a portrait of insanity. i mean--revisions.

Two words have never felt so good. Seriously.

I know I'll be back to it in a bit, but for now, I'm celebrating the end of six very long weeks.

I've been through several rounds of revision already with so many different projects, but every time feels like the first. So I'm partly writing this road map to remind myself of the process.

Day 1: Edit letter arrives in your inbox. You're utterly excited to finally read it. About ten words into the letter your excitement starts to curdle. Die. Instead the panic starts to rise as you start reading all of the impossible things your agent/editor thinks need to change. Doesn't she know they're essential to the plot?! You talk on the phone with agent/editor and realize that they aren't as essential as you thought. You repeat the mantra writing is all about killing your darlings over and over again in your head to psych yourself up for the gargantuan task ahead.

Days 2 and 3: *commence utter panic, chocolate binge and denial of reality*

Day 4: Okay. You can do this. Breathe and repeat after me. You. Can. Do. This.

Day 5-Week 2: You start deleting scenes (between tears and more chocolates) and writing new ones. You have no idea if you're making it better or utterly destroy any semblance of bookness it had.

Week 3: You stop and reread through everything you've done (about 100 pages deleted/rewritten). Hey. It's not so bad. It could even be good. It might even be... *gasp* better? Could your agent/editor actually be right?

Week 4: You thought you would be done by now. But you're not. Your manuscript is starting to resemble a half-creature. More minotaur than centaur. But if it were a centaur, it would be the ones from Harry Potter and not those floofy pony creatures from Disney's Fantasia films. No. Your manuscript is gnarly. And it bites. And it might shoot poor unaware wizarding students if it had the chance.

Week 5: Your manuscript is looking better, but you, dear writer, have gone downhill. You've been living off coffee and whatever meals your poor husband decided to scrounge together for you. You've hit the wall. The point where even a few days off can't recharge your writing batteries. Week 5 is a beast.

But then... you reach Week 6.

Week 6: There's a light! A light at the end of the tunnel! You've just read through the reworked part of your manuscript (yet again) and lo and behold, it's actually a cohesive story! (It happens every time but it still feels like a miracle). Spurred on by this success, you work extra hard to cobble those last few scenes together. And before you can even start to second guess yourself you cram it into an email to your agent/editor and press SEND. After blinking at the screen in disbelief for several minutes you get up from your computer and look around at the chaos of your house. You walk straight to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of wine.

And that, my friends, is what revision is like for me. And it sounds terrible, but I wouldn't trade this job for the world.

the busyness of life

Fall is busy.

Which makes Ryan a terrible blogger. The busyness also addles her brain a bit, which is why she's now referring to herself in the third person. Alas.

Which I will now stop doing because it requires too much brain power for my addled brain.

Because I'm insane and I really want to take big and expensive trips all around the world, I have not one, but two other jobs I maintain aside from writing big, fat books. I also try to have a semblance of a social life. And settle in to my new house. So when revisions roll around combined with all of these other things, I have a minor panic attack and then sacrifice my blog posts as a result. So I'm sorry. You have fallen victim to my insane schedule.

BUT I'm starting to see the light at the end of the revision tunnel, which is always a good thing. (Generally it means I have about a week or two left in the process.) 

To destress I've been painting furniture. It helps. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the paint fumes. Or the very bright colors. 

The colors go into my grand scheme to give my new house pops of cheer and bright. (Yay!)

I also had a friend show up today to help me paint:

He meandered into my yard and helped by bounding around, wagging his tail and looking generally cute until his actual owners arrived and took him away. I have a feeling I'll see him again, since I've seen this particular pup roaming the streets of our neighborhood before. He must be a jailbreaker.

Other than paint I've been on the road a bit, going to weddings as both a photographer and a guest. While in Richmond I stopped here:

And bought a book just because I loved its cover. A good enough reason, right?

I've also been enjoying the colors of fall. Leaves. All things pumpkin. Cool air. I LOVE this time of year.

