role models

First of all, profuse apologies for the horrid state of this blog. Life, as always, has gotten hectic. I've started two jobs and have prioritized my free time around my husband and my writing. So naturally the blog has suffered.
A couple of weeks ago, something very sad and momentous came to pass. Brian Jacques, the author of the Redwall Series as well as the Castaways of the Flying Dutchman, passed away from a heart attack at the age of 71. I owe a lot to Brian Jacques. I became a fan of his at a young age, when my mother brought home The Bellmaker from the library. I was around ten at the time-- and I was quite skeptical of the mice on the cover. How could a book about talking animals hold my interest? I was a rabid reader of Nancy Drew mysteries and the Trixie Belden series, both books that were based in the real world. I'd never before been encountered with such a fantastical realm as the woods of Mossflower and Redwall Abbey.
For a few days I refused to read it. But somehow my mother managed to corner me into a reading session. I believe her deal was: read the first two chapters and if you don't like it I'll take it back. I approached the first few paragraphs with the staunch belief that I would dislike it. Thankfully, despite my hardest efforts, I started to fall in love with Brian Jacques's universe.
I devoured The Bellmaker in a few short days. Immediately after I was finished, I convinced my mom to drive me to the library to get more books. I ran through Redwall, Mossflower, Martin the Warrior and Mattimeo as quickly as I could. Soon it wasn't just enough to borrow the books from the library. I scrupulously saved up my allowance money and had my father drive me to Barnes and Noble, where I began slowly buying and building up my collection of Brian Jacques's novels. Now, at the age of 24, fourteen of his books line my shelves.
It was Mr. Jacques who opened my eyes to the genre of fantasy and what it could do to the mind of a young reader. I began lost and engrossed in his worlds of warrior mice, badgers and hares. I began to incorporate the Redwall universe into my childhood play sessions in the backyard. I ran off into the woods and made forts and pretended I was a hare named Honeydew. I was obsessed.
I wrote to Mr. Jacques. I even got to see him in person when he visited Charleston on a tour. I was enamored by the encounter. At the thought that he was a real person and I could meet him.
Because of my love for Redwall, I started writing stories of my own. The first few scribblings were clear knockoffs--but as I read more widely and gained more experience--I began creating fantastical stories that were wholly my own. Looking back on my writing and rereading the Redwall stories, I've begun to see how Mr. Jacques's storytelling has shaped my own. There are traces, just a hint of them, in my writings today.
So thank you, Mr. Jacques, for your stories. I'm indebted to you for a childhood of happy reading and a plethora of imagination that sprung from it. Of course I've had many writing role models since then, but you were one of the strongest and one of the first. And I thank you for it.

...waiting...

There are so many things I love about writing-- the way the books seems to take shape of its own accord, the way scenes never quite work out the way you imagine them, how the perfect sentence sends shivers through your spine. I love immersing myself in a world of my own creation. I love sipping coffee and pounding at the keyboard day after day. I love the routine, the dedication.
But there is one thing I dislike about the profession of writing (other than revision, see previous post). That is waiting. Waiting on criticism. Waiting on query responses. Waiting on submission responses.
I've never been an incredibly patient person. Especially when it comes to important things. Sure, I'll try to restrain myself for a few days. But when days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months? I start to get a little whiny. I check my email a ridiculous amount. I pout and make offhanded comments to my husband. I gnaw at my nails.
For me, waiting is so ridiculously infuriating because it's something beyond my control. There's nothing I can do to make time speed up. I can't make the agent finish reading the manuscript. I can't magically produce a response to the dozen or so queries I sent out in the past few weeks. All I can do is wait; try to forget that manuscript out with the agents. Dispel from my memory the queries floating out in the interwebs.
As you can tell by this post, I'm not so great at it. I'm trying to focus on my WIP instead of the slow inching progress of the novel I'm shopping around to agents. I hit 38K on the rough draft of my WIP today. I also realized that it could be categorized as a Southern Gothic. I'm really pleased with how it's turning out so far-- although I must say that rough drafting is usually my favorite part of a novel's creation. It's always so full of possibilities and freeing. You can write whatever you want and get away with it. Until editing that is. ;)

celebrate!

This morning I woke up, braved the chilliness of my apartment and shuffled to the computer. Lo and behold, what awaited me there? Another request for a full manuscript! I'm quite excited about it

revisions in the new year.

