Tracking, Not Back Tracking

Posted by Joanne Huspek

The last several weeks have been busy with my Day Job. I don’t know about other writers, but I find I have to have at least three hours of uninterrupted time in order to complete a chapter of about 4,000.

Since I’m doing this part-time, it’s a balancing act.

There’s no way this time of year.

Instead of having good news to report about the progress I’ve made on Oaks and Acorns, I instead must hang my head in shame. 🙁

What I have been doing when I get a chance is going back over the first six chapters, getting rid of the excess (I am the Queen of Excess, no doubt), tightening up my sentences and streamlining my words.

I’ve also laid out the characters and plot, something I didn’t do the first time around. It’s going to make so much more sense.

This is my first venture into chick-lit, which is different from that dark and dreary book I first wrote. Finding Cadence is more a journey into the deep recesses of the soul, a trip that could just as easily end badly as it could have redemption. I’m trying to keep O&A light, fast, inventive.

This is hard to do when there are other things pressing on the back burner threatening to torch the rest of my life.

As with other areas of my existence, I find that self-imposed deadlines are the best bet. I want this baby put to bed by the end of September.

On another note, I joined the local group of Romance Writers. Unfortunately, the RWA national convention is this week and as a result there will be no meeting this month. I’ll have to wait until next month to gain some wisdom from this group of ladies.

It’s going to be hard, but I’ll try to keep tracking and not back tracking.

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Clubbing Agents Over the Head with a Kick Ass Elevator Pitch

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Before a writer can get her foot in the door, she has to find an agent. Finding an agent is not all that easy. There are thousands of them (check out QueryTracker) specializing in every genre known to mankind, and a few that I’d never heard of.

Don’t ask me how to land one, because I’m still in the Realm of the Lost and Looking for Representation.

Most writers send out query letters. I haven’t done this yet, because I’m not finished with Book Number Two and Book Number One has to be eviscerated and the first thirteen chapters rewritten. However, I have done the elevator pitch during a foray in speed dating at the recent San Francisco Writer’s Conference.

It was scary. It was enlightening. I realized my pitch was sorely lacking and my synopsis too wordy. Agents, it seems, are looking for a shred of creativity. They are looking to be amazed, dazed and literally clubbed over the head. The book I pitched that got the most response (well, okay, the only response) was for my Siouxy story, and I wasn’t even trying to sell that. I think it elicited response because 1. Siouxy is a teenager and there were lots of YA agents in the room and 2. Siouxy gets into a lot of trouble. Wacky, off the wall, incredibly stupid  trouble. The negative comments came when I mentioned that the tale was a coming of age from the late 1970s. “Can you re-write it to make it more current?” the agent asked.

Well, no. I think outside of the context of the times, the story would fall flat on its face. But at least I received positive feedback, something to go home on a cloud over.

For those of you who don’t know me, the Siouxy stories started out as a joke. Written in serial form, it was a tale that kept getting more and more out of control the more I wrote, and now I have 50K words worth of her story.

The entire speed dating episode made me look at my other novels with a discerning eye. Why weren’t those agents wowwed by Cadence? Could it be that the story is the “same old same old” and the agents were bored? Could it be that I was totally exhausted from typing those magic words “The End” just four days before and my enthusiasm for my work had waned? Or could it be my pitch was somehow lacking?

I have faith in my work, but sometimes that faith has to be motivated.

Then too, I wonder if my pitch was good enough to gain attention, what would happen if they got the manuscript and the book wasn’t as snappy or interesting? I can recall many times when movie trailers are the best thing about the movie. Of course, they put the good parts in the trailer to get you to buy a ticket, and it’s disheartening to leave the theater thinking you’ve been robbed.

Some of the attention getting pitches I read are fabulous! Writing a pitch is different from writing a book. It’s a skill that takes a high level of salesmanship as well as a decent grasp of the language.

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Writer’s Block and My Writer’s Bloc

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I have to admit this last month has been terribly unproductive. What with one kid graduating from college, another flying back into the nest for the summer, the “day” job launching full force into the busy season, and the gloriousness of springtime in the yard, it’s been tough to find a few peaceful hours to work on the book.

I’ve given myself a short-term goal, and that’s to enter the Esquire Magazine short story contest this year. As usual, I have too many words, and the first draft sounds a little girly. I need more punch and less emotion. I also need a friend to offer an ethnic take on it, since I’m writing as a black man (both things I’m not).  I can tell already the re-write’s going to be a bear.

As for the rest of it, I’ve been on a hiatus. Call it my siesta/fiesta, my vacation from my imaginary world. It could be, but I wouldn’t say that I’m suffering from writer’s block. Oh, I have plenty of ideas floating around. Too many, in fact. My brain is so full of stuff, I can barely keep it all organized.

As an example, I haven’t written a congressman an angry missive in months, and I’m plenty upset and dismayed over the world. What’s up with that? 🙂

When in doubt about your craft and writer’s block, it’s best to turn to your neighborhood writer’s B-L-O-C.

My bloc of online critics, helpers, friends and cheerleaders (with cattle prods) are my salvation. When I know I’ve been bad, a quick email or Twittery tweet and they get me going again.

