2. Incubus is going great, for once. It is amazing to me how things with this book finally, finally feel right. After so long struggling to get a working draft, then fighting with edits, I know the decision to rewrite was the right one. I’ve written 15K words in the last week, and I just can’t get enough of it. Sure, it’s still kinda rough, since I am pretty much redoing a first draft, but for the first time the story feel really, really right. There is a light at the end of the tunnel!

3. Because I am trucking along so well with Incubus, The Raskolnikov Project has been delayed a little bit. I am still writing a chapter a week, which was my goal when I started, but it seems like I slowed to a snail’ s pace since when I first started I was putting up a chapter every other day or so. I am having a blast with it, but Incubus is my main priority, so I am keeping myself to the chapter-a-week schedule and focusing the rest of my writing time elsewhere.

4. We have a high of 60 degrees today! Horray! I have lived in Montana way too long to actually think winter is over and spring is officially here, but it is still exciting. It would be more exciting if it were a sunny 60 degrees instead of a grey, dreary 60 degrees, but I’ll take what I can get. Probably there will be snow on the ground again soon enough.

5. Baby Caveman had his 2-month checkup yesterday. Man, that kid is growing like a weed! He is doing great, was charming the nursing students, and amazing the midwife with his physical development. He’s growing up so fast; before we know it, he will be asking for the car keys!

It is a discouraging thing to look at a manuscript and know that it would be better to completely rewrite it than to simply edit it. What a daunting task. You stare at all the work ahead of you and wonder, how did I screw this up so irreparably?

To be sure, it would be easier and less time consuming to keep plodding through with edits and minor rewrites, but you know in the end that much won’t save the book. Nothing short of starting again at word one will produce the book you want to write.

It’s easy to realize this and then immediately begin to despair. How can you possibly call yourself a writer if you can’t do better than that? Sure, first drafts are always bad, but shouldn’t they be salvageable at least?

I sit today in near panic at the thought of what is ahead of me. I am starting a complete rewrite of Incubus, the book that will be the death of me. This is not the first time I have started over with this one, but this is the most intimidating start. Before, I was still working on a rough draft, but at the end of last year I finally put THE END on that draft. I finally had a working draft! YAY! Or so I thought.

As I have been plodding through edits, it has been nagging at the back of my mind that I need to just rewrite this. I have been ignoring that prompting for a while now, because, hello! That is a lot of work, and I want to be able to just make this book shine on edits alone. But I need to stop fooling myself and just get to work.

There is one good thing about starting from word one after already (finally) finishing a draft…In all that work I did on the book before, I learned exactly one thing: what it isn’t. I have written what I don’t want, and in doing so, I have reined in what I do want.

I don’t know what it is about this one particular book that is giving me such fits. I have other drafts sitting on my hard drive. Perhaps the sensible thing to do would be to open one of them and work it to perfection (or as near as I can get). Put Incubus down and make something else shine.

I know that would be the smarter, more prudent thing to do, yet I just can’t bring myself to do it. Something about this book just calls to me, and I feel like it is what I need to be working on, even if it is aging me prematurely.

So, I am ready to work some more. Eventually it will all pay off, I am sure. Over the next few weeks and months, surely I will eat too much cookie dough and popcorn (drafting snacks of choice). Not the healthiest diet out there, but that is something I can live with. Hey, Steven King used to shoot heroin when he was writing, so it could be worse right?

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

This is something I have known for a long time: when I write every day it is easier and easier to write every day. That’s why I try to write something – even just a little – every single day.

My break was much needed and appreciated, but man am I struggling to get back into the groove now. I guess all I can do is keep pushing, writing a little bit each day, until it comes back to me. It will get easier again – that is one thing I know!

For now, wish me luck as I trudge through the getting-back-to-it part. Baby Caveman is being a great cheerleader.

I have about a billion-ty words to write to fix what I broke in Incubus. So, I am taking Weronika up on her challenge. Of course, I don’t write on Sundays, and it is 7:30 Friday night, but I am still shooting for 10K this weekend. Which means I better get to work.

Wish me luck!

What is your favorite line from your WIP?

