In which I look forward...

*blows away the cobwebs*

Apparently I neglected this place for the whole of 2017. That's quite impressive, even by my standards. Still, this is me attempting to get things going again with a quick spring-clean, a bit of a redesign and a tie across to my Twitter handle so that everything works together in perfect harmony. Or something.

It's not like I did nothing at all last year. I had Iron and Gold rejected by a number of agents, some of whom went so far as to read the whole thing before deciding it wasn't for them. I wrote a couple of new drafts based on their feedback, so it's now officially on version 7. I wrote the first draft of something new in November (currently titled Words of Power) and was quite pleased with how it came out. I started writing a horror novella when I had a couple of spare days at the end of November, though it stalled a little as soon as NaNoWriMo was over. I crocheted a Space Invaders themed blanket for my newborn nephew and finished it just in time for Christmas. All in all, things were pretty busy.

But that was last year. It's time to make some rash declarations for this year and see if I stick to them. So what's on the cards?

• Keep plugging away with Iron and Gold. There are still agents who haven't seen it, and others who maybe need prodding to get it out of the slush pile.
• Finish the horror novella and see about editing it into something worthwhile.
• Edit Words of Power and throw it at beta readers to see what happens.
• Keep collecting short story rejections.
• Pick up the Manic Miner-themed filet crochet that I set down in order to make the baby blanket.
• Finally get around to taking some measurements and having a go at drafting sewing patterns from scratch.
• Remember to update this blog more often (hahaha, yeah, we'll see...)

That seems like enough to be getting on with for the year. There are other things in there that don't need to be rash declarations, like finally going to see Hamilton in the West End next month (so excited!), but from a creative standpoint if I can hit all those goals I'll be happy.

Why not check back here from time to time to find out I've not bothered to update again?

In which I look back

It's December.  It's the sort of time when things get reviewed.  Arbitrary as it may be, there are things to review and it's as good a time as any.

So NaNoWriMo happened.  My final wordcount for the month (and the first draft) came in at just over 104,000 words.  Slightly fewer than last year, but the story ends when it ends.  And first drafts are where we find things, no matter how much we think we planned the story in advance.  I found a Khevelese engineer living in the refugee camp with fire in her heart and a refusal to take any crap despite her situation.  I found the story wants to be more of a mosaic, picking up perspectives from all over the city.  And I found the poisoner wasn't who I thought it was, and now the whole story needs reworking with that in mind.

This is why no one ever gets to see the draft I knock out during NaNo.  I reach the end of the month with so many ideas about how I should have been writing the story that there's no point in sending it to beta readers.  They'll get a later version, when I've fixed all the really obvious stuff.

The other thing I did this year was that big ol' rash declaration about sending a novel out to agents.  I managed that, of course.  The queries went out, and whilst I'm still mostly waiting to hear back (it's a busy time of year) I have now had two (two!) requests for the full manuscript.  And that's set against only one flat rejection, which seems like a damn good hit rate to me.  Even if both of those requests ultimately turn into rejections, it's a positive sign that those opening chapters have something good in them.  I'm feeling quite optimistic about the whole affair at the moment.  We'll see how long that lasts.

It's nice to have something to feel optimistic about at the moment.  I never did get a proper response to the email I sent to my MP.  And the world is probably going to end in nuclear apocalypse before I get a book published.  But, you know, if racing the end of the world is what it takes then I'm lacing up my running shoes.

Oh yeah, running.  Really ought to get back to that...

In which I have nothing much to report

It's been a month since I sent out my first queries for the novel.  And of the original six queries I sent, I've so far had one rejection (yay, first agent rejection!) and a whole lot of silence.

This is not a complaint, I hasten to add.  For one thing, the agents I queried were pretty much unanimous in claiming a 6 - 8 week response time on queries, and we haven't even reached that milestone yet.  For another thing, last week was Frankfurt Book Fair which will not only have impacted the reading of the slush pile while it was on, but the weeks before it will have been filled with prep work and now they'll be filled with follow-up.  My query won't be getting read and rejected until the dust from all of that has settled.  So we wait, and we have a little freakout every time the email notification appears on our phone, and we find other things to do in the meantime.

I responded to that one rejection by sending out another query to another agent somewhere else.  I also sent another one out today, just because I'd had a microscopic chat with the guy on Twitter the other day and I wanted to query him before I lost the tweets and couldn't remember who he was any more.  I've also finally gone back to sending out my short stories and acquiring more rejections for those too.  The Rejection Collection is coming along beautifully these days.

