Mapmaker's Apprentice

For some reason I had in my head June 1 as the release date for Mapmaker's Apprentice, but I'm reliably informed the release date is actually the 1st of May, which (I'm slightly shocked to say) is just over 4 weeks away.

When I look back over the journey of the past 2 and a half years, from having Ghost of Ping-Ling accepted through the editing and cover-design process all the way to publication, it feels very much like a long wait followed by activity so frenetic it's easy to get dates confused.

Definitely a change of pace, but I have to say I much prefer this to the waiting!

Mapmaker's Apprentice Cover

This was sent to me today. I absolutely love it!

Anyone who remotely knows the story should have no problem guessing who's on the cover of book 3...

So Close Now I Can Smell It.

I can't believe it's been a month since my last post, and how much has happened in that time!

I've finished the submission draft of Mapmaker's Apprentice and sent it off to the publisher. After nearly a year and a half of pain and 10 drafts (one of them handwritten) I have to say I felt really happy with the final result (thank the stars). So now I'm in that nervous wait time while the editor and publisher read it.

I also finished the edits for Ghost of Ping-Ling and sent them back. Currently I have a beautiful white wad of what they call "pages" sitting on my desk. It's basically the book in its near to final layout form -- like the finished thing but minus a cover, so myself and the editor can pick out any final (hopefully minor) changes.

Speaking of the cover, a few days ago I saw the latest version. It's probably enough to say it's the cover I was dreaming of. I am utterly desperate to show it, but that probably doesn't make much sense until the final version, which hopefully won't be too far away. Watch this space!

Oh, and as a final update. The series now has a title: "Tales of the Blue Jade."

Editing

Yesterday I started the edits for the Ghost of Ping-Ling. Prior to getting the manuscript back I was a bit worried about how much work I'd have to do , but in the end it's turned out to be quite reasonable (lots of misused commas -- I still think commas are one of life's greatest mysteries). I even got to write "stet" yesterday -- in green pen. Talk about the giddy heights!

At the same time I'm finishing off editing Mapmaker's Apprentice. I have to say, writing this book has been really, really hard. For some reason it's been extremely difficult to get the finer points of the plot ironed out, and some of the characters have changed two or three times and I'm still not quite sure I'm happy with the result. I've ended up having to ask for an extra month on the deadline so I can (hopefully) get it right.

(I should mention that three of my crit partners have read the manuscript now, and all were overwhelmingly positive (two of them said they enjoyed it more than GPL). That was desperately needed encouragement, but I can still see improvements that I want to make. I hope I'm not being overly picky.)

By a stroke of luck I'm about to finish up at my current work and start a new job, and I have 3 weeks off before I do. A large part of that time will have to go into editing, but having that time takes the pressure off enormously.

Then I have to start thinking about book 3!

A Milestone Reached

I've finally finished the latest (and hopefully longest) round of editing on the Mapmaker's Apprentice. This is the phase where I hammer out bumps in the plot and also do a first cut at reworking sentences and making the whole thing read better. There wasn't a lot of rewriting, but a few chapters towards the end needed a revamp due to smaller changes earlier in the story (the snow-ball effect). All in all I was pretty happy with how it went.

So now I've printed it out and I have a big wad of A4 paper sitting on my desk. I'm already half way through reading it and there's not a page that isn't covered in green notes (all minor things, fingers crossed). I'm hoping I won't have too many further changes to make but already I'm thinking there's a couple of chapters that could probably be completely removed. Not a bad thing, considering it's about 97,000 words and it's supposed to be 80,000.

My next move is to give it to the small group of faithful beta-readers who read GPL, and get their thoughts. At the same time I'll convert it to an MP3 format and spend a day (somehow) listening to the whole thing. That's one of the best ways I've found to give a form of distance to the work -- having it read by a detached electronic voice and being forced to listen to every word at a regular pace, without being able to skim anything. It's a great way to pick up whether the pace of the story is building at the right rate and whether information is being learned by the protagonists (and thus the readers) in a measured and tension building way. It's also a great way of picking up typos which your eye would normally skim over.

It's so satisfying reaching a point where I can finally hold the manuscript in my hand. It feels like it's been a bit of a tortuous path to get to this point, but I'm glad it's arrived. It makes me just that bit less stressed about that July 1 deadline, which now seems so close! Where does the time go?

Milestones

I've been out of work now since New Year's Eve, although I'm pleased to report I start contract work this coming Monday, with a good chance it will turn into a longer term thing. It's been a strange kind of time -- sometimes depressing and downright terrifying, other times a nice break and a chance to spend time with the family and catch up on some long delayed house-jobs.

It's also been a good chance to get some writing done. Right from the start I knew it would be important to keep up a regular routine, so I set myself a goal of spending Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at the university library working on the first draft of MMA. In the end, I didn't do it each week, but I managed to get in for about 5 or 6 days of the 3 weeks I was without work. On my best day I managed to write 10,000 words, quite an achievement for a single 8 hour session. I'm not sure what they put in my coffee that day, but I wish I could get hold of more of it. Most days I achieved a more modest total of between 3,000 and 6,000 words. Nice progress, and it enabled me to finish the draft yesterday, coming in at a final total of just over 80,000 words.

I wasn't sure how I'd go spending the whole day writing - whether I'd get two hours in and find myself unable to do any more. In fact, most days I couldn't believe how quickly 8 hours flashed past. I'm still not sure it's something I could ever do full-time, but it's been an interesting experiment anyway.

So now I start the whole editing process. First off are the major changes - chapters that need a complete re-write, characters who need to be deleted or altered significantly, that kind of thing. Next will be more minor tweaks such as the addition of better description, thinking through locations a bit more (which will involve drawing maps and diagrams), looking for logical errors and trying to plug them, hopefully with simple solutions. