Setting My Baby Free – Or, It’s Query Time (Again)

On a cold day in February in 2007, I walked north along Ocean Beach in San Francisco and snapped the photo that now resides as the header of this blog. (It’s also a framed poster over my bed, where it gives me constant inspiration.)

Later that day, on a Northwest Airline flight to Detroit, I began writing in a notebook. It wasn’t a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, it was more a stream of consciousness about my walk on the beach.

When I arrived home, I put my musings into the computer. The seven or eight mini pages grew. And grew, and grew.

I honestly couldn’t write a word of dialogue back then, so my paragraphs were full of internal musings. Since I couldn’t write dialogue, I had eight different POVs…yeah. About 7 POVs too many. If there was a rule about writing fiction, I broke it – in spades, over and over.

When I had 70K words (of which 90% was pure garbage), I finally visualized the story: a woman of common beginnings, longing for love, thrust into a world of money and prestige. I leaned toward writing a romance, until I learned what the definition of “romance” was. There are plenty of romantic elements in the story, but this is no Happily Ever After. My main character suffers. A LOT. There was no room for flirtation in this tale.

The story: Cadence’s husband of many years killed in a car accident. His death uncovers many secrets, the kind that could devastate a strong woman, but they totally rattle Cadie. But it’s not just his hidden life and indiscretions she must wade through – in beating herself over his choices, she discovers that the compass guiding her own life is severely skewed. She spends a good majority of the book “finding” herself, thus the title: FINDING CADENCE.

It took two long years and 176K words (still 75% garbage) before The End appeared at the bottom of the page. Two years – I finished the first draft the Sunday before my first San Francisco Writers Conference (2009), scheduled for the upcoming Friday. If you are a writer you know the feeling of typing those two magic words; you’re on Cloud 9 for days. And I was going to attend my first writers conference. I was giddy beyond belief.

I was. Until I realized The End is just The Beginning.

Especially if you attend a kick-ass writing conference like the SFWC. I learned in two and a half days that my work was so not ready for the big time.

With that cold slap in the face, I put the manuscript away. And cried a little. (Let’s be honest; I cried a lot.) At first I’d shuttered it for thirty days, but when I peeked at it again, it was so awful, I put it away for a YEAR. I honestly thought my writing “career” – such as it was – was over.

After many online classes, another SFWC, a new manuscript (VIRTUALLY YOURS, totally different in feel and genre), and much prodding by my writing friends, I decided to give it another go. Opening the now dusty computer file, I discovered that while the execution was terrible, the story wasn’t half bad.

There was editing. Once, to get rid of redundant words, the adverbs, etc. That chopped off 10K post haste. The second go-’round I changed the POV from eight (maybe nine) to ONE – first person. The third, I cut, and cut, and cut some more. By this time the result was about 50% garbage. So off it went to not one, but two editors. I meditated  on this story – A LOT. As there is a musical component, I listened to a lot of music, especially Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto #2, and the subsequent modern day rip off riffs from the common themes of the piece. Like Cadie, her life appeared to undulate much like the three movements of the concerto. And so I discovered my theme!

I visited San Francisco many times, to get the feel. Also returned to Colorado, because the feel of the High Plains is NOTHING like San Francisco – or Michigan.

I also ran the manuscript through a Savvy Author class, devised a workable ending that made sense. When it was down to about 20% garbage, it went through another developmental edit, and voila! what I have is what I have now. (Hopefully with less than 10% garbage.)

So you can see how I view my work as my baby. 🙂

Now it’s time to set my baby free. Look out agents, the queries are coming, the queries are coming.

Soon.