What has everyone else been up to? Is fall just as busy for you guys?

finished. again.

Sometimes, for kicks, I go back and read my blog posts from a year ago to see what I was doing.

It's funny how cyclical life is. This time last year I was finishing up edits for my super-agent for Luminance Hour. This time this year I'm finishing up edits for my super-editor for Luminance Hour. Hopefully (hopefully) this will be the last time I'll have to revise Luminance Hour. I would've said edit, but there's this lovely little stage called copy-edits that's looming in my future!!


I know my journey with Luminance Hour is far from over, but it's still very strange to be "almost done" with the brunt of the manuscript work. After over two years of writing, revising, writing, revising... This whole writing a book thing is not for the weak or faint-of-heart.


Good thing I finished in time for the 4th of July!

writer's block

As you might have read below, yesterday was a very frustrating writerly writing day. Why? Because I had writer's block.

Which incidentally makes me feel like an angry wet cat.

Writer's block is so frustrating simply because it's something that I really cannot control. It's not like I wake up one day and decide Today would be a great day to get writer's block. It just happens. There's a point where I cannot go on with a scene or if I can it just feels wrong. I've learned (especially over the past few months with revisions for LUMINANCE HOUR) that my intuitions are usually right when it comes to what will work and what won't.

But yesterday, I couldn't figure out for the life of me why the scene felt so wrong. I spent about half an hour just staring at my computer screen with an agonized stare. Scribbling nonsensical things in my notebook.

In case you're wondering about the robot reference, it's in connection with Laini Taylor's writing blog.

Anyway. I ended up setting everything aside and picking up a book (Jessica Spotswood's Born Wicked if you were wondering). Usually reading helps clear my head. But when I put the book down I was still feeling... stuck.

So I decided to talk about it. This is just one of the many reasons why critique partners are SO NECESSARY! They help you remember that you don't suck as a writer and that your slump is only a temporary natural thing. And sometimes they can even help you figure out what's wrong and how to fix it!

In my case, I was trying to cram too much into such a short span of pages. I realized what I needed to do to get me out of my rut and make my manuscript better for it. Of course, doing said thing means "killing my darlings" (ie. deleting or filing away some scenes that I LOVE because the writing is SO PRETTY) (<--as you can see I'm being so humble here.). And this subject belongs to another post entirely. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, in summation, to get over writer's block one must:

A) Curse and write about robots in sloppy handwriting.
B) Stare at computer screen for a lengthy amount of time.
C) Read a book.
D) Talk it out with you therapist (er, critique partner...)
E) All of the above.

I will let you decide.

two things on a tuesday

1. I have writer's block.

2. I want to punch it in the face.

That is all.

el fin

*bursts out of the revision cave with squinting eyes and pasty skin*

Guys. I just hit the send button on my first round of revisions. 53 days later.

It's been a full 53 days. With Christmas and the holidays. My 25th birthday. 3 weeks without central heating in the apartment and one case of mild food poisoning.

There was the typical angst. The oh my gosh this is going great stage quickly followed by the is this working i have no idea my eyes are crossing and the words are all blurring together oh gosh stage. Basically I flummoxed between these two extremes and more about three or four times a day.

Here's what I got done:

These are the notes I went by. Each little block on the left-hand side of the paper is a scene and the block on the right side tells me everything I have to do to FIX said scene. As you can see there was a good deal of fixing. And doodling to loosen up the writing block when it struck. 

The final product, which I had bound at Kinko's so I could read through it and make all of my last minute adjustments. My face is both for the weight of said manuscript and the fact that Kinko's wanted to charge 50 cents PER PAGE to print out everything. I almost fainted in the store, but promptly sought out cheaper printing. But printing it out into physical form really helped me get a different sense of it as I was scanning for final errors. I'd recommend it for all your WIPs.

I had a few things that really helped me power through my final days of editing (which gets very wearying, let me tell you.)

