Publishing Monday: Ack, it’s August!*

As you can see in the above photograph, the Wall of Projects has been quite full this season. That’s the only excuse I can give for allowing this blog to go dormant for a full month. I don’t think I’ve gone this long between updates since, well, I don’t know when. My semi-lame excuse: I’ve been overwhelmed with trying to finalize several major projects before going on summer break.

Did I accomplish everything I wanted to? No. But I got quite close.** A quick recap to bring you up to speed on some of what’s going on in my studio:

1. THE LILY MAID. Goal: To finish revising and workshopping Part 1 and Part 2 (about 75k words) of my novel. Accomplished: Revised all but one chapter of Part 1; Part 2 semi-revised. Once I finish this, I’ve just the last third to edit. On the plus side, I’m very pleased with the feedback I’ve gotten so far on my revised chapters. My readers have been so supportive that I’m feeling so much more confident about my writing these days. And I’ve gained several astonishingly good critique partners and beta readers through the HNS conference and my novel-writing workshop at Sackett Street Writers.

Here’s a post-revision excerpt from the first page of THE LILY MAID, which I’m quite happy with:

A painting undermined my father. And, as you will see by the end of my story, a painting nearly destroyed me. Art is dangerous like that, an unruly thing. I used to consider it as superfluous as those who dedicated their lives to creating it. But I no longer do—I’ve learned this lesson, along with so many others, over the past months. During this period my life has become as foreign to me as another land.

When a life is about to be turned upside-down, there should be some sort of sign so you can prepare yourself. In my case, I received it about a year ago as a communication from beyond the grave. The message was so obvious that I ignored it. I couldn’t believe that fate would be so inelegant.

It was on the first anniversary of my father’s unexpected death in the July of 1888 that my maternal great-aunt Georgiana decided to contact him in a séance. The truth was that my father, while a respected scholar, was not the most practical of men. While Aunt Georgiana was better off than we were thanks to an advantageous marriage, she was reluctant to financially help us from a fear of making us dependent. Instead she claimed my father’s spirit would guide us to some undisclosed funds. His family had been wealthy in Italy, but less so once they’d fled to England for political reasons. Having little experience with the frisson of the darkened room, Aunt Georgiana decided that the Bloomsbury Proper-gandists of Spiritualism would be the vehicle for my family’s liberation. She knew nothing about this group beyond the claims of their London Times advertisement—Novel and Marvelous Manifestations in Full Light. Daily at 3 and 8. The address listed was near the Strand just off Fleet Street.”

2. GODDESS TAROT ANDROID APP. Goal: On the market by the end of July. Accomplished: Almost finished—one last round of revisions and it should be ready for submission to Android Market. The good news is that the app has been designed to work on Android phones and tablets. It’s exactly the same as the Goddess Tarot iPhone app with a few very minor modifications for the Android platform. (On a related note, I’m hoping to put the Goddess Tarot iPad app into production this fall.)

3. SACRED WORLD ORACLE. Goal: Finished and to the published. Accomplished: Three cards left; the booklet text underway. This project is definitely a case of “so very close”—I’ve been trying to finalize it since the end of 2010. Sometimes my time in the studio seems like a giant game of Whack a Mole.

——————-

On top of all this, my website needs a major overhaul, I’ve several design jobs underway—I’m helping the lovely and amazing Sandra Gulland launch her new e-book imprint!—and the new gallery show needs to be hung. I’ve decided this time ’round to present a selection of my books and art—something I haven’t done in some time.

We’re also moving forward with scheduling new events for this fall. Our first event will be a feng shui workshop with author Tisha Morris on September 17th. Spaces are limited; registration is required. Learn more here.

And how was your summer so far? Feel free to post about it in the comment section. In the meantime, I’ll be catching my breath before diving in again.

*So much for my HNS recap “coming soon.” Sigh.

** In tarot, the Nine of Staves traditionally represents a brief break for rest before jumping back into the fray. Completion is so close, yet feels so far!

• Filed under The Novel, art and words, publications, publishing, tarot and oracles, the world around me | 2 Responses

Creativity Friday: Breakout novel-writing with Donald Maass

As I wrote in Monday’s post, this past weekend I attended the Backspace Writers’ conference. The conference was split into three days with the first devoted to workshopping our novel queries and first pages with literary agents. The second day offered panels about various aspects of publishing—from novel genres to self-publishing and beyond. As wonderful as the conference was so far, Backspace saved the best for last: the final day was a WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL intensive with literary agent and novel-writing guru Donald Maass.

