Evolutionary Plume

work out, repeat

Wed 4 hours to check out Mom's computer. Golf Thursday at Auburn, okay at 109 -- first freeze. Critiques, work outs yesterday and today --> 500 calories+ and weights. Edits to Warm, submissions, edits to Last Chief, and to poems. Dug into my fleece today -- too cold. Warm's out the door due to Heidi, Joe and Bob's help, hurrah!

Ideas of where to cut a too long manuscript

I wrote this up as a critique feedback then thought it might be generally helpful and something I might want to remember, based on my experience with my first novel  -- my main difficulty was an overly slow opening.  Any one or more of these tips may come in handy in dealing with cuts.

1) Are there any point of view (POV) characters who do not have the five minimum scenes needed to define them in general -- entry scene, action scene, sensual scene, conflict scene, resolution scene? If not, are they needed? Could some other character provide the same role?

2) Are there (POV) characters that have more than the minimum five scenes? If there are, is there any scenes which don't follow the main plot line i.e. (more than one entry, sensual, or action only) scene?

3) If you have a 500 page novel and 50 chapters, each chapter must be 10 pages long -- looking at each chapter, which parts of the chapter can be reduced or cut?

4) If you have a 500 page novel, that implies the opening 150 pages deals with introducing the characters -- anything more should be reduced, any action, conflict and sensual scenes that can be moved into this section will make the novel move quicker.

5) If you have a 500 page novel, that implies the closing 50 to 100 pages deals with resolving all conflicts -- if there are scenes in this section that deal with anything else or this section is longer, you might want to cut in this section.

6) If you have a 500 page novel, that implies a very hefty 250 pages dealing with conflict that is escalating -- is it escalating? Are their scenes that aren't dedicated to the main plot line? Think about cutting these scenes.

7) Are there any scenes dedicated to just passing information? Could this be handled better through a memo, email, epigraph, historical document excerpt?

8) For each of your characters -- what is their emotional curve? and what is happening to them along the plot line? Do you have one or more of these? If you have more than one emotional development series of events, you might be undercutting the readers ability to understand who they are clearly ie they may flop emotionally back and forth (true in life but maybe not good fiction). Which scenes are stronger? Weaker? Is all the conflict personal? or at multiple levels i.e. family, workplace, world, environment?

9) Do you have any scenes dedicated to just thinking? Can the thinking be mood setting to start an active scene i.e. can you combine one or more of your scenes to have more impact?

10) Do you have scene breaks where there has been a time shift that isn't apparent to the reader but adds transitional sentences -- this might be a place to cut.

Keeping up a blog

It's hard to keep up with a blog when you have other things going on. So the past two days and today at the start: burned 400+ calories and 36's on weights, same today. Golfed at Riverbend -- not so good at 106 especially since I started out with a par, sigh.

Critique with Joe and Heidi -- good feedback, wrong file -- sometimes I'm a total airhead. Good food at Nana's Soup kitchen in the U district. Rest of the time spent looking at the next year -- vacation plans, goals, what worked and didn't, ideas and cleaning up. Sorting paper and getting it ready to file. Smashing all the VP feedback onto one copy.

Note's from Viable Paradise

Schedule was busy -- daily critique, writing exercises, group dinner, lecture and Q&A plus some game time and meeting group. Afterward, you did your critiques of about 80 pages and wrote on the writing exercises.

In addition to the general group critique, we had one-on-ones with Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden and James MacDonald and Debra Doyle. I wished I had more written on my 2nd novel which I used in the sessions. Basic feedback -- metaphorical, poetic language is more consistent with fantasy -- they need to go with science fiction. My voice is more mainstream and needs to be more genre oriented -- think tech talk, I'll see. Debra Doyle had good suggestions about organizing the overall story flow. The big issue was conveying 16 years in a more immediate, energized form. Her suggestion to let my main character speak was also helpful, I was delaying it to see where I was going. One of the exercises -- right bit based on an object pulled out of a bag got me the start for her first scene, and a hook practice brought me scene starts for several characters. Patrick answered many of my questions about order -- publisher handles blurbs, promotion, copy-editing. It's not necessary to hire a professional editor, they're looking for good active stories, things that stand out. He wasn't aware of the UW's commercial/popular fiction certificate program.

