He Looked at Her Comma

r-avatarThe revisions on the music novel keep moving, not very fast, but moving. Our focus has been on heightening descriptions. Jen is concentrating on the characters, and Kent is working on the setting.

At least that’s the theory. Funny thing when you scrutinize your text, you keep finding things that could be better. Little sentence structure improvements, little punctuation tweaks, wordiness, these are all things you should be on the lookout for. Of course, they are a perennial distraction from the task at hand.

We sync up our edits verbally at the end of the night, which is a technique we find very helpful for keeping both writing partners hooked into the text as it’s evolving. Lately our work sessions have culminated in conversations like this.

Kent: “Add a comma after ‘her’ in the fourth paragraph.”
Jen: “Wow, that really makes the city come to life.”

Hard to pin down which of the five senses is invoked by a comma.

Marguerite Entertained a Feeling

  • k-avatarclearly jacked around
  • a feeling of ennui
  • sitting passively while her mother combed her hair
  • Rabbis singing
  • a minor avalanche

Marguerite entertained a feeling of ennui, even sitting passively while her mother combed her hair. In the hallway she heard Rabbis singing, their stentorian chant releasing a minor avalanche of Gentile spiders fleeing the resounding Yiddish. The apartment in the synagogue had cheap rent, but the landlord clearly jacked around Marguerite’s impressionable mother.

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“Speaking of Prison Cells”

  • by jenBut this involves a contradiction
  • we stayed home and did our lovemaking in bed
  • Professor Palgrave had found 288 lyrics
  • speaking of prison cells
  • and I am not a walking corpse
  • Happy Birthday to you!

“Speaking of prison cells,” said Professor Palgrave, “once my wife and I were arrested for public indecency. Let me tell you, after spending a few hours in police custody, we wished we stayed home and did our lovemaking in bed!”

His grad students chuckled and blushed at the thought of the portly professor in such a predicament, though he was the best teacher in the music department.

Professor Palgrave had found 288 lyrics to unreleased John Lennon songs in a shoe box at an auction in Liverpool, England, thus cementing his notoriety among his students, and in the music press.

“But this involves a contradiction, this story of yours, Professor,” said one of the newer students. “I thought you said you weren’t married.”

“And I am not a walking corpse, either,” said the professor grumpily. “But I feel like one sometimes. My wife left me shortly after the unfortunate incident I just related to you. She couldn’t stand the shame. She left on my birthday of all days.”

“Well, Happy Birthday to you!” said his teaching assistant sarcastically. “That’s pretty heartless.”

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Marketing… We got nuthin

r-avatarAt our last critique group meeting, one of our colleagues told us about his experiences so far working with a professional editor (overwhelmingly positive). He now has an editor as well as an agent, and the conversation at our meeting delved into all the business-of-writing stuff that we just basically suck at.

There’s a rant that wants to get started, but we’ll try to keep our cool.

It prompted us to face that we need to get back into some kind of habit of trying to sell our work. We’ve sent out queries in the past, and we’ve gone to conferences and pitched agents at the slam, but for several years now we’ve done very little marketing of any kind.

Why is it so hard for us? (Not just for us, we know.)

  1. it takes time, time that’s already in short supply, so it cuts into our “real” writing
  2. querying is a different kind of writing, so those mental muscles need a separate warm-up
  3. the fact that it’s different from writing fiction makes it feel a bit perverse that it’s the package by which we are trying to attract representation for said fiction
  4. it’s frustrating; we do get tired of hearing “thanks anyway”

That wasn’t too ranty, right?

Why don’t we self-publish then, if we’re so bothered by the traditional process? We’ve been asking ourselves that very question with increasing frequency. Of course, we already are self-publishing some stuff — you’re reading it right now. But we know that the amount of work involved with publishing a novel ourselves is enormous. Sending a batch of queries feels like a major effort, so it’s probably wishful thinking that we could solve that problem by taking on the entire workflow.

What we know for sure is that our current approach — waiting for psychic vibrations between us and an influential publishing magnate to generate a contract out of thin air — isn’t going to work. We need to carve out the time and follow some kind of strategy.

“Do You Think You Could Let Me Have Some Blood?”

  • k-avatarThis will be a strange and rich experience
  • the cradle’s still soft
  • either snobbery or laziness
  • do you think you could let me have some blood?
  • I feel the better for our little chat
  • Italians often exaggerate such things
  • it bubbled out of him abruptly

“Do you think you could let me have some blood?”

Miguel nodded and shifted his weight in his chair, and then it bubbled out of him abruptly like a sneeze.

Vincenzo hastened to position the cup so none would go to waste. “Mamma Mia!” he shouted. “This is the most generous helping!” Although Italians often exaggerate such things, Vincenzo was being honest. Lifting his glass, Vincenzo breathed, “This will be a strange but rich experience.” And then he tossed it off.

Miguel mumbled at length, his words slurred by either snobbery or laziness. All Vincenzo could catch were the words, “…the cradle’s still soft…” And then Miguel passed out.

“I feel the better for our little chat,” Vincenzo proclaimed.

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Devlin du Mauvais Knew Himself to be a Very Attractive Man

  • by jenperhaps a bit long and square-jawed
  • unable to cause his larynx to make sound
  • something as mundane as a monkey reflex
  • through his half-open shirtfront
  • “Welcome, gentlemen, to Sugarloaf Mountain.”
  • next thing you’ll be hearing church bells
  • with their passionate tornadoes of paper

Devlin du Mauvais knew himself to be a very attractive man, even if his hair was perhaps a bit long. And square-jawed masculinity never went out of style, he knew, but it did nothing to explain his skill as a black magician.

