Time off

I haven't written anything in...a while now.  Over a month.  That's not to say I haven't done anything though.

I solved, or at least I believe I solved, a conundrum I was having with character death.  I won't know till I get to writing the actual meat of the story, but my solution has made planning go more smoothly.

I have also submitted query letters to two agencies located in Canada.  Both have ~2 week turnarounds, and if I hear back negatively from them, well, I will send to more agencies. 

A query letter, from the research I've done, seems to be a short, one-page introduction to yourself, and y our novel.  I will post the query letters I sent, as well as any responses I receive, later.

I also applied to TOR to write a blog for them, essentially duplicating what I am writing on this blog, but hopefully making money off it.

Money makes the world go 'round, and all that jazz.

Lore

I've started building lore.  In my first novel, I mention some religion, some historical and religious texts.  I'm not sure if passages from them will ever be used later, but I"ve decided it's time to write them out.  I know what they contain, in general, but I feel like sitting down and putting them to paper might be a good idea, a good place to start from.

I have a history of the world, and of the universe, in mind.  Telling the story of the world, and making it interesting, is the difficult part. 

I have three sort of starting points for what I'm trying to do with my novels, and I guess this is as good a place as any to explain them.

My first inspiration is David Eddings.  I've already mentioned here somewhere how much his Belgariad series meant to me when I was young; how much they shaped who I am and what I’m interested in.  He's the first starting point for what I’m trying to do.  My first goal.

My second starting point comes from Isaac Asimov.  One of the best, and most prolific, writers of all time, Asimov was my introduction to Science Fiction, just as David Eddings was my first introduction to Fantasy (Okay, really my first introduction to Fantasy was Tolkien, but isn't he everyone's?).  What Asimov did was to me, at the time at least, astounding.  He took all his various novels and short stories, from the Robot series to the Foundation novels, even to his R. Daneel Olivaw Detective novels and, in the end, tied them all together.  One giant, persistent, mostly coherent universe, spanning thousands of years; hundreds of characters.  Yes, some inconsistencies were created (You can look them up if you're not familiar with them.  Or even better, go read all of Asimov's books and find them yourselves.  I can wait), but the revelation that everything was tied together was, for a late-teenaged me, astounding. 

My third starting point is Robert Jordan, and here's where it gets tricky.  Robert Jordan created both one of the most detailed and expansive worlds I've yet read (I'm sure there are others out there, I just haven't gotten to them yet), and one of the most secretive.  There are hints throughout of a giant, expansive timeline; one that extends from today to the far far future and back.  But they're never really acted upon.  I very much enjoyed the world Jordan created; I just wish it were more open, more revealed.  I also wish the series were about three books shorter (9, 10, 11), but that's beside the point.

The point is, I have a starting point.  Or, I have three starting points.  Three examples of what I want to do with my world building.  I've tried to start with characters; with creating people to fill the world.  But I feel like they come to me when I write; that I pull them to me when I need them, and that they're best left alone until they're needed.

So now, I'm going to try another approach.  I'm going to build the history of the world, starting with its ancient legends, its religion.  Hopefully from that I will be able to extract the lands and the people that inhabit the world.  They already exist somewhere in my head, and I’m hoping that this new approach can help me drag them, kicking and screaming, onto paper. 

Quiet on the Written Front

All’s been quiet on the written front the past week or so. I’ve done some more planning for my second novel, mainly world-building notes; countries, cultures, economies, rivalries, pastries, the usual.  But it’s been quiet.  Life intrudes.

Which leaves me with two points:

One, waiting sucks.  I understand the wait, but having to go six months before hearing back from a publisher on a manuscript you submitted is just…painful.  I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but the waiting hurts.  And not just in a ‘oh I hope someone accepts my book and I become a tri-zillionaire and all my woes are suddenly cured because someone wants to publish me’ way, because all that is totally a thing that would happen.

The waiting hurts because of the lack of confidence it instills. 