And it's only a week until NaNoWriMo!  I have pages upon pages of worldbuilding, and character notes, and story beats, and with luck by the end of November I'll have another first draft that's worth polishing up into something more.  That's assuming we haven't all perished in a nuclear war by then, of course...

In which I review the rash declaration made earlier

So at the start of the year I rashly declared that before another January came around I would be in a position to query agents with an actual, bona fide novel of my own.  And then I went quiet, because getting to that position meant focusing on novel drafts rather than blog posts.

The good news is that all of that work has paid off.  Iron and Gold has been through multiple drafts this year, and I finally reached the point where I'm, well, not happy with it because you can never be entirely happy with a story, but as content as I can be that it's as good as I can make it.  And so I've formatted it properly, and written a synopsis, and written a query letter, and sent it out to a few agents.  Now all I have to do is sit back and wait for the rejections to come rolling in...

Obviously, I hope somebody likes it.  I hope it gets picked up, because I really like these characters and I want to write the other two books that I have in mind with them.  But just in case, I'm going to crack on with other things instead.

Helpfully, I've got NaNoWriMo looming to help with that.  I have a plot in mind, but there's still a certain amount of worldbuilding to be done.  I've got lizard people, and a matrilinear human society, and two different calendar systems, and a not-quite-murder mystery, and a host of characters, but I still need a few more names and things.  And a title.  I've no idea what this one is going to be called yet, but it'll come.

And if NaNo this year gets derailed by a deluge of responses from agents?  Well, that won't be such a bad thing now, will it?

In which I get started...

I'm watching Labyrinth tonight, because of course I am, but this isn't about the majesty of the Goblin King's trousers.  What could I possibly say that hasn't been said better by someone else already?

I've made a surprisingly good start on the second draft of Iron and Gold.  Reading over the first draft I found I actually quite liked it already.  It's not perfect by any means (because what first draft ever is?) but it's worth working on and polishing.  And so I set off, tweaking and improving, and for a while I was going great guns.  Two chapters a day, clean and tidy, and it was looking like I'd be through it in no time.

And then I hit Chapter Eight.

There's nothing inherently bad about Chapter Eight.  It's just that it's the first chapter that needs major work at this point.  It's like sprinting off the end of a race track and landing in a bog (with or without Eternal Stench).  It's still possible to get where you're going, but it takes a lot more effort.  And it's very easy to give up as soon as that happens.  It's not really your fault, after all.  It's the bog.

But there's only one way to get to the magical city of Complete Second Draft, and that's to slog through the bog until you come out the other side.  So that's where I am.  Slogging through the bog, knowing there's a good story in here somewhere, taking it one step at a time.

And admiring the majesty of the Goblin King's trousers...

In which we arbitrarily mark the completion of another orbit of the sun

New Year, New... Books?  Yeah, let's go with that, I got some very fine books for Christmas.

2015 was the year I finally got a story published.  2016 needs to top that, clearly.  And it's the time of year for making rash declarations, so I have Rashly Declared that I'll do everything I can to have something suitable for querying agents by the end of the year.

There are, essentially, two possible contenders for this.  The first, Shadows in the Nursery, is the gothic horror I wrote for NaNo 2014.  It's already had two further drafts in the intervening time, but there's more work to be done.  I'm currently gathering responses from beta readers for that, though, which leaves me open to do some work on the other option.

Iron and Gold is the fantasy novel I wrote during the most recent NaNo.  It's a number of things already; a complete rework of the story I wrote for NaNo 2010; the first novel of mine to run to over 100,000 words; and hopefully the start of a trilogy.  I intend to write book 2, Truth and Consequences, this coming November and that means I need to get the finer points of book 1 firmly nailed down before that.  I'm quite pleased with the first draft as it stands, but I have a list as long as my arm of things that need doing to improve it.  Everything from simple things like making sure character descriptions remain consistent throughout to bigger things like an entire subplot I want to add in.  No beta readers, as yet, because I have too many changes of my own to deal with.  They'll get the next draft, if they're lucky.

So, two big projects ongoing.  With luck I can alternate between the two, working on a draft of one while the other is percolating.  Plenty to keep me busy, and maybe I'll get around to submitting a few more short stories along the way.

In which I actually get stuff done, for once

I've been writing a lot just lately. My laptop is positively bursting with stories. That's pretty unusual for me, so I've been musing on the reasons in the hope of sustaining it.

A goodly portion of the credit (blame?) has to go to the folks in the Sort-Of-NaNo-Based-Writing-Group. Having finally succeeded in keeping things going outside of November, it means there are people who want to know what I've written lately, and who keep throwing out writing prompts. Turns out all I ever needed to write a short story was for somebody to give me a title.

