Discouragement

Something happened today that hasn’t happened before. I came home from my local writers’ meeting discouraged rather than charged up.

Our topic for the day was helpful, and our discussions lively—but I had scarcely a word to say. The problem? Simply that I got a renewed view, not only of what it takes to get published but how far I am from arriving. Our leader was I’m one who knows personally about how long it takes to build up your craft. She mentioned two years—and I didn’t have the courage to correct her that it’s been closer to five.

Those five years had already been on my mind, and I think they are probably the bottom line of my current state of mind. In another two months it will be five years since I attended my first writers’ conference. That’s when I learned something so basic as having to have a main character rather than a nice ensemble cast, and the main character was to be someone with a problem that needed solution, someone who learned and grew as a person in the course of the story.

Fine. I settled on Sharon as the obvious one, and I think I’ve done well in giving a depth to her problem that wasn’t there before.

At the end of 2006, I connected to the American Christian Fiction Writers and Middle Tennessee Christian Writers, and I began to learn the craft of fiction writing big time. I’ve worked hard to apply what I’ve learned, and I’ve felt all along that I was getting somewhere.

Then at the big ACFW conference in September of 2008, it became clear that I needed to cut off the first six months of my story, including the reams of back story that had been plaguing me forever, and start the story when Sharon came back rather than when she left. I told everyone it would take me a couple of months. But here I am sixteen months later, still hanging on by a thread to one agent’s invitation to send him something—and I know that I’m still not fully ready. Last evening I was looking over my three sample chapters and was dismayed to find how many unresolved issues they still have.

This morning I debated whether to ask if I should still go ahead and submit to that agent, or if it is entirely too late, but I decided not to ask. I have nothing to lose by sending to him. All he can do is say no. Yes, it will be an opportunity lost, and I hate that, but I’ve tried hard, yet I haven’t arrived at where I need to be.

In the days ahead, I will share some specifics of what is troubling me today. Some of it has been troubling me for a long time. I’ll finish up with just one of those for tonight.

The feelings and reactions of others
I do not at all blame friends and family who don’t understand what is taking me so long. I don’t understand it myself, but I understand it better than they do. Yes, I can respond to hubby that “I have another life!” but it is more than that. It isn’t just time. Even when I have time, I often find it hard to focus and accomplish.

Another reason for the five years is that some of the things I’ve learned have been a challenge to master and apply, and time has relentlessly rolled along. I’ve written about some of those lessons in this blog.

Meanwhile, family members and my prayer partners watch from the sidelines, wondering and puzzling over what all this is about. Some of them, I know, wonder if I’m not ruining my story by trying to “improve” it. I’m positive I’m not, but until and unless I ever get a publisher, I can’t explain that to anyone else.

Seasons

We finished putting away the Christmas things today, and tonight with my pizza I finished the holiday apple cider. It was a special Christmas, a fairly quiet one, but that’s not at all bad. I’m not sure why, but this year we didn’t get through our Christmas-music CDs like we have other years. As we worked on the dismantling, we commented that sometime it is more work to put the Christmas things away than it was to get them out. True or not, putting Christmas away is always a bit melancholy for me. I’m glad our outdoor lights are still on outside my office window tonight, but this may be the last night for them as well.

I find interesting the way we measure “seasons” by different things. Besides the obvious ones of spring, summer, fall, and winter, there is childhood, puberty, parenthood, grandparenthood, retirement. Much of my life organizes by geography—Africa (childhood), Florida (boarding school), Wheaton (college), Michigan (school for hubby), Wheaton again (building a family), South America and Texas (mission work), and now Tennessee.

Another way to look at the seasons of my life is what I’ve been doing through the years—teaching, mothering, more teaching, writing curriculum, coordinating publications, and the last eleven years training and consulting.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, I can pars out the seasons of Tangled Strands in my life as well, some of them paralleling phases mentioned above. Creating the characters (young mother), writing the back story (South America), studying writing in a vacuum (pub-coordinator), and more recently studying writing in community with other writers and bringing the story up to standards of Christian fiction today.

Will there be a season of marketing, book signings, and reviews—both glowing and glaring? Only God knows, of course, but I haven’t given up on the possibility. Meanwhile, I’ll accept and align myself with the new season that is upon me—post-Christmas, new year, whatever you want to call it. The God who has seen me through all the others will see me through the next one.

In fact, who knows what exciting season He may know lies ahead?

Finishing

Chuck Swindoll was meddling this morning.

