Think of the Children’s Children

A number of science fiction authors I deeply admire take on the arduous task of social commentary in their fiction. Though I enjoy reading their work, this just isn’t something I’m inclined to do – at least not at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t care. It’s just that I know my limitations. I’m not going to kid myself into thinking anything I write will change the worst aspects of modern society. I’m a novelist, not a folk singer.

Besides, if I were to write a story about – for example – an alien race known as the Baynkirs (yeah, I know: subtle) who come from another galaxy to steal all our money, by the time it goes to print, society might have changed to the extent that money is obsolete, and my commentary won’t even apply. I don’t want to date my work like that. I don’t want to nail a novel’s inspiration to a specific period in history that has come and gone.

That may change, however. Society may take a dark turn I can’t ignore, and I may be compelled to write about it in my next novel. Even so, I’m betting you’ll see it on the ten-o’clock news months before my novel comes out.

I Got Nuthin’

So here I sit, trying to think of an idea for my next novel. Have you ever had one of those days where ideas just don’t seem to…

Oh, look. A bird. Right there on the window sill.

Oh, and look. There’s a cat in the bush next to the window. I wonder what’ll happen next?

And across the street, there are some guys hoisting a piano to the twelfth floor of an apartment building. And a woman with a baby carriage is sitting on a bench underneath it, reading a newspaper.

What’s that noise? Oh, look. Huge, black helicopters are rushing toward that… Whoa. Is that a mushroom cloud? I’ve never seen one of those.

And where’s that neck-deep river of blood coming from? Does it have anything to do with those ninjas dropping from those airships?

Ooh, lava! Hey, look! Blood doesn’t just boil, it burns. I didn’t know that. I wonder what–

You know what? Enough of this! I’m closing the blinds. Too many distractions.

(Sigh.)

Ever have one of those days when you just can’t think of anything to write?

Predictions for 2012

Happy New Year, everyone.

Though I’m as unqualified as the next person to make predictions for the next year, I’m going to do it anyway. Here are my predictions for 2012:

In 2012, An Editor Will Read My Novel

I mean, come on, it’s out on submission. Surely someone’s going to read it before the end of the year, right?

In 2012, There Will Be A Lunar Eclipse

Yeah, and I even know the dates. Next topic.

In 2012, The World Will Not End

Hey, this is easy! I could make predictions like this all day long.

In 2012, I Will Stop Asking My Agent Inane Questions

Even though I ask stupid questions (Should I insure my touch-typee fingers? Who’s Neil Gaiman? What kind of tree would you be?), my agent dispels my clumsy ignorance with a graciousness and professionalism I feel I don’t I deserve. I owe her my eternal gratitude for putting up with me. So if my agent is reading this, I have just one thing to say: Did I spell ‘touch-typee’ correctly?

In 2012, I’m Going To Spill Something

It happens every year. I hope this year, it’s something like a bag of Doritos instead of a gallon of milk.

In 2012, I’m Going To Finish My Second Novel

It’s not a goal unless you write it down, right? Well, now it’s a goal. Let’s call it a target. Something to shoot for. Plan A, if you will. A dream. Something to think about.

Of course, making predictions is easy. Making accurate predictions is another matter. To be fair, let’s see how I did with last year’s predictions:

In 2011, The World Will Not End

Sure, there are still a few hours left in the year (local time), but I think I’m pretty safe in saying this one was spot-on.

In 2011, I’m Going To Spill Something

Nailed it. I went to Lowe’s in Rome to get a couple of five-gallon buckets of paint (What? It could happen.) and, well, there was this ladder… You know what? I don’t want to talk about it. In my defense, has anybody ever heard of the floor of the Sistine Chapel being so famous? Anybody?

In 2011, I Will Win The IEEE Exploding Galaxy Cluster Award For Best Premise For A Debut Science Fiction Novel

In retrospect, I suppose it was silly of me to think that an electrical engineering standards body would invent a new award for unpublished works of fiction. Also, it turns out that galaxy clusters don’t actually explode.

In 2011, An Agent Will Offer To Represent My Novel, And I Will Not Ask Her Inane Questions

I get partial credit, right?

In 2011, I Will Make A Blog Post That Contains The Word “Eldritch” 

Alas, I fell short on this one. Nothing I posted this past year ever required the distinctive–

Wait… What time is it?

Nailed it.

The Best It Can Be

Have you ever written something – a scene, a poem, or even a line of dialog – and marveled at how wonderful it is?

Yeah, me neither. I’m never really satisfied with my writing. I’ve told my agent my novel is done, but, really, if I were to read through it a hundred more times, I’d make changes every single time.

Is that the way it’s supposed to be? Is that what writers mean when they say a novel is abandoned rather than finished?

Just once, I’d like to write something that’s the best it can be, never begging for edit or revision.

Hey, you know what? I’m going to try it right here. Just one line. Surely I can do that, right? The next line I type will be perfect, requiring no edits or revisions. I swear on my honor not to revise whatever comes out, proving I can write something — even if it’s just a single line — that’s the best it can be in first draft. Here we go: Okay, wait, I’m still psyching myself up… And here we go:

Oyrsyut if oerfectuib us fytuke,

Cripes! Of all the times for my fingers not to find the home row!

How Did I Get So Popular So Fast?

Wow. Since I started my blog, the comments have been pouring in. It’s just so humbling and gratifying beyond words to be so immediately and resoundingly embraced by all of you readers. And my book’s not even out yet! Thank you all so much for your kind words. I know it may seem a little self-indulgent, but I’ve collected the most touching, the most meaningful posts here so I can respond to them all in one go.

