Climbing Plot Mountain

Don't forget your safety goggles. >:-)

Okay. I've now got a first draft of both Switchback and Lynch, so it's time to work on the rewrites for both...before the third in the series gets up enough steam to force me to pay attention to it.

First step (for me) in the rewrite process: prepare a synopsis. Nothing lets me locate plot holes better than a tightly-written short synopsis; synopses are geared to focus strictly on the plot and to step outside the sorts of point-of-view-related blinders that can keep me from seeing where I've left something out.

And, in order to prepare a synopsis, I need to know where the various important parts of the story are. I use Alexandra Sokoloff's story elements list as a jumping-off point. Last night, that meant I was sorting out Act 1 and 2 turning points, story midpoint, themes, and a bunch of other stuff. I know what the story is, sure, but for purposes of condensing all those pages of text down into a two-page synopsis it can be helpful to have to put things down on paper.

This will be the first time I've tried to write a synopsis for a series, on top of the synops for the first two books. I doubt much of what I write now about my expectations for the series's third book is going to survive the actual first draft, but I do have some idea where the first two books' events are pointing, so it'll be good to have that down as well.

Then, with refined synopses in hand, I should theoretically know where the first drafts are weak and where they need smoothing out. I know better than to set firm dates as goals, but I think I'm going to aim for a week or two to wrap up the synopses--and do my best not to let this become an exercise in avoidance, despite how much I both dread and dislike rewriting. It has to happen if I want to share the stories.

So: onward.

Accomplishments for 2013:

-- A harvest which, despite the wettest year on record, is still filling boxes. Who knew winter squash liked so much wet? Who knew about peppers' love of moisture?

-- Marmalade, which was actually not the most difficult preserve I've put up thus far in my rather short career.

-- Three-quarters of a new novel. It's still fighting me every inch of the way, but we're getting there. Which is convenient, because I really want to get back to the first in the series and do some revision. You know, so it's presentable for company?

-- Conquering my fear of markers in color-rendering a drawing. In fact, if it wasn't for the contest I'm entering this drawing in, I might never have even tried. (I made three copies of this drawing so, if I screwed up two of them learning to color-render, I'd still be able to enter the contest with the black and white third. Thus far, I'm actually very pleased with the first attempt.)

Challenges yet to be conquered:

-- Learning to balance my time better. Just because I can do three things at once, two of them in my head, doesn't mean I'm more efficient that way or that the things I'm simultaneously working on are better for the split attention. I need to focus on just one thing at a time. Which means....

-- Not feeling guilty when I can't actually think about the current novel. The constant low-level current of thought about whatever scene I'm working on, circling endlessly without progress, robs me of the ability to focus deeply on my active project, which is usually active for a reason. So, yes, I need to just let it go every once in a while and not fret over the absence of those characters in my mental space.

-- Finishing what I start. Not ever going to conquer this one, but it's worth looking at every once in a while. Plus, notice how it feeds directly into the one above? Just one damned thing after another. ☺

I sometimes think it’s a damned shame that we can’t write a novel in the length of time it would normally take someone to read it. If, for instance, this benighted story of prodigal brothers, kidnapped babies, and the hills of the city of Lynchburg, VA, had taken me only a couple of days to write, I might have a much better handle on whether the plot really does need that extra layer of Urgent! Complication! that my subconscious apparently believes it does.

Or maybe I just have too many things going on in my head. You think?

Really, Subconscious, we’re up to 186 pages and nearly (so very nearly) to the midpoint reversal. You’d think you would be able to manage at least a little urgency. The point-by-point spreadsheet I’ve laid out for the rest of the novel isn’t enough for you? Do you maybe think you can hang me out to dry and let me dither here, all calm and crisis-less, until I give up? Guess again, friend. I know how this book ends. We’ll get there together, even if I have to drag you kicking and screaming across that finish line.

