L’esprit d’escalier

A wee brief update, for anyone playing along at home!

If you glance over at the sidebar, you’ll see that “Running” clocked in at about 7,000 words.  A thousand more than I’d initially planned, but I think they’re pretty decent words all the same.  Now comes the shopping it around part, which induces nail-biting and hair pulling.  I’m not happy with the title, but brain-wracking hasn’t supplied me with anything better so far, sadly.  Thus, it goes out with its working-title, and we’ll see what happens.

You’ll also notice that the status bar on Night Owls hasn’t really moved.  I’m trying something a wee bit different this go-round:  the loosest of outlines.  Nothing terribly set in stone, just a sort of “this happens, then this happens, then this happens.”  We’ll see where it takes me, if anywhere.

Because, well, I have a little something else nibbling away in the back of my head, and I’m getting ready to poke it with a stick.  There’s what I might call a recurring character in some of my dabbles — none of which have really seen the light of day — and I think I might have figured out who she is and what she’s up to.  But this one’s going to take a wee bit of research before I get writing.  And when I figure out whether it’s a novel or a short story, I’ll give it a status bar.

I’ve been working at making Ye Olde Writing Space a little more mine. Which is sort of silly — my computer’s been in the same room for probably two years now.  But it was originally Greg’s office, so there’s still some of his stuff on the walls (not that I mind the swords, exactly.  If the zombie apocalypse comes, I’m well-armed) and there was this big curio cabinet thing looming over me.  The reason for that is simple:  we don’t have anywhere else to put this stuff right now, so it made more sense just to leave it where it was.

And yet…

Last weekend, in celebration of Massachusetts’ tax-free holiday, we went out and Bought Stuff.  I got a laser printer, since my Little Deskjet That Could was only printing about 230 pages per ink cartridge.  When “Running” is 32 pages long, that’s 14% of my ink right there.  If I wanted to print out, say, Nin, I’d need two or three cartridges.  So!  New printer!  And a new ladder-style bookshelf thing!

Which of course made the room look too crowded.  So I measured.  And plotted.

And wandered out to where poor Greg was trying to play some Starcraft II and said, “So if the cabinet technically fits in the other room…”

Bless his heart, he helped me move it.  Now, my printer table/filing cabinet is on the wall where the curio cabinet once was, and as soon as I hang a picture or something to cover the empty wall space, it’ll look pretty keen.  The walls themselves are a neutral beige color.  The new debate is whether I leave ‘em the hell alone and just redecorate with new accessories — hang up some of the stuff that’s been gathering dust, get new curtains, maybe paint the trim on the doors and windows — or whether or not I find a new color of paint to smear on the walls.

Decisions, decisions.

I know, it probably sounds a bit like cat vacuuming:  if I’m fixing up my space, I’m not writing.  To a point, it absolutely is.  But it’s also a bit of mental gynmastics.  If the room makes me happy, writing in it will, too.

Hill: I have a request
for l’esprit d’escalier

me: What’s up?

Hill: that you outline what the process IS we’re going through,
from writing to editing to query letter to partials to fulls and to representation
so I can link it to people
and go
HERE THIS EXPLAINS IT

—

Ask and ye shall receive.

Note: this is the third time I’ve tried writing this post. I keep veering off into tangents that, while they’re pretty relevant, take their sweet-ass time actually answering the above request.  So let’s see if I can stop trying to explain the whole of the book industry and just, y’know, explain what we’re up to over here.

As you know, Bob, Hill and I wrote a book. It’s a young adult fantasy novel.  It doesn’t suck. We went back and forth over the course of about a year and a half, writing 1,000-2,000 words before passing it back to the other.  Every now and then we’d get together and rehash what was left to write.  We wrote until it was done.

We had what I call our zero draft. It was a completed manuscript, yes, but it wasn’t ready to go out into the world.  We handed it over to a few people for a read-through, to help us catch inconsistencies and glaring errors, and then we edited the hell out of it. We took a look and got rid of scenes that didn’t advance the plot, cliches that didn’t spice up the writing, and put that bad cat into standard manuscript format.

