Read 'Til You Drop

While I was in New York, I went to visit my agent, to discuss the Super Secret Project.  He had already read the first few chapters, and he's as excited about this one as I am.  Our meeting was designed to be strategy, strategy, strategy - no true *writing* substance, per se.

I arrived at his office late - other meetings ran long, alas.  He buzzed me upstairs, because the staff had already left for the day.  We used his office computer for the necessary reviews of deadlines, incoming checks, etc.

And then we went out to eat.

What better place to dine on a cold February night than a tiny neighborhood restaurant - dark and narrow and crowded, with regulars at the bar and that certain sort of New York aggressiveness in the greeter that makes you remember that you're not in Kansas anymore.  ("Yeah, yeah, 'll seat you in a minute.  Can  I write down the name that guy just gave me, before I forget?")

In the end, I had a mug of Stella in one hand, a juicy burger in the other, and medallions of crisp cottage fries (round, ruffle cut French fries) between us.  Fresh Heinz ketchup was poured, and then we both sat back to talk about the market.  The market and me.  The market and the Super Secret Project.

Some people get really excited by high-end, glamorous restaurants, with synchronized footmen unveiling silver chargers bearing a single bite of food.

Me?  I'm a cheap date :-)

Mindy, distracting herself by asking - what goes on your burger (or mushroom or chicken breast or similar grilled sandwich) to make it perfect?

This past weekend, we went to see Argonautika, a version of the story about Jason and the Argonauts, at the Shakespeare Theater.  The show was something out of the ordinary for the theater - of course, it isn't Shakespeare, and it didn't have any of the regular actors for the house; rather, it was an "import" from Berkeley.  The show covers dozens of scenes of classic Greek myth, settings that range from cities to islands to ships, dozens of actors portraying gods and goddesses, imaginary creatures large and small - in short, it's ambitious.

The production owed a huge amount to Julie Taymor, and the puppetry that she created for THE LION KING.  Some of the puppets were more successful than others - I thought the best was a rather standard marionette that was used to depict an infant - the puppeteer was able to manipulate both arms, both legs, and the head, tapping them on the floor and waving them in the air to simulate a very real baby's movement.  When the child is killed, the strings are cut, and the resulting "death" is so sudden and stark that it made me catch my breath.

But what interested me the most about the story was the nature of the storytelling.  This is a classic story similar to The Odyssey: guys goes on sea journey, has a lot of adventures, comes home.  Yeah, nominally, he's after the Golden Fleece, but that goal is almost incidental to the encounters along the way.

I'm in the middle of writing a synopsis write now for the Super Secret Project.  I am trying desperately to keep it from sounding like Argonautika:  First she goes here, then she goes there, then she goes to this third place.  I'm trying to create rhythm and drive and tension.

And I'm thinking a lot about the transition in storytelling over the past three thousand years, that made us go from telling a riveting sequential story to creating one that climbs in suspense.

Mindy, flexing her English-major muscles :-)

I need a handful of cliches for "give it the old college try".  I've already sketched in "keep your chin up", "keep a stiff upper lip", "quitters never win".

Any other dusty words of wisdom/encouragement an annoying pontificator can give our hero?

Mindy, working on the super secret project

Sorry to have dropped off the face of the blogging world...  Here's where I've been, in a bit more than a nutshell:

• Parents came to visit, resulting in comic attempts to clean house, get new furniture situated, supervise installation of new blinds, etc.  Visit was lovely, fantastic, wonderful, and needful of being repeated far more frequently.
• Trip to National Building Museum, parents in tow.  The former Pension Administration building is mostly a giant empty space, with columns that remind me of an Egyptian temple.  The ground floor is given over to play-space for kids, with giant building blocks, smaller wooden construction tools, etc.  The specific exhibit we went to see, drawings by David Macaulay, was less interesting than I'd hoped, but the museum itself was great.
• Trip to Renwick, mother in tow.  The "craft" arm of the Smithsonian, the Renwick was hosting an exihibit on quilts and community.  There were two types of quilts that I'd never seen before, both created as fundraisers, and both represented by many examples.  The first takes names of donors and embroiders them on patches (as petals of flowers or as other design elements); the patches are then pieced and minimally quilted.  The second takes name of businesses and embroiders them, often with design elements.  There were also some traditional quilts, with some of the most detailed stitching I have ever seen.
• Kirov Ballet's performance of "La Bayadere".  For years, I've carped about the endless procession of 32 dancers in the Dance of the Shades, but this production won me over.  The company was superb, and I lost myself in this classic ballet.  (Not so much, surprisingly, in the Dance of the Golden God - which was good, but not as breathtaking as I've seen it in the past.)
• MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL.  Final edits are in, in, in.  Yea!
• SUPER SECRET PROJECT 2.  I am researching like a fiend, and I've started drafting chapters.  My agent is leaning on me rather heavily to get him something to submit sooner, sooner, sooner.
• Writer Weekend.  I got together with three other writer friends this weekend.  One had sold her first novel (go, Nancy!), so we were ostensibly getting together to discuss book marketing and promotion.  In reality, though, we ate a lot of food, drank a lot of wine, and talked, talked, talked...  I truly enjoyed the company of Maria V. Snyder and Jeri Smith-Ready, and I look forward to future get-togethers.

