll have to think some more about the other characters. For the few of you who has read it all the way through, I need a buff white guy (Danor), a fit white guy (Loqui), a teenage brown-skinned boy (Rendell), two fit brown-skinned guys (Yevin and Korzit), and a brown-skinned guy and girl with an ordinary build (Deverno and Ysande).

Thusday Thirteen #5 -- Thirteen Paragraphs from Forging a Legend

Thirteen paragraphs from Forging a Legend This is one of my favorite scenes, and thirteen lines worked out perfectly! I didn't bother numbering them.

Thesk made no move. Abriel realized that he waited for her to make the first attack. He did not even bother to pretend at a fighting stance.

What have I got myself into? She thought. She decided to try a thrust.

A stabbing pain invaded her right lung. She looked down at the sword protruding from her chest in astonishment. He had struck so swiftly that she had not realized a blow was coming. As she gazed at the sword, she dimly reflected that the metal was the same whitish hue as the chain of her amulet.

It withdrew from her chest and blood poured forth.

Pain hit her like an avalanche. Her knees could no longer support her and she collapsed onto the sand. She knew that the wound was mortal and that it would be an agonizing, slow death. Her lung would fill up with blood and bile and she would drown in her own fluids.

Her feet churned the sand in spasms of pain. She remembered the fight pits, and the man struck down by his own friend. Now, it was time for her to play her death drama before the crowds.

She could no longer see at all; a red haze filled her vision. She could still hear, however. A great rending filled her ears and she felt the jagged metal from the armor rip out of her wound. A burning filled her lungs and she knew that the drowning process had begun.

She thought of the Nameless one. The Namer, she corrected herself, thinking of the Furdi, of Danor. She thought of what Danor had told her one day, early in their acquaintance, while they sipped cool water in the entrance of the forge. He told her then that the Namer escorted the souls of the newly-dead to his home.

All at once, she welcomed such a place. Whether to the Namer's home or to the gods Beyond--what difference did it make? An entirely new adventure awaited her on the other side of death. What was there to fear?

She had always thought of death as cold and dark. Instead, she found it bright, airy and softer than the down of goslings. She wanted to drown in it. However, she also found a firmness that she did not expect, unyielding and impenetrable--a closed door.

Take me, she thought.

Then, a meaning bloomed in her mind, a meaning of perfect clarity. It was as if someone--or something--had planted a perfectly formed idea into her mind without cumbersome words, and without any trace of ambiguity.

And she knew that her time to die had not yet come.

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Chapter One Updated

I've been tweaking the opening chapters of Forging in anticipation of entering a local fiction contest at the end of January. If you care to read it, it is here. As always, feedback is welcome, both publicly on this blog, and privately at tia dot nevitt at gmail dot com. Thanks!

I've Inspired Myself

I started working on Forging again. I know, I know. I need to stick to something. But Kristin, my beta reader, had some great suggestions and I thought of a way to implement them when I woke up this morning. Since it added about a thousand words, I am now cutting. I think I'll end up with a net 115,000 words.

About midway through my novel, I had a storm that was more-or-less a random event. This always bothered me about the story. Well, this morning, I thought of a great way to make it not-so-random and add a lot of depth to the character of Verit, Abriel's patron deity.

I also thought of a way to give Abriel a bit of competition. One of Verit's subordinate deities will succeed in attracting a much-feared king to his fold, thus increasing the deity's chances of winning the divine contest that is at the center of the novel. I originally envisioned this king for book 2. However, he fits in PERFECTLY here, because he seems so much like the ultimate candidate for the contest. Think Hercules. Blend in a bit of Alexander the Great. Add a huge amount of sheer chutzpah. That's my king.

However, he will only be mentioned in this novel, not actually introduced to the reader. I wish I could introduce him properly in this novel, but I have not found a way to do so yet. I don't think I can. In book two -- if there ever is a book two -- it will be a wonderful surprise for the reader when he shows up the way he does.