What is Literary Voice? How Does a Writer Find Voice?

As writers we hear a LOT about this word: voice. So much so, it almost begins to take on magical connotations. Agents demand it. Editors reject piles and piles of manuscripts for not having it. We’re told to discover it, like it’s a hidden jewel in our soul, and if we mine deep enough, we’ll find it!

*insert discordant scratch on record player*

It took me a long time to realize that the words of the all-wise Inigo Montoya apply here: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

When people talk about ‘voice’ like the hidden jewel to discover in themselves, they mean it in the poetic, stylistic sense, like on Project Runway when the judges are say, that designer has a distinctive point of view or ‘voice.’ They mean, there is a sense of visual and artistic cohesion to their pieces, in the way that you can tell an impressionist is different from Picasso is different from Jackson Pollack. Or in Project Runway terms, Seth Aaron’s in-your-face dramatic sensibilities are very different from Anya’s flowing, feminine, wearable drapey dresses are different from Mondo’s style. This use of the term ‘voice’ is very useful for the visual arts and for writing poetry.

However, it’s NOT AT ALL USEFUL in the practical sense for fiction writers, because, unless you’re writing literary fiction (and even then, only rarely), voice is meant to be about the voice of your CHARACTER, not about your authorial stylistic voice. When agents and editors reject manuscripts for voice, it’s because the voice of thecharacter’s personality isn’t coming through. Ironically, because of this false idea of what voice is, authors are over-writing with their prose styles and not letting character’s voices speak.

Because here’s the kicker: readers rarely care about how pretty or well constructed your sentences are. All readers (and agents and editors) want is to get pulled emotionally into a story. Which is accomplished through your character feeling like a fully-realized, complex human—via voice. Voice is merely the term to encompass all the ways this full character realization is translated onto the page (in every single line of text) through:

1. Internal Thought and Reflection
2. Observation and Description
3. External Dialogue
4. Movement (as in, blocking the movement of the characters within the setting, like actors on a stage)

How does your character see the world? What are they like? Down to earth? Snobby? Intellectual and detached? Overly empathetic? You as the writer have to be in their heads, whether you’re writing in first person or third. That’s where you discover voice—not in yourself, but in your character. It’s not how you see the world that matters, it’s how they see it.

Do they have a penchant for gambling or drugs? They’ll always want to align themselves with the person in the room likeliest to give them their next fix. Every thought in their head, observation they make, thing they say, and movement they make is to get them closer to this goal. Through this, the reader should feel their personality because the reader is in their heads. As the writer, it’s your duty to see and write through the lens of the character. It’s up to you to get in their minds. Remember, you’re telling their story, not yours. Get as close to them as you can, even down to the language level—this is where their personality can shine through.

When I began to shift my paradigm to think this way, writing began to feel like an entirely different animal. And that’s when my (pile of) rejection slips started turning into acceptance notices.

Here’s my nice and fancy definition of voice to hang your hat on:

The manner of language by which an author expresses personality to narrate a story. Voice is used to close the distance between narrator and reader so that the reader is immersed in the ‘feel’ and personality of the story that the author intentionally means to convey. All language—every line of text—including internal thought, observation, movement, and external dialogue should be filtered through voice.

I'll be teaching a class online this Fall on this topic if anyone's interested, here's a little intro video below.

Open to anyone, anywhere. For more deets, click here: The Loft Literary Center

Picture Post: What It Feels Like To Finish Writing a 700 Page Novel

I did it!!!! I just typed the last word of the Epic World War II Saga I have been toiling on for about a year now!!! It's 700 pages! 230,000 words! Oh my God, I can't believe it! 

This is the most insane, amazing feeling! I want to quote Titanic. 

Screw it, I'm GOING to quote Titanic! 

I'm the King of the Woooooooooooooorld!

Okay, Heather, time for some long giddy breaths in and out. Whew. Wow. That was intense. *looks at calender* Dang, I wrote that last 50,000 words in two and a half weeks! If this was YA, that'd be like a first draft a book! 

Sheesh, this historical fiction stuff is crazy! I'm not sure I ever want to do that again. It's so many pages!

...

Wait a second...

That's really a LOT of pages...

Quite a lot of pages, actually.

That I now have to edit and do rewrites on.

Umm... why did I think this whole epic war saga 

historical fiction thing was a good idea again? 

Oh right. The art. The emotion. The characters. Blood and chaos and kingdoms rising and falling within the span of just a couple of years and a love story and my two main characters just trying to survive and it's all so deep and meaningful. And all that.

Yeah. I think I'm going to go take a nap now.

Love Affair

I'm sorry YA lit, I've been cheating on you. It's been going on for awhile now. Almost six months. You know I love you, but then I spent a few nights with this book:

The Bronze Horseman by Paullina Simons

 

And it blew my socks off. I can think of few other books that have rocked me as much as this did--a book that's so unique you are immediately inspired to think and write in a new way, to tell new kinds of stories. It's historical fiction, but it's based around a heart-rending romance, without descending quite into the 'historical romance' genre of bodice ripping and so forth. It was a romance that felt real instead of idealized and the author let bad things happen to the characters and the ending feels fought for (it's a trilogy, so it takes awhile to get there, but it's there all the same!).

Which then led me to dally with another series I heard was awesome in similar ways and I'm shocked that I never read until now:

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

 

More giantly epic romance, and horrible things happening to the characters, and intense struggles and love that both surprises and redeems. I'm so stoked to hear this is being made into a TV series, because, YES. Seeing Jaime Fraser for hours and hours on the small screen spells out a whole lot of YAY. Cannot wait. So then after I read a few of these books I was in the mood to just devour absolutely every amazing book like this I could find.

