Below are the most recent 10 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
shanna_s	10:50a	Vacation Fail I'm starting to see why I haven't taken a real vacation -- as in extended time off, without any work -- in forever. I totally fail at vacation. I'm not even really vacating yet. Part of it is that this comes right after crunching a book, so that I shoved everything else aside, which means I still have a lot of work and personal stuff to wrap up before I can really relax. Yesterday, I did one set of radio scripts (the writing I know I'm getting paid for, so that can't slide) and the research for another set. I didn't quite make it on the supply run because I was just too tired. I did manage a couple of hours of reading a book I didn't write, which was bliss. Today, I have another set of radio scripts to do and a bunch of business and personal e-mail I need to reply to. The e-mail is going to be a problem because anything I got on my personal address before yesterday is trapped in my client that the server will no longer accept, so I'll have to copy addresses into web mail to reply. And now I really, really have to make that supply run, not just to have some fun vacation treats but also to have any food at all in the house. Plus I have to make a trip to the post office. I never thought of myself as a workaholic, but the work never really seems to go away entirely, even when I'm not actively working on a book. If I stay quiet for the day and stay hydrated, my voice should be back enough to sing the soprano part of The Messiah tonight, so that's good. And then tomorrow maybe I can enjoy true vacation. I was thinking that tomorrow might be my big day out -- maybe playing tourist locally, go to a museum, take the train somewhere. Right now, though, I kind of just want to hang around the house and chill. I think if I have the energy, going out would be a good idea because that will jolt the brain into the sense of it not being business as usual, and it would force me to stay away from the computer all day. Friday's supposed to be rainy, so I think that will be my curl-up-with-a-book day. I'm thinking Saturday I'll go hiking down to the river, and I might go for "Glee: The Live Version" because the local high school show choir has a concert. But for now, I have to get some groceries. And answer e-mails. And write medical radio scripts. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
shanna_s	10:41a	Done! (Really!) Now I'm really done. In a new record (I think -- at least since I broke out the stopwatch -- I logged 9 hours of work time yesterday. I read the entire book out loud. I don't know that I'd recommend that for the future, as I have next to no voice left and will have to remain almost entirely silent today so I can sing at choir rehearsal tomorrow. Normally I do the one-day read through and the read out loud as two different passes, so I don't try to read the whole thing out loud in one day. The one-day read-through is to approximate the reader experience. That's when things like pet words and phrases really pop out at you -- read it once in a day and it's not a problem, but five times in one day, and you cringe. That's also when continuity errors show up or when I notice that I made a similar joke in two different places in the book. Reading it straight through is a good way to see how the plot flows, and that's when I can force myself to admit that some of my "darlings" really have to go, that there are cute scenes that are actually kind of boring and annoying, and they have zero purpose in the plot. Meanwhile, reading aloud is a good way to catch typos, missing words and other errors, and it ensures that the sentences aren't too awkward. If I stumble over reading them out loud, then they might cause a mental glitch when reading silently, so they need to be fixed. Now I just need to send it to my agent, if I can fix the current e-mail glitch (why does AT&T feel the need to keep changing e-mail settings overnight, without bothering to notify anyone, so you have to go to their help site and get the new server address in order to connect through a client? I can use web mail, but I have everything organized through Entourage). And then I'm on vacation. Sort of. I still have to write my radio scripts for the week, and I think I'll go ahead and do two weeks for good measure so I don't have to worry about it next week and they can get a jump start on the holiday. Then I need to make a supply run. So I guess today is kind of a half day. Still, I hope to have the time to finish reading the book I've been reading for the past two weeks. I really like it, but it's not a book best enjoyed a paragraph or two at a time. I may try to keep up the blog posting while I'm on "vacation," but my goal is to stay off the computer as much as possible. The way to get the benefits of a vacation while staying home is to really change your usual routine, and I spend most of the day on the computer, so to feel like I'm on vacation, I need to stay away from it. I've also tended to use unplanned goof-off time for playing on the computer, so that's a big reason I haven't felt I could justify a vacation in years. Now, though, I logged more than enough hours to meet my vacation goal. I didn't get my house hotel clean, but at this point, I don't care. I just want a break. I'm hoping that after Thanksgiving I can try to establish some better work habits so I can maintain the steady work production without going insane. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 16th, 2009