Then there's the COBOL factory. No, it's not also stuffed with writers (to the best of my knowledge), but one should never underestimate the power of one's mental state on writing, or of the day job on one's mental state. I'm finally in a job that I love, that challenges me, and that I'm genuinely good at. That feeling spills over into other things. Kicking ass at work makes me want to kick more ass when I get home.

Last but not least, there's the Mighty Power of Procrastination. Writing is a wonderful way of putting off other things. Specifically at the moment there's a jacket I should be sewing together. I'm just putting it off because I foolishly decided to go off-pattern and put proper pockets in it. I don't have a lot of experience of making pockets, so there's a real danger that I'll ruin the whole thing. I'll get around to it eventually, but in the mean time I'm putting it off by writing All the Stories.

Maybe this habit will continue, maybe it won't, but I'll be making the most of it while it lasts. There are stories to write, stories to edit (when my beta-readers get back to me, at least. The trouble with writing more is it leads to demanding more feedback), and if all else fails there's a novel to work on.

*puts on Boots of +3 to Ass-Kicking*

Inviting Rejection

I'm sitting on the sofa in my living room right now, trying not to hyperventilate.  This is because I just pushed a button on a webpage marked 'Submit'.

I've sent a story out into the wild.  Not just to cosy, friendly beta-readers, or into the rarely-visited walled-garden that is this blog, but actually into the wider world.  I've submitted it for consideration to an actual publishing-type place.  Despite having been writing for years, I've never actually done that before.

There's a very simple reason for this: nothing I've written has ever been good enough, in my head at least.  Everything always needs more work, further polishing, just one last tweak before it can be sent out.  Except the more I tweak things the less I tend to like them, as a rule.

There are two reasons why this story is different.  One is that Friendy Beta-Reader the First told me this story really deserved better than to just be posted on the blog, despite originating in another silly writing prompt like 'Lavendar and the Random Acolyte'.  The other is that Friendly Beta-Reader the Second, despite only really taking up writing for NaNoWriMo last November, is already submitting things out there.  Good things.  And if he gets something published before I've even worked up the courage to submit then I will be, as the cool kids say, 'well jell'.

It may be petty, it may be foolish, but at least it's stirred me to action.  I have a story out there, hoping to make its fortune in the wider world.  And when the inevitable rejection letter comes, I shall bear it proudly and call myself a real writer at last.

Everything is Awesome!!!

Everything is cool when you're part of a team!  And if you don't agree, I can only assume that you haven't seen the Lego Movie yet.  You really should, by the way.

I'm not going to spoil it here.  Instead, I'm going to take advantage of the uncharacteristically upbeat mood I've been left in, and talk about some other things that are awesome.

1).  COBOL is Awesome!

I have four weeks left of my probation period at the COBOL factory, and the current expectation is that I'll pass with flying colours.  In the past five months I've picked up COBOL and JCL with reasonable facility, and I'm finding coding to be remarkably fun.  I haven't enjoyed a job this much in a long time.

2).  Editing is Awesome!

In the past week I've put together over 5,000 words of the second draft of the novel.  That's nowhere near the sort of pace at which I crank out words during November, of course, but it's pretty good for keeping regular life ticking over at the same time.  There will doubtless be further blogging about the process at some point.

3).  Making Stuff is Awesome!

I've already blogged about the cushions I made recently.  No doubt there'll be more in future, since I have crochet on the go and plans for several cool jackets (I'm weirdly obsessed with the idea of making jackets.  Not sure why, but jackets are awesome).  The fireplace in my living room is decorated with crocheted amigurumi and a tiny robot panda made of felt, and I recently rediscovered the pencil tidy I made from clothes pegs in my youth and redeployed it so I won't have to spend quite so much time looking for a pen to do the crossword at the weekend.

4).  This Thing is Awesome!

Look at it.  It's beautiful.

I came across this in a shop window in Kyoto a few years ago, and it's one of the most awesomely steampunk things I've ever seen in real life.  It's an automated machine for making tiny cakes of some description.  Metal rings come down a chute at the back and are positioned on the inner ring of the hot plate.  Batter is squirted in, then they make a full rotation to cook one side before being flipped over onto the outer ring to cook the other side.  After that second rotation they're taken off the hot plate and are ready to go.  The photo doesn't entirely do it justice, because it was absolutely mesmerising to watch.

5).  Lego is Awesome! (Obviously)

Do I really need to say anything here?  I think I'll let this be my final word on the subject:

Tools of Editing: Part One

Just to prove I am actually following through on that rash declaration of mine...