I don’t know if this is my favorite line, but it is the one that jumped out at me, so I am going to use it. Also, I find it interesting that in all my rewriting and editing and messing around with Incubus, this is one of the only lines that has not been changed from the very, very first draft (back when I was just free-writing and didn’t even make the connection yet that what I was writing was melding into that idea I had for a book). Funny, that. Anyhow, here it is:

How many of you are participating in NaNo this year? Let me know! And if you want to be my NaNo buddy (though I pretty much only visit the site to update word counts), you can find me here.

A few days before I started tinkering on the computer again, Glenna and I had a little email conversation that made me wonder:

Is the Plot and Paper Project still working for you?

When we started this adventure, we had a very solid goal: fill our 180-page notebooks (and hopefully finish our books), writing by hand, by the end of the year. It’s a well defined, achievable goal. But behind the goal, we had a purpose. Glenna and I started the Plot and Paper Project because we both had trouble books – ones that we had stalled out on time and time again – and we believed that writing longhand would help us work through the struggles.

And it did work. Both of us found success writing longhand. Slowing ourselves down helped us to push through when we couldn’t before. Woot!

But what happens when the very thing that helped so much in the beginning becomes a hindrance now? Have you been opening your notebook day after day, only to struggle to write any words? Is the thought of continuing longhand turning you off of writing the book altogether? Is your computer calling to you?

Then hit up the computer. What is important here is writing the book, not how it is done. Each of us needs to think about what is best for the book and for us. If that means walking away from the Plot and Paper Project for a while, so be it. Just write the book, no matter how that happens.

I think what we all needed to learn from the Plot and Paper Project is to find what works best right now. If that means writing the first part of your book longhand, and then hopping over to the computer when you feel you need to, then so be it. The notebook will still be there, waiting, in case you need to switch back to writing by hand to work through tough spots. It isn’t about stubbornly sticking with what you set out to do just to say you did it; it is about finishing your book. There is no shame in setting the notebook aside if it is no longer what your book needs.

Personally, I am still plugging away longhand. But, NanoWriMo starts on Monday, and I am fully prepared to take Incubus to the computer if I can’t handle the notebook during the month of November.

Like I said: write the book. It is not important how you do it – just do it.

What are your favorite first lines? How do your own WIPs start?

To be honest, I don’t usually take much stock in the first line of a book. I know how important everyone says the first line is to setting the tone and drawing a reader in, but I guess I always just give books more of a chance. So the first line just blends in with the rest of the book. Because of that, I thought this would be a really hard question to answer.

But then I went to my bookshelves. I stared for about two minutes, and in that time, five books jumped out at me and reminded me how much I love their openings. Most are just first lines, but I did cheat on one, because the first three lines are really what did it for me:

The day I broke up with my boyfriend Evan was the day he wrote the song. You know, the song. I'm sure you've heard it.

Gestures are all that I have; sometimes they must be grand in nature.

I've been called Bone all my life, but my name's Ruth Anne.

Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love.

The great gray beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive.

And now! Onto my own first lines. Since I am knee deep in Incubus right now, it is only fitting that I share that one. It could change in edits, but here is where it is now:

The painting was meant to be of a sunset.

Now, you tell me: do you have any first lines that stand out to you? How do your favorite books start?

*****

When Glenna and I set up parameters for the Plot and Paper Project, we had some very simple guidelines:

1. Write our books longhand.
2. Fill our 180-page notebooks by the end of the year.
3. Work together to keep motivated (and to have fun).

Easy enough, right?

But what if you aren’t working on a novel right now? Or you just need to hammer out your plot but want to write the actual prose on the computer? What if songs and poetry are more your style? How about a screenplay? I say do it!

The Plot and Paper Project is not meant to restrict you or convince you to do exactly what we are doing; it is meant to give you the opportunity to explore your writing without the distractions of the internet right at your fingertips. It is a way to get back down to the roots of your passion and craft – in whatever form it takes – without the “rules” coming at you from all angles like they do online.

So, make the Plot and Paper Project whatever you want it to be. Set your own parameters. Do things your own way.

And, yanno, if you want -let me know how you are making Plot & Paper work for you!