True confession time: I’m unable to resist most novel-writing “how to” books, no matter how sublime or silly their premises sound. While most don’t live up to their promises, I’m happy as long as I walk away with one new insight. That written, of all those I’ve read, Donald Maass’s guides are among the créme de la créme. I especially love THE FIRE IN FICTION—his section on microtension has been deeply helpful to me as I revise my novel. So you imagine how thrilled I was to have the opportunity to workshop my novel with him in person.

The full day workshop was a transformative experience. I loved it! I know The Novel (aka THE LILY MAID) is going to be so much richer for all the techniques and ideas I’ve gained during that whirlwind of a day. I now have tons of new ideas for pushing my writing to the next level.

Donald Maass was very different in person than I expected. For some reason, I expected him to have a rather serious and intimidating demeanor. Instead, he was lively, hilarious, and rather mischievous—elven almost—as he pushed the hundred or so writers in his workshop through eight solid hours of writing prompts, revision techniques, and other creativity-inspiring exercises to deepen our novel. By the end of the day, my hand was sore from so much writing. (Though I could have used a laptop, I like to write notes by hand in my journal and then transcribe them, editing as I go.) As a plus, he kindly autographed copies of his books for myself and my critique partner. Mine was inscribed “Tension on every page!”—a quote from THE FIRE IN FICTION. I was thrilled.

I took in so much inspiration that I hope you’ll forgive me for bullet-pointing some highlights of the workshop—I can’t possibly include everything here.

~ In brief, the morning was devoted to character development—developing our protagonist, antagonist, and secondary characters. The afternoon was centered around story levels, plot development, and developing microtension. He told us, “It is very rare that a story takes us someplace we didn’t expect. Push your story further than you think. Torture your characters, your protagonist.” Then he added, “Think you’re being mean? Don’t worry: They’re not real.” Everyone laughed.

~ Protagonists: One point Maass emphasized over and over: Most successful protagonists are highly conflicted. Building inner conflict, or microtension, helps to create highly memorable characters. Enacting duality gets the reader involved by making them yearn to resolve the protagonist’s inner conflict. To see them find happiness.

~ Antogonists: Maass pushed us to develop our antagonists—the force/s in opposition to our protagonist. He suggested writing what he called an antagonist outline. To do so, you assume your novel is the antagonist’s story: What is their central problem? What does your antagonist want? What do they want to change? What do they do? What is their arc? Inner conflict? What are their larger-than-life moments? How do things comes to a head for them? How do things turn around?

~ Narrative trends: Maass has noticed a narrative trend in publishing where the author marries literary fiction values with commercial fiction plot. This encourages great storytelling with beautiful writing. Surprise, surprise: Most of the bestsellers on the New York Times list are books with literary overtones—not potboilers where THE DaVINCI CODE meets John Grisham.

~ Plot layers: We spent a lot of time discussing how to add plot layers to our novels—not subplots, which usually involve secondary characters interacting with your protagonist. Plot layers add subtext and richness to your novel since they invite emotional complexity and microtension, which keeps readers turning the page. They usually introduce another conflict, or problem, which complicated the main plotline of your novel for your protagonist.

~ Secondary emotions: He also suggested adding secondary emotions to action, violence, or sex scenes. Maass said that usually readers tune out during these high drama scenes since they tend to be by-the-numbers in terms of emotions described. For example, arousal during sex; anger during violence. To help push our scenes to the next level, he asked us to choose four moments during an action sequence. We broke these down into snapshots, finding the unexpected image or emotional reaction within it. To focus on those instead. For example, one writer described having difficulties deciding on a secondary emotion for a scene in which his protagonist discovers his wife with another man. “I can’t think of anything beyond anger and disappointment.” Maass conjectured, “Perhaps he also feels relief because he’s suspected her of infidelity.”

I can’t wait to bring these techniques into my own writing!

• Filed under The Novel, creativity, publishing | 3 Responses

Publishing Monday: Why literary agents reject

These past few weeks have been very intense for me. I injured my knee running four weeks ago seriously enough that I had extremely limited mobility. Think hobbling with a cane, being unable to sleep because of discomfort. This is a test for anyone, but especially for a New Yorker — we rely on our feet and mass transit to get everywhere. For the first time in my life living here, I had to rely on a car to get places. Even walking a block was problematic at best. And I have a six-year-old child who needs to be walked to school, picked up, and so on. Not easy. Or fun.

As emotionally frustrating and physically painful as the experience has been — I’m an extremely self-sufficient person and I hate pain — there have been some blessings. I’ve been very touched by the concern everyone has shown me in my community. I swear I couldn’t go anywhere without someone asking how my knee was or offering to help me in some way. My husband truly rocked in taking care of the all the things I couldn’t, such as dropping off our daughter at school. And last but not least, being so immobilized forced me to concentrate deeply on revising THE LILY MAID (aka The Novel) in time for various writing workshops and conferences: Backspace Writers, Sackett Street Writers, and the Historical Fiction Society, where I’m planning to workshop my first chapter.