Then it was time to find an agent. There are several steps to this, so let’s break out the bullet points:

• First, we did our research. Would you ask  your vegetarian friend to taste your bacon-wrapped-in-bacon recipe and recommend it to other people?  Nope.  For that same reason, you need to find agents that represent the genre in which you’re writing.  You don’t submit, say, contemporary YA fantasy to someone who only represents non-fiction.
• Then, we worked on our query letter. Queries are nerve-wracking.  You have about a page — really just a few paragraphs — to explain why your book kicks ass, and why that particular agent would be right for you.  I’ve spent a lot of time at Query Shark, looking to see what other people got right and wrong, learning how to write something that should stand out.  In addition to the query letter, a lot of agencies ask to see the first 5-10 pages.  So, we have dual nail-biting going on there: the query is mostly me; the first few pages are mostly Hill.  Fortunately, the combination of the two seem to have garnered us some interest. Win!
• If an agent likes the query and sample pages, he or she requests a partial. “Partials” are pretty much exactly what they sound like: part of the manuscript.  The amount an agent will want to see varies.  For the most part, it’s been a request for the first 30 pages or first 3 chapters.  Others have asked for 50 pages/first 5 chapters.  It depends on how much of the story that particular agent needs to get a good feel for the story.
• If an agent likes the partial, he or she requests the full. “Full” is just like it sounds, too:  someone wants to see the whole gorram thing.  Hill and I have had a few requests for fulls so far.   If queries and partials were nerve-wracking, waiting on responses for fulls are even more so.  Because…
• If an agent likes the full, he or she offers representation. This is where, when it finally happens, we will run around in circles screaming and generally embarrassing ourselves.

Of course, having representation doesn’t mean we’re published yet, does it?

Once we have an agent, that agent will show the books to editors. And we start the whole damned process over again, only this time, we have someone who has the trust of editors and publishers on our side, being enthusiastic about our work and getting it on publishers’ desks.

If an editor likes our book, they will make an offer.  At that point, the agent would present the offer to us, go over the contract with us, and advocate for us so we get the best deal we can.  (Those two sentences alone could spiral into so many digressions.  Understand I’m oversimplifying here.  I’ll eventually post a little more in-depth about how offers get made — it’s not just “Hey, I like your book, have a wad of cash” — and why agents are so damned essential to the process.)

Once we’ve signed with a publisher (which is when you’d say our book has been aquired), we’ll go through rounds of revisions.  Editors make your book better.  They help with plot and pacing and turn your book from pretty awesome into wicked awesome.

When the revisions are done, and probably a thousand other things I’m glossing over, the book will be scheduled for release. It’s honestly probably about a year-long process, maybe even two, from when the book is bought to when it hits bookstore shelves.

Think of it this way:  right now, people here are working on books that will be in bookstores in the spring/summer of 2011.  They were probably acquired in the fall of 2009 or very early in 2010.  So, even if an agent were to offer us representation tomorrow and we had a deal by the end of the summer, chances are, Nin wouldn’t be on bookshelves until the fall of 2011 at the earliest.  More likely, spring of 2012.

Couple of things about all of the above, as if I haven’t thrown enough at you:

–Every agent is different.  Some have requested fulls right off of the query letter.  Some have online forms to fill out instead of the queries.  Some of them want a synopsis, too, which makes me weep copious tears.**

–Agents’ response times vary.  Some get back to us in a day or less.  Others take weeks.  Still others take months.  There are more than a few who state that if we don’t receive a response, we can assume they’re passing on the work.  That gets pretty frustrating, figuring out at what point we move the agent off of the “query response pending” part of the spreadsheet and stick it on the page I’ve named “Rejections “

–BEA was about three weeks ago.  It’s the big publishing industry trade show, where publishers, editors, agents, authors and booksellers go and gorge themselves on books for three days.  It also means everyone falls behind on what comes into their inboxes.  Some agents receive hundreds of queries a day, so imagine the overflow they came back to.  Which means when we’re going, “But Agent Awesome’s website says she’ll get back to us in three weeks and it’s been four,” we have to sigh at the calendar and remind ourselves she’s probably still clawing her way out of everything that came in during BEA.

Anyway. The TL;DR version of the post is this:

1. Write book
   
2. Revise manuscript
   
3. Query agents
4. Get partial requests
5. Get full requests
6. Get agent OMFG YAY!
7. Agent sends manuscript to editors
8. Editor makes offer
9. Happydance
10. A year-ish later, see our book on actual bookstore shelves.

So.  Questions?  Comments?  Anything I can clarify?  Any parts of this process you want me to go into in further detail?  Have at it!

**A synopsis is a two or three page outline of your book, from start to finish.  Where a query letter presents the central problem without revealing the resolution, the synopsis wants the spoilers.  Query letters let you inject a little humor and your own voice.  A synopsis is just the facts, ma’am, or, as I put it to Hill: “It’s like watching the boring dude in the office explain the plot of last night’s Awesome TV Show.  It’s hard not to go, ‘but funny shit happens in here, I SWEAR!’“

Marty went poking through search terms that led to his blog and found something a bit disturbing.  Curiosity started poking this cat, and I peeked at my own.