If you have been reading my blog from the beginning (a year ago tomorrow, so it seems), you will remember that I tried writing Jack the Reaper longhand and failed. The words were just coming to me faster than my poor little hand could write them and I had to turn back to the computer so I could get them out as fast as I thought of them. Even though I eventually gave up the notebook and pen that go around, there has always been something about writing longhand that just appeals to me.

So when Glenna announced the Plot and Paper Project, I thought to myself maybe I should try that with Incubus. I have already been doing my outline longhand, and have been loving it. So Tuesday, I said:

Well, between when I said that Tuesday evening and this morning, I have been to the store to buy a shiny new notebook (yes, I have notebooks all over this house, but a new book needs a new notebook to be written in), and have officially joined Glenna in the Plot and Paper Project. It is pretty simple, the goals are:

• Write the book wholly by hand. Even though longhand moves slower than typing, I have found that it is easier to stay focused on, and therefore ultimately more productive. I guess I just let the great distraction of the interwebs get to me too easily. So, by hand it it.
• Fill the big notebook by New Year’s Eve. My notebook (and Glenna’s as well) is 180 pages. That is totally doable by New Year. Especially since I am lucky and get to stay home to work on it every day.
• Yep, that’s pretty much it. Though, like Glenna, I might have to invest in a new wrist brace. I am (luckily) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome free, but I do have a tendency toward tendonitis, which is no fun!

I am finally just about at the end of this outline, so I can begin the real writing any day now. Books 2 and 3 are not outlined as intensely as book 1, but I have the framework there, which is all I really needed to get book 1 hashed out all the way. I am thrilled to get to it!

Mostly, I have nothing real to say, but for some reason still want to write a blog post, so I am writing a blog post about blog reading.

A while back I mentioned that I let what I was reading and learning on industry blogs get in the way of writing Incubus. I would let all those words of advice get into my head and then I would spend way too much time and energy trying to write the book to the blog standards, not to my own.

Well, it turns out I am doing that again (at least I caught it early on), so I made some pretty drastic changes to my Google Reader. As of last Friday, I am no longer following any agent or editor blogs. None. Nada. I don’t need them right now, and they will still be there waiting for me when I do.

Now I am diving back into my outline with a clear mind (and much more time, since I cut my morning reading time WAY down). Wish me luck!

Incubus is…um…moving along. I have been working on getting this outlined for two weeks now, and I am nowhere near done with the outline yet. I am picking up steam though, so that is good!

I think my problem the last couple of weeks has been mindset. I have been stewing over this book for so long that it is hard to not just be writing it, but rather writing about it. It’s hard to get out of the writing prose mindset and into the outlining mindset. Part of me wants to just sit down and get going on the actual writing. But a bigger part of me knows (since, yeah, I’ve shown over and over and over again with this book) that just jumping into writing without an outline is just a recipe for disaster. It is funny how different each project I tackle is.

Finally, yesterday, something in me sparked and I switched over to outlining mode. It only took 2 weeks of beating my head against a wall, but finally I am in the right mindset and on a roll with this outline. Will I still hit snags? Sure I will, but for the most part things are moving along quite nicely and there is an end to outlining in sight.

Of course, once I reach that end, I will have to adjust myself back into writing mode and see how long that takes.

Are you working on a project right now? How is it coming along?

The problem that I was having with Incubus is not that I was over-complicating it; not that I was starting too many rewrites without first finishing a draft; not that I changed POV and narrative style (way too much); not any of these things on their own. The problem was that I was trying to make the book something it is not.

Wow. I could have saved a lot of time and heartache with this book if I would have figured that out a long time ago. Of course, would I have ever been able to realize this if I didn’t make all the mistakes I did? Life is weird that way.

So, my bit of advice for the day: if you are really, seriously struggling with something you are writing, take a minute to sit back and evaluate the project. Are you writing the book that you are meant to write? Don’t think about readers, agents, editors, or anyone else at this point. Just focus on you and your book.

Are you writing the book you are meant to write?

When I first starting writing Incubus, it was a fairly simple story. I knew what all the elements were, but they were not complicated. The more I wrote, the more I worried that I needed more for the story. I came up with more characters, more back-story, more twists. They all fit in with the book, but no matter how excited I got about each development, I realized eventually that the complication did not make the story better by any means.

