Hold This, I Feel A Chapter Coming On

or the perils and upsides of writing in public.

Normally writing is a solitary thing.  Well, for lucky other people it is, I’ve heard.  Being the mommy at my own particular digs has always meant some amount – large or small – of intrusion upon my writing time.  More when the kids were little, of course.  My first published short story was written with Robert in a snuggli attached to my front.  (He was only a week and change.)  My first published novel was written with Marshall playing with legos at my feet and during the hours Robert was in school.

Now I have less intrusion, but more unexpected, sporadic and downright weird intrusion.  You see, I made a mistake.  I gave them the AIM handle only my husband and the two friends who only contact me if something just caught fire know.  It seemed like SUCH a good idea.  That way they could tell me stuff without coming into my office.  Not that this stops them coming to my office, too.  And since one of them is a writer, and the other is a writer-in-denial, the interruptions can be downright odd.  “Mom, can pterodactyls be canonized?”  Or “I have this character in my head and it won’t shut up.”  Or “Did you and Robert misplace a story?  Because I feel like writing this one, where…”   As you can guess all the above don’t merit more than a glance and a “write it” but still I’m not exactly in a state of solitude.

But it is solitary in one sense.  No one is in my head.  Well, no one who exists in this world.

My first attempt at getting a novel critiqued involved taking a chapter at a time to a writers’ group.  It was a huge mistake.  That very first novel ended up being something like 600k words, most of them useless, because people kept saying “but I don’t understand this” and – like a sap – I explained.  Since I was “performing” in front of a non-spec fic group, I had to explain a ton of things, like how someone got healed magically how power was transferred – in DETAIL.  I also had to explain butter-lamp.  (Look, ya’ll, oil lamp, butter lamp… It’s all grease to me.)

I didn’t get from that what I SHOULD have which was that the main reason it doesn’t work is that people forget, from one week to the next, some detail, that they’re then asking you to explain, though it’s already in the novel.  I didn’t get that, because that particular novel and that particular group had a lot of other things for people to stumble over.  (This was the group where someone AFTER the meeting and in private – always a sign of trouble, btw – told me I’d never be published.  Ah, ah.  Good thing she doesn’t write science fiction, uh?)

I got that effect with Darkship Thieves, where I workshoped the first half of the first draft and effectively killed it, which led to the rule that we would not give novels out a chapter at a time.

But I don’t learn quickly or easily.  It could be argued I never learn at all.  So, when I was writing my first Austen fanfic, shortly after, I started listening to comments.

Okay, part of this was predictable.  I started writing Austen fanfic because I needed the feeling someone, somewhere was reading my stuff.  I’d had a rough year with tons of rejections (though I sold two shorts) and was starting to feel no one would ever buy my novels.  The enticement to go to Austen and write for free was that I got comments.  I’m not even joking that during some of the darkest times in my career I lived for those “I love this.”  Which I realize is very sad, but there it is.

Unfortunately on my very first work, I was trying to please everyone.  So if someone came in and said “I hope that they meet in the next chapter” I did that.  And when people questioned my history, I tried to explain it in the next chapter.  And… yeah, I ended up with soup.  Not good soup, either.  Kind of what you get when you throw in everything you can get your hands on in the kitchen, including the dishrag and the dish soap.  NOT a coherent narrative at all.

So, you’ll ask, why on Earth am I doing a novel in the public eye?

Well, it goes something like this:

1 – Although the comments will not make me change the story as I write it – and it is already plotted, though undeniably it will twist in my head as I write it. – they will give me clues to when I’m “hitting the right notes.”  Like, if you tell me you laughed at a line, or cried at one…  It will help me get a feel for “that works” and “that doesn’t.”  This will eventually not only communicate itself to the rewrite/edit before it comes out as a cogent book, but it will also teach me “how to do it better” for the next book and the next.  This is invaluable.  Writing is after all a way of communicating and most of us work in too much isolation from the reader.  I’ve told you in the past that writing a successful story is like playing both sides of the chess match.  You have to tell a story you know from the inside in a way an outsider gets it.  This helps me understand how it’s coming across.

1a) Supposing I get a wide enough audience – I don’t know, and I suspect I’ll need ten or so chapters up, to start “hooking” (I will put links forward and back in each, of course) – I can also start to learn “How to sell to the public.”  As I’ve explained before, us pros used to have to sell to editors before the public got it, so we have no clue WHAT the public wants.  And the public has no clue what we can do if not pulled about by publishers.  This is a first attempt at starting to fix that, where I’m concerned.

2- Moral support.  Or immoral, as the case may be, since Kate Paulk might drop by now and then (and truly, what is the com com at Capclave on?  They put this woman as moderator on a panel entitled Paranormal Romance, innies vs. outies.  Are they suicidal?  Or criminally insane?  Someone who is near it, please go watch and take pictures.  PLEASE?)  Again, writing is a solitary endeavor, but meant as communication.  It gets lonely in that office sometimes, St. Pterodactyl not withstanding.  Just knowing someone is waiting for the next chapter can cheer one up.  As do the “blank” type of comments that have no content beyond “love it, give me more.”  Knowing other people DO love it, really help.

And stop staring at me and going, “But Sarah, you’ve sold 21 books.  Why don’t you read your Amazon reviews for that?”  Because I always believe the p*ssy “this sucks” review.  Even if it’s the only one and written with metaphorical crayon on butcher paper. In words four letters long.  So, am I begging for “I love this” comments?  Not exactly, but I’m hoping I get some, because they’re always a major boost.

3 – Battle space preparation.  In politics this usually involves smearing your opponent before they can smear you or preferably before they’re announced.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that in the “new writing marketplace” tm it helps to have some people who’ve already read the book and can post reviews.  It also helps to start word of mouth early.  I’m hoping this does both and starts, as it were, an advance team, so that when the book hits Amazon and smashwords, there are a few hundred people who’ve read it (and hopefully enjoyed it.)  I know that when I post snippets in the diner at Baen’s bar it helps (and someone remind me to start DSR and A Few Good Men going there next week, ‘mkay?)

4 – This is something you’ve asked for.  (Okay, not you in particular, there in the back row… are you braiding your hair?  Oh.  Tentacles?  Never mind.)  I.e. some of my readers have at various times asked for more insight into how I work.  What does a first draft look like?  What do edits look like?  Etc.  Well, I’m not going to give you blow-by-blow edits, but you get to see what first draft looks like and if you get the final version, you also get to see what happened in between.  Part of me goes “but why do they want that?” On the other hand, I’d buy Terry Pratchett’s laundry list and Heinlein’s grocery list, or vice versa, if offered, so who am I to say anything?  Let someone else cast the first fireball, I am not without sin.

And that, dear sirs, ma’ams and Sainted Pterodactyls is a faithful accounting of my intentions in running this experiment.