shanna_s	10:22a	Done! (sort of) The latest draft was finished shortly after 1 in the morning on Saturday (so it was a very late night Friday night). And then my next-door neighbor's clock radio alarm went off at 4:50 Saturday morning. Which explains why one of my grand success fantasies is selling the townhouse and getting a house where none of my walls connect with anyone else's. Or else finding a way to soundproof the connecting wall (because moving would be a real hassle, and I'd have to do a lot of work on this place to sell it even in a decent economy). I had zero brainpower left, so my weekend mostly involved spending the days with friends and the evenings with the television. Saturday night, I was such a zombie that I couldn't even manage to read, and I couldn't follow anything on TV that was too complex or intense. So, I watched last week's CSI crossover trilogy OnDemand. And how did I not know about CSI Miami being the funniest show on TV? It's like the Saturday Night Live version of a CSI show. I laughed until I think I broke something, and I definitely laughed until I cried. Mostly, it's the acting. Most of the cast sounds like they're reading the script for the very first time off cue cards, and they're stumbling over the hard words. Then there's David Caruso, who somehow manages to deliver every single line as though he's a bad soap opera doctor giving a terminal diagnosis. "I'm afraid it's (dramatic pause, then in an ominous whisper) cancer." Except, in this context it's more like, "We should dust for (dramatic pause, then in an ominous whisper) fingerprints." Now I know what to pull up OnDemand if I've had a bad day and need to laugh myself silly. Or maybe that was just the effect of the zombie Book Brain, and at any other time it would just be excruciatingly bad. Sunday, we gathered for a viewing of a certain British "medical drama" that had a new episode in the UK (ahem). And then that night, I caught up on my taped TV from the week before. Now, though, I have a marathon stretch ahead of me, with one last pass through the book. I have my list of "remind me to go back in time and put a trash can here" items to Bill and Ted, and I'd like to cut around 1,000 words, which means I probably need to cut more than that because the Bill and Tedding will add words, though there may be some reverse Bill and Tedding, as I think there are a few things I set up and didn't end up using because I changed my mind when I got there. And then tomorrow (or whenever I finish), the vacation starts. Yay! (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, November 13th, 2009
shanna_s	11:23a	Not There Yet I thought I would finish yesterday, but I didn't quite get there because I'm still not entirely sure of how the ending should go. When I called it a night last night, I was leaning toward something along the lines of "and then a bomb drops and everyone dies. The End." Or maybe a meteor. I still worked for more than six hours, and I even taped my usual Thursday TV to work instead, so I was a little mad at myself that I had so little to show for it. And then I realized that I probably wrote about twenty pages of new material, which isn't bad for a day's work. I also spent a lot of time on research, trying to find the right place for something to happen and to find details on that place once I decided on it. And then when I got to that point in the book, I changed my mind and used an entirely different place. Even though it's a place I know, I decided I'd better look it up, and sure enough, that place has changed pretty dramatically in the time frame the story covers (it involves finding something that was put there a while ago, so it has to be something that hasn't changed since then). I think I may have figured out how the new ending should go. I'm going to review the stuff I wrote yesterday, and then I have some library books to return, so I'll walk to the library this afternoon and then maybe get a cup of tea and sit on the patio by the water for some brainstorming. Then I'll probably skip Stargate: Whatever tonight to write. And then I'll let myself take the weekend off entirely (I actually have social events on the calendar), then do my rapid re-read on Monday and then go on vacation. I need to get some books out there to be sold because my biggest recurring dream/nightmare lately involves having to find a real job. The dreams have mostly been about going back to my old jobs or working with my former clients, but last night I was working in a school, and there was some kind of certification program for people coming to teaching from other careers that I was supposed to be doing, but I kept insisting that I was just a long-term substitute, that I wasn't interested in a teaching certificate. Let's just say that made for some nice motivation to get to work. I would make a lousy teacher. (Comment on this)
Thursday, November 12th, 2009
shanna_s	10:47a	The Length Question I might finish the book today. I have about a chapter and a half to go. I know what happens in the rest of the chapter, but I'm not really sure about the last chapter/big finish. This wasn't supposed to be this big a rewrite. My agent thought it would require just a few little tweaks. But the questions she raised sparked ideas, and then those ideas led to a few little tweaks -- but then those tweaks has this massive domino effect that changed more and more until I pretty much had to throw out the last few chapters entirely. It's going to take some re-envisioning to re-do the last chapter because that ending was something I'd always pictured, and this particular project is an old partially completed project that I decided needed to be finished, so that ending's been in my head for years. I even researched that