 

Which led me to the fabulous Jennifer Donnelly and the trilogy below. I'd read her YA books, but I really enjoyed these.

  

And then I couldn't find any more perfect books like these melding historical struggle, love stories (the kind that may involve tragedy but don't leave you there), and realism. I'm still looking. Please, if you know any, send them my way because I WANT MORE. Which of course leads to the next logical decision, well, if you're a writer anyway--to write my own epic historical saga. I'm about halfway through an ugly first draft right now

People ask me where inspiration for stories comes from, and here it is--the question that starts my process:

What am I currently absolutely obsessed with?

Sometimes it's been the storytelling of Doctor Who. Or Jane Eyre. Usually it's books or TV shows that I can't stop thinking about, that get me obsessive, that make me feel intensely. And then I take that buzzing bug of inspiration as a catalyst and start plot, plot, plotting away. Halfway through the draft, I'm still obsessed with the story, which is always a good sign. It takes over like a fever. I'm thinking about the story almost non-stop all throughout the day and it keeps me up a night. Sometimes I think the key to writing (at least the kind of writing you love) is obsession.

Video Q&A From the Shutdown Release Party!

Want so see what I'm like IRL? Wish you could come to a signing but don't live in Minneapolis? Voila, problem solved: at my most recent signing, I had the hubby tape the Q&A session, for your viewing pleasure extraordinaire!

Write Through Anything

I’ve heard people say writing saved their life, and while I can’t go that far, I can say that writing has provided stability and sanity in a very unstable world.

Writing helps me feel grounded, even in a strange week like this one where everything else feels all strange and weird. My husband and son are out of town and it’s just me up in this thirteenth story apartment, too ill to really go anywhere, feeling like Rupunzel locked in her tower—though maybe without the glorious golden locks, or does mid-shoulder black and pink hair count? Nevertheless, I feel very locked-away-in-a-tower-ish.

But then, when I write, even on days like today where I’m distracted by All The Internet Things, if I manage to hit my word count, I feel this nice calm settle over me. I did the work that needed to be done today, even if everything else seems out of sync and off schedule.

It’s kind of the magic of developing a discipline of writing. Like any muscle, it’ll get flimsy and out of shape if you don’t exercise it. I’ve mostly gotten to the place where writing isn’t something I get up and decide to do everyday. It’s something I take for granted that I WILL do, come hell or high-water or, you know, Twitter and Facebook addiction and my normal internal whining about I-don’t-wanna! ;)

So tonight, all alone in this empty apartment up in the sky, I’ve got a smile on my face because I did my second writing session and hit the 2k word count I try to do every day. Officially my required word count each day is 1k. It’s one of the tricks I use on myself, so that if I only get 1k or only do one writing session instead of two, I still get to count the day as a win. When you’ve got this weird amorphous job of being a writer, it’s the little things that count to make you feel productive.

The trick is to write through anything. Write through depression. Write through success. Write through heart break. Especially write through failure. Write through sickness, at least as much as able. Write through books being sold. Write through waiting on submission to see if more books will sell. Write through failed books that didn’t end up going anywhere and sit as half-done hundred page documents that will lay forgotten in some random folder on my computer.

It’s when I stop writing that I get into trouble. I feel like I can be happy and contented through anything life throws at me, as long as I can hit that daily word count. Now, none of this is to say that the writing will be particularly good, especially if there’s something bad or stressful going on in my life. The idea of the tortured or depressed artist putting out masterpieces might be all good well in theory, but it certainly never worked for me. I write best when I’m stable and happy and my family is in a good place. But you still gotta write, because that way lies sanity and mental health. Come to think of it, I bet it’s how Rapunzel stayed sane too. She was probably stuck up there with thousands of sheets of paper and a magical unending inkpot ;)

You Don't Always Have to Love It

Sometimes being a writer, you will be super in the groove, excited about every scene that comes next, wake up the in morning and can't wait to get to your computer. You can't stop thinking about your characters so much that you can't sleep at night and you keep getting out of bed to write another scene. The book I wrote last December was like that.

And then there are books like the one I'm writing now... where I know the idea and characters are solid, and interesting-ish things are happening, but my passion for the story is only at a low simmer. I sit down each afternoon to write... and then go check twitter again. And Facebook. And maybe watch yet another John Green vlogbrothers video because that guy is so entertaining and compulsively watchable! And then, oh yeah, I'll click back to my Word document and type maybe another hundred words.

Here is the thing: there is this myth out there that a book will be no good if you don't just loooooove it while you're writing it. That somehow your lack of passion will translate into lack of reader passion because you just can't capture the magic mojo. But this is not true. I know this first hand, since the book that was THE HARDEST THING I'VE EVER WRITTEN has gotten the best reviews. I'm referring of course, to Override, which long-time blog followers will know was the bane of my existence for over a year. I wrote it once. And then wrote it over from scratch again. And then AGAIN. I did not love that book when I was writing that last draft. I'm pretty sure that the word 'hate' even got tossed around for awhile there. But I knew that I did have a deadline in a month so the dang thing had better get written.

And the thing was (and believe me it shocked me more than anyone!), all of the time and attention that book had gotten both plot-wise and character wise had turned it into a really good book.