Big messages: money flows to the writer, the groups manuscripts would be in the top 5% of slush pile, to get published you need to be in the top 2%. They get 6000 manuscripts a year. This is confidence building.

Lectures: emotional difficulties -- the ups and downs of going between your logical and creative self -- boy did I know this one in depth, but it was nice to know I was the only one. Research -- lots and lots. State of the industry -- science fiction has done well with the move to big box booksellers -- they're getting much more shelf space and sales. Short story markets -- start at the top and work down, keep submitting.  I can't find my notes so I'll add more on this topic later.

Note's from Writer's Weekend

The conference ran for several days with several sessions each hour-- here are some I attended with a brief what was learned:

Susan Sizemore, Ron Malfi, Jim Butcher -- Show Don't Tell

When do you tell and not show -- role building, history, short story with limited words. Have characters do something rather than say something, if you pick the perfect one or two words, the readers mind fills in the rest.

Eve Gordon, Wolfgang Baur -- Bust Myths

Don't wait for inspiration, sit down and write every day. Listen and accept critique. Establish a word count target for every day. Words people like too much you should get rid of : of course, obviously, perhaps, seem to, a moment, rubbing nose. Editors are not out to get you.

Ken Rand -- Details

Exercise -- describe candy. People see things pt to pt to pt, not the whole item. Brain fills in missing details -- bad side prejudice, cultural bias. Don't describe the obvious. 85% visual -- use all 5 senses. 4 or 5 sensory details every 2 pages.Writer's must be in control of time -- often lack context, need person, place, something happened, resolved in a scene. Beware of names with same number of syllables, and names that imply context ie Paris, Wy is different from Paris, France.

Anya Bast, Joanna King, Lorelei Shannon, Lisa Gold -- Research

Types, events, places to go. Science should be plausible.  Primary sources -- books written in period, letters, clothing at time, Writer's Digest Books, References for Genre, Manuals, Procedures. Publishing house require permissions or copyrights if song lyrics -- fair use is dependent, maybe 2 or 3 lines. It's worth it to contact property right owner directly since they'll often be flattered but with estate's the rules are often tighter. If use a real person as character, it's best that they are dead. If you satirize or parody someone, you will have to prove it is so. Historical atlas, historical societies are good.  UW Map collection, library of congress on line. Census. Ask the librarian. Don't forget thanks.

Melissa Singer -- Culture Details

The manuscripts she's found most interesting lately have dealt with cultural clash.  Speech and use of slang refer to where we live. Culture can make a plot more interesting and add depth to fiction without backstory.  Things that come up : how we handle dominate/subordinate behavior.  Need to get the details right. Not just religion, but ethnicity. White and black cops into hip hop are probably more similar than to those who are not. Culture affects what you eat, how you dress, comfort foods, how much time spent with family, who you hang out with as friends. Cultural differences come up at various times of year, through holidays, through the school year, through seasonal cycles. Affects personal space, name choices, kid culture, hair, tatoo's, jewelry, makeup, exteranl appearance, belly baring, what's taboo and deviant. Affects family structure -- marital status, educational background, degree of practice of religion, non members. Ways to research culture : get a personal contact, local news, anthropological or sociological studies, national geographic, Smithsonian Institute, Vanity Fair. Patricia Wreade -- online world building is recommended.

Ray Rhamey -- Flash Edit

Kill "ly" words, adverb adjectives. To place a character, have them react to setting. Editor may make suggestions of different words. Have details that are important, beware of jarring details that bring disconnect. Remove telling, have sensation. When it reaches the point of compellingness -- know what the story was about, know what he was going to do or did. Can use Bookmarks in editing by type of work needed. Careful of "Daisy" names. Start with the story -- who, what, when, how, why, where. Keep a person's thoughts together.

