The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: novels

  • In 2012, I Took Every Challenge

    From a writing standpoint, 2012 rocked.

    I sent out a novel for the first time. Even though it got rejected twice, the “revise & resubmit” was pretty much the best thing that could have happened.

    I finally (finally!) understand passive voice in my writing. I don’t always see it, and I don’t always correct it, but its so much better now. I’ve also gotten more confidence in my writing. I’ve taken more challenges, I’ve tried new genres.

    But most of all, I just wrote more. I usually wrote NaNo every year. But beyond that, I didn’t do much. A couple pieces of fan fiction here, a drabble there.

    In 2012, I wrote 256,213 words of fiction alone. I’m sorry, I bolded that to brag. In years previous, I would probably write NaNoWriMo, maybe a handful of one-shots. This year I went for pretty much every challenge that came at me.

    Crossover challenge with a minimum of 20,000 words? Hell yes. Shipping challenge, another 20,000? Here, let me write 40,000. Wait, lets do both months of Camp NaNo! Why the hell not? Oh, and don’t forget how into NaNoWriMo we all are.

    Sometimes I drowned. August got stuck watching my son while I locked myself in the bedroom to finish Camp NaNo August. (I did more or less the same thing in Camp NaNo June, but my husband was home to manage the child.) But I damn well got it done. (Okay, except the two flash fiction assignments I totally dropped the ball on. Whoops.)

    With the flash fiction assignments, short story ideas, and the handful of ideas I wrote without any sort of prompting, its been a great year. Unfortunately, it means that 2013 is going to be a year of an awful lot of rewriting and editing. But I got so much done in 2012, that I’m pretty amped about 2013.

    And hey, this month I’m jumping in with Sara & Ted to finish my NaNo novel in January.

  • When All Is Said & Done

    There’s an exact moment when I read something I wrote and I go, “Damn. I am so right for this business.” Or I suppose, more accurately, there are two moments.

    The first comes during the raw writing process. When everything is still in idea form, and you’re just cruising on the adrenaline of creation going Yeah! No one has ever been this brilliant or creative or well-written ever! I like to think that’s about a third of the actual writing process — cruising on pure ego. The other two thirds are agonizing through the parts in-between, when you realize this story is ridiculous and derivative and your parents were right, why didn’t you just go into accounting like your sister?1

    (more…)

  • 46,000 Words, Give or Take

    I used to despair that I would never be a novelist, because I can’t write lengthy, epic novels. And I’m not using despair lightly — we’re talking all the gnashing of teeth and melodrama that comes with being, um, a freshman in high school. Okay, now I don’t even take this story seriously, but hear me out.

    I cap out at about 56K, maybe 58K on a good day. And I mean, 58K would be a seriously verbose novel for me. I’m more likely to complete a story in about 30K – 35K. This is just how I roll, apparently, and I don’t know why. I’m still editing my second novel, so maybe I’ll have that moment where I understand why. But in the mean time I’m okay with this limitation. I believe that I can tell a good story in under 60K. And you know why?

    Douglas Adams.
    (more…)

  • Exercises in Failure & the Editing Process

    I hate editing. I have failed every goal I’ve ever set when editing. I stumble in the same spot every time.

    It’s not killing my darlings. Whatever, kill those bastards. I never liked them anyway.  (Oh my god that’s such a lie, please, come back, babies.) I like going through the novel and finding the things that worked. I like those moments when you realize, “Wow, this is a legitimate novel,” and the moments where you throw the manuscript across the room and scream, “I WILL NEVER WRITE AGAIN.”

    Here’s my process. (more…)

  • Panning for Gold in the Dark

    A couple of weeks back the fabulous Confabulators weighed in on where their writing ideas come from.  I may backtrack a bit over some of that territory, because where they come from seems to be connected to the ideas I end up pursuing past the ‘idea’ stage.

    Looking back on the thousands of words I’ve written, I sort of see this pattern: for a novel or short story, what usually what gets me going, and keeps me engaged, is something I’m struggling to understand in my own life.

    For example:

    ~The aftermath of the unexplained death of my father became a short story about the changing relationship of two brothers, as one pulls away from what’s left of his family.

    ~Trying to understand marriage became a novel exploring the lives of a girl traded into white slavery and a man raised in the 1960’s “who did everything right and failed.”

    ~The idea of refuge and the families we make became a novel about the friendships between gay theater kids in college and their circle of friends (‘Fame meets Boogie Nights’.)

    ~Addiction, the allure of escapism, and personal betrayals (both perpetrated and experienced) became a book about a young girl’s search for her birth parents in an alternate reality. (more…)