He actually did his part of the action almost thirty years ago when he wrote Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, but what he said only crossed my quiet time this morning . He was talking about being thorough in our work and finishing things. Ouch.

I’ve been struggling lately with two things related to my writing—getting my proposal off to an agent and getting back to blogging regularly. I’ve read that agents and publishers are wont to check writers’ blogs to learn about not only their writing style but whether they are prompt and faithful in their writing. Getting back to doing it “if and when” I feel like it is not an option.

I got off track on this blogging last winter when my husband was in the hospital for sixteen days, with at least that many more in continued recovery. This past fall my primary focus was getting through the major revision of Tangled Strands, and I haven’t been able to get back in the groove. Those are reasons, but not excuses.

Now I have a new year in front of me. What is it about fresh new years that makes us think something is going to change? I’ve lived long enough to know that nothing changes just because of the arrival of a new year. If things are to change, it will be because we do what is necessary to make change happen. I gave up making resolutions many years ago, but I don’t ever want to become unwilling to change—to grow in good ways.

One of the Scriptures Swindoll included for further study was the familiar one in Colossians 3 about doing everything we do as unto the Lord: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.” On the surface it might not seem that writing a novel can be working for the Lord rather than for men—but if it’s not, then I should have shut down my computer a long time ago.

Ah! That reminds me of a topic I’ve long planned to blog about someday. Does writing—or even reading—Christian fiction have a place in a Christian’s life? You can guess my perspective, but many who are wiser and more experienced than I have expounded it. It is worth some thought, and I’ll try to pull some of those thoughts together soon.

THE Hook

I’ve been wrestling several days with a “hook” for the proposal for Tangled Strands. Afew minutes ago a wrote a friend that I was torn between working on the hook or working on a blog—and then it occurred to me. Maybe I should write a blog about the hook.

Sorry if that sounds like a bunch of gobbledygook, but I am serious. So let’s back up and talk about the hook. In writing, it is simply a set of words, a devise, by which you try to “hook” a reader the same way a fisherman hooks a fish. The opening of every book needs a hook if we want the reader to take the book home. The end of every chapter needs enough of a hook to keep your reader turning the pages. The back cover on a paperback or the flap on a hardback book are designed to be hooks in themselves.

What I need right now is a hook for the opening of a book proposal. The proposal is what you send to an agent or a publisher (or your agent sends to a publisher) when you are trying to connect with an agent or a publisher. The definition I have at the moment is this: HOOK – the selling hook of 30 words or less; extremely important summary of why the reader should buy the book (italics mine).

In other words, I have thirty words to convince a reader that my book is worth the $$ being asked for it—or, in this circumstance, thirty words to convince an agent that taking a look at my proposal and my synopsis will be worth his time.

What’s the difference between a proposal and a synopsis? The synopsis of course is a summary of the story. A synopsis can be a half page or many pages. A proposal may include the synopsis, but it includes much more—everything from the number of words in the article or synopsis, to who you think will read it, to why the author is qualified to write it, and what plans the author has for trying to sell the final product.

You can see why the hook is important. If it doesn’t catch attention, none of the other “good stuff” in your proposal may be looked at.

So now that I’ve written my blog about the hook, I still need to get back to coming up with the hook itself. I need to find those thirty words that will capture attention and make the reader of the hook say, “Wow! I want to know more about this.”

Trying to Get Back on Track

I know it is bad news, if I consider myself a writer, that I haven’t kept up with my blog. Whether an excuse or a reason, the truth is that my focus the last two months has been on getting that revision done so I can get on with the challenges of finding an agent and a publisher. Is the revision is done? Are you kidding? A novel is never “done” until it goes to press. However, this one of mine is far more done than it has ever been. Most important, it is pretty close to where I want it before I contact the agent again.

I could do many more things to it before considering it “ready,” such as looking at each chapter to see if it begins with something catchy enough to keep the reader reading. Or does every chapter end with a punch or an element of suspense that will keep the reader turning pages. I need to go through the whole thing again looking for those “to be” words that weaken writing, especially when combined with an –ing word (I don’t fully understand why that is bad, so I have more learning to do). I need to do a “deep edit” scouring for excess and unnecessary words (like just, really, and a dozen of their pesky cousins).

Speaking of “to be” words, many of which are linking verbs, I was impressed recently to discover one of my grandsons with an assignment to write an essay without linking verbs. They’re teaching that in seventh grade now? Yikes! I can promise you that it isn’t easy.

