Grace

Last year I was at my most expansive in every way. I had health, a circle of friends, energy, and a vitality of personality that seems as foreign to me now as a country across the deep wide sea.

 

During my time of vitality, I was also making some horrible choices. Instead of being grateful for all the good things that I had, I kept grasping for more, like useless shiny objects in shop window I thought would make me happy. Doing things that hurt the people closest to me and pretending it was free of charge.

 

And then this year happened. It’s been a very quiet year. From January onward, my health got worse and worse due to my chronic illness and a new condition that cropped up which gives me intense vertigo, until all I could do was lay on a couch with the TV off, the lights off, not moving at all except to drag myself to the bathroom a few times a day. I could manage 2-3 hours of work on my laptop, and the rest was spent just waiting for night to come so I could sleep and get to the next day when I could do my work again. For weeks on end. For months.

 

Though the storyteller in me is tempted to call this year ‘a severe mercy,’ and create an elaborate narrative about why it had to happen in some fake but satisfying cause-and-effect plotline—aka, I was squandering the good in my life, so then I was humbled by debilitating illness so that then I realized all the blessings surrounding me and could be grateful like Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol— the rest of me hopes that if there is a God, that’s not how he works.

 

But at the same time, I am grateful now for the many good things I still have, in spite of my ill health. Grateful in a deeply, profound way. I’ve been very alone but not lonely. I am married to the most wonderful, kind, and loving man who I'm not sure I deserve, and we have a beautiful, healthy child together. I have good work to do, a job I can do from home that I love. I’m grateful for what feel like moments of grace, where I expect the worst, and then something better happens instead. These moments have felt more and more frequent lately. I’m rarely mystical but the sense of peace, where in the past I would have felt only anger, seems to come from somewhere outside myself. If there is a God, this is how I hope he works.

 

After more than a decade of being sick, is this what acceptance really feels like? Finally being okay with tomorrow regardless of if it brings more sickness or more energy? Will writing this post shatter the peace I’ve felt, as if saying it out loud breaks the spell? Or does the wiser me bathed in grace realize that life isn’t so whimsical or dramatic as that, even if it sometimes feels like it.

 

I hope I’ve learned that fear of tomorrow has nothing to do with today, and that living today is all that matters.

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.

Life Imitating Art?

In which I wax philosophical about story structure, TV tropes, and the question of whether my life imitates the stories I tell, or if it's the other way around.

For years and years I proclaimed that if I ever got high cholesterol when I was old, I’d cut meat out of my diet before I’d cut out salt. Salt and I have had a long love affair that began when I was but a wee thing and continued until four months ago. I salted everything. I licked the salt out of the bowl after I finished my popcorn. Then I developed Meniere’s disease even though I'm only thirty, and now can eat only 1/20^th of the normal daily allowance now. This is very difficult to do.

But the funny thing is, so many thing seem to happen in my life this way. I’m not a superstitious person, but I’ve noticed this odd pattern. Whenever I declare something out loud or on twitter or facebook, it’s doomed to change the next day. Especially declarations like: I’m feeling better and finally have more energy, or: my writing habit is going great, I think I’ve really gotten the hang of the discipline of meeting a daily word count! Or: wow, my son hasn’t gotten into any trouble at school for two whole weeks!

Then inevitably, what feels like every single time, almost immediately the other shoe drops, and life barges in and negates the statements I so confidently made.

This is exactly what we writers love to do to our characters too. For example, there was this moment in last week’s episode of The Walking Dead where all the characters are standing around, smiling at one another, finally having a good day. The camera lingers as the characters’ eyes meet each other. You get the sense that rifts are being reconciled, that our hard-scrabble favorites are going to be okay after all. And then BOOM!  Zombie attack! The writers and tv crew intentionally gave you that golden moment before hand to make it all the more heart-wrenching when, a few seconds later, all hell breaks loose.

It’s how I build my narratives too. Writing is all about reversals. You know, where a character starts off the chapter stating that they will NEVER do something, then by the end of the chapter circumstances have forced them into doing the thing they swore they never would. For my books, I want a reversal at the end of almost every chapter. Well, either a reversal or a revelation. These are things that make you go OH MY GOD! And then of course you just have to read on to the next chapter to find out how it will resolve itself.

But it’s funny, because growing up, I was always annoyed by reversals in books and tv shows I watched. TV shows are the kings of reversals. Ex: Carrie starts one episode of Sex and the City feeling all happy and glowy about keeping her toothbrush at Big’s place, imagining that it is a sign of real growth in their relationship. And then by the end of the episode, they are broken up. Another perfect example of this is the season 6 Doctor Who episode called “A Good Man Goes To War.” River foretells: “This is the Battle of Demon's Run. The Doctor's darkest hour. He'll rise higher than ever before and then fall so much further.” And then we get to watch exactly that happen.

When I was younger, I assumed these were all superficial, totally made-up conflicts. I thought: life doesn’t work like that. You don’t have some nice opening scene where you expect one thing (and say it out loud), then a hair-brained turn of events brings about it’s opposite. I thought they just did it because it was the expected framework for tv shows.

But now, as I watch the pattern repeat over and over and over in my life, I’m not so sure. Maybe that story structure isn’t just an artificially manufactured conflict for the sake of filling thirty minutes or an hour of tv. Really this structure has been around for a long time. I mean sheesh, take Oedipus. An oracle tells a king his son will kill him, so the king has the baby put out on the rocks to die, only for someone to rescue the child and the son grows up and unknowingly kills his father on the road one day anyway.