 This song Shadowman (which I found via "The Long Way Down" soundtrack) (<-- which is an awesome documentary about Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman motorcycling through Africa) is the perfect blend of African and Celtic sounds. I know it sounds weird, but trust me, it's good.

I love La Reux and this remix had just the perfect amount of electronica to get my concentration set.

My Pinterest board for Luminance Hour also really helped keep me sane. Whenever my mind got too fried for words I just started browsing the internet for pretty pictures that reminded me of my characters and settings. A good way to get stress off of the brain!

So... I'm going to go take an entire week off now. I'm sure I'll be around the blog and Twitterverse though. See you soon, loves!

revision woes #258

I think, sometimes, that the problem with writing in first person is that you have to fully immerse yourself in the emotions of your main character.

I am 15 pages from the end, and I need a box of tissues.

going with your gut

Hello friends. No. I'm still not done with revisions. But yes, I'm peeking back out of the cave to say "hi" again.

I'm on the tail end of this round of revisions, only a week or two from boomeranging it back into my editor's inbox. And boy, is it painful. Painful in a good way (as in, I'm making my manuscript oodles better than it was before) but also painful in a painful way (as in, my brain is tired).

Anyway, I thought I'd pop back in and write about two of the things I've come to realize in the past however long of revising I've been slogging through.

1. Revising is all about going with your gut.

I'm a highly intuitive person (according to Myers-Briggs and life-experience), and I've come to realize that the intuition which guides me so effectively through every-day life also comes in handy when crafting a story line. I can tell pretty quickly if a conversation between characters or action doesn't "feel right" in the timeline of my story. I've been learning to follow my initial reactions, and so far it's turned out pretty well. I hope.

2. I can take breaks.

Sadly, yes. I have had trouble with this. I am my own worst slave-driver. This kind of ties into "going with your gut," because I've come to learn that there's a very distinct feeling that comes with it being time to stop. The point where my brain says, "No more. You will only hurt your manuscript from here on out." For example, I was aiming at getting 10 pages done last Saturday and I hit this wall at the 4 page point. So I listened. I walked downtown and bought Korean food. And it was lovely.

Also, I found this on Laini Taylor's blog and it very much encapsulates where I'm at right now.

But it will be done. It will be done.

it's my birthday and i'll blog if i want too!

Hello all! Greetings from the tiny, unforgiving opening of the edit cave! I've been in here for almost 4 weeks now, getting nice and cozy, shifting words around, becoming poetic and wrestling characters to the floor (metaphorically of course). To be honest, the process has gone a bit more slowly than I first expected. Husband still claims that I'm moving through my notes at a lightening speed, but I don't believe him. Average pace so far?

3-4 hours a day = 10 or so pages of manuscript edited/written through.

At this point I still have around 17 days of work ahead of me. I'm just about at the halfway point. Right now it feels like a juggling act about to fall apart. Have I remembered every theme and subplot and character development point? What the heck happened 3 chapters ago? Dear Lord, it just keeps growing and growing... it doesn't STOP! How long will this be?

Somewhere around 100 pages in I lose perspective. Is this working? Am I making it better or worse? What the **** is going on?!

Fortunately, the wonderful Wendy Higgins (author of SWEET EVIL out May 1st) came to my rescue with a beta read and so assured me that I wasn't going crazy. And my MS is not in shambles. I just have to keep going.

So I will.

Oh, and I turn 25 today. A strange age... halfway between teens and 30s... I feel like I should be way more grown up than I am (or feel at least). Like I should own a house with white carpets and fine china instead of a 100 year-old apartment with mismatched chairs and a tin-camping tea kettle. But then I remember that I would just spill tea on the white carpets anyway (it's true) and I don't feel so bad.

Here's to getting older, but not getting TOO grown up. :)

Ooh. And here's a music recommendation since I haven't made one in a while. This band's cover is awesome and done completely on a single instrument:

two things on a tuesday

1. My editorial letter came! Like a ninja in the night (see Friday vlog a while back for the reference). This means that you will be seeing much less of me over the next few weeks, as my energies shall be sucked back into this monstrous manuscript of my own making. *runs off to stock up on tea, cookies and microwaveable dinners*

Here it is folks, 3 solid pages of creative boot camp.