In talking with other aspiring authors, I find this to be quite common. We have this idea that if we construct this complex world with a twisted plot playing out in it, we will somehow be more literary, more advanced than someone who writes the simple story. But, really, there is beauty in simplicity.

A simple story is in no ways a lesser story. In fact, in many ways, I think a simple story is a better story than a complex one. All those side characters, plot twists, and world quirks can actually detract from the story. Sure, there are a lot of superb books out there that are complex enough to need flowcharts to understand, but think that is more the exception than the rule. I tend to notice a story getting bogged down in its complexity quite quickly. It seems to me, often times, that complexity takes away from the heart of the story.

I think a lot of authors have this false notion that if their book is not complex, then there is less to it. Not. True. I look at Sarah Dessen as a great example of this. Her plots, on their own, are fairly simple. Not a lot of twists and turns. But that does not mean there is no depth to her stories or her characters. Quite the opposite, actually. Without being overwhelmed by the plot line, it is much easier to see these characters as complete human beings, with palpable emotions and full lives.

As I am setting out (again) on Incubus, I am trying to keep this in mind. Sure, some things from my over-complication streak are staying (hello, I am NOT getting rid of Miles), but I am letting go off adding things just for the sake of having them there. I will keep this story just as simple as it wants to be.

In a search of the interwebs, one will quickly find approximately 6.5 billion different methods of outlining. And while all are a great starting place, what one must really do is find what works best for the individual situation.

For some people, the Snowflake Method is the cat’s meow. I have tried the Snowflake. I liked it, but found it way too intense for what I wanted. Others like to put individual scenes on color-coded index cards (colored for different subplots), lay them out in order and work from there. I know this method works wonders for some people, but I don’t find it appealing at all, so I won’t try it (at least not now…maybe someday I will change my mind).

I have tried a few different methods for outlining a novel, and finally I think I have found what works best for me. It is none of the models I tried, but rather a rough hybrid of many of them. I suggest everyone find what works best for them, without trying to fit their personality into anyone else’s mold. Even so, I find it helpful to see what others are doing in order to jump-start one’s own process.

My Process goes something like THIS:

First, I free write. I open up a word document and write out everything I know about the story and the characters off the top of my head. I don’t do this in a narrative form at all – none of this will transfer to the actual book. I am just taking time to get what is in my head onto the computer so I have something to sift through. From there, I think up a quick blurb for the book. This is not as fleshed out (nor nearly as well written) as one I would use for, say, a query letter, but the general idea is the same. I spend a little while just writing the basics of what the book is about, making sure I am clear about what the conflict is. In the blurb, I touch on the main characters of the novel, but don’t mention any side characters.

Second, I write down how the book will end. I need to know where I am going (even when I write without an outline, I always have an idea of how the book ends as I am writing).

The initial conflict (from the blurb) and the ending are the real starting point for my outline. Now that I have these two things down, I get to filling in the rest. I pretty much just do this in list form, writing down any major events that need to happen between the beginning and the ending of the book. I usually only write down 5-8 things at this point.

Now that I know the major plot points, I fill in the in-between stuff. How do we get from Major Point A to Major Point B? These points are a little more detailed than what I wrote down already. And, in the grand scheme of the novel, they might not seem incredibly important, but as far as moving the plot along from Point A to Point B, they are absolutely crucial. It is at this stage where I first start to see some of the secondary characters emerging in the outline.

I pretty much repeat this process until I feel comfortable with my outline. Sometimes, I only put in the major plot points and a few minor connecting ones. Sometimes I continue to break it down until I know pretty much everything that happens in the book. Each outline, like each novel, is different.

When I feel like I have the outline where I want it, I look back over it. The whole time I have been writing this outline, I have not been paying attention to rising action, where the climax falls, how long the denouement is, or any other pacing things. But those things are all important, so why wasn’t I looking for them already?

As I first write an outline, I like to just get the story out as I envision it at the time. There is always room for improvement from the first vision, but I can’t see that until I get it out there. Which is why I am hoping this outline will help me so much. This way I can take care of pacing issues in the outline stage, not in the already-have-75K-words-written stage.