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I Have the Best Agent in the World

Seriously. I wrote a novel on the train, and I had the temerity to ask a top-tier New York agency to consider it. Who does that? What in the world made me think that was a rational thing to do? Why would a top-tier literary agency even look an anything I’ve ever written? On a train?

The agent liked it. She pointed out some faults (serious ones, at that) and asked for revisions. Then, only halfway through the revision process, she offered a contract for representation.

Holy crap! I feel like I won the lottery! I can’t believe I could be this lucky. (And, yes, I know it’s not random luck, but I can’t shake this struck-by-lightning feeling.)

I knew I had a really good story, but that doesn’t necessarily make me a good novelist. I thought if I ever ended up with an agent, it would be the guy who lives in a van down by the river, eating government cheese. And I’m almost certain that doesn’t describe my agent at all.

I couldn’t be more pleased to be collaborating with such a wonderful agent. Querying her – something I did as a result of a momentary lapse in rationality – has turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done in my professional life.

Oh, and to commemorate my good fortune, “on a train!” is how I’m appending all my fortune cookies from now on.

About Those Revisions…

I’ve seen new writers express dismay over the fact that they find themselves having to throw away a high percentage of their work while revising. As a new writer myself, I was shocked to learn that someone had to throw away 20,000 words in a 90,000-word novel and rewrite all those scenes.

That seemed like a lot to me.

The more experienced writers joined the conversation and said 20,000 isn’t enough. According to them, if you don’t throw away at least as many words as you keep, you’re not doing it right, despite the backwards logic that seems to embrace.

Hearing this filled me with hopelessness. I had already spent over a year writing my novel. How could I come to grips with the fact that everything I had written had to be thrown out, only to be replaced by another year’s worth of writing?

As it turns out, the experienced writers were correct. You pretty much write one to throw away. But you know what? It’s not so bad. You do it a little at a time. Making revisions goes a lot faster than actually writing from scratch because you have a specific goal in mind, like increasing tension, or strengthening a callback to a foreshadowing event.

It did take me longer, however, because I ended up replacing entire scenes with something altogether new – pretty much (re)writing from scratch. There are only two passages – both shorter than a page – that remain virtually untouched from my first draft. And those were the first two passages I wrote. (And, no, they were nowhere near the beginning of the book.) Everything else has been thrown out or revised to an unrecognizable extent.

I admit I compounded the problem by refusing to use copy-and-paste techniques to do my revisions. I firmly believe that pushing mashed potatoes around on a plate doesn’t relieve you of the fact that you’ve got a plate of mashed potatoes. To make my novel the best it could be, I was determined to scrape them off and put something new on the plate, even if it meant more work and longer hours.

In the end, it was worth it. It wasn’t easy, not by any means. But now that I see how much my novel has improved, I wonder why I hesitated. If I thought my novel was worth an agent’s attention before I made the revisions, then certainly the novel I have now is even more worthy.

In short, it’s not about me or my words. It’s about the story and making it the best it can be.

And let’s not kid ourselves. When I say it’s about the story, what I really mean is that it’s about getting a good agent’s attention – which is really the same thing, since agents are looking for the best stories.

And I Thought I Was Done

A query and a synopsis? Says who?

Okay, I didn’t just discover that agents require a query letter and often a synopsis. I’ve known it for quite a while now – since long before beginning my first draft. It didn’t sound that daunting at the time, but I’m shocked at what I’ve learned. Now that I’ve gone through the querying process, I maintain that writing a query and synopsis is more difficult than writing a novel.

Seriously. Don’t underestimate this task, and be prepared to spend weeks or even months to get this just right. The query is the agent’s first glimpse into your writing, so making it the best it can possibly be is worth the effort.

Revisions, Shmevisions

If you’re an aspiring novelist, there’s something you should know: your writing sucks.

Okay, that sounded a bit harsh. Let me clarify. What I really mean to say is that there will always be someone in whose eyes your writing sucks.

Always.

But that’s okay. Nobody’s writing is for everybody. Even Shakespeare has his detractors. That someone doesn’t take to your writing doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad – though being bad certainly isn’t precluded, either.

Your task is to determine the extent to which your writing sucks in the eyes of your intended audience. That’s why you need beta readers.

So, yeah, I got some beta readers for my novel and got some feedback. And here’s what I learned: my writing sucks.

The good news is that it’s a process, and I’m mastering it as I go. Though I’m disappointed to learn that my final draft isn’t so final, I embrace the opportunity to see my work through others’ eyes and to make improvements.

And to my beta readers: Thanks. I needed that.

I’ve Got Half a Mind to Write a Novel

Wouldn’t that be great? Writing a novel? If I were to write a novel, I’d be richer than the queen. I could finally build that summer house on Mars I’ve always wanted. If only I had the time. If only I had the inspiration.

Yeah, we all know that guy. You know, the guy who says, “I could do it – if I really wanted to.” Sometimes they even get started, but, for some reason, they can’t seem to get past the twelfth page.

I was determined not to be that guy. I was determined to complete my novel.

No time? I made the time by getting up hours before dawn to write. I wrote on the crowded train during my commute to and from my day job.

No inspiration? I pounded on the keyboard anyway, filling pages with random scenes until they gave rise to an idea worth fleshing out. At no time did I allow myself to stare at a blank screen.

It took over a year, but twelve pages became a hundred, and a hundred pages became four hundred.

And you know what? It worked! My novel is finally complete. Getting to “The End” is something I can legitimately claim not many people have done, even among those who say that writing a novel is something they’d really like to do.

Okay, so I did it. I’m a novelist (albeit, unpublished). Now what?