2. Oh weird, I was just looking down at the pile of papers I keep for each of my separate projects and I just realized that my first set of critique notes for this MS were sent to me in October of 2010. Just over a year ago. How much can happen in the space of a year.

To all of my wonderful blog readers: have very happy holidays, a merry Christmas and an amazing new year! I'll see you on the other side!

reflections on the latest round of revisions

I've taken the week off of writing. It's been good, repairing my mind for what I'm sure is another long round of revisions ahead. Today I've very tentatively dived back into my work in progress. This poor novel has been set aside for several multi-week blocks, which has, I'm sure, affected it's rough draft quality. I've gotten to the point where I forget certain plot elements, so I have to go back and figure out what the heck my characters have been thinking/feeling for the past fifty pages.

So basically, for the past month, I've been laboring over revisions for GODMOTHER (not the title it will end up having, but I'll reference it as such for now) like a bat out of hell. Every time I wasn't at work at the coffee shop I was on my living room rug, agonizing over the placement of 54 or so odd scene cards. What came to pass was a third of the book being completely rearranged and rewritten. A lovely blog reader emailed and asked me what exactly these revisions involved. What did my agent have to offer me in terms of revision ideas that I didn't have the sole insight myself to implement?

Every book needs more than one person involved in the creative process. Well, every good book that is. Writers often become convinced that their plot, characters and prose are composed of complete awesomeness. It's a bit like horses wearing blinders. We only see certain aspects of the novel and ignore others. We needs beta-readers, critique partners, agents and eventually editors to help us see the flaws and know how to address them.

In my case, most of my revisions revolved around the development of a single character. This character, who was rather central to the book's overall plot, for some reason was refusing to cooperate with my efforts to make him a living, breathing person. Instead of being the three dimensional, in-depth person I'd hoped he would be, he read rather flat. For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to make this character leap off of the page like all of his other cohorts. Super-agent pointed out a few aspects in the books chronology that would help explore this character in depth. And what was only a sentence or two in the editorial letter became an extra eighty or so pages in the manuscript. Scenes were mauled, deleted and replaced. New scenes were written. Personalities and flaws were explored. There were many times in this process where I agonized over whether or not I was actually improving the book or destroying whatever charm it had in the first place. For some reason, I'm always terrified that deleting and rewriting scenes will destroy some unnameable quality that I'll never be able to recover. But, fortunately, that never seems to happen.

Oh, and more kissing. Agent wanted more kissing. But that was one of the easier fixes. ;)

done?

I've finished working through all my notes and re-reading my novel umpteen times to make sure the revamped/new scenes fit into the story as a whole.

My brain is fried.

It's pretty terrible how intensely focused I become toward the end of this process. I ignore family, friends, hubby and food. I waste away in front of the computer screen and sip endless cups of caffeine and tea.

I think I have to log off the computer now and spend time with real life human beings instead of figments from my imagination.

Just wanted to leave all of you with a resounding: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Because I'm done with revisions.
For now.

sometimes revising makes me feel like this:

disclaimer: no knives or people were harmed in the creation of this picture.

where I'm at.

One of the most terrifying things about revision is that you have no guarantee how it will turn out. Usually--and hopefully--the changes that you make are for the better. But I always go through the transformation of drafts with the nagging fear that I'm ruining something. It often goes like this:

*write a scene*
Me: This is genius!!
*read it*
Me: Oh shoot... Maybe not...
*reread it/make some tweaks*
Me: Okay, not so bad. It could even be better than the scene I deleted to replace it.

It all comes down to the realization that nothing (or very little) in your draft is infallible or sacred. You just have to have the courage and trust to listen to other, reputable readers and change it.
Here's hoping it all turns out okay!