The Forest (for the trees)

Diana Peterfreund has a wonderful post today about pacing, holding onto readers, looking at the story as a whole...well, you read it.

I feel like I am mentally pulling back from TMT enough (FINALLY) to see it as a whole. I see now that I didn't spend enough time on rewrite dealing with plot weaknesses, with pacing problems, with being utterly ruthless. I didn't necessarily make scenes pull double and triple duty like I should have. I left things that I wasn't quite happy with, even after strengthening (like Richard). It's better, but it's still not as good as it could be. I didn't go deep enough in revision, allowing the possibility that maybe I needed to drastically change some things instead of just tweaking here and there.

Mind, I don't feel bad about this--I really did the best I could from where I was at the time. Hell, it's my first book, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm figuring it out as I go. Yes, I've sent it out to quite a few agents and been rejected, but I don't consider them "wasted" queries either. Of 14 queries, 6 agents read a partial and 2 read a full. All but 2 of those gave me personal, detailed feedback. I've applied quite a bit of the feedback, and I'm getting closer...but now it's time for me to take a totally different approach, from the bird's-eye view, and make it shine. This time when I send it out, I want to be really happy with it, to know that it's STRONG. And then if it doesn't work out? I'll accept it, and keep going on Book 2. A few of the agents who rejected TMT asked to see my next work, so I have a couple of chances here.

Anyway, I'm making notes on things that I want to do with TMT, points I want to strengthen, subthreads I want to lay in. But I'm also going to print the whole thing out and edit it that way--not line by line, but scene by scene. What is happening in this scene? How can it work better? I'm also going to change much about the beginning, I think. Make Richard come in sooner. Make the break with her father much stronger, with deeper and additional reasons. Make the beginning matter more.

Make it shine.

Medieval Word of the Day: grusnen: To cry out with fright.

State of the MSS

In an end-of-year regrouping effort, I went through all the personal feedback I've received on TMT from agents. Yes, folks, there is a pattern. Here are a few (not all) of the comments, in the order I received them:

"Katherine seemed too oblivious, and I just didn't want to read more about her." {OUCH}

"The key problem for me was Katherine, who, for the majority of the book, was too meek and passive to satisfy me."

"I didn't get to know the characters as deeply as I wanted to."

"I found myself increasingly impatient with Katherine and her naivete, and as a result I lost sympathy with her and her plight."

{FIX FOR NAIVETE AND PASSIVITY, WHICH WAS CLEARLY A PROBLEM; RE-SEND}

"Perhaps part of the problem is that I had a hard time warming up to Katherine. She certainly seems like a sympathetic character, and yet I felt distanced from her."

--

Ho-kay. First, I'm not including the compliments here, or other feedback. They almost all had really nice things to say about writing, pacing, and plot, so I'm very grateful for that. But you see the problem, right? Nobody likes poor Katherine. I do think I'm improving in terms of correcting the passive/naivete issue. Now she's apparently at least sympathetic, but I still have to address the distance problem if I want anybody to connect with her enough to buy the puppy.

On the recommendation of a fellow author friend, I've ordered "Creating Unforgettable Characters" from Amazon, which might have some new ways for me to think about Katherine...and my other characters in TMT and Book 2.

I'm not discouraged, not yet, as I still feel that I can improve the book, and that I'm close. (_I_ like Katherine, but I don't want to be the only one!) Plus I will continue to work on Book 2, which will be Even Better.

Medieval Word of the Day: tuck: To afflict by way of punishment; to punish, chastise; to ill-treat, torment.

Why secrets are better secret

Good Monday-morning-only-a-week-until-Christmas!

I'm afraid both my secrets went bust last week, one right after the other. The second one will stay personal, but the first one was...drum roll, please...that an agent was reading the full of TMT, and it looked pretty good. Sadly, she decided to pass in the end.

Yet I am still remarkably cheerful this fine chilly morning. Why? Partly because of the rejection letter, believe it or not. If I had tried to write a more positive, encouraging rejection letter myself, I don't think I could've done a better job. I won't reveal agent names or details here, but I profoundly thank all agents who still take the time to give detailed, personal feedback--and talk about the things they liked as well as the things they didn't. Yay, you. It makes such a difference. Now I have to decide if I want to read through TMT again or just send it out some more.

