A Wedding and a Novel

It's been a busy summer! I've been working on a new novel, which allows me to stay inside and out of the heat and humidity. But my husband and I ventured out for a wedding. It was wonderful.

Ice Storm

An evergreen encased.

 

     I woke up to an ice storm this morning. It has just begun, and since we've been told we'll lose power, I thought I'd post some photos while I could.

The trees are decorated in ornaments of crystal.

The view from my office.

Has the ice ruined the dogwood blooms?

Duke power predicts 1 million people
will be without power when the storm is over.
We've prepared the best we can.

Now back to typing the completed outline of a new novel into my computer.
Hopefully, before we lose power.

Having A Writing Affair

When I was studying fiction writing with Mary Morris, she said, “Writing a short story is like having an affair. Writing a novel is a marriage.”

It’s an interesting analogy. A novel is a huge commitment is terms of time—at least, a year. (Unless you’re a speed writer—if you are, I hate you. Sorry. It’s nothing personal.) Writing a novel is a promise to be there and deal with the good, the bad, and downright ugly. It’s reaching down inside yourself even when you want to have a pity party because you’re blocked/tired/afraid/hate your characters/etc. On the other hand, the pay-off is amazing. To complete a novel is a feat in itself. Most people who begin never finish because it’s really hard to organize/balance plots, subplots, character development, themes, etc. It can be demoralizing and exhausting.

That’s where the short story comes in. The short is all the passion of writing and editing in a hot and heavy couple of months. (Okay, I have a couple of shorts that I’ve been working on for years, but mostly they don’t take too long.) You get to love ’em and leave ’em. “It was nice while it lasted, baby.”

When I finished an edit of the Screwing Up Time sequel and gave it to my first beta, I decided I needed a writing affair. So I’m writing a short story that occurs between books one and two of the series. And I’m having a great time. I needed this writing fling. When it’s over, I’m getting back to the novel marriage.

So how many of you writers out there have had a writing fling? It might be just what you need to get you through the novel you’re working on.

E-Pubbing Nightmare

We all know the cliché that says you don’t appreciate what you’ve got until you lose it. I’ve discovered a similar one—you don’t know how easy Amazon’s e-publishing is until to try to e-publish on Barnes & Noble’s PubIt or Smashwords.

I have to take a deep, cleansing breath even before I begin telling you about it. Imagine that I have uploaded my novel to Amazon without a single glitch. I scroll through the entire book in the preview mode, perfect. I follow the formatting guidelines, and everything including the cover art went up smoothly. I sigh in giddy relief.

The next night I decided to upload my novel to PubIt, so it can be bought for Nook at B&N’s site. I begin filling out the online paperwork. At some point there’s a glitch, most likely with the auto-fill and my email address is inserted incorrectly. So when I try to access the account, it presents me with the paperwork for filling out the financial information again. I assume (incorrectly) that it didn’t save properly and fill out the paperwork. PubIt sends me a note saying that my social security number is associated with another account and they can’t process my information.

So I send an email to PubIt customer service. They tell me that my SSN isassociated with another account. Uh, yeah, I got that. I send them another email including a screen shot. I wait several days. Nothing happens. I call. I talk to a nice man who makes me type in more stuff (which doesn’t work) and promises that whatever the issue is, they’ll fix it in 24 hours. I believe him. I am an idiot.

72 hours goes by. Nothing happens. I call B&N again. A very crabby man answers the phone. I explain my situation. He grumbles at me. He accesses my account and grumbles some more. Thanks to the first customer service rep, I now have three accounts associated with my SSN. I ask if the extra accounts can be deleted. He spews venom and tells me that it will take a week to do it and I won’t be able to use an account until then. I politely say that a week seems pretty long given that the first customer service rep said 24 hours. Crabby man spews more venom and says that it can be resolved in 24 to 48 hours. I ask crabby man if the situation could be resolved if I accessed the working account and changed the email address. Crabby man says, “NO.” I am beginning to see why B&N has financial trouble and why writers pay people to upload their books.

After another 48 hours, nothing happens. I call B&N and talk to a sleepy sounding woman. I explain my problem. She pulls up my account and says, “Whoa, I’ve never seen anything like this. I have no idea what to do.” I explain what crabby man said he would do to fix it. She tells me that he and the first guy did nothing to my account. Not even a notation. Imagine fire in my eyes. But this is not sleepy woman’s fault. I politely ask sleepy woman if I could just change the email address. Sleepy woman says, “Yes.” I change the email. It takes lots of finagling because the account doesn’t want to process the change. Eventually, I fix it and sleepy woman thanks me and I thank her.

To make a long story short, I try multiple times to up load my novel into PubIt. Every time, there are formatting errors. The bizarre thing is that when Arieland I fix one thing, another random thing pops up somewhere else. Right now we’re down to three random errors, which appear to be unfixable—Ariel’s checked the coding and there’s nothing wrong. We tried new documents, retyping, typing in the coding by hand, etc. Nothing worked. So now I have to decide whether I want to publish with three blank pages stuck randomly throughout the book.