(And if I then have to spend the next year rewriting and revising to graft on the sense of urgency you have failed to fork over in the first place, well, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.)

Love,
Your Author Forebrain

***

Unfortunately, I’m not exaggerating the too much stuff in my head. The chicks we brooded out this spring graduated first to a separate pen inside the big girls’ run, so everyone could get to know each other, and then to inclusion with the big girls. They all survived, and they're beautiful. No one’s drawn blood and they’re actually starting to mix a little, so I’m calling that one a win. At least until we figure out if any of them is a rooster!

The tomatoes and peppers I started under lights in the shed are big enough, and the weather appears to finally have settled enough, that I hope to plant them out this weekend in the beds P and I spent hours last week clearing of the last of the crop of weeds and grasses which had invaded last season and which I totally failed to clear over the winter. I still need to put down the last of the straw mulch to keep a fresh crop of weeds from germinating; I foresee another exhausting weekend ahead.

I’ve finished a design project for a lovely little back garden in the city, and I look forward to seeing it paved and planted by fall. (Fortunately, that part is someone else’s baby.)

I’ve also designed and planted a hummingbird garden for P to look at through his office window, and I’ve fleshed out the plantings along the walkway in the winter garden (so-called because it’s the only garden one walks through on this property in the winter, and it’s what I see when looking out the kitchen window in the winter, watching it snow and wishing really hard for spring).

I cleaned up and weeded out the kitchen garden. There’s work yet to be done here: the pathway from back deck stairs to the patio inside the kitchen garden, and the plantings at the far end (Washington hawthorn, I think, and maybe some Skip laurels or Mugo pines), but I don’t see myself getting to that right away.

And then, of course, the big vegetable garden. The planting of the tender crops is only the start, and the work gets more intense from here. I am bound and determined to get a crop of winter squash this year. I might squeeze in a block of early corn, even though last year’s result was laughable. We are planting a huge number of main crop tomatoes now that the new stovetop is in and the canning ought thus to be far less of a PITA.

(Oh, yeah – new stovetop. Replaced the glass-solid-surfaced cooktop that I blew a hole in during last fall’s canning. The whole process had far more moving parts than I’d planned for and convinced me that I want nothing to do with being a contractor, managing the timelines for all the subs, but that said, the people I worked with were very professional and did absolutely beautiful work despite the unexpected obstacles. One of these days I’ll take a photo and post it for all to see. Lakeside Plumbing and Lowes installer David LaJoie, your skill and creativity saved my sanity, and I thank you and wholeheartedly recommend you.)

So, um. Too much shit going on. Most of it, at least, handled. Back to the writing grindstone….

Ah! I've been struggling to identify music which will work to conjure the main characters in Lynch; bluegrass/folk/Southern balladry is so very much not my usual era or prior area of interest, but it's what these characters want.

Tonight, I acquired the latest Mumford & Sons CD, and I got a nice, solid click: Calvin. Some of this will suit his personality exceptionally well.

I still need to pin down theme music for Lucie, Calvin's love interest. I'm stuck at the scene where she appears on screen for the first time. (Well, stuck for that reason, and because of some other Real Life stuff bogging down my conscious and subconscious mind. Fingers crossed I can get that handled in the next week or so.) A dayjob work friend of mine is much more up on this music than I am. I think I'll ask for her suggestions.

Other stuff that's working for this book: Fleet Foxes (that's Jody). Sarah Jarosz (theme, I think, rather than a specific character; I had thought this was Lucie's music, but it doesn't conjure her. Or maybe I just don't know her well enough yet). Riverside (Calvin, again.) Trapezoid (Martha, maybe?). Hank Dogs (thematic). Crooked Still (also Martha). So many groups I had no inkling of before starting to work in this book universe. See what writing does? Step through a door, and open your mind to possibilities unseen! This, now--this is magic. This is the joy of writing for me.