Devin’s sister Minerva grasped the throat of the dead man on the table, but no matter how hard she squeezed, she was unable to cause his larynx to make sound.

“Why does this carcass defy me!?” she demanded. “He should at least possess something as mundane as a monkey reflex, not just lay there inertly.”

“Sister, dear, calm down, or the next thing you’ll be hearing church bells ringing through your nerves and the men in white, with their passionate tornadoes of paperwork, will take you away again.”

Minerva took a deep breath, then she smiled seductively and tweaked Devlin’s nipple through his half-open shirtfront.

As they kissed, she ran her hand down to his erection and cooed, “Welcome, gentlemen, to Sugarloaf Mountain.”

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How Would You Describe That?

r-avatarThe heavy lifting is done in our revisions of the Music Novel, aka Novel #4, but we still have miles to go. We’ve set up a list of global revision issues, each of which pretty much necessitates a separate pass through the full manuscript.

For example, one of the major characters is British, and we identified the need to make that more evident through the usage choices in her scenes. Not just within her dialog, but also the narrative if the scene is from her point of view — we want her point of view to really be the camera lens for those scenes. In other, subtler ways, each POV character needs similar attention. Some of them are less optimistic about life (especially later in the tale…) and some of them are just wired differently. We want certain foibles to be evident in which details the character’s notice, and in their choices of inward adjectives and similes.

And on top of all that, we also need to make the locale more vivid. This one’s set in New York City, primarily Manhattan, and we apparently got lazy about describing the place. After all, it’s on TV a thousand times a week, so everybody knows what it’s like, right? Lazy! Our real wake-up about this issue was when we heard reader feedback on Novel #5, and people repeatedly praised the job we did on the setting. In that case, it’s a fictitious city and because we made it up we were eager to tell folks all about it. So to fix things in the Music Novel, we came up with this simple strategy: pretend we invented New York City. It makes the writing more fun, largely because of the frequency with which we realize just how weird a place New York actually is, probably weirder than anything we would have concocted!

To deal with so many global changes, we split up the list between us. Kent is focusing mainly on “inventing NYC” at the moment, and Jen has moved on from the Anglophonic project to physical traits of the characters. It’s humming along pretty well now, but it’s taken the past week or so for Kent to get back into the swing of things now that we’re back from Europe. Jen must be more resistant to jet lag.

Did we mention we were going to Europe? Prague is a devastatingly gorgeous city. We insist you visit. Go. Right now. Eat trdelník and schnitzel. Drink hot wine and Pilsner Urquell. Visit the astronomical clock and the Museum of Sex Machines. We couldn’t invent a better city if we tried.

Prague prague2 prague3

Hector and Amelia

  • k-avataran unenviable chore
  • sagging out from under her hand
  • “Coffee?”
  • the youngest of the preschool children
  • it thumped ponderously east
  • an interminable bawl

Hector and Amelia sat atop the youngest of the preschool children as it thumped ponderously east.

“Coffee?” Amelia suggested, the sopping brown towel sagging out from under her hand. Hector shook his head and stared at the moon just risen ahead of them. Wringing the stuff out into a mug was an unenviable chore given the uneven motion of the mammoth toddler’s head. And if any of the hot liquid touched his scalp, he’d set the mountains a-tremble with an interminable bawl.

 

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Arnold Gazed in Dismay

  • by jenthe vulgar world of newspaperdom
  • did not suggest a tightly packed foundation
  • my island, my mountain, my land
  • whatever portion of the anatomy
  • it’ll swallow the house
  • roller coasters, whorehouses
  • “Oho. Deranged am I?
  • don’t like being put in such a position

Arnold gazed in dismay at the stripper. Whatever portion of the anatomy she chose to display, it did not suggest a tightly packed foundation.

“Her ass is so big it’ll swallow the house,” he complained to his pal Ricky.

“I like it,” Ricky replied.

“You’re deranged.”

“Oho. Deranged am I? Well at least I’ll get laid tonight. Nothing pleases you, Arnold. Not roller coasters, whorehouses, or foot massages. This is my island, my mountain, my land, and you’re making me feel like an inadequate host. I don’t like being put in such a position and so I shall banish you back to the vulgar world of newspaperdom from whence you  came!”

“Whence?” complained Arnold. “Who uses that word anymore?”

 

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Being Awesome Together

r-avatarMostly we write about the logistical and procedural aspects of writing with a partner: how to divvy up the work, how we can each play to our strengths, and so on. What we mention in passing is that we talk to each other a lot, and now maybe it’s time to make those conversations the focus of a post on the Skelleyverse.

Kent’s current assignment is to make a pass through the music novel watching for places to have the main character “think in music” — we want readers to be able to hear the world through his ears, and we want it to be clear that music is fundamental to him, not just something he does. Well, Kent made use of Scrivener’s nifty tools for filtering and organizing text nodes to find the places where such edits would make sense, and … stared at it for an hour. Eventually he changed one word. It was a good one, mind you. But let’s review: one word.

But then — but then! — while Kent and Jen were spooling down from their gruelling work session, they chatted about Kent’s mission for about five minutes and came up with several excellent ideas for ways to incorporate the desired flavor. If Kent hadn’t been so fixated on the notion that it was “his” job to come up with this stuff, they could have spent some time chatting up front and come out way ahead.

Every writer needs someone to talk to, even if it’s not a partner per se. It’s critical for effective problem-solving. And if you are lucky enough to have someone sitting in the same room with you, who knows the details of your project and understands the creative vision, then don’t squander the opportunity to think out loud with that person! Good things will happen.