Maybe some people in magical candy author land love every single part of every single book they write. But then there's the rest of us, slogging through unending middles, muddling through murky characterization, spending a whole week trying to get one friggin' scene right and then skipping it in the end to figure out later so I can at least avoid stalling completely on the whole project... oh, ahem, that might have veered into describing my own past week a little bit ;)

Suffice it to say, I may not love this book I'm in the middle of drafting. I think there's lots of work ahead reshaping and crafting it, but like I said, sometimes that can make it an even better book than ones that have slipped out easily the first time around. That's what I'm holding on to as I muddle through the middle! What are you guys working on? What's your process like? Do you give up and move on to another project when the passion dries up, or keep barreling on through?

On Writing What You Know

I’ve been thinking about the kinds of stories I want to write lately – both because I wrote my first book outside the Glitch world in December and am looking towards my next few projects, and because I’m editing Shutdown, the last Glitch book (a book that I was really able to sink into and take the characters some intense and cool places, emotionally).

I guess that’s what I’ve really been thinking about: how to write stories that emotionally, readers can relate to or think, ‘hey, I’ve felt like that,’ even if I’m writing impossible and outlandish plots.

I often think the best books are ones where you can almost feel authors struggling with something on the page, whether it be a big question about life (see Gabrielle Zevin’s Elsewhere), or teenagers with cancer (John Green’s TFIOS), or grief (Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere, McNamara’s Lovely Dark and Deep, Courtney Summers’ Fall For Anything), or an experience of being the mean girl (Summers’ Some Girls Are), or thinking about temptation and good and evil (like the ring in LOTR), or exploring an existential crisis about what it means to be human (Marion’s Warm Bodies), etc.

So because I’m trying to write emotionally resonating characters, and one way to do that is to write what you know, like Flannery O’Conner, my stories are often going to have physically broken people. People with the wooden legs or deadly allergies or other health problems that neither medicine nor magic can fix.

Any resolutions to these problems are going to be hard fought for, and will most likely leave the character very different than when they first started out, sometimes very battered. This is certainly true of Shutdown, when one character veered off in ways I didn’t expect. I had an idea of where the character would end up back when I wrote the synopsis two years ago, but the journey getting there was far more arduous than I first expected. The character dramatically changed as I wrote them, because I realized there was no way these circumstances wouldn’t change the person. I’ve experienced the way that life can dump things on you that you can’t escape, whether you see them coming or not. You can’t run away and you can’t pretend your entire life hasn’t changed. So you find ways to cope with it, both good and bad.

In the book I just wrote and the one I’m thinking of writing next, I’m tackling—in a very sideways manner—the way that circumstances and physical disability can intrude on your plans and dreams. And then letting it fly and watching how my characters react. In one book, the main character reacts by being furious about his situation, in the other, the MC is so accepting of her bad circumstances at first that she doesn’t fight back against them at all. In both cases, the illnesses are somewhat supernatural, but I’m exploring some things that very much resonate with me in real life, with the debilitating chronic illness I’ve fought with for eleven years. Anger and acceptance are kind of constant warring states in my head. I can write these characters so easily, because I know how it feels.

But these obviously aren’t just stories for sick people alone—in fact, I don’t think most people will even see this as a subplot when they read the books. Still, the question I most want to explore through my writing (and my life really) is: how do we find peace and joy through difficult life circumstances? Because this at least is universal—you will have difficult circumstances in your life, no matter if you are fifteen or fifty. You will encounter conflict and sometimes, you will suffer.

This is all the inside track though, the things going on in my head as I wrote. As I mentioned a moment ago, I don’t think any of this is explicit, you might not pick up on these underlying themes in these books unless you’ve read this blog post and remember it. After all, in addition to wrestling with these problems that create internal conflict for my characters, they are also all falling in love. Because well, in addition to wanting to explore some meaty life questions for myself, I’m also just a sucker for romance J

Anyway, all of this is a tool I’ve used to help me dig deeper with my characters. Too often we think that ‘write what you know’ just means we should write about external experiences we’ve had in our lives. Um yeah, if I stuck to that, I'd be writing stories no one wants to read about sitting on a couch for hours on end! But I’m learning that using ‘write what you know’ can really ratchet up your characters by infusing them with the emotional and mental dilemmas you yourself have wrestled with.

Looking Back & Looking Ahead

So New Year’s is a time of looking both back and forward. Back on the year that past, forward to what’s coming next.

 

Looking back: 2012 was a wicked f’ing crap-ton of a hard year, physically, emotionally, and work-wise. I experienced more health problems than ever before in my life, but I also wrote two books and took them through most of the editing stages, then for fun wrote another book entirely in December. I lost my love for writing, then powered through and eventually gained it back again. I faced deadlines and met each one. I’ve learned SO FREAKING MUCH about writing this year. It was a crash course, a dump-you-in-the-deep-end-and-hope-you-don’t-drown course, but I finally figured out how to swim (though there were a couple of times I was sure I was gonna drown). Btw, if you know a debut author, give them a hug, because the debut year all on it's own is a crazy intense and stressful thing.

Let’s see, what else? My eating habits have changed entirely due to the Meniere’s disease, so I consume only trace amounts of salt every day, drink no coffee, and drink no alcohol. I live pretty much like a little nun, sans the headdress and plus pink hair.

And best of all, I’m happy.

Looking forward: Lots of uncertainties that will make me crazy if I let them. The second and third book of the Glitch trilogy will be out this year (Override in Feb, Shutdown in July). But will they all sell well? Will readers like them? Will my agent like the new book I just wrote, and will my editor want to acquire it? Will this one exciting thing happen or won’t it, and will I be okay if it doesn’t?