setting, but it turns out that I'll probably end up using research I did for an entirely unrelated book that I may never write for the setting for the new ending. Then I'll have to read the whole thing straight through for proofreading and to do some minor Bill and Tedding, and I'll be done! I think at this point, I would push back on any further rewrite requests because I don't think they'd make the book better. They'd just edit the life out of it or make it my agent's book and not mine. While I'm battling Book Brain, I'm answering some reader questions. If you have questions you'd like me to address -- about writing, publishing, me, my books, etc. -- leave them in comments. I don't promise to answer all of them, but I'll do a post if a question inspires me. Question: I don't know about anyone else but I'm still confused about word lengths. Some debut ya fantasy novels are 80K-90K. Some like Twilight are 120K. Some like City of Bones are 130K. Yet agents all say that the word count should be under 120K or something...it's confusing. What's a good length for a debut writer (writing in that genre)? I don't know a lot about the young adult market, but my agent did a blog post a few months ago about that. Her view was that length is the wrong thing to ask about when it comes to middle grade or YA books. Those markets are all about the pacing, so a fast-paced book with lots of twists and turns can be really long and still hold reader interest. That applies to the adult market as well, but younger readers do have shorter attention spans, in general. If the length comes from lots of action, lots of tension, conflict and suspense, and if the plot has a lot of surprises and reversals, then you can get away with a longer book. A lot of these longer books read very quickly. That doesn't entirely explain Twilight, as I thought that book moved very slowly and had very little going on in it, but I suppose it was loaded with emotional tension, and since I am Spock, that didn't do a lot for me. Obviously, millions of readers disagree with me there and felt that book was engrossing (since that series has outsold mine by more than a million times, and that's not dramatic hyperbole, she must have done something better than I know how to do). You're right to be looking at debut books instead of established authors, since established authors have a lot more leeway. Would an epic tome with the length and pacing of the last few Harry Potter books have sold as a debut book? I don't know. It is safer to aim for shorter, since shorter books are cheaper to print and tend to be more economical than longer books (though that economy of scale tends to vanish when the book is a huge bestseller and rakes in tons of profits). Shorter books require less paper, are cheaper to ship, can ship with more books in the box, take up less warehouse space and less shelf space. If your debut young adult book is more than about 80,000 words, then it had better have something really, really special about it, something that grips readers by the throats and won't let go, because a super-long length will be a hurdle to overcome and it will take an agent falling in love with it to be able to convince an editor to give it a shot, and then that editor will have to become a passionate advocate within the house. You'll have to be really objective about your work to evaluate whether it absolutely has to be that length, if you've cut all fat and fluff, if there's tension, action, conflict or emotion on every page, and if it really is engrossing enough that the pages fly by. If it can be shorter, it probably should be. That applies to adult books, as well. These days, even the desired word count for adult novels is shrinking to the 85K word range. In journalism school, one of my professors liked to say that a news story should be like a bikini -- big enough to cover the important parts but small enough to be interesting. I think that applies to novels, as well. (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 11th, 2009
shanna_s	11:08a	Driving Needs I only did a little more than five hours of writing yesterday. I was hoping to do more when I got home from ballet, but I was just too tired. It was a frustrating two-steps-forward/one-step-back kind of day, as I got midway through rewriting (and it was a lot of original writing) the next chapter when I realized some of the scenes were a repetition and I could telescope events, and then rearranging some things really amped things up, so after an hour of work that came to nothing other than this realization, I had to go back and re-do the previous day's work. It's for the better. If I'm really good, I might be able to finish this draft tomorrow. Then one more good read-through, and I'm done. Too bad I have choir tonight. It's frustrating having obligations when I really want to write. I hope I can carry this enthusiasm forward. I learn a lot about writing from watching TV. Most of the time, it's from things that are done well -- if I fall in love with characters or find certain plots particularly compelling, I can try to figure out how they work so I can apply that to my own writing. But sometimes I can learn a lot from what isn't working, and there's a current science fiction series that shall remain nameless that isn't working for me, and I think I've figured out a big reason why -- and that discovery/reminder is helping me in the book I'm currently revising. I think one of the most important thing to know about a character is what he or she needs -- what drives that person, even aside from the story plot. There may be a story goal: beat the bad guys, rescue the maiden, find