Apologies for being so horrifically terrible about updating. Like everyone else, I was hijacked by the holidays and all of the immense busyness they offer. While this does mean that the blog was compromised (and sadly abandoned), the same doesn't ring true for my writing. When I wasn't baking sugar cookies (with buttercream frosting, oh yum!) and hunting down the perfect gift for my baby cousin (a miniature version of the Labbit I received LAST Christmas. Don't know what a Labbit is? See picture below), I was diligently pounding away on the keyboard.
Usually, the holiday season is a bit of a dry spell for querying authors (people hunting for agents), but I actually received some really constructive feedback from an agent who read my full manuscript. Even the fact that I got her to read the whole thing in the first place was nothing short of amazing (it's a rare occurrence to have your full manuscript read). So it was an added bonus that she wrote a short editorial letter- detailing what she loved about the book and what didn't work for her. As an extra treat, she told me that if I addressed the details of my story that stymied her and made revisions, I could turn in the manuscript again for her reconsideration.
While I was initially disappointed that I didn't get an offer of representation, I soon picked myself up and let the editorial comments soak in my mind. I continued spewing out pages of my work in progress and mulled the agent's suggestions in my head.
Two weeks later, hubby and I packed up the car and headed to Texas for a family gathering. There, I was determined I would use the week to start on revisions and see where they headed.

Revising.
I hate revising.
I've always hated it. In high school I never even considered it. Even in college I wrote my papers in a flurry of academic brilliance and didn't look back.
But it's necessary. This fact I've warmed up to in the past few years. Characters need reshaping and developing. Endings must be lengthened. Plot points must be clarified.
No one gets it right on the first try.

I sat at my in-laws dining room table, surrounded by revisions notes and cooling mugs of tea and coffee, I faced the revision monster. Yet again. I wrote an extra chapter. I read the MS two times to see how I could mold and reshape scenes to reveal characters in a deeper, illuminating light. I changed the tone of the overall MS to be more amiable to young adult readers.
And... SURPRISE!... my manuscript is better for it. I've come to enjoy the process of refining and whittling away at what was once a complete mess of a rough draft. To see the characters come into their own, to watch the story take on depths that I'd never originally intended for it.
Yet, in the midst of this chaos called revision, the unthinkable happened. I got a second FULL REQUEST for my manuscript! Instead of being ecstatic, which really, I should have been, I panicked. I was only half-way through my revisions. I didn't want to send the old MS, now that I'd so clearly improved it, yet I could send the mangled mess that I was currently operating on. What to do? I couldn't wait to send the complete revised version because, well, agents appreciate prompt responses with these things.
So I grafted. I took out sections of the revision that were complete and patched them into the old MS. Smoothed it over so no one would notice the incision lines and pressed send.

We'll see what happens. It is, after all, a new year and a new start. 2011, are you the year I'll find an agent? Pretty please?

Labbit-the perfect, messless household pet

pressing on.

Last week was, well, hard.
On Monday I got an email from an agent who had my full manuscript. She said that there had been a reader in her agency who loved it and that she was going through it herself. She complimented me on my manuscript's voice and asked me if it was still available. At this point I squealed. Agents are hard to come by, but they're pretty necessary if you want to publish your work with any significant publishing houses.
Come Saturday I receive the rejection.
Somewhere deep down, I guess I was bracing myself for it. I knew it was coming, but I'd hoped against all hope that it wasn't.
She said that she loved the voice and the story. There were three specific points that kept her from falling head over heels in love with the project as a whole though. If I decided to revise the story, she said, she would be willing to read the manuscript again.

At least I've gotten some feedback. Right now I'm writing a new rough draft of a different novel... but I'm going to take some time off around Christmas and look at the revision suggestions. Especially before I send out any more queries.

Nothing worth having is easy. That's what you have to tell yourself I guess.

short story time!

In an effort to bring a more creative streak to the blog, I've decided to, every once in a while, post flash-fiction pieces/short stories. I've asked my husband, a budding photographer who's blog can be seen here, to take a photo to accompany said story. Sometimes the photo will be inspired by the story (as it was today) and sometimes just the opposite shall occur. So sit back, relax and enjoy!

Lurkers

Something lurked in the garden.

My parents didn’t believe us. None of the adults did. Mom was too busy with her book clubs and tea parties and Dad was never even home to hear about it. Only Jeremy and I ever went behind the house.