In the intervening time, I decide to do Smashwords. After hours spent formatting according to their odd guidelines, I decide to upload... You know, it’s always a bad sign when someone names their conversion process the “meatgrinder.” It’s a worse sign when they tell you that e-pubbing isn’t about perfection in formatting (they mention random blank pages that appear for no reason), but getting your words “out there.” I might agree, but they are so far from perfection that I remove my novel from their site.

Anyway, if you’re considering e-pubbing, start with Amazon and follow the formatting guidelines. If you are meticulous, it’ll upload. When you get around to PubIt and Smashwords and need someone to commiserate, I’m the person to talk to.

Conundrums

I am the proud owner of a summer cold. I can tell you right now that I need to get better ASAP because I have had a turkey defrosting since Monday (I defrost it in a cooler so it takes a while) and I do not want to stuff/roast a turkey and mash potatoes, etc., while I’m sick.

In order to speed health along, I spent most of the day crashed on the couch. I had the energy levels of a semi-dead slug. But, always eager to redeem the time, I decided to work on getting my YA novel ready. Okay, here’s the problem. Why is it that I always run into weird grammar problems that can’t be answered by The Chicago Manual of Style or Google? Surely, I’m not the only person in the world who has these questions. For example, how do you capitalize these sentences?

You were voted class nerd.

Or

You were voted Mr. Popularity.

or 

They called you The Fish.

Or

Do you use italics because the words are being used as a term and not what the word itself is used for?

Any ideas?

And then there’s my favorite conundrum “that.” Now I know it is a relative pronoun, and I know the difference between “which,” “that,” and “who.” I know that “who” is used for persons. “That” is used for restrictive clauses. And “which” is used for non-restrictive clauses and thus must take commas because it is parenthetical. (Unless it’s the object of a preposition. Or unless you’re British, in which case, you don’t use commas with “which.”)

M’kay, so we have the usage down. But then, I read books and there are no whichs or thats where they’re supposed to be. And it’s not even in dialogue. So what’s up with that?! Can you just leave them out if you so feel led? Is it a readability issue?

Ariel watched me pour over grammar tomes and asked how long I’d wasted on this fruitless project. I told her (that?) I had no idea and I didn’t want to know. She pointed out that if I couldn’t find the answer after all that work, probably no one cared either way.

Ack! She may be right, but I care. So now I pose the question to you all. Do you have any ideas? I’m sure that I’m not the only grammar junkie out there. Help me, please. Thanks.

Fascinating

If you’ve read my blog profile, you know that one day I hope to have novel published. I’ve been writing and studying writing for years. In order to get published, you almost always need a literary agent. Publishers rarely slog through the “slush pile” (the name for unsolicited manuscripts) because they no longer have the resources to do. So, you need a lit agent unless you’re going to self-publish/vanity publish or go with a very small publisher.

A few years ago, I got very close to “landing” a literary agent. He loved my young adult novel. But in the end he turned it down because the agency determined the book wasn’t commercial enough to worth their time and money. Very sad.

But, ever the optimist (my family terms it stubbornness), I continued writing. It’s probably not stubbornness or optimism that keeps me writing, but the addiction of putting characters together, watching what they do, and sharing their story. Next, I wrote an historical fiction for adults. Then, I found out that historical fiction wasn’t selling at the time. So, that too was put in a drawer. And I started another young adult book. I completed Screwing Up Time. Then I edited and edited and edited. I queried lit agents. I got several bites, but no fish.

I took a class taught by a woman who was a former editor for some of the major publishing houses. Much to my chagrin, I learned that very small mistakes (e.g., using a word/phrase/gesture now considered cliché can get your manuscript rejected within the first page). Sad, but true.

Guess what? I had some clichés. I did another edit and de-cliché of the manuscript and began sending query letters. A couple of weeks ago, a literary agent asked for a “full.” In other words, she wants to see the whole manuscript. So, I’m waiting to hear from her.

On Monday, another literary agent I contacted emailed me and said that she found the first couple of chapters “fascinating” and was very excited to read the rest. I sent it off, and I’m waiting to hear from her now. I know the economy scoffs in the face of debut authors, but I’m hoping (remember, I said I was stubborn).

My kids are hoping too. I’m 16 thousand words into a sequel, and they want me to finish it. But I told them that if I can’t get an agent let alone a book deal, there’s no point in finishing the sequel. But, I have to admit, I’d really like to work with Henry, Miranda, Kate, and Peter again. I love Henry's snarky sense of humor and how Miranda can put him in his place. I'm amazed at how Kate's character has grown. And, of course, I want to see Peter (the villain) get his just rewards once again. In the sequel, I’ve put them in an impossible situation, and I’m desperate to make it even worse and then help them get out of the mess.