My response to most of these is to limit my expectations and expect the worst. I know that sounds bad. I’m not actually a pessimist, but I prefer to expect the worst rather than hope for something so hard and then have the hope stomped on (especially after a year of lots of stompage!) Then if the good thing happens, I’m happily surprised. And when good things come, they feel more like grace, like things I didn’t deserve but was given anyway, and I feel a deep and profound gratitude. And when bad things come, I do lots of meditation and try to turn my sights back only on the day in front of me, which is the only thing I can control, and let the future worry about itself.

Up directly ahead on the docket is editing the book I just finished today, all the way up until edits for Shutdown come back from my editor. Then I’ll hand off New Book to agent man to see what he thinks, and lose myself in Shutdown edits for several weeks. Then turn those in, and go back to editing New Book with whatever thoughts and critiques agent man gives.

At least this is how I envision it working, but I’m certainly familiar enough with how life likes to intervene in our nicely laid little plans.

Either way, 2013 ought to be a far less stressful year than 2012, and I’m looking forward to good times ahead.

What are you looking forward to this year?

Writing Process: First Drafts

Writing a brand new novel (my first after finishing the Glitch trilogy) is a totally weird experience. I started and stopped three other books as I tried to settle on the one I want to write. Fourth idea was the winner! I really believe it can be a great book, the book I’ve been wanting to write for years.

For me, drafting is always fraught with equal parts anxiety and excitement. On one hand, when I get in a crazy groove like I’m in now, I’m a totally happy person – cheery with my husband, laughing with my son. And on the other hand, I’m a neurotic mess because of this weighty pressure or anxiety—the best metaphor for how it makes me feel is like I can’t take a deep breath till I’ve gotten the story in my head all out on paper. Like if I don’t get it down NOW it will all evaporate. It’s so intangible just sitting up there in my brain. I’m jittery and restless until I can get it solid on paper, something I can hold in my hand. So all throughout the day I feel this nagging desire tugging at the back of my brain to get back to the book, like worrying about whether you turned the coffeemaker off or something else important you’ve left undone but can’t quite put your finger on. I'm almost constantly thinking about the book, scheming for when I can next steal some time and energy to work on it.

A lot of the time, when I’m not actually writing, I’m still just lost in the world of it. Planning out my next scene, thinking about the character arc of my MC. But also now I hear other voices in my head—wondering if it’s good enough, if we’ll be able to sell it, if my agent will like it. If I let myself think about those things, they can totally derail the creative process.

Part of the issue is I’m an ugly first drafter. My characters are too reactive, the melodrama goes way over the edge from captivating to schlocky, and I generally figure out how the plot should be told as I’m in the latter 3/4 of the book. I listen to the fabulous Writing Excuses podcast on a regular basis and one writer on there keeps talking about how he’s a one drafter. As in, his first draft is his last draft. I cannot wrap my brain around that. It’s how I so WISH I could write. All the saved words and pages and time! I’ve tried outlining, revising as I go, and a number of other trick but I think it’s time I accept the fact that it’s not how I work.

Second drafts are where the magic happens for me. I need the clay lump of the book and then I can see it all at once and see where I need to shave and where I need to plump. Doing this long enough, I’ve started to learn about myself through my writing process—see the unique and strange ways my mind works. I’ve learned I’m almost a better editor than writer, or that for me, the two tasks are equally at work in producing a book. I write a bad first draft, then the editor in me takes over and sees how it needs to be shaped for character, story, and themes to really be clear. Then I rewrite half the book (or the whole book) and go back in with editor-self again, wash, rinse, repeat until I have a book I’m satisfied with. I wish there was another way that didn’t involve so much work! But alas. This brain is all I’ve got, and I hope I’m learning to embrace my process rather than fight against it.

Anatomy of a Second Draft

I’m in the middle of a massive round of edits on SHUTDOWN, Bk 3 of the Glitch trilogy. This is always the biggest round of edits for me – the second draft. My first drafts usually clock in a little over 60 thousand words and are very rough. So the second draft means a lot of re-envisioning and lots of rewriting and lots of fitting together the puzzle pieces of both the plot and the emotional arc of the story . I’ve been working on this revision for a month now, it’s up to 90k words, and think I’ve got about two weeks to go.

 

So want to know my process on the all important second draft? Here we go!

The Edit Letter
I start out reading and rereading the edit letter from my editor. I print it out, then underline, highlight, write possible fixes in the margin, and generally scribble and mangle the seven pages until they are very well worn. Then for a couple of days I do a lot of sitting and staring off into space. I’ll bust out my pen and notebook and scratch out what I think are the biggest problems, then slowly problem-solve possible solutions. Then I sketch out the emotional map, and how each chapter is slowly building toward the climax at the end.

Because second drafts are so daunting and entail so much work for me, I always want to tackle the biggest and scariest problems first so I can get them out of the way. I break up the book into chunks (this latest book broke neatly into three organic pieces), and then I finally get to the actual writing.

Chunk #1. The Middle
For this draft, I worked on the middle first because it was where a lot of the heavy emotional story was, and I think that’s the heart of any novel. I’d been so focused on fitting together the larger story elements, that the emotional and romantic story had not come off AT ALL in my first draft. So I cut and rewrote my way all through the middle section. All the while, I kept checking each chapter against the map of the emotional arc, tweaking and making sure it had the perfect growing momentum. As daunting as this section was to rewrite, it was also the one I had the most fun with. The emotional and romantic center of any book is always my favorite, both as a reader and a writer. I’d put on moody emotional violin music and absolutely lose myself in the scenes and conversations. I love, that even in such a stressful time as doing intense revisions on a deadline, those magical writing moments can still happen.