I won’t make any bold promises about getting back to writing regularly on this blog. I want to. I have to. I must if I am to broaden my readership and get it to the place where I can use it as a proper author’s tool.

Passion for the Task

The online course of my writers' group for November is about writing your passion and getting published. We haven't gotten to the getting-published part, but the first assignment was to write about your passion for your "wip" (work in progress). I just posted this:

If I didn't love my story, I would have abandoned it a long time ago. Though I had created the characters and story idea many years before, I finished writing the story more than twenty years ago. I made a few half-hearted efforts to get it published, but it wasn't until recent years that I began a serious effort to upgrade it to today's styles and guidelines in Christian fiction.

So I've been learning and applying things like show-don't-tell, eschew was and -ing, no head hopping or butlers in the chandelier, goal-motivation-conflict, deep POV, hooks that grab and endings that don't let go--the list is endless. The more I practiced what I learned, the more I discovered I needed to learn. Then I had to discover how to apply those things without letting them kill my "voice"--in other words, making them my servant, not my master.

Doing that has taken more time than I ever imagined--so yes, it has taken passion. I believe in my story about a girl who "tosses aside love for a ride on a whirlwind," an action which soon lets her crash and subsequently sets her up to learn about forgiveness and second chances. It's a story about relationships and God's ability to unravel "tangled strands" and weave them into meaning and beauty despite human failures. I'm within sight of the end, but still wrestling with a few issues. It must be passion keeps me going. (End of assignment)

If you've been reading my blog very often, some of that will sound familiar. I hope so. I'm happy to report that I've finished what I called the "forward progress" on my big revision. Unfortunately, that is not synonymous with being perfectly "done." But as I said in my report to my local writers' group, I'm much closer to done than I've ever been before. Meanwhile, I keep digging deeper for that passion that is trying to keep me going.

A Showing of Some “Show vs. Tell”

I know I am highly delinquent in keeping up with this blog, but I’m not going to apologize. I’ve been working very hard to make forward progress on the long, drawn-out revision of my novel. Rather than give you a tale of what that has involved, I here give you an example of what I’ve been doing.

I’ve said that a big feature of today’s style of fiction writing is to show the reader an action as it happens rather than simply narrating, or telling about, that action. Here’s what I’m talking about. The next paragraph is the original of a passage in my Tangled Strands story.

<< When word finally came that a bona fide marriage had indeed taken place in New York between Sharon Champlin and Anthony Casanetti, Agnes and Sharon laughed and cried and hugged each other like schoolgirls. But they sobered quickly because the message from Alec also requested a meeting in his office with Agnes and Sharon, Mollie and Chris. Unable to imagine why he needed to see all four of them, they arrived at the appointed time promptly—and soberly. >>

Following is how I rewrote it to show the actions as they happened:

Sharon was in the backyard filling the bird feeders when she heard Mrs. Baldwin hollering her name. Hollering? Mrs. Baldwin never hollered. Sharon dropped the container of seed on the bench and dashed into the house.

“What’s the matter?”

“Chris’s father called. Are you ready for this?”

Sharon’s knees went weak and she reached for the nearest chair.

“They found it! They found the marriage certificate.”

“You mean—mine and Tony’s?”

“A genuine marriage between Sharon Marie Champlin and Michael Anthony Casanetti III.”

“Are you sure?”

Sharon began jumping around, laughing and crying at the same time. The next moment she did a double take when Mrs. Baldwin grabbed her and began jumping with her.

Suddenly the older woman stopped, and the joy on her face shriveled.

“What?”

“There’s more. Mr. Thorne wants you, me, Chris and Mollie to meet him in his office at two o’clock this afternoon.”

Sharon’s mouth fell open. “Really?”

“Really.”

“But why? Why would he want to see all four of us?”

“I have no idea, Sharon. Let’s just make sure we arrive promptly.”

Fact is, the second version took more than twice the words the single paragraph did. That isn’t a problem unless a novel already comes in at 120,000 words (the author undoubtedly has two stories there). In my case, the original was about 87,500 words. It is now 91,300. Less than 4000 added? Not so fast. A year ago I moved the beginning of the novel forward six months, and that cut off 13,500 words. If I’ve crunched the numbers correctly, that means I’ve written some 17,000 new words in that last year.

And here everyone thought I was “just editing.” I hope it means I now have a better understanding of “Show, don’t tell.”