If you don’t have a writer’s bloc, I suggest you begin to cultivate one. Go on any number of writing web sites and introduce yourself. Querytracker.net is a great resource. From there you can subscribe to the blogs of other would-be and established writers. Comment on their blogs, read their work. Twitter your favorite writers or your targeted publishing house to keep up with what’s current.

Most writers (and wannabes) are friendly, and they will offer constructive criticism as well as encouragement. If you’re like me and don’t belong to a tangible, in-person writing group because you don’t have time to commit or are isolated, an online writer’s bloc could be just the resource for when you have writer’s block.

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Flash Fiction

Posted by Joanne Huspek

This month’s been busy, unfortunately not in the world of crafting words. That’s because Real Life beckons and who can ignore the stylistic rantings of getting the bills paid?

In the meantime I’ve tinkered with a couple of new short stories and fussed with a couple of old ones. I plan on submitting a couple for contest consideration. Time to get out my best words!

One of my friends turned me on to “flash fiction” as a way of consolidating my ideas into a minimum of words. Here’s a great site to consider. I spent most of yesterday morning looking around, it was that fun.

Most flash fiction short stories are less than 1,000 words. That’s not much to play around with.

I’m the type of person who suffers from too many words. An embarrassment of words.  Narrowing them down is a great exercise, one that will help with the re-write of the Epic Novel.

I’ve done the 50 Worders, and that was murder. (Hey, that rhymes!) A word limit is a great idea, one that I wish I’d have turned on to before I began writing Epic Novel.

As for non-writing news, my oldest graduated from college last week, the youngest is home for the summer, and it’s getting hot and sticky. There’s a huge world out there and not enough time to get it all down.

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Careful Crafting and the Mozart Theory of Creativity

Posted by Joanne Huspek

As an opinionated wag (and I’ve been that forever), a lover of words and someone with a head full of ideas, I’ve long held the belief that a good story can sprout from one’s brain with little or no anguish as to the finished product. An embarrassing amount of my published work has been never been edited. I’ve been able to write in just such a way ever since I picked up a pencil.

Let’s call it the Mozart Theory of Creativity.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an amazing composer, pumped out a wealth of music in his short time on earth. A precocious child, he began writing music while still a toddler. I’m not talking tra-la-la nursery school level pieces. These are short ditties I had a hard time mastering when I first took up violin. Mozart’s genius was so great, it is said he penned  his many works without a single re-write. Imagine. Without a single re-write? And when you listen to his work, it’s intricate, God-like, perfect. What’s to re-write?

Many artists including writers suffer from the Mozart Theory of Creativity. They are so invested in their work, they believe it sprouts from the mind in flawless condition ready for mass consumption.

But it’s not so easy.

As a high school student, I thought I was damned good artist. I had my own ideas and was loathe to listen to my teacher (sorry, I forgot his name). Then I went to college and learned there were lots of good artists. Scores. More than I thought.

I had two options. One was to continue on my own path and produce the same doodles I had been making for years. My creations were good enough as they were, damn it! Or were they? The other option was to listen to my professor when he suggested different approaches to my work and consider other perspectives. Guess which path I chose?

I am finding it’s not much different in writing now that I’ve finished my novel and have dived into the re-write.

My story was complete, not perfect, but I thought it was good enough. Or close to good enough.

I was wrong. Thank goodness I have a posse of writing friends who have gently nudged me into looking at my work and pointed out my flaws. Thank goodness for the writers conference I attended. It opened my eyes to a wealth of possibilities and energized me. And thank goodness for the Internet and all of great blogs and web sites I’ve found devoted solely to my task at hand: The Re-Write.

Not everyone is Mozart. In fact, there was no one like him before or after. I’ve read many books on my favorite composers, and all of them suffered a great deal of angst over careful crafting of their work. Sometimes symphonies were tweaked for years before being played in public.

There’s a certain amount of agony that goes into creating anything beautiful.

That’s where I am now.

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Don’t Forget to Read This One!

Posted by Joanne Huspek

http://www.associatedcontent.com/user/39420/joanne_huspek.html

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Slash and Burn

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Okay, I’ve spent the last three days mulling over the first three chapters of my epic women’s book. It has to be pared down from 175K words to somewhere around 100K.

The easy part was getting rid of the adverbs. LY words are appearing everywhere I look. They are the obvious sore thumbs.

Chapter 3 bit the dust completely. No one understand dream sequences anyway, and I can reinsert some of them at the appropriate times later on.

At the time I started writing, which was two years and two months ago, I had only a vague idea as to what my message was going to be. I was also into flowery prose and 300 word sentences. (Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but thanks to my friends, I have learned the finer points of using my words wisely.

I can see my confusion from back then glowing in the dark. This made it somewhat easy to chop, slash and burn away. Even so, I’ve only reduced the word count by 5K. Of course, I still have 32 more chapters to go, and if I continue on the same path, that means I will have weeded out 40K words. (I’m hoping more than that, but who knows?)

On the flip side, I’ve been neglecting WordPress and it shows. My stats stink. But, consider this, I am on a mission (from God?) and I want to have my rewrite complete to ship off to the real editor by the end of May. I’m sure he is looking forward to the income, and perhaps the entertainment.

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