Some of them are questions I can answer!

1. what’s the counting crows song that goes ba da ba da da

That’s an easy one.  “Another Horsedreamer’s Blues,” based on the play Geography of a Horsedreamer by Sam Shepard.  Here, give it a listen:

2. what to say to a valued publisher when the price is too high

Uh.  Okay, this question is kind of vague to me.  I’m assuming this is someone upset over the price of a book or eBook.  It appears that by calling them a “valued” publisher, you have some respect for their other work and have purchased their titles in the past.  So, first of all, approach them respectfully.  Most publishers will have an address you can write to with concerns.  It might appear to be a generic customer service email address, but it will get filtered on to the appropriate people.  When you write to them, lay out the reasons that you believe a price is too high:  is the binding falling apart, or the paper quality poor?  Are they charging $25 for a 50-page book with lots of blank white space on every page?

Be honest, but be polite.  And, also, do  your research.  Do you think eBooks shouldn’t cost more than $9.99 or less?  Why?  If your answer is “because they don’t cost anything to make,” close your email program right now, do not press send, come here while I smite you. Someone finally talked about the cost of books, both e- and print, in the New York Times.  Go read that.  And go read Tobias Buckell, who posted about this a while back.  Also, Charlie Stross, who’s taking us step by step through how books are made.

Now, if you dropped $400 on a Kindle and don’t feel like shelling out $10 for an eBook because it’s too expensive omg, I’ll give you a running start.  Would you whine about buying a car and then having to pay to put gas in it?  Or buying a refrigerator and having to buy food to put in it?  No?  Then stop crying about having to pay for books to read on the device you bought for the purpose of reading books.

Another context for this question that occurred to me:  are you an author who feels that the price your publisher has set on your book is too high?  Do you have a literary agent going to bat for you?  Talk it over with your agent, first.  If you’re unagented, ask your editor (again, politely and respectfully) how the publisher came to that pricing decision, and if there’s any wriggle room with it.

3.  tales from the kitchen cannibal

I… what?  Okay, I can’t answer this one, but I feel like it has the potential to be a hilarious zombie story.  Someone write it and entertain me with it. GO!  In the meantime, there’s an episode of The I.T. Crowd entitled “Moss and the German” that might give you a giggle.

4. how to say roy in french

I believe that would be kind of like roo-wah.  Though, the way you say roi, meaning king, is more like rwah.  I could also be completely wrong, since it’s been something ridiculous like fifteen years since I took French.

5. stuff of legends ian gibson

Needs to come out NOW.  But, alas, unless I can scrounge an ARC out of someone at Ace Books, I’m stuck waiting six more months for it just like the rest of you.  However, in the meantime (and through some googling of my own), I see that fellow Feathermooninite Ian Gibson has a blog.  To which you should go.

6. all royalties are based on net amount received by publisher (wholesale price achieved)

I don’t get what the parenthetical statment at the end means, and I’m neither an agent nor a lawyer, but your standard royalties for print books from a commercial publisher should be based off of your book’s cover price, not the net.  I can’t really speak to ebooks, since the times, they are a-changin’ in that regard.

That’s about all the wisdom I have for today, though if you have any other burning questions for me, go ahead and leave ‘em in the comments.  I’ll see what I can do!

Hoo boy, did I ever not make it.  I broke 10k, which was good, but I let myself get distracted by other things, which is bad.  Other things being: work-travel, Under the Dome,Thanksgiving, and frothing at the mouth about Harlequin Horizons/DellArte.  I’m proud as hell of the posts about that fiasco, and intend to do a follow-up or two and expand upon a few points that came up.  But, time spent writing them was time not spent working on my NaNo.

So, I didn’t finish, didn’t even come close, and I’m okay with that; I was from the start.

But what have I learned?

Well, a few things:

• I really ought to outline. Not as in rigid, scene-by-scene bullet points and Roman numerals.  Just a more structured looking-ahead.  Hill and I checked in every so often on where we were with Nin: what happens in the next few chapters?  How far do we have to go and what needs to happen on the way?  I’ve never done it with my own writing, because, well, that’s a pretty one-sided conversation.  Have to find a good way to start.
• I probably get more done in the mornings. I’m still training myself to unplug while writing — setting gtalk to “Leave me alone, I’m writin’ here,” resisting the urge to see what the internet is up to when I get stuck on a phrase, etc.  But I’m also more prone to cat vacuuming at night, for some reason, both in meatspace and in the virtual world.
• Worldbuilding, worldbuilding, worldbuilding. I have this terrible habit of not committing to NaNo until the last week of October, which means I spend time on infodumps in the plot that are going to be cut out later, to the tune of “Oh god I suck.”