the quest object, solve the crime, escape from the bad guys, save the world, get home again, etc. But even before the story kicks in, what makes these people tick? Answering that question will tell you a lot about the way the characters react to and approach the story goal. And the answer to the question can't be something as primal and universal as survival, since just about everyone wants to survive -- unless maybe that character has raised survival to an art form and is so driven by the need to survive unscathed that he's willing to sacrifice anything and everything to do so. Before the Herald figure shows up to issue the challenge and send the hero off on his quest, what drives the hero in all the things he does, even in his ordinary world? Does he need to find the answers and figure out how everything works? Does he feel inadequate and unworthy, so he needs to prove his worth over and over again on a daily basis? Does he need to be in control of every situation? Does he need to feel loved and accepted (but fears he isn't)? Does he need to feel like he's doing the right thing? Does he do everything out of duty? Does he want harmony, so that he avoids conflict? Does he need to be respected? Does he need to be right in any argument? Is he afraid of being alone? Does he want to be famous? Does he want to belong to the community? Does he want to do his own thing and be independent? Does he want to avoid as much effort as possible? Is he fascinated by the new and different? Is he clinging to the status quo of his comfort zone? Does he need to defend those he perceives as weaker? Does he need to be defended by others? Is he a thrillseeker? You get the idea. This is just a list of plot-independent needs that came to the top of my head. Each of these needs will drive a person to respond in a different way to whatever plot events come up. If you put together a team where each person has a different need, those needs and drives would differentiate the team members from each other and would create the team dynamic as their needs either clash or reinforce each other. These drives are also going to affect the plot because the way the characters react to events will send the story in different directions. Once you know these drives, they need to remain consistent throughout the story, unless something happens that is powerful enough to change the character's need, and that usually comes with a major transformation -- often something that comes close to a symbolic death and rebirth. Aside from that kind of transformation/rebirth, these drives/needs can never be fully met by achieving a goal because even if the character seems to have met his need, he will either want more or be afraid of losing it. Someone who wants to be famous and who achieves fame is then going to fear becoming obscure (notice some of the crazy things flash-in-the-pan celebrities do to remain in the public eye). Someone who wants control may become king of the world, but then he'll do anything to stay in power. He doesn't stop needing to be in control just because he has achieved control. If you don't know this very basic information about your characters, you may end up with a muddle, and readers will have a hard time finding a connection with your characters. You'll really frustrate readers if the characters' needs seem to change depending on the situation -- if the guy who needs to do the right thing in one scene then goes and does something dishonorable in another scene without any particularly good reason. You can also use these drives to create some really interesting conflict by finding situations that will pit the characters' drives against their survival -- if the only way out is to act against type. Force your control freak to put his fate in someone else's hands. Make the loner work as part of a team. Make the person who needs harmony take a stand that generates conflict. Once readers are aware, even if it's just subconsciously, of what drives these people, they'll recognize the dilemma. Knowing these driving needs is a good way to find your way out when you get stuck. When you need to figure out what happens next, go back to the core of your characters and think about how those needs will make the characters react in that situation -- what actions would they take, and how would those actions among the various characters come into conflict with each other? (And yes, this was how I solved my dilemma in this book.) (Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
shanna_s	11:50a	On a Roll I am on a roll now. I worked for 6 1/2 hours yesterday -- and that's actual time spent on activities leading to the production of a manuscript, as timed by a stopwatch, not just going by start/stop time or even PR agency timekeeping standards, where doing any work within a quarter-hour period is a quarter hour of work. That time does not include other work-related activity, like reading e-mail, reading industry news or blogging, nor does it include bathroom breaks, meal breaks, making tea, refilling the tea cup, etc. I'm not sure I want to think of how long a regular office workday that would translate to. I won't be able to put in that kind of time today, since I have ballet tonight, which kills the entire evening, unless I'm really energized instead of tired when I get home. In that 6 1/2 hours, some of that did go to working on radio scripts, since that is paying work and is writing, but otherwise I reviewed/edited two chapters and rewrote two chapters. In the "rewriting" I'd guess that nearly half was entirely new material, and any existing material required extensive rewriting. I'm not sure how many