So now I look through the outline and tweak it until I feel like the pacing is where it needs to be. Maybe I need to rearrange some things. Maybe some things need to be cut or combined. Maybe I will see a part that is moving way too fast and find a way to calm it down a bit. I will spend quite a bit of time in the outline stage playing with the pacing. Does this mean I won’t have to work on pacing again after the first draft is written? Of course not, but hopefully this will help me solve any major problems I have from the start.

Finally, I take my outline and break it into rough chapters. My chapter breaks will not be permanent, since I never know exactly where the best break point is until I have actual narrative written, but this gives me a general idea of how the book will be broken down, and lets me know what I am working to accomplish in each chapter.

And, finally, finally I declare my outline complete and get to writing. No doubt, once I start writing, the outline will need to be changed and tweaked some more. That is the beauty of outlines: no matter how detailed, they are never set in stone. They are flexible, and need to be bent if that is where the book is going.

Now, you tell me? Are you an outliner or a “pantser”. If you outline, what does your method look like?

A little background on Incubus:

I started writing this book nearly two years ago (sometime in August 2008). I had always loved writing, but this was what re-sparked my passion for being a writer. This book is the one that made me see how badly I really want to be published and have a career in writing.

I didn’t finish it.

At first, I just wrote and wrote and wrote. The story came to me and I put it on paper screen as fast as I could. I got about a third of the way into the story and hit a wall. It wasn’t a bad block, but instead of just patiently working my way through it, I turned to the internet. In times that I was having difficulty writing, I read agent, editor, and author blogs. I read articles on the mechanics of writing, the importance of characterization, and – most dangerous of all – the trends in the market.

Don’t get me wrong: industry blogs are wonderful. They are full of useful information. But I wasn’t just getting information (and even if I was, it was premature). I was letting these blogs seep into my mind; the more I thought about them, the more I thought Incubus was not enough. So I rewrote what I had done in a different POV. I changed some of the back-story. I tinkered and fiddled and messed with the story, trying to make it better.

But it wasn’t better. Sure, my writing got stronger and stronger, but what I had written was a product of all those blogs I let infiltrate my thinking, not a product of the story I set out to tell. I finally finished a working draft, and while the basis of my story is still there, it is buried under all the things I had learned and tried too hard to apply. It is going to take some serious excavation to get Incubus back out again.

Plan of Attack:

I am starting with an OUTLINE. Gasp! Okay, I have outlined before, and enjoyed it, but I still consider myself a more fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants type writer. I love just sitting down and seeing what comes out. And sometimes that works great. For instance, I will not outline So97. I just won’t. It is my fall-back, write-just-for-fun book, so I want to just see what comes out. So97 is that manuscript I open to work on when I get too bogged down with something else. As of now, I have no plans to ever seek publication with it (that might change after I finish it, but who knows), so it is completely for fun. So97 gives me that chance to be completely free to discover the story as I write. And if I meander off course a little? Oh well…

I learned time and time again, however, that seat-of-pants writing will not work with Incubus. I need to be able to wrangle myself in when I write this book, so I will need an outline. And not just for one book.

When I first envisioned Incubus, it was as the first of a trilogy. I know the basic plots of all three books, but have only written (no matter how poorly) the first. In my plotting, I think it will be helpful to see where I am trying to go through the full trilogy, so I can keep early events in line with those that need to happen later. So, my outline will be a three-book outline. Books 2 & 3 will likely not be outlined in as great detail as book 1 at this point, but they will be outlined.

Wow…that sounds like a lot of outline work. I better get to it.

What photos inspire your books?

Alright! These are in no particular order, and I am not sharing which book each on is an inspiration from. Pretty much, you just get to look at fun, pretty pictures. Some of these you have seen before….

Seriously, thanks so much for all the help yesterday. I appreciate all the comments and bits of advice I got, both on this blog and elsewhere. After a lot of talking/reading comments and emails, I have my ducks in a row concerning Incubus. So, in true Two For Tuesday style, I have a quick two-part follow-up to yesterday’s post.

1. Everyone I talked to agreed that it is probably best for me to put aside Incubus for a while. I am not getting anywhere with it, and the truth is that at this point I am probably doing more harm than good. The best comment I got was from my mom, who is like HolyCrapBusyAccountant and doesn’t have time to link out of her email to comment on the blog. (Though, she would probably just email me instead of commenting even if it wasn’t tax season, but I digress.)

