Edited novel is edited

My non-novel project for the last *mumble* years has been a critical edition of Mona Caird’s The Wing of Azrael (1889). While it isn’t completely impossible to find, it’s nearly so. You need either a) an excellent academic/copyright library or b) the patience to wait a few years for it to turn up on a used book website and then the ability to pounce, like unto Thundercat on a bit of fuzz, when the alert comes through. I have both, thankfully.

(I just tried to find copies on Worldcat but it refuses to tell me anything other than microfilm versions exist. Which is untrue because I know I borrowed a copy in the states at one point – it’s why I have the photocopy [yes, I KNOW]. But even in the UK, only four of the copyright libraries have it. according to COPAC.)

Anyway, in addition to scanning and checking a 140,000-word text – those triple-deckers were wordy; thank you, Mudie! – I wrote an introduction, found and typed in several appendices, and researched (not counting the ones for the introduction) 320 or so footnotes. And yet I’m sure there are some I missed, not even counting the ‘This reference has not been traced’ ones, because even when I was doing my final does-a-curly-quotation-mark-next-to-a-dash-go-the-right-way check, I thought, hmm, that sounds Biblical, and then I’m typing out Amos 6:3 and rejigging every subsequent ’see footnote x’ reference so they all point to the right ones.

Anyway, it’s as good as I can make it, and I’ll send it off to Valancourt as soon as I hear that they have recovered from the unpleasant relationship between a computer and a Big Gulp. This is, sadly, the second such story I’ve learned of this week, though in the other case it was coffee. I am presently instituting a regime of sippy cups.

Something BIG is DONE. YAY.

(And please go buy books from Valancourt while you’re waiting for mine.)

Congratulations!

My world has been full of rejections and not-hearing-back-which-means-rejection so I am absolutely thrilled that someone I know has not only received an acceptance, but a really good one.

Congratulations to Kelly Hourihan, who’s just been selected as the Boston Public Library Children’s Writer-in-Residence.  I’m not up on my residential fellowships but this has to be one of the peachiest ones going, and Kelly’s an amazing writer and great person who completely deserves it.

And darn sure I’ll be buying her book (from Better World Books, of course) as soon as it’s published.

Writing Backwards

So I rewrote the first half of the book (roughly, but at just under 40K I expect that to be half) and then said ‘um.’

I had so many new things to add into the second half and even more things to remove. Moving from multiple POV characters to a single one meant that quite a few scenes had to be either recast or dumped. What information was actually necessary? Could scenes be combined? Is that character I introduced in chapter 5 and never did anything else with going to come back into the novel, or just exist as a ‘I have to provide information and fulfil my Contractual Obligation as a historical character who was present at this event’ throwaway?

First thing I did was to go through the second half of the draft as it it existed, and note down all the plot points/character developments. Then I went through various files of scraps/ideas and added those. Which meant that I ended up with a loooooooooooooong list of items ranging from questions to entire scenes summarized in a sentence.

Trying to find the through-story wasn’t as difficult as it sounds, though that’s only because I’ve been working on this for TWO YEARS and have also learned quite a lot about cutting those tea-drinking scenes (tm Donald Maass) – or in my case, cocoa-drinking scenes. But the best way to do it was to start backwards.

Because I know the ending – or rather, I knew it, and then I ended up adding an extra chapter to extend it, which works a lot better (she says hopefully). And once you are working on the ending, it’s WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE down the slope because you have the momentum. So I put that all into place, in outline form.

Then, having written the final and penultimate chapters, I moved back to the ante-penultimate chapter, and not just because I am very fond of the word ‘ante-penultimate’. But apparently anteantepenultimate is not a word, though it should be, so once I’d sorted THAT chapter out, I moved back to the fourth-to-last and fifth-to-last.

Now, this still means I had to fit all the rest of the stuff (or decide to cut it because it didn’t fit) into the twelfth-through-sixth-through-last chapters. But thankfully I had plenty of markers (character X has to leave at this point, so character Y has to get that object to give her) and, of course, it’s only an outline, so I could move bits around as much as I wanted to.

Anyway, long blog entry short, outlining ‘the second half of the book’ wasn’t nearly as bad once I’d laid out exactly where everything needed to go. Of course, I had to add lots of things to my ’stuff to do in the first half’ file, because if something was going to be significant in chapter 18 then I’d need to make it part of the framework earlier.