This past weekend was the Backspace Writer’s conference here in NYC. (Some readers might recall that I was awarded a scholarship for THE LILY MAID based on my query synopsis and first pages — a real honor and a thrill.) The short version: The conference was deeply transformative to me as a novelist. What I like about Backspace is that they offer both creative development as well as professional advice about the publishing industry. I left the conference buzzing with ideas for how to apply everything I learned to THE LILY MAID. I know my novel will be so much stronger now.

In the spirit of the Backspace motto of “writers helping writers”, I’ll share some of the lessons learned at their conference. There was so much that I’ll be splitting it into several posts.

First off, the conference was split into three days with the first devoted to workshopping our novel queries and first pages with literary agents. Though I’m fortunate to have a wonderful agent (I’ve been with Theresa for the past decade), it was extremely enlightening to get other agents’ feedback on my work. In addition, I’ve gained a new appreciation for everything that literary agents do. Not that I didn’t have it before, but it was still eye-opening. The second day offered panels about various aspects of publishing — from novel genres to self-publishing and beyond. The final day was a very intense nine hour writing workshop with novel-writing guru and literary agent Donald Maass.

My post today is about what literary agents look for when they’re reading unsolicited submissions. This lesson was brought home during the first day’s workshops which paired groups of fifteen writers with two literary agents according to genre. For example, I was placed in the commercial and historical fiction workshop, but other groups included young adult, fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction. In the morning session, we read our query letters out loud to our group; each agent critiqued and commented on them individually. While this session was informative, the afternoon session was where things got extremely lively. That’s where we workshopped the first two pages of our novels with two new agents; in my case, Jeff Kleinman and Nicholas Croce, who were brutally honest while managing to be witty, insightful, and entertaining. A difficult task.

My favorite Jeff Kleinman quote: “I’m a lazy agent. I’m looking for any excuse to stop reading your submission to make life easier for me.” Which may sound harsh until you consider that most literary agents receives several hundred unsolicited book submissions a week! This “slush pile” reading is in addition to all of the work a literary agent does on behalf of their current clients who are relying on them to keep their careers growing. Puts it all into perspective, doesn’t it?

The first pages workshops were set up so that another writer read our pages out loud; we all had hard copies to read along. An agent would halt the reading once they’d decided to reject the novel  – a novelist’s version of the Gong Show meets American Idol but with two Simon Cowells, no Paula Abdul. Some people got less than a paragraph, others half-way through. Only three got the full read.

The experience was hair-raising as well as edifying. As the workshop progressed, my heart thumped in my chest in anticipation for when an agent would call out, “Stop here.” The good news: once the call was made, each agent would spend time explaining their reasons for rejection — an opportunity to learn and revise.

The three main reasons for rejection were a lack of narrative urgency, an underdeveloped narrative voice, or a weak command of the English language — grammar or spelling issues. Here are others:

1. Passive writing. (She could see the green light in the distance. Suddenly a car appeared in front of her out of nowhere.)

2. Misuse of dialogue tags, especially over-the-top ones accompanied by modifiers. (“Wait for me!” she blurted out dramatically in a searing voice.)

3. Inappropriate use of analogy that didn’t reflect the protagonist’s experiences or relate to the story. This connoted an underdeveloped voice.

4. Oh, here’s a good one: Both agents brought up certain novel openings which they consider red flags. For example, dream openings because they see so many of them. They also distrust shock value openings where people are killed or commit suicide — usually they’re not well handled so they don’t feel emotionally involved — or openings where someone shouts things connoting action without cause. They also dislike static openings where people think over their situation as they drink coffee or tea. Passive exposition at its worst.

So, you might be wondering how I fared. Well, very well! I was one of the three writers who got a full read.

On Friday, I plan to post about Donald Maass’s workshop, which was based on his book WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. I hope you’ll check back!

• Filed under The Novel, publishing | 7 Responses

Publishing Monday: What is a novel bible?

Above: a worksheet from Thea’s kindergarten class—not that different from what can go into a novel bible.

To use a hackneyed analogy, writing a novel is like driving down a long, narrow country road at night. You can only see so far ahead, yet you have to moving forward and trust that the road is taking you in the right direction. Meanwhile, you’re hoping you’re not going to run out of gas. Or drive down a mud-filled ditch. “You’ll get there with this novel,” my literary agent told me after reading my latest draft. “It’s just a long process. But now you’re ready for the next step.” Her advice? Writing workshops. Critique partners. And a novel bible.