Mom told me that Stephen King first tried to write Under The Dome twenty-five years ago, but wasn’t ready yet to tell the story. Now, I really really hope that it won’t take me twenty-five years (I mean, that is how old I am now…it better not take half my life to get this story out), but taking some time until I am ready to really write this book will not kill me (or the book, thankfully).

If it works for Uncle Stevie, it will work for me. Right? Right??

2. After deciding to let Incubus…er, incubate…I sat down last night and started work on something new. It’s been quite a while since I wrote blind, without any sort of outline, and I had a blast. I called it a night at 2,000 words–something I haven’t been able to do on Incubus in the last two weeks! (And not just no 2,000 word nights–I haven’t been able to put 2,000 total on Incubus in two weeks.) Needless to say, I am thrilled.

I don’t know where this new little project is heading, so I can’t tell you much about it yet. But here is what I do know:

• It is a summer book
• For now, I am calling it So97. No, I won’t tell you why…only Lilah knows.
• It has an awesome playlist!

I listen to music a lot when I write, but I have never created playlists for any of my previous books. This one is a bit different though. While it is in no way autobiographical, the places, emotions, and many of the characters are all influenced by a very specific time of my life. So, I created a playlist of songs that would take me back to that particular time.

Yes, these songs are really quite random, but they do their job well. Listening to this music takes me back to where I want to be in order to write this book. I remember the sights, the sounds, the smells–everything about one particular summer. The funny thing is: I am sure some of these songs were actually released after that summer, but they still remind me of it. Memory is a strange beast in that regard.

I guess it’s just like Wireman says: When it comes to memory, we all stack the deck.

While I have wanted to be a writer since I was really young, that goal got sidelined for some time while I was busy trying other things in life. Then, just over a year and a half ago, I had a dream. When I woke up, I just knew I needed to start writing again.

I spent the next days coming up with a plot based on said dream (by the time I was done, I actually had plots for three novels). Then I sat down and tried to write the thing. But nothing came out. I struggled and fought and couldn’t get any words out. Eventually I figured out that I had gotten into my own head and psyched myself out. I had thought so much about the story and was trying so hard to get it out, that I didn’t realize that it was not the story I really needed to tell.

A few days later, I sat down and started free writing. It wasn’t until I was nearly four chapters into my new story that I realized–holy crap!–I was writing Incubus. It wasn’t at all the story I had plotted out, but the more I wrote, the more it morphed into a better version of that story. I kept on writing until I hit a wall.

Then, I completely rewrote what I had so far from a different POV and with quite a few tweaks. Incubus is the only book I have stopped and rewritten before I finished the first draft, and I did it more times with this book than I care to admit.

Finally, I turned out a really crappy first draft. Come to think of it, really crappy doesn’t quite do justice to just how bad this draft was. It was so abysmal it probably shouldn’t even be considered a real draft. It was so bad, that no amount of edits would save it; Incubus was going to need another rewrite.

I sat down before I started writing again and figured out what it was that was not working. I tweaked the plot and added some depth to the back story. After quite some time working out all the kinks, I was finally completely satisfied with what I had outlined. I mean, I am really really happy about where this book is going (finally). It just feels right, and I know this is the story I am meant to write.

But, there is still a problem. See, no matter how pleased I am with the story and how confident I am that I finally got it right, I can’t get the words on the paper. I know that writing is often hard, and I am prepared to do the work, but there is something different about what is happening here.

After a lot of fretting about this and a lot of talking to Bubba and Lilah, I decided that maybe I am just not ready to write Incubus yet. No matter how badly I want it, maybe it is not what I should be focusing on right now. Maybe, just maybe, I should let Kyle and Jayne simmer on the back burner for a while while I write something else*. In the end, wouldn’t the story be better served if I waited until I was ready to tell it?

So readers, question for you:

In my situation, what do you do? Do you keep plodding through and finish what you started, or do you push it aside and write something else for the time being?

*Yeah, this is gonna be really hard for me to do–I am incredibly stubborn–but it might be the best thing for the book.