Alisa McKnight -- Query, Synopsis, Pitch

Pitch Method is a business presentation with goal of sounding like you know about your book and its market. Use a note card with code words about each of five areas : self, setting, heroine, hero, conflict. Give a sense of resolution. Hook : happens anytime you sound marketable -- high concept. Don't ramble.  Query -- get the title correct, name correct, company correct. Give brief bio at the end if not a published novelist. Remind them why you're sending them the book. Always thank them for their time.

In addition to all this, I had a chat with Evan Fogelman and a pitch session with Susannah Henshaw. And I missed lots of sessions. Overall -- good conference, good value, good contacts, very friendly and helpful organization and attendees.

Day off --

Played golf at Sumner Meadows again, 112 this time, worse, but then all the rain has made the rough rougher -- deep grass is hard to hit through with sore arms.

Finished the Philip K. Dick Reader -- my favorite, the Sales Pitch. But then, I have a wierd sense of humor.

critique group, critique and flogging thyself

Critiqued pages, met with Joe and Joan -- good general discussion on cutting, organization, purpose. Brought a dumpy scene -- more suitable as backstory, I guess though, one needs to get through that first before the scenes come. Or maybe they become one of the scenes left out that helps provide a sense of mystery. That scene will work that way since it is the foundation for my characters bad behavior. Oh, and burned 430 calories with additional sets(24's) on  weights.

Discussed some other rules of the road, many learned at Viable Paradise including the leave out scene hint above:

- just show the sensory data -- > don't lead in with I smelled, saw, heard etc.

- allow whitespace in scenery and description, only include what the reader needs to know, emotional cues, and really unique bits

- keep a scene focused on one purpose

- don't explain how, just use what with regard to technical/scientific data

- unique, futuristic names of common objects and specificity

- make sure time, place, setting is clear at the start of a story

- allow sensuality even without romance, its impingement of sensory data on the body

- process names don't change -- copy means the same thing whether using monks in a cave or a Xerox machine or a fax machine or a digital rewrite

- careful how much lump data one dumps on a reader

- money flows to the author (Yes, let it do that!)

- to cut, an author needs to get into a different mindset that during creation. I had to hate my novel and just want to get done with editing before I could do this.

Good news for women and more critique

Merck announced their study of their vaccine against cervical cancer had 100% effectivity rate -- now just what for approval. Seriously good news for women.

More critique today. Did my 375 calorie-burn at the gym along with heavy duty weights and then a walk to the store for peanut M&M's -- well, no one said I was angelic.

Critique/Summner Meadows

Played Sumner Meadows -- 109 from Gold tees. Okay for me, I muffed a lot of shots. Afterward, worked critique. Boohoo, Heidi!

Finished WARM, hallelujah!

At 9:00 I started to work, finally, although I finished the cut of Glimmertalk, earlier. Bob's made progress zapping words on Last Chief. Yesterday, had to get my head straight about what was being looked for in the market, compiled a to-do list, matched it againsts products, now all I have to do is clean it all up and submit.

The good news is I finished Warm -- 1600 words. I'm relieved, I wasn't sure I could get it out. Sent it off to Joe and Heidi for critique.

Plus burned 400 calories and did 24's on all weights except the belly stuff that I do at 48.

Next week is dedicated to clean up, compile Writer's Weekend and Viable Paradise notes and critique (80? from Joe and Heidi and I owe Critters) before trying to do new scenes.

Finished short story

Added another 1000 words to my "Titanic" story, expect it lacks something that a round of critique and edit will fix. Editing.

Oh yes, burned 200 calories and did full round of weights.

Fun night at Jump Start Poetry w/ SPLAB

Last night we had a fun play night at Jump Start Poetry with Paul Nelson from the Spoken Word Labs (SPLAB) www.splab.org as instructor -- we learned about Exquisite Corpse, heard tapes from Allan Ginsberg, Wanda Colman and Griot's, and Dian di Priam, and Ann Walheim who was into shamanistic chants and oppositional poetics, plus got materials on various poets and projective poetry, wrote interview poems, and learned about the "Wily American Sentence" see Paul's site www.americansentences.com, my own favorite is:

My love's gift of rose lies

decaying on my shelf,

forever at hand.