And those are the highlights.  My friends-list reading has been a bit ragged - point me toward treasures I've missed, if necessary!

Despite working in a law-firm library, I'm not a very good library patron.

Oh, I'm good enough about returning my books on time (or, at least, paying fines when I forget to).  I'm good about bringing extra books to the Library's sale desk.  I'm good about talking up the Library with its incredible resources, available for free to all.  I'm even good about camping out at the Library on the odd day when I'm in Writing Marathon and can't work at home.

But I don't use the Library to borrow books.  I generally own far more books on my to-be-read shelf than I  have time to read.  Most of them I've bought, some have been gifts.  A few are borrowed from friends.

And yet, I found myself reading several YA novels solely for the purpose of getting background for Super Secret Project Two.  Of the four that I bought, one was tremendous, and I've already recommended it to others.  One had a knock-me-down great idea, but was poorly written and worse-ly edited.  Two were OK, but not for me, and not really all that helpful for SSP Two.

But I bought them all, in a fit of "I have to read these NOW and, besides, they're deductable."

So, when I thought of another title that will help with SSP Two, I decided to go by the Library.  (It helped that we were dropping off seven bags of books for the book sale.)  I found the title on the shelf.  I brought it up to the counter to check out.  I found the "self checkout" terminal.

And I discovered that my card has expired - it's been more than three years since I checked out a book.

Gulp.

A kind and tolerant librarian renewed my card (and listened to Mark and me jabbering about our love of libraries.)  I've got three years before I have to renew this one. 

Do you use your library?  If so, do you check out books?  DVDs?  Music?  Participate in programs?

Mindy, promising to use the card at least a *little* more often (which isn't saying much...)

We've all seen vampires done to death, and there are more than enough shape-changers roaming the urban fantastic landscape (werewolves and other were-creatures included.)

Which fantastic beings would you like to see more of?  Which ones get overlooked in urban fantasy (or any other branch of spec fic that you'd care to name?)  Which mythologies would you care to see exploited more?

Mindy, working on super secret project two

Last night, Mark and I went to the Aimee Mann Christmas Show.  It was lots of fun - a variety show along the lines of Carol Burnett or Sonny and Cher, but with hip musicians and funny video clips and language that you would *never* hear on TV...  Alas, Aimee was suffering from a terrible cold, and her range was rather, um, limited.  She apologized several times but kept up her end of the bargain as emcee for the evening - the audience was tremendously supportive.

And, partway through the evening, Australian singer-songwriter Ben Lee performed "Numb" off his album, Ripe.  The lyrics begin:

I'm in surgery
It's an emergency
it just occurred to me
Ironically I caught a disease
They take a piece of me
Enjoy the scenery
Counting back from ten but
I will never fall asleep

And I had a perfect story idea.  The type of story idea that completely makes a novel.  The type of story idea that was so perfect for the book I want to write, so absolutely *brilliant* (if I do say so myself!) that I actually laughed out loud, grabbed the notebook out of my purse and scribbled away in the dim light of the Birchmere.

I'm taking eleven days off at Christmas (for the cost of only three vacation days, thanks the the alignment of holidays and relatively generous employer-designated holidays!)  I had planned on making the final edits to MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL. 

But now I get to invest some of that time in writing up a few chapters for the New and Improved Super Secret Project.

I can't wait.

Mindy, counting the days till Christmas, more eagerly than most small children

So, Some People have talked to Other People, and I can now share:

I am thrilled to announce that I have sold three more books to Red Dress Ink:

MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL (tentative title):  The third volume in the trials and tribulations of librarian-cum-witch, Jane Madison.

