Revelations

If you ever want to know if you' ve progressed in your writing skills, go back to old manuscripts but be prepared to be amazed. In seeking out old files for "Crystal Magic", I came across some from about five years ago. They are terrible. I mean really bad. But that's okay, and in fact, it's a good thing because it encourages me and motivates me in my rewrite of the book. There's nothing like some cold water in the face to get you going again. The story is still as good as it ever was and possibly even better, so now it's up to me to take it back to the core and start layering on new images, new dialogue, and definitely new abilities. The characters are just as strong and the plot line will change very little, only the telling will change. It will take some time and some help from my friends but it can be done. My goal is to have it ready for submission by the end of the year so it has a chance of being available for the next season for Christmas books. It's a reasonable goal, I think but we'll see.

So That's All For Now

As of today,the Mystery is 'hystory.'. After struggling for years with the story, the solution to the problem came to me during the night...too many characters. Simple as that, but it will require a complete re-write so it went back into the drawer this morning and Crystal Magic came out. This was not an easy decision to make and it came after I don't know how many critique group reviews and discussions with a dozen others. It's hard to believe none of us saw the problem but it just goes to prove that no mattter how many times you critique a book or story, the answer can be right in front of your nose. I'm actually glad to get back to Neufie and Elizabeth's story anyway. It won't be a 201o release but perhaps 2011 and there are still those that think it should be a made-for TV movie. I don't see any of them coming forward with the cash it takes to get the process started though so we'll see what happens. I still have hopes of getting to at least one more conference this year but the likelihood of that happening gets smaller every day. It is just so expensive that a person on a fixed income doesn't have much of an opportunity. Even if I were to drive every day the cost for gas would be prohibitive. Stay tuned. I haven't given up hope yet.

Critique Talk

I've been agonizing over my critique group situation and I realize that the one I'm in probably isn't the best fit. Not because of theother members,k because they have helped me a lot, but I'm not helping them. It's primarily due to genre differences since they all have young children so they write for picture books and early readers. I suck at writing picture books (although I'm taking a class on it,) so I can't give them really solid critigues. I know what I like and why I like it but when it comes to the technical aspect of the genre, I'm a dunce. We don't have many critique groups here and the ones we have tend to be large and therefore don't give the writer a good platform for periodic critique. I know of one group that a member can only get read about once every six or eight weeks and that's just not enough. The other problem, and it's a big one, is that most groups are general interest groups that tend to favor romance and adult thriller type works. So I'm going to try addding an online group or forming my own on line group. I have contacted other members of SCBWI and I'll see what happens. Remember when selecting a group, try to get an idea of their focus before you join because it's not fair to either party if the mix is wrong. You might even ask for samples of their work so you can see if style and/or focus is wrong for you. There's probably no such thing as a bad group, but it has to fit your style and genre or it won't work as well. I'll let you know how I make out.

Up and Running

Well, it would appear the new computer is humming along nicely now so it's time to get back to work. l want to repeat something though. You can't put a price on automatic backup. I lost everything because I neglected to do it. Nuff said. I took the ladies' advice to heart and went back to the start of Chapter 1 and I have to say it works better this way. I'm not saying it's perfect but enough with the editing already. Time to move on so lets see what happens. It's off to the library today. I finally got around to reading Jerry Spinelli's "Smiles to Go," and I love it. I don't think he could write a bad book if he tried. I want to read the new Amy Carter book next if they have it. In reviewing the new and upcoming books for teens and young adults, I have to say that I am disappointed that vampires and the paranormal seem to be the hot genre. It really makes me wonder about our society when teens fixate on these subjects. I'm not saying they are bad books at all, only that it appears to reflect a disturbing mentality among our youth. If you read the lists of recommended reading, there are many in the top 10 that go back to 2002 or before. Perhaps our resident child psychologist can enlighten me. Time to get back to work now. I am way behind.

Back To Work

For those of you that don't know, my computer committed suicide a while back which caused me to lose everything. Note to self. How many times do you have to be told to back everything up? So anyway, the new computer arrived yesterday and I spent most of the day getting things loaded again. I can't say enough good things about Tiger Direct. Computer was shipped on the 19th, which was a Saturday, and it was delivered via UPS on the 21st, which was a Monday. Awesome. Getting back to business, the partners basically liked the direction I'm going with the re-write of the mystery and were kind enough to make some awesome suggestions, so I'll see what I can do before the next meeting on the 8th. The computer I bought is loaded with Windows 7 which meant downloading drivers for all my peripherals since they didn't work. So far I don't see a lot of differences other than being quite a bit faster in response time and some changes in the way Word works. All positive so far. One of the ways the partners have helped me is in defining my characters better. Ironically, the things they suggested were, for the most part deleted in the last version which they never saw. Of course, that version was lost so I start over. Oh well, life goes on.

Missing Muses

I was just wondering. Is there a test of some kind to identify fried writer brain? I'm just curious. I was thinking that if my brain is fried, it might explain why the must sisters have totally abandoned me. It's been ove two weeks since I've heard from them at all and the last few days they were here, it seemed they were in a hurry to go somewhere. Is there a bureau of missing muses?
I suppose I'm just going to have to make do and actually use those creative cells I claim to have. I mean, I have a deadline in abouyt ten days and I haven't written so much as a page number. Now , that is just plain frightening. So I go back to the old standby system. Start reading right from the beginning and hopefully by the time I get to the point where I left off, it will come to me.
I'd like to share something the ladies said to me last week. They complained that i hadn't sufficiently defined my secondar charcters and they were right. I'd focused on the plot and the emotions of my protaganist and left the secondary characters to fend for themselves. They were there in a previus versio, but at some point in the revisio process, I had abandoned them. So my point for today is to be sure you flesh out all of your primary characters, not just one or two of them, and don't assume that your reader will do it for you because they won't. Actually, they can't, and as a presenter once said at a conference, "If it's hard to read, they won't."
So I'm off to introduce the other boys in cabin five and explai why they are where they are at te start of the story. Don't give up on me though. The journey goes on and you haven't seen the interesting part yet.

Staying On The Path

Well, I've reached the goal for this week, that being to get the submittal ready for the critique group. It's not what I was looking for but I'll see what they have to say next week.
I don't know, but it seems like my path has been through thick brush and deep grass lately and the vision of where I'm going has occasionally gotten quite foggy so I've decided to stop moving forward. I need to sit on my proverbial toadstool and have a long talk with Musetta and Musella, my twin muse sisters. Of course that means I have to shut out the outside world and take those magical steps into the world of wonder where no one else dare venture. Closed doors, silent ambiance other than the soft sound of a muted Mozart piece playing in the next room. Of course there is always the danger of my mind going into lock-down, in which case the eyelids seem to grow quite heavy but it's a riskI must take. I don't know how you women do it. How can you maintain focus with all the demands of being the parent of a small child? You're amazing. I mean we've all heard the answer to that. Organization. discipline, commitment, blah, blah,blah. Words, just words. I guess a man just doesn't get it and never will.
Before I go for today, I hope all of my followers take advantage of the ridiculous prices on books from BetterWorld books. They do such an amazing job of recycling books, new and used, and all the money goes to literacy programs. If you have a pile of books you'll never read agan, they'll even buy them if they happen to be on their acquisition list. Check them out at Betterworldbooks.com. Tell them I sent you.