These tools are actually pretty new to me.  I finally cracked and bought a Kindle just after Christmas, mostly for reading on the bus to and from the COBOL factory every day.  I'd been lugging around 900-odd pages of China Mieville and it was just getting ridiculous.  Now I have something that slips into the front pocket of my bag, doubles as a useful place to store my bus ticket, and lets me read classic French literature for free.

It's also proving a handy way of reading my novel draft without ending up tweaking it.  If I read it on my laptop I'll want to make little amendments here and there, instead of reading it through and getting a feel for the story as a whole.  I'll also have to waste ten minutes of my lunch break booting up and shutting down, but that's by the by.

Instead of tweaking, I'm going all old-fashioned and making pen-and-paper notes of things that strike me as I go through it.  I'm looking at big picture stuff at the moment: plot, pacing and characters.  The fiddly little things will come (much) later.  The notebook pictured was a Christmas present from a fellow writery-type.  When I unwrapped it, she commented that it was practically compulsory for writery-types to buy each other notebooks for Christmas and birthdays.  I agreed heartily, not least because she was just in the process of unwrapping the notebook I'd bought for her...

The pen also has writerly credentials.  It was a gift to mark the completion of five full years as a Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo, and is engraved with my username from the website (I could have had it engraved with my real name, but I've been 'Magenta' in various corners of the internet for so long now that I'm actually more likely to answer to that than the name on my birth certificate).  It seems like an appropriate pen to be making notes on a NaNo novel, plus it's not a pen that anyone else in the house can wander off with (always a danger around here).

The notes in the picture are some of the ones I made today, my first day of editing.  Reading through it, I was surprised by how quickly the first part went.  What I read today took the best part of a week to write, and at the time I was itching to get further on into the more exciting parts of the story.  It felt like it was dragging and would be terribly dull to read.  In fact, it seems to whizz through and there's definitely room for expansion.  I always knew I was going to need to put more work into establishing the characters, and it's heartening to see that I can do that without dragging the story down too much.  I'm quite excited to get going now, but first I have to finish the rest of the read-through.

Untitled, like its subject

Every November, I write a terrible novel.

The National NovelWriting Month challenge is reasonably well-known these days, I think, and involves churning out a first draft of at least 50,000 words within the 30 days of November. I've been doing it since 2005, mostly because I find it an absurd amount of fun but also because it affords me the opportunity to transfer the stories in my head onto paper.

One upshot of having done it for so long is that 50,000 words really isn't that much of a challenge any more. It's not that much of a novel by modern standards, either. So I've taken to setting myself harder challenges instead. In 2012 I had ideas for two separate-but-related paranormal romances, one with zombies, one with demons. Rather than choose between them I elected to write them both and aim for 100,000 words in total. Parts of it were undeniably fun; there was zombie sex with parts falling off at inopportune moments; there was tentacle sex with at least fifteen tentacles; and there was a decidedly D/s threesome where the two gentlemen were technically the same person and the lady was under orders to obey one and not the other. Writing that many words in such a short amount of time nearly did for me, though. I struggled with RSI (never normally a problem) and had a massive meltdown in week three when the effort of sustaining the pace finally caught up to me. I made it to the target in the end, but it was only by the skin of my teeth.

So for 2013, 100,000 words was definitely out of the question. Instead I set myself the more manageable target of 75,000 words, but with a determination to get that much out of a single story. Much of what I've written over the years has petered out shortly after 50k, and I was keen to finally write something that would run a little longer. In the end, that story got to 78,000 within November and was finally finished in the following week at around 82,000. It's the longest first draft I've ever written, and I'm surprisingly pleased with it even now.  It's a tricky tale that starts as the story of a bored wife embarking on an illicit affair, takes a sudden left turn into urban fantasy with musings on the philosophy of creativity and ends, as all the best stories do, in betrayal and tragedy.

Why am I talking about this now, in January? It's a long time until next November and the next NaNoWriMo project (for which I'm thinking of tackling gothic horror). It comes back to the idea of challenges. I can write a first draft. I can knock out a story in a month, but it'll be baggy and uneven, and things will change mid-story as ideas suddenly come to me. It's not something I can share, except possibly with a couple of trusted beta readers. I need to get better at editing, at spending the other eleven months of the year putting in the graft that's needed to knock that story into shape, rather than leaving it languishing on my hard drive forever.

So this is my declaration: I will edit this novel, this year. I will put in some effort, and work on those words, until I have something I can be proud of for more than just the speed at which it was written. I say this here, so it's in writing. I can't go back on this pledge now, and anyone who reads this can chase me about it and ask me how it's going. And if it's not going, they can ask me why the hell not and refuse to accept any excuses from me.

I will edit this novel, this year. I will.

Make me.