Now, my stalling out on NaNo doesn’t mean I didn’t do other writerly things in November.  Matter of fact, I dedicated the time that would’ve been spent on the NaNo stuff to editing Nin this past week.  I started a bit of a character bible for us to refer to, since it has a pretty big cast.

I’ve also been doing a lot of heavy thinking about Grailchild and whether or not it’s the book I should be writing right now.  (The sequel to Nin is a given, that’s in the works already.)  I’m talking more about solo projects, and trying to determine whether my feelings about this book are just general silly jitters about Getting it Right, or whether the fact that I’ve been waffling about it for the better part of six years is a sign that I ought to concentrate on something else.

Another way to ask the same question: have I managed to intimidate myself with the scope of it? I love the characters and the concept.  I know what needs to happen.  So am I disinterested, or just plain lazy?

I’m not quite sure how to answer that, yet, outside of seeing how I feel during Butt in Chair time.  I mean, writing is still happening.  There are other things I’m excited about and working on.  I just feel incredible guilt over the idea of abandoning this particular project yet again.

Enough whining from my camp.  How did the rest of you NaNoers do?  What did you learn over the last month that will carry through while you finish your current projects and start the next ones?  Yes, that’s right.  Writing doesn’t just happen in November and then go away until next year’s NaNo.  Keep writing!

Some photos from Sydney, Australia after yesterday’s dust storm.

I know the air pollution levels were probably high enough to kill Greg, but I can’t help but think how cool it would have been to walk around and see that first person.

We just had a very brief rainstorm.  Just before it ended, the sun broke through the clouds.  Self, I thought, go see if there’s a rainbow.

And lo, there was.

Shiny!

via John Scalzi’s Whateverettes: big kittehs, pumpkins, omnomnompounce!

TIGERS LEOPARDS Vs Pumpkins!

Holy hell, it’s been a while. Apologies! Work travel has kicked me in the ass, but I’m still around.

Currently reading: Patrick Rothfuss’ The Name of the Wind.  Review to follow in a couple hundred pages.

What’s on your nightstand/in your backpack/hidden under your pillow?

Just got a whiff of something — someone’s hand cream, maybe, or a perfume, I’m not really sure, can’t quite identify what I’m smelling.  Vaguely floral, maybe, I think.

Whatever it was, it sent me reeling back more than ten years, to the late spring/early summer days when I first started gaming, flipping through the pages of Mage: The Ascension (2nd edition 4-eva!), and trying to wrap my head around the rules of this incredible new world, the anticipation of what kind of character I’d play, who she’d be.**

I can’t even identify why that particular smell makes me flash back to it — maybe there was some kind of shampoo or lotion or soap I used to use, or… I dunno.  Something, from the where and when of those days.

But yeah, I’m sitting here, on a February day suddenly feeling like it’s May or June, like I’m at my parents’ kitchen table trying to explain the whole concept of table top gaming to my mother, insisting that no, I’m not going to end up in a ditch in six months’ time, sacrificed to some dark D&D gods.

I’m cramming the concepts of avatar and sphere and gilgul and Tradition into my head, hoping I get the idea of quintessence right, and don’t fuck up so badly on my first night that I accrue enough paradox to be sent into Quiet.

Turns out, I didn’t need to worry about any of those things, really, though they were all important in different ways.  Those first few sessions were vastly different than what I’d imagined they’d be, and thank god, really.  If we’d started out by diving into a world filled with Tradition politics and intrigue, I’d have been in way over my head.  Instead, we started small, just the PCs getting themselves in trouble, chased by the bad guys and getting away, getting into more trouble the next time, the world slowly expanding as I figured it out.

In later years, we’d get into the bigger picture — not just affected by Tradition politics but eventually affecting them ourselves, sometimes with those same characters, but mostly with others (though those original ones had cameos in other games, long after those first adventures were finished.  We could never quite let them go).

Anyway, whoever it was that smelled all flowery has walked away.  Scent’s gone, memory remains.

**And, to be honest, I look back at her concept and /facepalm a bit, amazed that the gents didn’t take one look at the character sheet and backstory and declare me unfit for their troupe.  She had a lot of potential to be a Mary Sue.  I think I managed to keep her from being one entirely, but eek.

So adorable your head might asplode.  Fair warning.

Tiger Cubs in the Snow