Chunk #2. The Ending

Next I tackled the ending, which I was VERY afraid of. Because here’s the thing about this trilogy—I won’t say I bit off more than I could chew, but it has been very difficult dealing with the huge scope I set out for myself when I outlined the series. I thought, oh, by the end of the trilogy I’ll have the fate of the world standing in my MC’s hands. Uh. Yeah. That makes for a lot of moving parts, and throughout the trilogy I’ve learned my strengths and weaknesses. Writing action scenes can be a weakness for me. I have to work twice as hard on those scenes. And the last third of book 3 is action, action, action. But when I actually got to it, it went much quicker than I thought it would. After brainstorming all the fixes to the problems, it wasn’t that daunting at all.

Chunk #3. The Beginning
Then I jumped back to the beginning, and worked till I met up with the middle section. This meant lots more action scenes I had to fix, and lots of work making sure I was both setting up this book as it's own entity, and tying it to the two previous books.

Cohesion Read-through

At this point, I breathe a giant sigh of relief. I’ve done most of the heavy lifting and fixed all the scariest things. Next comes the read-throughs of hundred page chunks, working chronologically this time and smoothing out transitions, language issues, and making sure it’s a cohesive read. I also send out portions to my beta partners at this point to get outside eyes on it.

The Things To-Fix List

But also I end up finding tons of problems as I read that are added to my Things To Fix list, a separate document I always keep open in addition to my manuscript document. The Things to Fix document is vital. These will be weird things ranging from: oh, check the spelling of that name, to, make sure this emotional arc is clear from chapters 10-13, or, in that conversation with all the officials, have them bring up this particular point that is a plant for something that happens at the end.

After I finish the cohesion readthrough, then I start tackling the list. At this point I also sit down again with the edit letter and see if there are problems my editor brought up that I still haven’t sufficiently fixed. That’s where I’m at right now. I try to be brutal with myself and ask myself if I’ve really fixed the problem. My temptation, after straining at this for a month already, is to just burn through the list and slap on some quick fixes that I know will need to be fixed in the next draft.

I’ve done that in the past, but this time around I’m trying to shoulder most of the work in these early drafts. When you’re on a super quick production schedule like I am (books releasing every 5-6 months), I’ve realized there might not always be as much time later as I want to fix things. Now is when I should be taking the time to dig into the guts of this thing, set its broken bones, and make it as solid as I can before turning in the next draft.

On Writing OVERRIDE (#2 in Glitch Trilogy)

I finished the final, final readthrough of Override yesterday. All the tweaks are finished and the manuscript is back on its way to my publisher. There's this amazing feeling that comes with being TOTALLY finished with a book. At the stage where there are no more changes, no tweaks, no second-guessing. It's done. Finito. What I turned in is what will be printed.

Some authors get freaked out by this stage, but I'm mainly just excited. I'm excited because after all the ups and downs that were involved in writing and then rewriting and then, oh yeah, rewriting AGAIN, I finally have a book that I think is really good and that I'm proud of. I was getting giddy on my last read-through of it. If you thought book 1 was twisty and turny, I think I can confidently say you ain't seen nothing like what goes down in book 2 ;)

Part of the problem, among others, was the fact that it is so twisty. Note to self: never again have a character who can see the future. It will tie your plot up in knots that take a really long time to untangle and figure out!!!

And I cannot thank my amazing editor enough. She was encouraging and patient in spite of the really bad first draft (okay who are we kidding, and really bad second draft) I turned in. She didn't freak out over the fact that in the middle I wanted to trash it all and rewrite it from three alternating POVs (which, oh my gosh in hindsight I can see was a terrible idea, but when I was in the middle of it and trying to fix a broken book, seemed like a great one). She calmly and patiently read my furiously written chapters and then gently pointed out that this was not the best way for the book to go. She gave me ideas, questioned and prodded my plot throughout the next draft I turned in. She pushed me to smooth out the awkward or slow bits and to remember not to lose my characters. And all on a pretty insane timeline considering I only turned in the actually viable draft at the end of April!

Want to know the crazy timeline on this book?

• June 2011: Turn in almost-finished 1st draft
• August-December 2011: Rewrite major portions and turn in 2nd draft
• February 2012: Realize that 2nd draft is total soulless crap, write 100 pgs from differing POV's to try to fix
• March 2012: Fabulous editor helps me realize this is a really bad direction to take the book. Rethink plot and character problems.
• April 2012: Start over from scratch. At first I thought I just needed to write a new first half of the book. And then I got to the second half, and realized it needed a total redo as well. Insane writing month commences, and the 3rd and finally solid draft is turned in by the end of the month.
• ---Okay, this wasn't for Override, but it was still part of my crazy writing year. May 2012: Write most of book 3.
• June-July 2012: Get edit letter and first line edits for Override. Do lots of rewrites and turn in again 6 weeks later.
• August 2012: Book 1 releases! Yay! Get 2nd round of line edits for Override. Work feverishly on them and turn in 4 weeks later.
• September 2012: Copyedits for Override.
• October 2012: First Pass Pages for Override. And DONE! Soon arcs will release and my baby will be out in the world!

Phew! Just writing about it makes me feel tired. Standing on this end of it, I can't believe the insanity of this year. Reading through Override one last time over the past few days, I can't believe that it came together so well. But in the end, it really did. I think it's on par with Glitch and maybe is actually better.