***

Gardeners will appreciate why I say this: sometimes, January is one of my favorite times of year. Not only is there little back-breaking work to be pushed through outside, but there's a stack of seed catalogs and, after dreaming over them, the satisfaction of actually choosing the varieties to be ordered and holding new seed packets in my hand. Daylight's growing noticeably longer already, less than a month after Midwinter. At this point in the season, anything is possible.

May it be a good one for us all.

It's blowing and raining outside my window, and I've finished up all of the rush-rush getting ready to weather the big storm (Hurricane Sandy, and may XKCD (http://xkcd.com/1126/) not be prophetic!) - I bought apples (and cider, and cornmeal) up in Nelson County at the Apple Shed, a favorite of mine, then put up crushed tomatoes and persimmon butter, then made and canned cranberry apple wine jelly, then baked brownies. Good thing I took some extra time off this weekend!

Getting all that accomplished did help work through the logjam in my head, and over the weekend (mostly today) I've managed to make some headway on Lynch. I'm just shy of 30K, and am busy finding ways to make the protag's lives more difficult. Back to work tomorrow, Sandy permitting, so it's time to report word count.

New words since last report: 3413
Total words: 29,415
Mean things: implied safety turns out not to be; being ordered about by someone younger than you; that mob is not giving up; hiding in far too plain sight; reminders of failure.
Research: more photos, this time for one of the supporting cast.

I can feel one of the protags evolving as I work out her backstory and motivations. She's done something despicable, desperate. It must, of course, come back to bite her, but I need to work out exactly how...which requires working out what she did. The magic in this book is a bit closer to the surface, more ritual than natural. It's relatively new territory for me. Lovely; I really needed a reason to do more research. ::wry face::

Weekends are good things, especially when they're three day weekends. This one was busy, as they always are, but with three days to stretch out in, the busyness has gaps. Gaps through which the words oozed. >:-)

(The momentum might be coming from the run up to that first turning point. Sooooo close now. I need to give my brain a chance to block out the next piece of the scene, though, so I'm breaking off here. I still have tomorrow to finish it.)

New words: 1389
Total words: 24,556
Mean things: Lack of trust in yourself; being forced to face something that terrifies you; threats of bodily harm.
Research: location of the old train station in Lynchburg; routes of the trains in 1909; location of pedestrian bridges from downtown up into the hills.

Remember my mention of the ways in which writing in the near past pays off? I actually found an image from an old postcard which showed me the location of the train station, a location I could not find anywhere on the web. And that very same postcard showed the bridge I needed my characters to take. And another postcard gave me the same scene from a different angle, with a close-up of that bridge. Wonderful!

***

Accomplished thus far this weekend, in addition to the writing: the splitting and stacking of a winter's worth of firewood; digging the sweet potatoes before the first frost (potentially tonight) zaps them; gathering up what will likely be the last of the tomatoes and peppers.

Yet to be accomplished: finding a repairman to fix the washing machine, which believes it's a jumping jack and no longer needs to spin water out of the clothes. Fingers crossed I can get someone in tomorrow, while I'm still off.

***

Here, have some photos I've had stored on my camera and only took the time to download this weekend. You can see the whole batch over at my Flickr page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/8556491@N07/). The first shot is for mnfaure - here's hoping your move is going well!



And here's a shot of the kind of warfare I can heartily get behind. That worm doesn't know it yet, but those little white cocoons have signed its death warrant, and my gardener's heart is gleeful.

On the 14th, the person who was hired to fill the admin position I’d been dragooned into covering finally started work. Yay! It’s very good to be able to focus on my job again. (Of course, I’ve since gotten dragged onto a committee to study our office’s transition to Voice Over IP telephony, but I’m hoping that will be less intensive.)