The funny part is that I now keep thinking of that Sesame Street skit where three monsters (?) are telling a story, and the Beginning one gets to go ‘once upon a time’ and then the Middle one goes on and on until the End one finally cuts him off with ‘happily ever after.’ The Middle is definitely the toughest, but if it is a jumbled mess, then the End isn’t worth getting to.

Rewriting is boring for everyone else

Seriously, there is nothing going on here that I could be dramatic about. I restructured chapter 11! The protagonist gets more angry than before! The second half of the book is a soggy mess!

So have my last two days’ worth of search engine referrals:

better world books coupon
doctor who remembrance day
nathan bransford font
natalie goldberg, action verbs
they shall not grow old doctor who
ive league – writing skills books
jennifer jackson synopsis
stephenie meyer can’t “research”
tracey s. rosenberg
quotation on anomie

I’m not going to be the one to tell Stephenie Meyer she can’t “research” but if you’d like to, be my guest!

Did I mention I was in Japan? Fantastic. I now wish to return there, and spend my entire life savings on cute little things to put inside bento boxes.

Oh, and it looks as though I was longlisted for a short story prize, but I’m still waiting for the shortlist to come out. If I’m on it, I’ll say something. If not, well, won’t be the first shortlist I’m not on. Also waiting for word on the other short story competition, and the travel grant.

Thundercat is waiting for Rhys to hurry up and toss a piece of that fish please. Thundercat likes fish. I had a couple of pieces of sushi in Japan (sssh, don’t tell the Vegetarian Society) but I have to say I don’t miss it enough to go back to eating it. On the other hand, gefilte fish is vegetarian, along the same lines as pork being kosher if it’s in Chinese food, so I’m not entirely anti-fish.

Making Mistakes Before They Matter

Sometimes gremlins sneak into your computer.

Really, how else can it be explained that I duplicated the first chapter of DNP, pasted in the next three chapters, saved it, copied it onto my USB key, moved to the internet-able computer, attached it to an e-mail, sent it, and then received an e-mail back saying ‘this seems really short for four chapters’? Because in fact there was only one chapter in the document? And when I go back to my USB key the document has four chapters?

Gremlins, I tells ya. Of the techy variety. (As opposed to the Trekky variety, because they’re all out watching the new movie.)

Thankfully, I didn’t make this mistake to Dream Agent. I made it to a most excellent friend who sent an insightful critique on chapter 1 and now wants to read more. Which means that the ramification of my error is that I might have to wait until she’s free to comment on the next three chapters, instead of getting a response this weekend – but that’s a hell of a lot better than a ramification of ‘the agent thinks I’m a moron who can’t follow instructions and/or a computer ninny, and I have to write a pleading e-mail saying “oops, here’s the rest”.’

And now you can be damn sure that I will triple-check every document that gets e-mailed out under my name.

Quick Post From Japan

I’ve been wanting to visit Japan for at least fifteen years now, so I’m thrilled I finally made it. I wish it had been a little less of a ‘if it’s Tuesday it must be Kyoto’ whirlwind at times, but I’ve definitely seen the high points – which include the Ghibli Museum! (The short film was ‘Mei and the Kittenbus‘ so one trip to the gift shop later and I now have a tiny kittenbus of my very own. Still waiting for it to shift, though….)

I must say that I do feel bereft when I walk past a bookshop and…keep on walking. I always stop at bookshops! It’s what I do! But when I can’t even decipher the characters, there’s little point.

Well, yesterday in Kamakura, as I was on my way to pay my respect to (or at least say ‘wow’ at) the Great Buddha I passed a small secondhand bookshop which was also selling bric-a-brac and bought a small cat statue. So at least I can still support the industry.

Travel books (as in, books for travel)

I spend a great deal of time before trips trying to decide which books to bring. There are very specific criteria:

1. I need to be as sure as possible that this book will hold my interest all the way through. I have no qualms about ditching a book at page 50 or even earlier if I Don’t Care What Happens To These People, but doing so at 34,000 feet is extremely problematic. For one thing, the flight attendants are understandably annoyed by passengers who hurl books across the cabin, and more importantly, what if I run out of reading material?? So books by authors whose work I definitely enjoy are on the top of the reading pile.

2. Paperbacks only. I carry my own luggage and I put it into the overhead luggage bin all by myself. This does not need to be any more of a challenge than it already is. Also, hardbacks take up far more space.

3. Reasonably light-hearted. Elie Wiesel’s Night and three books with ‘Auschwitz’ in the title are on my TBR pile bookshelves, but I will not be packing any of them. I also don’t ever want to be asking the flight attendants if they have a dictionary on board. However, the books must also be:

4. Reasonably fulfilling. I like to get stuck in to a longish book, as it makes the boring parts of the journey go much faster, and saves me from having to rummage around in my carry-on bags mid-flight. It’s also a good time to make a running start at a classic novel; I have fond memories of being on a National Express bus in England, giggling at Bleak House.