THERE'S THE RUB (very tentative title):  The first volume in a new series, SISTERHOOD OF THE FLAME, featuring Kira Franklin, a stage manager who discovers a magic lamp - complete with genie - when she is cleaning out the prop closet at her local theater.  Somehow, Kira never imagined that having wishes *granted* would cause so much chaos in her life!

UNTITLED SECOND SISTERHOOD BOOK (yeah, not even approaching a title):  A sequel to THERE'S THE RUB, showing what happens when one woman shares the magical good, er, bad, er, unpredictable fortune of having a genie in her life.

Publication dates are still a bit up in the air, but MAGIC will likely appear in October 2008 and the sisterhood books some time after that.

(For those keeping score, THERE'S THE RUB was the Super Secret Project mentioned earlier on this journal.)

Mindy, Bounce!  Bounce!  Bounce-ing!

I have two proposals out to publishers right now, and I am practicing the fine art of waiting.  Practicing, because I'm nowhere near perfect at this stuff.  I *hate* the waiting - it's like pouring water, manure, and sunlight onto all my seeds of self-doubt.

Yesterday, a NaNoWriMo person posted on another list I populate, saying that she was finding the whole NaNo process lonely.

Writing *is* lonely.  And it's frustrating.  And so much of it is out of our control.  And so much of it is spent waiting for other people on our teams to do their job.

But when it all comes together...  That makes the work, the loneliness, the frustration all worthwhile.

Tick.  Tick.  Wait.  Tick.  How much time has gone by?

What are your tips and tricks for dealing with waiting (if not for writing results, then for other potentially good things?)

Mindy, off to complete edits on SORCERY to fill the time in the most productive way

OK, groupmind - I need a name for a made-up porno movie. 

It can't really exist.

It has to be clean enough to type in a "family newspaper".

It has to convey immediately to the reader that it's a porno movie.

The title is going to be used in juxtaposition to an art-house movie - for example:  "Bergman's Fanny and Alexander this was not; rather the movie of the day was called YOUR TITLE HERE."

Ideas?  Anyone?  Buehler?

Mindy, tweaking the first chapter of the Super Secret Project

A few weeks ago, there was a lot of discussion about writing process and how different novelists create their work.  I didn't have time to engage then (I was, um, too busy meeting a deadline, resulting from the way I create my work :-) )  There was a follow-up discussion launched by technosage, which I did join.  You can read that thread, and some of my initial comments here.  Technosage invited me to expand on those ideas, so I'm going to, but in my own little corner of the world - you know, in case the interest has totally passed.

The specific question at hand was how expand a spark of a character into the fire of a story.

I have started every one of my novels with a firm notion of who the main characters are.  I muddle through their personalities (in my head, not on paper or notecards), playing with quirks and traits that will - if all goes well - make them interesting, but will also make them distinctive from other characters I've created in the past.  For example, I'm about to start writing the Super Secret Synopsis for a new chicklit paranormal series.  I know who the main character is, and I know a lot of things about her personality.  Some of those things have been specifically chosen so that she ISN'T Jane Madison.  (For example, my new character is going to have a hearty aversion to Shakespeare.)

Once I've spent a day or week or fortnight muddling about the character, then I start to sketch out the plot.  The plot is tied directly to the character.  If my plot involves the high stakes world of female bodybuilding, then it's unlikely that my main character is going to be a long-haired, long-nailed, anorexic beauty queen more obsessed with her wardrobe than with her training schedule.  Instead, the plot has to flow organically beside the characters.  Certainly, the characters will be carried by the plot at times, and they might end up at places they had not anticipated, but they can't end up in a totally different world, facing completely different challenges, with completely different supporting or competing casts.

To take an absurd example - caste-bound Rani from the Glasswright Series is not going to pop brightly in Jane Madison's library, ask about the life of Pilgrim Jair, and the hop back into her own story.

There are *times* when I modify a character to match a plot (or a narrative quirk).  For example, Jane Madison didn't originally have two masters degrees (in English and Library Science.) She picked up the English degree when the Shakespeare allusions became too thick for the average librarian to have at her finger-tips.  The core of the character remained the same, but the specifics were tweaked.

If there's a continuum between plot building characters and characters building plot, my writing is probably at about 90% character, 10% plot. 

Where do the rest of you fall on that continuum?  Have you read books that seem completely dominated by one or the other (or a totally different) method of construction?

Mindy, analyzing the process even as she works it