And in the meantime, the fun never stops! On to edits for book 3!

Finished Line Edits & Spastic Heather

Phew, the past couple weeks have been about extreme-editing (aka, editing which consumes ALL) and reading (for when the edit brain simply must shut down for a few hours). The edits went very well, I sent my editor the magical email with the new draft, and now I'm so exhausted I can barely type!

But because I'm spastic, all I can think about, 30 minutes after turning it in, is: what next, what next?!! Well, yes, there are all those emails I've been ignoring for the past two weeks, the manuscript I need to read for a friend, and the packages that are WAY overdue to get in the mail.

But really, I'm thinking about the fresh writing project I want to work on next. In a way, it's simultaneously the worst and best feeling in the world--going from putting on the finishing shiny touches on one manuscript back to starting from scratch with ugly first drafting on the next. Editing is hard, but you have such a pretty book-like manuscript at the end. First drafts are... messy. And I go in with the knowledge that I might as well call my first drafts 'extensive pre-writing,' because I usually end up rewriting it completely from scratch during edits. It can be a difficult pill to swallow. Then again, I try to remind myself how deadly satisfying it is to grow that word count everyday during drafting, building up the slow mountain of words that will eventually become a book. It's so tangible. At the start of the day I had ten pages, at the end, I have seventeen. Which soon becomes fifty and then a hundred. And by a hundred, I feel dang swell about the half a book I've written. That's a definite high.

But tonight, alas, I'll put all those delusions of grandeur aside and catch up on the episodes of The Colbert Report that I missed ;)

Waking Up & Great Love Stories

These last few weeks I feel like I'm finally coming awake after a long, long sleep. This is both literal and metaphorical. I've finally weaned myself off of sleeping pills that I'd been taking for two years, and I hadn't realized how much they'd been affecting my waking life until I stopped taking them. I knew I hadn't really felt passionate about anything artistic for a long while, but I thought it was just creative and physical exhaustion. My CFS had been kicking my butt since May and I've spent most of the summer stuck on my couch or in bed. And then there was the vertigo that completely immobilized me for a few weeks there.

BUT! So as to not go on like your grandmother listing off all her weird health problems, suffice it to say, physical therapy has helped the vertigo, the CFS has finally chilled out a bit, and life without sleeping pills has become suddenly more vibrant and alive in a way I hadn't realized I was missing until it has returned.

I find that my imagination is finally spinning again in a way that it hadn't for a long while. I've had three fully realized novel ideas this past month, wrote about twenty pages of each of them, and have settled on a project I feel so passionate about I wake up grinning I'm so excited to get started working on it.

I've also been watching a slew of movies that are full of the passionate ideals I'm trying to touch on in my writing. Most recently, Moulin Rouge, which is the perfect mix of ridiculous camp and stop-your-heart melodrama. I love me my melodrama. Those are the kinds of stories I love to devour as a reader and the kind of stories I want to create as a writer. As I was settling on the WIP idea I wanted most to work on, I was thinking about the kind of story I wanted to write.

First and foremost, I want to write a love story. And I want to write a love story about how the intersection of two people meeting and falling in love can change the entire course of their lives. This idea is near and dear to me: it's been my personal experience of love. I met the most amazing man on my first day of college, and our being together (through both good times and bad) has been the single most important factor in directing the paths my life has taken. I think about it sometimes--how very different our lives would have been if we hadn't met. I think about certain decisions and events that could have so easily happened a different way so that we'd never crossed each other's acquaintance. I've been married ten and a half years. A person is bound to change in that amount of time, and if you are very lucky, you learn how to change together in ways that continue to be compatible with one another. I've been incandescently happy in my marriage lately, but I think any great love, whether it ends happily or in tragedy, changes you, and those are the stories I want to read and write about.

Some of the movies I've been watching recently that highlight the kind of love that changes everything:

Balancing Act

When I'm on a tight deadline like this, everything in my life begins to revolve around the book. I work on it for half the day, and spend the other half of the day thinking about it. While I heat up food for my son, I'm thinking about what happens in the scene that comes next. When I stop to watch TV or read a book, I'm constantly analyzing the stories being told and thinking if there's a way I can learn from them to make my own book better. When I talk to my husband and he tells me about the computer language he's programming in for his latest research project, I'm wondering whether I've rounded out a character arc well enough, or what I could do to fix it. I think about how much is going to need to be done in edits. And then I think, oh god, right when the drafting is done consuming my life, edits for book 2 will begin to consume!!

And then I stop and take a deep breath. I tickle my son or curl up next to my husband on the couch. I keep listening to Sara Zarr's podcasts about finding balance between one's work life and personal life, and also how elusive that kind of equilibrium can be sometimes. I do hope, eventually, I can achieve that tight-rope act of balance. Maybe not right now or in the next two weeks until this book is due, but some day ;) My husband and I keep talking about this mythical oasis (theoretically sometime this summer), when his research projects for his PhD program will be in lull, and I'm in between edits, when we will take a breather, and also take care of all the things that have piled up during the crazy time, such as (but not limited to):

- laundry (oh how it has piled)
- unpacking the last couple boxes from when we moved in nine months ago
- getting our driving licenses for the new state we live in
- decorating (someday I would like to live in a place that doesn't look like I'm a transient college student)
- buy a couple of plants (kind of ties in with previous point)
- organizing all the things that we just shoved random places when we did unpack, so that I can actually FIND things when I need them.
- color my hair (which I managed to bleach after turning in book 2, but have yet to get around to coloring blue and pink)
- take off on a road trip in a random direction some weekend like the hubs and I used to do when we were back in college, preferably towards somewhere incredibly beautiful and soul-affirming. (If only there were mountains in Minnesota! Le sigh, guess a bunch of lakes will have to do).
- clothes shopping. I've gone up a size, but my clothes have not.

