Working toward the end

I have three more chapters to revise of Courting Apparitions. And probably adding a prologue.

It was hard to get that far. During this past weekend, I wanted it over.

I've reached some of those points where things still aren't right. My critique group is pointing out flaws that my heart has known for a while... Donald Maass and his wife Lisa have given me ideas of how to strengthen the whole thing... And this means a fourth draft.

These are changes that may impact the ending.

So, why go on? Why not start over?

Why?

Because I believe in finishing. I believe in seeing it through to the end if only to prove that I can. Many can't. I want to see if the characters have any last surprises before I retreat to the beginning and impose my will upon them again.

This book has always been my problem child, but now it has merit. Someone had asked me at the conference if I planned on released book two to the world before book one, a tribute to Star Wars, and I had never pondered that. I could.

If I pitched book two to agents, and followed with book three, those books have more excitement and danger than book one. And book one explains why these characters went to so much trouble for each other in more depth. It certainly makes me wonder...

The Reunion / The Hanged Man

I'm working out of sequence as I have been frequently because of how I keep getting stuck. A friend had a bad day yesterday, and she read the first draft of Courting Apparitions and laments the fact that Basilie and Étienne don't have sex except for one in the entire book.

That is a bad, bad sentence. But let's move on.

Since my friend had a bad day, and I'm very close to that big sex scene, I thought I'd go ahead and write that scene to cheer her up.

In the tarot, there's a card called the Hanged Man. It's not the well-hung man, so get your mind out of the gutter. The hanged man is the guy who always looks at a situation differently from everyone else. If you watched Project Runway last night, he would be Casanova (who thought WAY out of the box) or even Ivy H. (her approach to the project was the opposite of everyone else).

A good sex scene has to have an element of the Hanged Man. If it's merely presenting what happened, it's not enough. If it's merely erotic and graphic, it's not enough.

I've talked in the past about every sex scene doing its job to move the plot, and enhance the character and show us about the relationship we're seeing. But it should also have that special quirkiness that makes it real.

In real life, this happens.

Like the time I asked my husband in the middle of things if he remembered whether or not I turned the oven off.

Or the time things went incredible and my husband thought something was wrong based on an unusual noise I made.

I already have a very powerful surprise for the revision to book three that shows how quickly "the other woman" picked up on a secret fantasy of the male character that his wife never noticed in 25 years together.

And don't even ask about the Tufula Tufts.

Swirling brain

My brain swirls, or perhaps ripples like the water on a still pond. As each thought breaks the surface, it extends outward...

I have wanted to write for days, but fatigue and holiday obligations have prevented this. And now, with the opportunity finally presenting itself... I can't focus. I couldn't even settle on a topic for my blog, so I'm going stream of consciousness. Lucky you.

I seem to dwell on what could be termed the epilogue of book three of my series... And wanting to research Post Traumatic Stress Disorder... doesn't that make you wonder what I'm planning for my poor characters, or at least for one of them. Several die, one becomes a victim, and an unlikely hero emerges.

Part of me wants to spend some time with the bad guy from books one and two, because I'm sensing the shallowness in him. Other people have told me they didn't get into him enough, and I see him as distant from the world. But I fear this contemplation, because "fixing" him and allowing myself to see more of the greater world from his perspective will, no doubt, change the first book as well. And this is the one I am marketing.

Well, or I was. I fell down on the job lately. I have no queries out right now.

I was really getting into the revisions for book two, and had finished more or less the first third when I determined it still wasn't working. So I tried a new chapter one, as I mentioned a few weeks ago. I think I might be on the right track with this one. So...

I suppose what I have to do is reread my revised chapter one and evaluate it and see how far I got with the latest chapter two.

Uggh.

Reflections Upon Critique

When a writer brings a piece to a critique group, I feel it's necessary not to defend the piece.

It does not matter what you intended. It either works or it doesn't.

My critique group did not "get" what I intended from the chapter last night. I could consider them all stupid and move on, but when the general consensus consistently missed the point on why the details were there... Then the problem is obviously not them.

It does not mean my idea is bad. It just means my implementation failed.

Speaking of implementation that failed, they spent some time telling me the story/ central conflict as they understood it. Another chapter that had failed miserably was chapter one. (There's a blog entry for another day: The agony of finding a chapter one that is both captivating and effective in regards to plot.) What I found interesting of this discussion was how "close" their interpretation was to what I desired, but that they were right-- I had bogged the story down in some areas with important details that were misplaced. And I also realized that the reason my original chapter one failed is because I let the mystery continue for too long. Upon further reflection, I never resolved it at all. Bad author.

So I lay in bed last night pondering this. I wanted desperately to get out of bed and write. But it was after midnight and as a mom, I can't indulge whims like that. (I don't do well on lack of sleep.) But I developed a new concept that might work and give me the plot structure to construct AND resolve the mystery.

This is a lot of rambling. And today I have important but mundane things to do: bathe child, work for the office, study for my economics quiz, but this new concept obsesses me. I can't indulge my writing frenzy, but perhaps I can reward myself throughout the day...

My concepts for chapter one of this "sequel" book have been many. I wrote one from the bad guy's point of view, and that revealed too much too fast and didn't quite make sense. I wrote one from the good guy's point of view that was too long and poorly paced to suck you in.

My chapter one submitted to the critique group was so fast-paced and action driven that it became difficult to process, and the melodramatic nature of it lead my readers to believe my protagonist was on drugs or a complete nutcase and later chapters did nothing to explain what happened. Which made the manuscript disjointed.

So, my new concept, of which I have about 500 words is slower. The point of the chapter is to set the emotional duress of the protagonist, a character who, in the first book, was vibrant and full of life, and has now experienced a myriad of physical problems, depression, and grief that has changed his joie de vivre. And since it's a paranormal book, when the weird stuff happens in chapter one, he thinks he has imagined it all because of those things and in the next chapter, everyone around him starts experiencing it, too...

In the new chapter one, in my current attempt, Étienne begins the book in the exact physical location where the bad guy begins the first book, in a similar physical posture, doing something similar. I did not plan it or engineer it this way on purpose. But the setting is identical... and that could end up being a strength if I do it right/well...