So writing workshops, check—I’m enrolled at Sackett Street, and am attending Backspace next month (thank you, kind scholarship-awarding people!). Critique partners, check—am working with two, and will have two new beta readers for the next draft later this spring.

But the novel bible? That’s another story. Initially a novel bible just seemed a fancy way to procrastinate. I can do that well enough, thank you, on my own. But due to my agent’s prompting, I’ve since come ’round. Ultimately, a novel bible is just another form of research. And you all know how much I love research.

So, what is a novel bible? Ultimately, it’s a document separate from your manuscript comprised of all of your book details:

~ Character biographies
~ Settings
~ Scene descriptions
~ Timelines
~ And anything else you might find useful—themes, symbolism, backstories, even inspirations.

While novel bibles are often created by book series authors who need to keep details consistent—think J. K. Rowling and her famed Harry Potter plot spread sheets— they’re also useful for stand-alone novels. In the case of THE LILY MAID, a novel bible is helping me deepen character development, clarify relationships, and map out plot points and motivations. But, wow, are they a lot of work! I’d say it’s taking me about half a day or more for each primary character, an hour or two for secondary. Setting up the document itself was a good two days’ work.

I’ve created my novel bible as a Word document with an indexed table of contents. (Generally speaking, I use Scrivener for outlining scenes, drafting, and compiling research materials.) Even in its unfinished state, my Word document is well over a hundred pages—and I’ve still so much more to write. But different people do things differently. Here’s how other writers have approached creating their novel bibles (aka book bibles, writing bibles, or character sheets).

Pip Hunn

L. J. Sellers

T. S. Bazelli

Natalie Whipple

As for myself, having a novel bible is already paying off. For example, I’ve discovered some unexpected details about my main character, Elizabeth: she has a small scar on her chin and a favorite piece of clothing; I’m clearer on why her relationship with her father is so conflicted, what drives her emotionally. I’m excited to see what other goodies I unearth, though I’d be lying if I denied dreading the work ahead.

Ultimately, I think novel bibles are about going deep instead of wide. This type of research comes from mining within—a decidedly different (and harder) process than reading books, searching through archives, or traveling to London.

• Filed under The Novel, creativity, publishing | 8 Responses

Publishing Monday: Goodbye to all that?

Since my last post, our new gallery exhibit about children’s picture books has opened after much hard work on my part as well as my co-curator Aram Kim. The show does look lovely, if I do say so myself. Plus the opening was well-attended and several pieces sold. I’m especially pleased at the educational component to the exhibit. It’s set up in four sections, charting out how a picture book is created—from inspiration to publication. Below is an iPhone photo of the first section.

Now that the exhibit is up and finished—again, what a load of work!—I have the sense that this exhibit is in some ways a valedictory address for me. After all, it’s been ten years since I published my last picture book.

I never planned to stop making children’s books. It just seems to have happened that way.

I suspect that this sense of farewell is heightened because I received a letter today reverting the rights for HARVEST, my last picture book as an author-illustrator. As I opened the envelope, I thought, “And that’s that.” Not in a sad way, mind you, but in the way one feels when one closes a door on a home for the last time. Though you’ve already moved to a new-and-better house, there’s still a sense of finality to the gesture.

When I first happened into publishing fresh from art school, I really intended to illustrate picture books for the rest of my career—it seemed a dream job. My first job in publishing was as a children’s book designer with one of the greatest art directors to grace publishing—another dream job. I’m still called on to mentor people dreaming of publishing their first picture book—after all, I love the art of book making. So it’s a bit strange to come to this recent realization of “you’re not creating children’s books anymore.”

Yet the ironic thing is that, in many ways, picture books are more important than ever to me. I spend hours reading them to my daughter Thea. (Thank you, Mo Willems, Kevin Henkes, Dr. Seuss, Margaret Wise Brown, Gustav Tengrin, and many others for the lovely experiences you’ve brought us at bedtime!) I probably have an even greater appreciation for the art form than I did ten years ago. Who knows, maybe I’ll eventually make another picture book? But it doesn’t feel like the keening need it once was—if it happens, it happens.

I think this is how creative careers are. To paraphrase Woody Allen, they have to evolve or die. In my case, you start out illustrating fairy tales; years later, you find yourself researching absinthe consumption in 1880s London for a novel where there’s sex, suicide, and other decidedly PG-13 occurrences.

One consolation: Thanks to the wonders of the digital age, many of my picture books are still available—THE FIREBIRD, RAPUNZEL, and others. Now that the rights for HARVEST are back in my hot little hands, I’ll be reviving the book for a new generation soon. And, if you’re in the NYC area, the children’s book exhibit will be up through May. Come and visit!

• Filed under The Novel, art and words, e-books, publishing, studio and gallery, the art world | 3 Responses