5. Self-contained. I don’t want to be in a random airport pining for the sequel.

6. Disposable. The primary hallmark of books for traveling with is that they can be jettisoned en route. (For trips back to the states, this has the very practical result of leaving room for the books I buy along the way.) On an extended trip with multiple stops I am usually shedding books every step of the way and in fact I occasionally schedule the reading order so that I can leave particular books with particular people. Other times I’ll leave them for random strangers to pick up. (Yes, I know about Bookcrossing.) Therefore the books have to be reasonably accessible, in case I ever do want to replace them, or nothing I ever want to see again in my life. This does have the detrimental effect that books I want to read for research are rarely able to be brought.

Now, given that my TBR collection contains a few hundred books, you’d think these criteria would be easily met, but the problem is that the books that fulfill the requirements tend to get siphoned off. Clearly the only answer is to buy more books that do, right? *looks at groaning shelves* Or maybe not.

How many books to bring? Well, for a recent four-day trip with a change of plane in each direction, I brought four books, read two, started a third and ditched it, and completed a good chunk of a fourth. Obviously a lot depends on my destination, the down time, and the general availability of English-language books for emergency replacement purposes. (For some reason I never like buying books in non-English-speaking countries. I suppose it’s because – having lived in Romania – I understand how difficult it can be to find a good selection, so I hate to take away any books.)

The selection tends to change a lot in the run-up to the trip, because packing books is far more important than packing clothing, toiletries, tourist maps…in fact, let’s just agree that the only items that trump the reading material are a) the passport and b) the emergency credit card – but at the moment, my reading stack for my upcoming trip to Japan (!!!) stands as follows:

Kyle Macdonald, One Red Paperclip. Seems entertaining.

Lauren Weisberger, The Devil Wears Prada. Ditto.

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables. In December I read about 90 pages, which isn’t even ten percent of the book, and enjoyed it enough to want to keep going, so I want to restart while I’m a captive audience.

Midge Gillies, Amy Johnson: Queen of the Air. I’m halfway through and would like to polish it off, though one could argue that a book which ends with a fatal plane crash might not be the smartest choice.

Jonathan Coe, The House of Sleep. Hope it’s as intriguing as the cover blurb promises!

Phillippa Gregory, The Queen’s Fool. I enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl so this is a good selection.

I also have a travelers’ guide to Japan which a friend gave me (and thus it will definitely be coming home with me).

Of course, I’ll probably throw in an eighth book at the last minute. Just in case.

Option to Amazon

I’ve been following the AmazonFail controversy with interest, which basically means ‘reading some links and waiting until more information comes out’. And then came a confirmation that my latest Better World Books order has been shipped, and I laughed out loud, because it’s written from the point of view of the books you’ve ordered. Excerpt:

Holy canasta! It’s me… it’s me! I can’t believe it is actually me! You could have picked any of over 2 million books but you picked me! I’ve got to get packed! How is the weather where you live? Will I need a dust jacket?

*rimshot*

I can’t list one of the books because it’s a friend’s birthday present, but the other two are Sarah Hall’s Daughters of the North and an essay collection about Jane Kenyon.

If BWB doesn’t have what you’re looking for, why not try Powell’s? (Note to self: make up a bookshelf there pronto!)

Ducks in a row

It’s that stage of the novel where I have all the pieces (or at least know what pieces need to be added). I just have to get them all into place.

Hopeful yet frustrating at the same time.

Thundercat has decided I must not get up until I’m finished, and is parked adorably in my lap. Sadly for Thundercat, I need to switch to the other computer….

Threw my (current) query letter into the pot for Nathan Bransford’s Be an Agent for a Day. Someone has to reject the damn thing, so it might as well be a hundred random strangers on the internet before it’s Dream Agent….

Going public

The first sentence of Diary of a Nazi Princess (working title) can now be found on the wonderful blog Miss Snark’s First Victim. Specifically, it’s First Sentence 32.

Given that the first sentence has changed a lot, it may not be permanent, but it’s currently:

Uncle Adolf finally sent for us!

(In italics, but I didn’t request formatting because it didn’t seem to matter for this exercise.)

The title’s changed three times. Argh.

In other news, a very happy joining-the-order anniversary to my lovely friend Sister Mary Alix.