Can’t talk, working…

A bit late, but better late than never, right?

Right…

So, anywho, I finished my book… oh, in March or so, as all of you regular readers probably know by now, and then I took about six months off from it. I queried around a bit, I wrote some other stuff and I collected some rejections. I’ve sent 12 out so far—queries, that is… and I’ve had a couple of partials and a full request, but ultimately, six Nos have returned.

Them’s the breaks…

But somewhere around the turn of the year, I got a wild hair and I lifted my novel from the dust it lay in, creaked open it’s cover, and then I started cutting. Cutting like a mad man, a MAD MAN, I say! And the results? Stupefying. That's when I had the thought. It was a good thought, a dangerous thought, and as I had precious little time, my plan formed quickly. I figured, if I moved fast enough, what with the Holiday lull of office closings and all, I could cut, I could strip down, I could pare, and then I could re-assemble… and all before I received (fingers crossed) more requests for additional pages.

So that’s what I’ve been busy doing and you know… so far, so good.

I’m nearly done now, so very nearly done (last chapter, twenty-ish pages...), and with only one response having shown up in the interim to boot (and who cares since it was a No). I still need to implement the changes I've made, of course, but that’s okay, the heavy lifting is basically done and I still have the original doc saved in a different file and ready to go out at a moment’s notice, just in case.

I’ve got to say though, I am dead excited for these changes. Dead excited. Really. I can’t wait to see my book's new form. I have been hacking, people, broad strokes, and frankly, I am shocked at what I am so easily willing and able to cut loose. Six months later and I can see it clearly now: Those old bits that were always meant to lead somewhere but then didn’t, the moments that might have almost come together into something, but never quite did, and those meandering tangents and flights of fancy… GONE!

It’s hard to describe the feeling, if you haven’t ever worked on a long project like a novel, that feeling where you know something isn’t working, and you eventually just move on, returning again and again to hack at it and hack at it and hack at it, and sometimes, if you're lucky, it suddenly all becomes clear, sometimes your mind just opens up and you realize: “Why don’t I just say what I want to say here?” and then... it totally works. Totally, it's golden and it’s perfect and you just kind of shake your head and wonder why you were having such a problem in the first place.

But sometimes?

Sometimes you go through that exhausting process… and nothing. Nothing! It’s so frustrating. You know it’s not working, but what do you do? It's just sits there, awkward and ugly, an ungainly bastard squatting there and ruining your rhythm... bastard! And then one day, you just cut it loose, excise it like a festering wound, and...

It’s an instant and complete sigh of relief. As soon as you hit that delete button… you just know. You feel better right away, you know it’s the right decision—even if you liked that one little turn of phrase in there… It’s just better this way. It even looks better, you know? Well, that’s how this edit has been. It’s just been right and I think the end product is going to be really good. Like I said: Dead excited. Of course, no one’s really going to notice the differences as much as I do, but still…

I'll come right out and say it: I’m expecting the Dewey Oxberger of WIPs here, people: A lean, mean, fighting machine.

Hand in hand with all that of course, is the tantalizing prospect that I will soon be done. Thank God! The thought that I will soon be done and moving on, man... finally? It's brilliant. And I am ready too, believe me. After three-ish years, I am itching to get writing again. Book Two waits patiently for me, of course, but before I dive back in there, and once Gunslingers is put to bed forever and ever (hopefully), I'm going to work out a bit, limber up, stretch out the old writin' muscles. I’m feeling the urge for something a little different, so I think I'm going to try out a few short stories… and buddy, I got some ideas. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, I got some ideas.

And best of all?

There are still six unanswered queries out there... Dewey Oxberger, man, Dewey Oxberger...

More on Time - or rather the lack of it

Indeed, I'm still pondering time.

Although really, in this post I'll be discussing a peculiar lack of it.

No, not that I lack the kind of time that I want to devote to writing, (tho' that is true).

Nope, in this little post, I'll be considering a curious lack of the actual word "Time" in my novel.

To try to create a distinctive voice for my main character, (remember she's a bear, no a girl, no a beargirl,) I've played a little trick on myself. I figured that animals in general, and bears in particular, don't have the same understanding of time that humans do. To help myself try to write like a bear, well, like a half-girl, half-bear, I gave myself some taboo words. Words that Beryl will not use. Ever.

Time.

Day.

Month.

Year...

Yesterday becomes Yestersun.

"I'm twelve years old" becomes "I'm in my thirteenth seasoncircle"

I'm constantly catching myself using the taboo words. Especially time. I use it all the time. (See). And sometimes (ha!) it's really hard to figure out another way to say what I want to say, without that little word, time. And certainly just as often, I don't catch myself, because I can't seem to fully embody my characters. That's where editing comes in--and thank the stars and the moon (as Beryl would say) that there's this nifty thing called a word search.

But for all the trouble this rule has given me, in the end, it's been a helpful structure to impose on myself, kind of like a boundary within which I can sculpt a fuller character. It's the empty void that's the necessary compliment to the stuff of life. The lack that allows for a presence. Just not being able to use a half dozen or so words has shaped the metaphors Beryl uses, her insights into the quirkiness of us full-humans, and by all means, what she says when she gets really angry.

And, oh my dirt clod, has it been fun figuring out how a preteen beargirl would swear.