The garden came with the house. I remember walking through the rooms. They were empty. The bare wood of the floor reflecting sunbeams and dust motes. The realtor’s voice echoed against the freshly painted walls as she showed Mom and Dad the original moldings from the 1700’s. The house felt big to me. Too big. There was so much space you could get lost in it.

But behind the house—that was even stranger. It was a wilderness within the city—held back only by the stone walls surrounding it. I remember thinking how it was very green. We didn’t walk back there during the viewing. The realtor only paused by the bay windows and pointed beyond their warped glass.

“And here we have what was once an English garden. It covers about half an acre and is included in the price of the house.” She smiled, but her words were stiff from rote memorization.

Mom and Dad nodded. They didn’t even give the garden a second look.

When we first moved in the house was a chaos of boxes and displaced furniture. Mom made us go play outside. The fresh air would do us good, she said after she took away my Xbox controller, run around and explore like normal boys.

It was a hot day, even in the shade of the garden. I could see the sweat sprouting beneath Jeremy’s bangs. I felt its salty stick on my own skin.

“How long you think it’s been like this?” my brother asked as he swatted a vine away from his face.

If I’d been a few years younger I would have pretended we were lost in the Amazon rainforest. Instead I was fifteen, bored and disgruntled. I reached out and shredded some leaves off of a nearby bush.

“Who cares?” The handful of leaves became emerald confetti as I tossed it in the air for entertainment.

We walked because we had nothing else to do. Mom had forbade us to return to the house until lunch. We had two hours to kill. Jeremy and I started hacking through the tangles of branches and leaves. Occasionally we found relics of the garden’s past. A rusty sundial. The 19^th century version of a garden gnome. A fountain with water still sitting in its basin.

I kept expecting to run into the wall. Yet each tear of branches gave way to another bush. The house had long disappeared from our view. Only wild brambles of roses long untended rose up around us.

“We should go back,” I told Jeremy after an hour.

He agreed with a wordless nod. I could tell by the look on his face that he found the situation just as odd as me. Yet to say anything about it seemed silly.

We backtracked our trail of destroyed vegetation. Dismembered branches snapped and cracked under the weight of our steps. We kept silent as we walked. Our strides grew longer and quicker.

But the house didn’t reappear.

It was as though the garden had become a maze, swallowing us and locking us into itself. No matter how far we walked, or where we turned, our parents’ new mansion didn’t emerge.

“What the hell is going on?” At thirteen, Jeremy was just starting to flex his potty-mouth outside our parents’ presence.

“This is weird,” I muttered. “I thought this was only half an acre.”

“I mean, you can see the whole garden from the street! This makes no sense—“ Jeremy turned to face me and his sentence stopped short. His face grew as pale as an unmarked sheet. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open.

His scream shook the garden. It rattled my chest and caused me to freeze. I couldn’t move. I could only stand and stare at him.

When the sound of his terror died, I finally turned. There was nothing there. Only the still, broken forms of old rose bushes. Signs of our trail. I looked back, only to find that Jeremy had run.

I dashed after him. Fear had exploded in my heart as suddenly and devastatingly as a nuclear weapon. If something had terrified my brother that bad, it was worth being scared of. Jeremy was always a few steps ahead of me. We ran for what seemed like miles. My face started to throb from the lashing of passing thorn bushes. My breath grew heavy.

When the house finally came into sight, I couldn’t really believe it. Jeremy was already up the steps and half collapsed on the old wooden porch. His face was even whiter than before and he was shaking. He jerked back when I approached, his eyes as wild and wheeling as a hunted deer’s.

“What’s wrong, Jeremy? What did you see?” I crouched down and reached toward him.

He shook his head quickly and scrambled toward the door. By the time I stood up to follow him he was already gone. Disappeared up the stairs to his room.

He never spoke of the garden or what he saw there. His bedroom window always had a blind and he never set foot behind the house again.

I didn’t go in the garden either—but I still watched from the window. Sometimes at night, I saw things. Shadows. Forms of people and creatures that weren’t supposed to be there. I never got a good look at them, but a sickness would always steal my stomach at the sightings. Their dark shapes always grow very still once they realize I’m watching. I know, somehow, that they’re there waiting. Waiting for us to go back into the garden, to return into their strange, eerie world of green.

photo courtesy of david strauss c2010