These are strange lessons—that the things we want to avoid will so often come to pass in spite of our best efforts. That moments of triumph are so often followed by moments of loss and despair. But even through the disappointments and despair, the fictional characters grow from such moments. They learn and change and hopefully become better and wiser for their hardship. It’s what I hope for my life as well.

The YAmazing Race & Giveaway!

The YAmazing Race is over, thanks to all who participated!!! I'll be contacting a winner in my personal giveaway soon :)

 

Welcome to my stop on the YAmazing Race with MGnificent prizes, a blog hop featuring over 50 debut authors, and prize packs that include ARCs, gift certificates, swag, and more! Click here for the complete rules!

 

 

Synopsis of GLITCH:

In the Community, there is no more pain or war. Implanted computer chips have wiped humanity clean of destructive emotions, and thoughts are replaced by a feed from the Link network.

 

When Zoe starts to malfunction (or "glitch"), she suddenly begins having her own thoughts, feelings, and identity. Any anomalies must be immediately reported and repaired, but Zoe has a secret so dark it will mean certain deactivation if she is caught: her glitches have given her the power of telekinesis. 

 

As Zoe struggles to control her abilities and stay hidden, she meets other glitchers including Max, who can disguise his appearance, and Adrien, who has visions of the future. Together, this growing band of glitchers must find a way to free themselves from the controlling hands of the Community before they’re caught and deactivated, or worse.
 

In addition to the signed copy of Glitch I'll be giving away on the race, I'm also hosting a giveaway here of a signed copy, keychain, and bookmarks! To enter, just leave your name and email address in the comments (+1 for entering). For bonus entries (just make a note of them in your comment):

+1 for Liking my page on Facebook

+1 for Following this blog

+1 for Following me on Twitter

Contest is open for US and Canadian residents, and ends on May 15th.

And last but not least,

CLICK HERE for the next stop on the race!

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!

Not Defined By Negative Space: My Thoughts on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

I’m a writer, but I still can’t figure out a way to write about CFS that doesn’t sound like your grandmother’s boring list of complaints about her latest ailments. You either have to be funny (which I can occasionally manage in social settings when I’m feeling well enough to get out, but am rubbish at when I write), or you have to weave a story that draws the reader in.

The trouble with that last bit is the kinds of stories you can tell about CFS. You see, the thing is, sick people don’t get to actually do much of anything. There’s no natural building tension that arcs up to a climax. Sick people are all dénouement. We live in the evening after all the exciting things have happened. We can recall back—remember when I was 19 and running around the city? Remember our first date where we walked to the beach by Navy Pier and ate Subway sandwiches, and I was embarrassed about having ordered a meatball sub because they are so messy to eat and I wanted to impress you? Remember when we walked back to the college and you held my hand because it was cold, but then you never let go the whole twenty minute walk home?

But now I watch movies about people who decide to change their lives—they go back to college, break out of old patterns, take up dancing or biking or reinvigorate their love life. And I feel like those people are aliens. The longer I’m ill (and it’s been over a decade now), the more separated from normal life I feel. It’s a foreign land populated by foreign people. I read about these people doing their exotic things like walking their dogs or driving to pick up their children from soccer. I watch movies where people fall in love and kiss in the rain. I get out of the house once a week and my husband drives me around and I see people jogging on the beautiful path by the river. And I stare at them thinking: I cannot even fathom what life is like for you.

 

I don’t want to be one of those people who is defined by the things I’ve lost. I don’t want to be the piece of art where all the negative space tells the story. But then there are days like today, where I barely manage three hours of work from my couch, and the rest of the day I’m all but catatonic, laying down and closing my eyes to still the spinning vertigo and resting my exhausted limbs. Days where I just want to scream at the top of my lungs at how crappy it is that I can’t drive a car, or get out of the house, or cook a meal, or contribute to the housework at all, or even read a book.

 

But the kinds of stories I want to tell have to end on a hopeful note. Even the story of my own life. So instead I’ll try to focus on the fact that some meds have allowed me that three hours of work a day, that I’m getting through my copyedits and will be done by the due date, that I get to be a writer and have a wonderful career that I love with work I can do from my couch, that I have a beautiful son and an amazing husband. And I try to remind myself that no matter the bad crap, this life I have is very good.

Copyedits for Override!

Got through 9 chapters (out of 29) on copyedits* for Override today!!! All I can say is thank goodness for vertigo meds, which calmed down the constant spinning to an acceptable level so I can at least get some work done.

As I do my read-through, I'm struck by what a strange thing it is to write a book like this--one that I've rewritten from scratch at least three times. I know the story so well that all the different permutations kind of overlap. Reading through it now, I was laughing - oh the story logic seems so simple now, but it was SUCH a struggle to figure it all out! Note to self: don't ever have someone who can see the future in my other books, it makes for some wicked plot knots. There's this one scene that I literally wrote more than ten times, and now it reads all smooth and simple. But when I read it, I see all the struggle that was behind it. I see all the failed plot-lines and mis-steps it took me to finally get here. Really, I hope that no book I write in the future is EVER this much struggle again. And yet, beyond all the difficulties, I think I (with the help of my amazing editor and some very helpful beta readers) have managed to produce a good book with some wicked twists that I think readers will really enjoy!

Strange world. I've learned SO much over the past two years. Stuff I hope I can integrate into future books, and lessons about life I will try my hardest never to forget. In short: Life is beautiful. Find good work you find satisfying. Hold tight to the ones you love. That is all.

* Copyedits are (theoretically) where you’re just fixing grammar mistakes, logic problems (like, wait, wasn’t she just sitting down, but now she’s walking around with no transition? or bigger world-building logic inconsistencies) and doing a last read-through to make sure everything sounds right and you aren’t repeating the same word three times in the same sentence.