I'm also happy because it's almost Christmas, gosh darn it, and I'm really close to being ready. We had a fun weekend baking cookies, Christmas shopping (it is dangerous to send me out with carte blanche to buy things for Child!), and just hanging out. And I don't know if I mentioned it here before, but we're also looking forward to vacation--we're heading out to San Diego for a full week the day after Christmas. This time we're going to Sea World, so today on my down time I get to look up which shows we want to take in. Down time, she says. Ha.

I also have a grad-student hurrah-term's-over party today at lunch, which will be nice. We can all de-stress and bitch together.

And last but NOT least, I am reading a certain kick-ass book that I absolutely cannot put down. I didn't want to go to bed last night, was speculating about it this morning at 6 AM before I had to get up, and am dying to get back to it this evening. I didn't dare bring it in with me to work, because I know I don't have enough willpower to keep away from it. Yes, my friends, I scored an ARC of Vicki Pettersson's THE SCENT OF SHADOWS, and Oh. My. God. I don't care what kind of books you like; if you have eyeballs and a brain, reserve it now.

Medieval Word of the Day: thrutch: To press, squeeze, crush; to crowd, throng

TMT Update

Somebody forgot to turn on the heat in our buildings over the weekend, and it got down to the mid-20s (Fahrenheit) last night. It's c-c-c-cold in here. The heat is just now seeping in, slowly, so maybe I can take off my gloves and coat soon. {s}

I got a surprise rejection Saturday night--for a query I'd sent off in June. Went to check my email one last time before going to bed and boom! A thanks-but-no-thanks. Fortunately it didn't bother me, since I'd nearly forgotten it was still hanging out there. One good thing is that I had to open up my query list this morning to update it, and just looking at the new agents I've marked to send to got me a little energized again.

I said I wouldn't go into details about the query hunt here, and I won't. I can say that the first round had some ups and downs, and after I got some particular feedback I got a little down and frustrated, and put a temporary halt on sending out new queries. I think I have to re-read the first section One More Time and fix a couple problems that were pointed out to me before I send it out again. Once that's done, the queries go out and I concentrate on Book 2. TMT gets one more fix for querying and then I just have to turn my attention to the new one, and let it fly on its own.

A good friend of mine just sent me a link to Elizabeth's Bear's post about when to let go of a book. Read it, bookmark it, and pay attention--I did.

Medieval Word of the Day: viretote: An unsettled state or condition.

Rejected, not Dejected

Rejection sucks.

Well, there's a deep and insightful statement, eh? New ground being broken right here, folks!

Ahem.

I'm feeling a little bruised and battered this week. I won't go into details, but a couple of agents I had very high hopes for--meaning they'd requested materials from me within only a couple of days of query, and my stuff fit their profiles--well, they didn't pan out. Surprise, surprise, I will not be an instant success story after all, and the work is not over.

Yes, I know this is NOT a surprise. Instant successes are rare. First-time successes are rare. Nobody wins a free pass. (This knowledge didn't stop me from hoping, however. But still.)

I moped for my allowed day, and I think I'll just be irritable about it for a day more. {g} But now it's time to get back to the drawing board--back to my keyboard. Back to work.

I am so grateful that I have kick-ass writer friends who support me, who tell me what's wrong when something is, and send me virtual hugs when I need them. Who tell me, even though none of us believe it, that those agents will be sorry eventually. Who remind me, and we DO believe it, that those agents weren't right for me or my work anyway. Thank you to them. And yes, I'll go get back to work now.

The Wait

Waiting.

I am so not good at waiting. I get itchy, wanting action, wanting to be able to do something to affect the outcome. Unfortunately, waiting with at least apparent patience is largely what this stage of the query process is--I have a fair bunch of possibilities, both queries and partials, Out There still, so it's not time to send more yet. I've read Miss Snark; I wouldn't dream of sending nudges. All I can do for TMT, all, is check my email regularly and think positive thoughts.

Arggghhh.

That's not a lack of positive thoughts, that's just frustration. {s}

I know, you blithely respond "Work on Book 2! That's your action!" Yeah. I would say the same thing to you at this stage. And I AM working on Book 2, and I'm excited about it. But what I didn't realize when I was saying that to people? It's kinda like saying, "I know your first child is out in the ocean by herself, in a rough storm, without any kind of boat or even lifevest. But hey, you can't do anything about it, so why don't you just sit down quietly here and play with your second child?"

Doesn't sound quite so easy when it's put like that, does it?

Anyway, enough whining for today. I'll work on Book 2, I'll check my email. I'll wait. Patiently.

Medieval Word of the Day: quide: A will, legacy, bequest.