The Rare & Spectacular Moments of Transcendence As a Writer

There's this line from Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones that has all but haunted me. She is writing about writing, and she says: We are not running wildly after beauty with fear at our backs.

Goldberg talks a lot about fear in this amazing book about writing. It seems she almost spends equal time talking about fear and overcoming resistance as she does on writing itself. As any writer knows, the two are often inextricably tied. We are all trying to capture moments of transcendence, but it sure takes a lot of toiling in the dirt to get there.

But sometimes the toil seems to take up all our attention. Hitting daily word count. Thinking up a plot and then producing scenes to knit it all together. Getting through a draft to meet a deadline. There are so many things to fear, even when you tell yourself not to be afraid, that fear and anxiety are stupid and just made-up impediments in your head. Goodness knows I've done this kind of writing for months at a time. I wrote a whole book last year like this. But telling yourself not to be afraid is like telling yourself not to think about something--suddenly it's all you can think about, all you can feel. I'd think about this line from Goldberg and want to scream: but how?? how do you release all the fear and only concentrate on the beauty?

And then there are shocking times like these past two weeks when inspiration hits, and like the proverbial rain storm after a drought, you just soak it in and think oh god I'd missed this so much. Suddenly writing doesn't feel like work, it feels like play. Everything you'd tried to force comes naturally. Sometimes you go through such long stints of the drought kind of writing that you don't think the transcendent moments can even exist anymore.

The key I'm discovering about beginning to enjoy writing again (which, I know plenty of writers will tell you, can be an unfortunate rarity): stick to the scenes I love best. And if I don't love a scene or a big portion of the book, transform it into something I do love and am interested in. This sometimes means BIG think-out-of-the-box changes, but when I sucked it up about the pages I needed to cut to transform the book, I felt the old giddiness inside. And I literally can barely stop myself from writing. It's not fighting to meet word count anymore, I just want to get to the next scene, and when I finish it, I'm eager for the next.

I remember the kind of stories I like best: big, epic, as melodramatic as possible within believable bounds, and of course at the center, a love story. The thing is, if I'm not really enjoying the scenes I'm writing, readers probably aren't going to enjoy them either. The whole fight of writing is getting to that deep emotional spark. Those are the kind of books we read and re-read and can't get out of our heads.

But it's hard, because I couple this idea that I need to love what I'm writing with the very pragmatic demands of being a writer. Sometimes you just need to produce words and pages, and allow it to be crappy, sometimes writing is just bland potatoes without any spice. If you hear writers giving writing advice, so much of what we will talk about is overcoming resistance, trying to just make ourselves sit down and write every day, stressing out over deadlines, feeling anything but love for our stories but forcing ourselves to do it anyway.

Usually what happens (and this is basically what the theme of Goldberg's very beautiful and practical book) is that as you force yourself to write and get into the disciplined habit of it, is that those beautiful moments with the emotional spark will come eventually. Sometimes they'll show up out of nowhere and then you look at the pages you've written with a kind of shocked, huh, that turned out really good! But there are other times like lately when I've been experiencing that even more rare magic of big ideas that seem to set everything into place. Those forehead slapping moments, lightbulb over the head moments, Archimedes jumping out of his bathtub and running down the street shouting Eureka! moments. I'm far from a mystical person, but what can I say that they seem to come from some place outside myself and all I can feel is a very deep gratefulness that I got to partake at all.

So I'm spending every moment I can writing, with more furious passion than I've felt in a long time. It feels good, so good.

What Contemporary YA Teaches Me About Writing Sci-Fi

This past month I've gotten back into book devouring mode. Which is awesome for me, not so awesome for my budget ;) But sometimes you gotta chuck responsibility to the wind, and go with the reading mood when it strikes (and then try to offset buying books with reserving them at the library!).

Now, you might ask, why are you so obsessed wih YA contemporary when you write sci-fi, Heather? My response: ummmmm. I don't know! But other than a select few gems of awesome, I can't seem to really get into anything that's sci-fi or paranormal. I seem to have zero patience, sometimes make it half-way through,  put it down because I feel like 'meh,' and then am like, dude, what's up? Did becoming a writer make me broken as a reader somehow? Then I pick up a contemporary book and disappear into it and four hours later come up for breath and let out a happy sigh.

So I've been trying to figure out what it is about contemporary that makes them such easy reads, even when the subject matter isn't light (I'm looking at you The Fault In Our Stars). I think part of it is: the setting is relatable. There's no worldbuilding you have to figure out, no trying to gear up to learn the ins and outs of how things work, no trying to decode new and strange social codes that come with a dystopia or a post-apocalyptic book. I also think part of it might be that the conflicts can be intense, but they aren't all life and death (and sometimes that's a relief to read!). There's not kick-butt action, it's lots of emotional drama instead. Because here's really what's what--those are my favorite parts of action-y life or life-and-death books--the space in between the action, where characters are learning about themselves or falling in love.

I've been working on book 3 in my series, which paradoxically is pretty chockful of big action spreads. But I've also been very careful to avoid some of the things I hate in the third book of trilogies. Like take for example, Mockingjay. There's so much action, and so little of the interpersonal relationships that made us fall in love with the first book. The personal bits seem like quick toss-ins between one trauma or another. So I'm trying my damndest to create space for my characters to really have the growth I want for them. And for the romance, which I've worked in some *hopefully* creative ways to keep fresh. It's the emotional core of any book that really hooks me and makes a book stay in my head for long after I've read it.