words I produced, but the word count on the total manuscript was 2,000 words higher at the end of the day than it was at the beginning, and I also cut about ten pages of material. We'll see what I can get done today, as I'm getting a slightly earlier start. Meanwhile, it seems that we got our October and November somehow reversed this year. I tend to think of November as cold and dreary, while October is glorious -- cool enough to be outdoors, but not cold, and with bright blue skies. But this year October was cold and dreary, raining most days out of the month, while so far, November has been glorious and much warmer than October was. Now, watch it all change next week when I go on vacation. Really, though, I think I'd be okay with whatever way the weather wants to go. If it's nice outside, I can go hiking along the riverfront or take a field trip to somewhere in the area. If it's cold and dreary, I can curl up with a good book or watch a movie. And I am so ready for a vacation. I haven't taken a deliberate, extended, restful break in more than ten years. I may have had stretches of not doing much since I went freelance, but they weren't what I'd consider restful or relaxing because I was considering myself to be in "work" mode and if I wasn't working, I felt guilty. That last break wasn't entirely planned. I was changing jobs and decided to give myself a week between jobs to recharge, but then my boss at my old job had real issues about people changing jobs (it was like working at The Firm), so when I gave my two-week notice, I got escorted out the door. I guess it was to stop me from being able to take any files with me or recruit other employees, but since I'd seen it happen with others, I'd already removed everything I wanted from my office and recruited the employees I wanted before I gave notice. And then I had nearly three weeks off. I took a weekend trip to visit some friends and a weekend trip to visit my parents, had an actual date, and otherwise mostly relaxed. I took long walks every morning, did some writing, read a lot and finished unpacking and organizing my office (I'd moved into this house that summer). But before I can vacation, I have to finish this book. Finally, in other news, my essay on Pride and Prejudice is this week's free essay at the Smart Pop Books site. It will be available through next Monday. (Comment on this)
circlek	8:59a	Blake's New Hair Katrina did Blake's hair last night. ( Read more... ) (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, November 9th, 2009
shanna_s	11:28a	Eureka! I figured out my plot (I think)! It did take a mixture of all the things I was trying. I had an odd little scene that had popped up in daydreaming, and after reading through the rest of the book, I put that together with what I knew about the character, and suddenly the heavens opened and my path appeared before me. And yes, it really was that dramatic. I might have even heard a heavenly choir. I've already made it past the spot where I was stuck before, and I have scenes envisioned for most of the rest of the book. I'll be able to recycle a few scenes, so it's not all starting from scratch, but if this book gets published, there will be a lot of deleted scenes that fall into the "what could have happened" realm. What's really cool is that there was a scene earlier in the book that I was wavering on whether or not I should keep it, and now it turns out that it sets up something pretty crucial. If I'm really, really good and manage my time well, I could get it done this week, and then I can take that long-awaited vacation next week, creating an extended Thanksgiving break. In addition to having a creative breakthrough this weekend, I also finally watched the first episode of V. I think I'm still on the fence, but I suspect that has more to do with where I am mentally and emotionally than anything to do with the show itself. This seems like a show that's going to take itself very seriously. It is Important Television, for the most part, and I don't have a lot of patience for that right now. I don't remember how quickly the big reveal in the original miniseries came about, but I think they made a wise move in doing it in the first hour here, since it's not like we didn't already know there's something wrong about the Visitors. I really like the plot line of the resistance movement and the female FBI agent and the priest. I could do without the junior alien scouts/bratty teenage son/family drama plot line, and Baltar the Journalist already annoys me (I know he's supposed to, but that doesn't mean I enjoy watching it). Since it's on a night when I'm always out and I have to watch on tape, I may fast forward through the annoying parts and just watch the parts I like, unless those other parts become utterly crucial. I have to admit that my main thought upon seeing Morena Baccarin and Alan Tudyk in the same science fiction show again was that she could use her super alien powers to bring Firefly back, and then I'd be really happy. Now, there was a show that managed to have some serious, scary, even dark stuff without coming across as overly pretentious Important Television. Meanwhile, the folks at White Collar are taunting me. That guy, holding the ancient-looking tome and digging through old books? Arrgghh. I did not want mental casting because I don't want to feel let down if a movie goes into production and they cast someone else. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, November 8th, 2009
gizmomage	1:46a	Wild Saturday night! ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) Current Mood: crazy cat person (4 Comments |Comment on this)