I had fun with this format and produced 3 others that need more work. Apparently I need to get the metaphor out of my sf writing, so this will work.

Note on retirement: we changed our "weekend" days to Mon and Thurs because this let us into less expensive and less crowded golf. Played West Seattle with a 109. Almost broke 50 on the front nine but lost it on the 9th when I was distracted by free squirrel food -- lots of chestnuts on the course.

Fun night at Jump Start Poetry w/ SPLAB

Last night we had a fun play night at Jump Start Poetry with Paul Nelson from the Spoken Word Labs (SPLAB) www.splab.org as instructor -- we learned about Exquisite Corpse, heard tapes from Allan Ginsberg, Wanda Colman and Griot's, and Dian di Priam, and Ann Walheim who was into shamanistic chants and oppositional poetics, plus got materials on various poets and projective poetry, wrote interview poems, and learned about the "Wily American Sentence" see Paul's site www.americansentences.com, my own favorite is:

My love's gift of rose lies

decaying on my shelf,

forever at hand.

I had fun with this format and produced 3 others that need more work. Apparently I need to get the metaphor out of my sf writing, so this will work.

Note on retirement: we changed our "weekend" days to Mon and Thurs because this let us into less expensive and less crowded golf. Played West Seattle with a 109. Almost broke 50 on the front nine but lost it on the 9th when I was distracted by free squirrel food -- lots of chestnuts on the course.

Busy, busy

Burned 400 calories and light weights. Then wrote a 1000 word scene. Submitted my novel to a publisher. Edits to a story. Put Spain photo's on line.

Movies and a scene

Saw Serenity -- what can one say? Tried Debra Doyle's suggestion re:main character narrative -- wrote 1000 words on it, she doesn't believe it's here story entirely either.  I'm going to move on past the story beginning tomorrow -- the first chapters can be fixed once I know what the story really is about.

Good resources for a believable world

Some of my favorite books for use in writing Earth based setting include:

• Sunset's Western Garden Book, Landscaping Book
• Any of the Tory Peterson Field Guides -- includes mushrooms, mammals, sealife, also any of the Birding Guides out there
• AAA Guides for states
• Ultimate Visual Dictionary
• Art Books
• Maps
• My old college textbook : Human Geography
• web research results and blog photo's
• Herb and herbal medicine books

Good resources for a believable world

Some of my favorite books for use in writing Earth based setting include:

• Sunset's Western Garden Book, Landscaping Book
• Any of the Tory Peterson Field Guides -- includes mushrooms, mammals, sealife, also any of the Birding Guides out there
• AAA Guides for states
• Ultimate Visual Dictionary
• Art Books
• Maps
• My old college textbook : Human Geography
• web research results and blog photo's
• Herb and herbal medicine books

Back from Viable Paradise, woo hoo!

Exhausted, but my confidence boosted. Who cares if it was worth more than that? I have a red rose on my desk, courtesy of my 8th anniversary (11th as lovers), a list of to-do's, the laundry done, and ready to go. I have notes to enter in summary. Oh, yes, woo hoo, and the news that one of my poems has been published in Wild Violet http://www.wildviolet.net or http://www.wildviolet.net/waking_world/abejos.html for the direct path. It's the second of my poems on Spain, a favorite, and is based on the Greek myth related to Aristaeus, the "Keeper of the Flocks". Also Easter Parade, Granada, 2004 and two other poems I read at the Frye Art Museum, Fire and The Miner on http://www.poetswest.com/selected.htm . This makes it a very good poetry quarter for me, so I'm thinking about putting up the Spain photo's, too.

Arrived in Providence

Travel across the country is a real job, too many hours of sit-itis. Finished reading Gridlinked by Neal Asher -- I liked it very much.  It's 9:00 our time but midnight here. Have tomorrow's birding spots picked out on the way to Falmouth, a shopping list prepared, and luggage! Last time to Providence, Bob's suitcase didn't arrive with us, so this makes us feel like we're ready to go -go -go.