Writing Book 3 in a Trilogy

So I'm in this delightful lull between finishing copyedits on book 1 and receiving an edit letter on book 2. Where you guessed it, I'm working on book 3 again. Writing life is funny when you're working on a trilogy set to come out at six month intervals. Rarely a dull week!

So I haven't written, as in full on drafting, since November, when I started book 3 in NaNoWriMo. Thankfully I got a good 20k into it before other edits intervened, and I stare at those 70 pages I have already written on it gratefully. It's a good feeling to have a head-start, but I still want to make more of a dent on it while I have a bit of time here before it's due in May. I'm no good with the stress of deadlines. I like to have a first draft WELL beforehand so I can avoid stress-writing, which is generally passion-less writing.

But the trick, as always when I've gone a few months without drafting, is getting back into the swing of it. I'd compare it to training for a marathon, but then, I hate sports metaphors :) So let's just say, it always takes a few days with slow-spurt starts. Like today, I managed 1,500 words. But I cheated a little. Usually I make myself go chronologically, but I let myself skip ahead and write the epic ending scene. Which, as you can imagine as the end of a trilogy, is VERY EPIC. When I'm getting back into drafting, it's all these little tricks that help. Tomorrow I'll go back to writing chronologically, and doing responsible grown-up things like plotting out scenes before I write them.

A very good and genius friend, Jodi Meadows, gave a piece of advice I've always kept in mind for when sequels are daunting: treat each book as a standalone. As if this was the first book in a trilogy, when you're super jacked up about the idea and the characters. Because here's a secret, blogosphere: I'm having a love affair with another book idea in my head. But to get to that one, of course, I have to write this one. So every morning lately when I wake up dreaming of that book, I try to slow down, and think of what I want to do with this book. I ask myself these questions:

-What do I love in great trilogy-ending books?
-What do I hate in trilogies I feel have let me down as a reader?
-What themes and big ideas have I set up in Book 1 and 2 that I really want to give satisfaction here in book 3?
-What new things can I introduce to make this book and the characters brand new again to me?

And for me folks, I won't lie, it's all about the romance and character growth. That's what I love, what draws me to books and trilogies. I've got all the events and action plotted out for book 3, but how do I give it heart? How do I make readers cringe and yearn with epic melodrama?

On Copyedits & Coming to the End

I'm almost done with copyedits. Which means, this book is finished. Like finished finished. It's another first, having brought a book through all these edits and getting it so completely polished. All that's left are First Pass Pages, and then it will be out in ARCs, and into reader's hands.

It's been quite a strange feeling, actually. I've made some bigger changes in the copyedits stage than just grammar things, but I know this is the last chance. As a writer, you can always keep perfecting, keep tweaking and changing things. But it doesn't matter, because the book will come out and it is final. So that's, you know, scary!

At the same time I'm excited to move on. I want to get back to drafting again, working on book 3. Editing can feel kind of non-productive, rehashing over the same words, cutting and re-writing small bits--but it's nothing compared to the adrenaline and pure creation stage of drafting.

How to Be A Rockstar, Even When You Don't Feel Like it

I'll be honest, for as many amazing things that happened in 2011, it had its fair share of punch-me-in-the-face moments. So over the past month, I've been working to put things back together, personally and professionally. And I'm finally gettin' my mojo back :) So here are my personal steps to getting back the I-Can-Do-Anything-I-Put-My-Mind-To-Rockstar-Mojo.

Step 1) Dye your hair bright pink. This says: BAM, I am in your face! I am kick-ass! (if you don't feel it at first, that's all right. It's part of the point. Every time you look in the mirror you can be reminded of your kick-ass-osity).

Step 2) Get your sh*% together. Rockstars are productive. They make stuff happen. They are creative. So getting my sh#$ together comes with a few different sub-points:

• Take care of emails more regularly so they don't get into the triple digits
• Make sure to take time for daily inspiration. Rockstars aren't robots. They are creative and passionate. Take time for that everyday.
• Do laundry. Because no one likes a rockstar without clean underwear.
• Make check-lists and cross stuff off every day. Every little bit of productivity starts rebuilding confidence that screams hell yes! I can do this!
• Do what you love, and foster that love in every way possible. This is what really makes rockstars. We do what we love, passionately, and catch other people up in the passion. As a writer, this means catching up my readers. But that's not going to happen if I've lost connection to that passionate place that made me want to tell stories in the first place.

Step 3) Love on your family. My family is my support, my stable center. Without them, none of the rest is possible.

Am I a Grown Up Writer Yet?

So, as I edit this dry bones draft, I started another document called "Emotional Big Ideas" in which I write scenes, throughout the day (or the middle of the night) about the emotional zingers--scenes that help me see clearly who my characters are and what they want. I don't know exactly where the scenes will go, or if they'll even make the cut when I start pasting things into the new draft, but it's so helpful to start to get a real feel for who my characters are. This side document is now 40 pages long.

I never used to understand when writers would talk about all the pre-writing and extra character development writing that wasn't actually part of the draft. I'd think: all that wasted time! those wasted pages!

Yeah, I'm finally getting the idea.  Does this mean I'm getting to be a Grown Up Writer? Lol, we'll see, my lovelies, we'll see. Meanwhile, I listen to Florence + The Machine's sophmore album, and am inspired.