So, while the writing pretty much stopped for a couple of weeks there, since last Thursday things have been looking better. I’m spending less time reading fanfic (or re-reading, which is a sure sign of burnout) and more time working out the next scene in Lynch. Earlier this week, on the bus, I got a page and a half of material, written in the notebook I bought myself last week specifically for this purpose – that I just had to write down. It’s good to have characters burning a hole in my head again. *g*

The third of the four characters this book has demanded is about to step out onto the stage, which means I need to get him firmly in my head. This morning’s bus time was spent thinking about Cal, his needs and wants, hates and loves.

New words: 2304
Total words: 19,968
Mean things: traps, physical and metaphorical; what happens to a person shut up in a box who really, really does not like them.
Research: images of people of the time. Working in the near past makes this so much easier!

Things are much more sane now that I'm writing. Well, they're sane in my head. I'm not certain the other members of my household like me living so much in my head when I'm writing, but the alternative is worse. And it was a good weekend for words.

New words: 918
Total words: 12,676
Mean things: abuse triggers; cat claws in his back; yet another trashing of his reputation and forced public acknowledgement of his disability (gotta watch that repetition, I think); nightmares playing out in real time.
Research: patterns of speech in 1909; newspaper accounts of national events which might have generated conversation (and thus realism).

I wrote the bit below just before my brain went offline for the night, and upon reading it this morning, I discovered I really liked it. So, knowing that darlings rarely survive rewriting, here's a snippet of the current work that is both enjoyable and coherent without being spoilerish:

Swallowing, he tried to push away the sensation of a yawning cliff face waiting for him to take just one more step. He'd seen what happened when men went over a cliff like that. Stone liked him, but the fall would still smash him to bits.

This is the character for whom I've jotted down "Remember that J is not a fainting princess; make sure he has agency!" Which translates to Jody faced with a waking nightmare and having to take steps to rescue himself...that's the next scene.

Do you know what that outline is really doing for me in this book? It's giving me the plot focus of the scene and letting my subconscious find its own route to the next way point. I do believe I am liking this method. It's really, really easy for me to get bogged down in tossing bad things at my characters and forget that there's a through-line for the scene, a reason we're facing those bad things to begin with. (Thus the reminder that the character must have agency!) This way, I get to indulge my need to make my characters suffer while still staying on course. The detail level of the outline means I only get just so far off track before realizing the mistake and correcting my heading.

Score one for the outliners. I'll always be a pantser at heart, but this time, the outline is working.

Monday, for once, gave me words. On the bus on the way home, I considered how I could make my proposed next scene worse, and was promptly rewarded with not one, but two nasty plot-thickeners to dump on my long-suffering characters. I still don't know if plotting things out in advance and then writing to the outline is working - this book is moving with glacial speed, in part because I'm just that busy working on other things that must be handled and also because of a recent spate of disturbed nights - but I am working on learning how to write to an outline, so we'll count it as a win, however slow.

(I am slightly encouraged that, for this book as for the previous, it looks like I'm on track to hit the first turning point and end of the first act right at the 100-page mark. I'm just at 47 now. The next 50 pages feel well within reach of my outline.)

New words: 998, an excellent night's work
Total words: 10880
Mean things: urgency's called for, but Jody is having a hard time doing what's asked of him; fear of being run over by the trolley.
Research: trolley tickets; trolley platforms; more photos of Lynchburg; faces and outfits of the Lynchburg well-to-do in 1909.

Chapter end! I found a chapter end! >;-) I've also introduced one of the other main characters and (some of) the complication he brings with him. The next scene will see us finally entering the city itself.

Here's where my earlier research pays off: I have actual photos of the facades of some of the period structures in the areas where my characters will be traveling. (Thank you, Tom Martin, City Planner for Lynchburg!) I've got the photos cut out, and I'm going to mock up a streetscape to give myself a bit more realism as my characters travel through the city. I just need to mount them on foam core, since I have a feeling I'll be needing the visual reference for a while.

New words: 338
Total words: 9048
Mean things: can't lie to someone who can see your emotions; having to admit you know the guy who's in jail
Research: n/a