Randy is doing a workshop in Couer d’Alene this weekend. One of his other blog readers from my area contacted me, and now three of us will drive down this weekend to ’sit at the master’s feet’ as it were.

For a very modest fee Randy agreed to give a 5-page manuscript a 20-minute critique to all takers. This will be the first time my ‘real’ work has been professionally critiqued. I am shaking in my pretty boots! I know Randy well enough to know that he will be encouraging. I know myself well enough to know that I’m only 1 year into a four year learning process, and it’s okay that I don’t know, or even apply all the things I do know, all the time to my work. But I want to be told I am brilliant, dammit! (Was that my outside voice?)

Mature me can handle whatever comes, and immature me will just have to deal. Hopefully this will be a springboard for faster improvement, so that one day I will be described as brilliant!

I’m having a lot of fun putting in an extra chapter or two to my Nanowrimo novel as I re-write it. I seem to do well on the whole big picture thing and can snowflake that, but all the interesting layers and details and little subplots that reinforce the big ones seem to come to me organically as I’m tying the bigger things together. I guess I work better creatively withing the boundaries of an established framework. I’m not putting the time into it that I’d like as there’s a lot of upheaval as our family is considering a major move, after a move just 11 months ago. Randy Ingermanson says that real writers write 3 hours a day anyway, even with life going on. With kids still home I consider myself part-time, and feel good if I write three times a week. It’s enough for now.

The story is called Windsinger, and I began it when I was about 15. The basic plot is clear to me, but it needs fleshing out. Step one of the Snowflake is to write a one-sentence summary of the novel, which gets used extensively in marketing the idea/book so you want to make it good. Randy Ingermanson has been critiquing one-sentence summaries on his inestimable Advanced Fiction Writing blog, and you can join the fun!

I already posted the one-sentence for Gift of the Ancients, here’s a stab at the one for Windsinger:

An outcast girl discovers her true identity, but can her power overthrow an ancient tyrant?

In The Story of Me, I have now chronicled the first five years of my life and begun the next five. I’m not pushing myself on it too hard. Some days a lot of things I hadn’t thought of come out of my pen, other days only a little makes it onto the page. I’m handwriting this project, and frankly, I intend to burn it once it’s all down. It’s the doing, not the having, but I’m already seeing some benefit to it.

I’ve done the prep work for this project, making notes on various phases of my life. It’s meant to be a very personal autobiography never read by anyone else, with an emphasis on telling your life stories from your own perspective, not just reciting your parents’ versions events. It’s an interesting idea, if somewhat intimidating.

Why bother? Well, apparently this exercise really helps to develop the ‘voice’ of the writer. Taking ownership of your own life, being the lead character in your own story, seeing from such an overview the themes and strengths and cycles one’s life leads to a greater sense of self-posession. A clearer, more distinct voice.

So tomorrow I begin this project, while simultaneously attempting to finish my first 5 rewritten chapters. Because I work best (sometimes only) under pressure, that’s why!

“Forbidden friends must reach the ruined Citadel to activate an ancient defense and save their land. ”

The idea is this becomes your elevator speech when talking about your novel, and it gets used as back cover copy and in various sales pitches.

Would this catch your interest? How could it be better?

Currently I’m in the universally experienced “When can I write?” whining mode.  Kids have been sick, I’ve been sick, holidays are around the corner with all the preparation that needs, it goes on and on.  The only solution is discipline, sucking it in and getting the job done.  Let’s see how that goes…

The instructor for the evening was Vicki Delaney. She is a successful mystery writer, with some of her books set not far from where I grew up. I don’t generally read mysteries, but these are of a psychological bent and sound fascinating. From reading the synopsis of one of them, which she generously shared while instructing us on do’s and don’ts of submitting our work, I’m going to make a point of getting one. Check Vicki’s website for a tantalising sniff of your own.

Keener that I am I stayed behind at the end to help with clean up, and Vicki was gracious enough to invite me for coffee! I was pretty jazzed, but not quite bold enough to ask everything I would have liked. I did gain valuable insight and warnings about hiring a publicist, signing with a small publishing house, and the future of the publishing industry. All that aside, I’m always thrilled to talk with anyone familiar with Manitoulin Island who shares my appreciation for it, so it could hardly miss being a cool visit.

Contrast this with the number of times you hear about Best Sellers.  Actually, you hear more about “Best Selling Writers”.  I’m sure Oprah interviewed more than 19 of them last year.   I believe the term “Best Seller” refers to most copies sold in a specific time period.  The Best Seller lists are renewed several times a year.  How successful those Best Sellers are over the long haul, or the course of an entire year, is uncertain.

Which leads of course to the philosophical question, “What is success?”.  The most contented people I know seem to have  their own definition of success, and focus their efforts on attaining or even  maintaining the life that is most satisfying to them.  It takes a fair bit of deliberation to come up with such a definition, but well worth the effort when faced with the world’s clamourings about what it considers success.

Then there are those who never achieve “success” because as soon as one thing is achieved, there’s a higher mountain to climb in the never ending accumulation of status symbols, by which they measure their own success and others.

I’m sure others fall in the middle somewhere.  My definition changed recently, and I’m doing my best to find a new one to stick to.

Then a writing buddy requested a new version of my novel, because I was bragging how I’d finally analysed the thing into a sequence that worked without overdoing the flashbacks. She liked the story but had a hard time following my meanderings in the trousers of time. ( Terry Pratchett reference. I can’t help it.) I’ve been wanting to do a rewrite to show my honey (he knows the ideas, but hasn’t read it all) so this seemed like confirmation that I should go ahead with an actual second draft.

New course set, onward we go. Second draft now in progress. Same story, less parts that suck.