The conversion continues

A week and two days ago, on May 8 to cite the precise date, I came home from LA Banks' Fire Up Your Fiction workshop energized and convinced I could transform my paranormal suspense manuscript into a paranormal romance in about a week.

I have a tendency to make lofty goals.

The scary thing is: I usually achieve them. This time I did not, and the "failure" was intentional. I could very easily transform this manuscript if I lock myself in my office and write 24/7 until it's done. Author Molly Cochran might even encourage me and say that's a good thing, if it gets the job done and moves me further toward publication.

But selfishness is not a problem for me. In most areas of my life, I can be selfish. I also can be altruistic, but it's not natural for me. Blame it on my Taurean side.

I want to be a productive writer and a good mom. This is no different than dilemmas other people face. Some people balance a "real-world" career and writing. Some people balance jobs and hobbies. Some people struggle with the right blend of family vs. community/volunteer commitments. I think a politician faces this dualism daily. A politician (or a celebrity?) has a private and a public life.

So while I have undertaken this project because I think the market is right for it, I also need to NOT make myself crazy. If I strive to hit a self-imposed deadline and succeed, have I put forth my best effort? Will a week or a month make that much difference in the long run?

You could argue that markets change rapidly. Well, if that's the case maybe I've already missed the boat. Or maybe, if I get my manuscript mailed on Friday, it arrives in X place on the manuscript pile and gets on the desk of editorial assistant Ms. I-Hate-Werewolves, whereas maybe if I send it on Monday, it ends up in Y place, and Ms. I-Live-For-Shapeshifters reads it. You never know. Luck factors in greatly in this game.

I joined PLRW (the Pocono-Lehigh Romance Writers, our local chapter of Romance Writers of America) because my stories have always been relationship-driven and I know I can do this. I resisted because most of my stories have realistic (unhappy) endings. But if I can still tell the same story, make the main characters overcome with a happy ending AND sell it, who cares?

It's about hope. A good story gives up hope for humanity.

I had meant this entry to be an entry of what I've done on the manuscript lately. Yesterday I listened to some of the editor podcasts from Harlequin. I'm interested in their Silhouette Nocturne imprint. I'm having trouble with the synopsis. I can't decide how much detail to put in.

My friend Tiffani encourages me to write it as detailed as possible before I decide.

To that end, I'm revamping my manuscript outline to have a paragraph for each chapter. This is something way more organized than I usually do.

I also have concerns that my heroine doesn't have "good enough" supernatural powers. So I beefed them up, which in turn heated the conflict. Of course, I'm starting to worry I've tread into the area of major rewrite as opposed to edits, but comes with the territory I guess. Though I also must remember part of this exercise is to practice "production writing," the kind where I expend my energy selling the text and not tweaking every last word for literary perfection.

I made an outline!

Okay, so I've successfully managed to increase the pace of my second novel, Courting Apparitions. I had outlined the entire manuscript earlier, to make sure I didn't miss anything in my revisions as I cut drastically the goings-on.

I have reached Chapter 10, and I don't want to miss any of the details and there's a lot to make sure stays in place.

So, I outline the proposed new manuscript, which chapters were moving where. I started at where I am, outlined three chapters out. Then I started at the end and worked my way back. I continued in this manner until I had two chapters in the middle where nothing happens.

"Luckily," I had forgotten the chapter where the pregnant lady has the baby, which is important since the baby is the focus of action starting with the third-to-last chapter.

But the rearranging is always an interesting exercise. It shows you how on track you are and also allows some creativity in saying "Oh, that deleted scene can go here..."

Project obsession

So, I'm in the middle of Chapter 23 with my new outline. As mentioned Monday, I'm outlining the original draft of my second draft to see what happened. I'm selecting the passages that I think are absolute gems and compiling a spreadsheet of those. Then, I also outlined the changes on the current draft on a chart that includes various characters, subplots and magical/symbolic objects. I had to add another chart: a timeline of who was sleeping with whom when, and I may need another one of these for the third book.

This book has been my 'problem child.' I have worked very hard to improve the pacing, tighten the plot and make sure the level of realism remains consistent. I have struggled with the balance of these items and the story's basic plot of a haunting, coupled with the underlying theme of emotional and physical impotence.

In completing this outlining exercise, which is not exciting but allows an intimacy with my manuscript, I have realized that the book is more solid than my brain has perceived. The problems are not insurmountable.

This is great news. I start school again in less than two weeks, and while I have completed all of the technical chores that keep my family going, I must admit I have been obsessed and mentally absent since I began this project Saturday. But, less than seven chapters to go! Wish me luck!

Outlines

I hate outlines.

When I work on a first draft, I hastily scrawl something that could pass for an outline as I go. It's more of a "I can't forget to do this later" list.

When I progress to a second draft, I outline the first one and what happened and rearrange the events as needed.

But sometimes that's hard and not as clear cut as I'd like.

I received iWork version 9 for Christmas. I purchased the original version of this software when Mac Minis came out about five years ago. The Mac Mini has since died, but iWork keeps going strong. With my latest MacBook, I didn't want to sully it with any Microsoft products. Just a goal of mine. And since Pages, the Apple version of Word, imports and exports as Word docs and PDFs, there's no reason I can't use it. Plus we have Word on our old iBook, so I can check the formatting of the file before I send it off to anything official.

My hatred of Microsoft is fodder for another day.

iWork includes three elements: Pages (Word), Keynote (PowerPoint) and Numbers (Excel). My original version (1.0.2) did not have Numbers. So I decided to play with it, partially because I keep hearing how other writers plot in spreadsheets. I prefer random scraps of paper, but I lose those pieces of paper, so I thought a computer document might be good.

I started with a simple chart of the old manuscript:
Chapter -- Character -- Item done really well that I'd forgotten about -- How to use

On my second worksheet:
Chapter -- POV -- Summary

On my third worksheet for the current revisions:
Chapter -- POV -- Summary -- then tabs for each character and plot theme and what happens in those various items in the chapter as I get the revisions done

My four worksheet:
An exact replica of page 3 except this one is for chapters I haven't revised yet and what I want to put in them

I'll keep you posted how it works.