So far, everyone who has read my first novel (and told me they have) has been a friend, or at least an acquaintance.  True, they’ve all told me it’s great, that it’s entertaining, that they want to read more, but there’s the continual nagging doubt in the back of my mind that they’re just saying that.  Waiting for someone that doesn’t know me to read my book and judge it…it’s excruciating.  Not knowing what strangers think, not knowing whether my first novel will ever be read by anyone outside my immediate friend circle, it makes it hard to write the second book. 

Writing the first, I was filled with some measure of confidence.  Some measure of, I can do this, and I can do it well.  I can take the story that’s in my head, and put it on paper.  And I could; I did. 

Writing the second, I’m filled with dread.  Yes, I can do this; I can take the story that’s in my head and put it on paper.  But why should I?  Why bother?  Will anyone read it?

The second of my two points is that life intrudes.  It intrudes often.  To begin with, working a full time job leaves little time to write.  Work, go home, cook food, relax (for sanity), sleep repeat.  Even the weekends are taken up by renovating, repairing, and managing my house; making sure the place doesn’t fall apart around me.  Important work.

I’m rushing through these two points, and I may revisit either or both of them later in more detail, for a reason.  In order to try to combat the lack of confidence, and the inability to find time, I’m going to try a solution.

Wednesday night is now writing night. 

I will get home from work, cook food, and then write. 

Who knows.  Maybe with a dedicated time to write I will be able to force the nagging doubts from the first point and the lack of confidence from the second one to back down and let me do what I really want to do.

Only time will tell.

Rejection

A new post?

A new post.

That’s almost two posts in a week, which would be impressive if this weren’t the first week of this blog’s life.

I’ve always had a slight problem with procrastination.  All throughout University, I would make things up as I went along.  Why do readings when I can make up answers well enough to pass?  Why actually research papers when I can write them at the last minute and then find quotes that fit my point three hours before the paper has to be handed in?

Why clean now when I can clean tomorrow, or the next day, or never?

If I leave plates out long enough, they’ll biodegrade, right?

Procrastination and getting writing done don’t go too well together.  The number of times I found myself distracted while writing my first book, well, it turned what should have taken me six months into a two year process.

And it did take me two years, after editing, to write my first novel, an 80,000 word ‘behemoth’ (that’s sarcasm, which sadly doesn’t translate well on paper).

So now, planning the sequel to my first book, I’m struck with more procrastination.

Character planning?  Drawings of locations, styles of dress, working out the economic trappings that move an entire continent?

Why would I work on that, when I could just watch TV?  Or clean?  Or cut my toenails?

Somewhere the procrastination will have to stop.  I just haven’t figured out where yet. 

It’s like the age-old depiction of good and evil, tiny figures standing on peoples’ shoulders, opposites eternally telling us to do the right thing, or do the wrong thing.  Well, procrastination sits in the middle, its feet covered in unchanged socks, lounging in a reclining chair in a half-open bathrobe, eating popcorn and watching the Discovery channel.

Or maybe the History channel.

Or maybe Fox.

Whatever procrastination is watching, it sits there, waiting and listening while good and evil battle it out and then, when one of them inevitably wins and says you should do something, procrastination chimes in, popcorn bits spraying out of its mouth like a fire hose while it says, with more whine than Italy, ‘fine, but do it laaaater’.

Right.

So, that was a rather long and unnecessary analogy.  Where was I?

Right.  I have a lot of planning to do, sorting out a new continent for a sequel, populating it, creating and drawing an assortment of secondary and supporting characters, really just creating a world.

And I just can’t bring myself to do anything but watch Brooklyn nine nine.

It’s terrible.

So that’s been the progress on a sequel this week.  Thinking about maybe starting and getting distracted by television.

There has been some progress on getting my first novel published at least.

And by progress I mean I got my first rejection letter.

WOOOO partyyyyyyy

I’m going to get it framed.

No seriously.  Framed and put on a wall.  This first one, and every one that comes after.

It came from Penguin/DAW, and was not bad, for a form rejection.  Thanks for applying, don’t give up, we can only take the best because of the failing market on books, you know.  The usual.

Or what seems like it might be the usual anyway.  I’ll find out when I get the next rejection letter, I suppose.

p.s. For anyone interested, below is what a rejection letter looks like.  Woo!  Rejection!  Party!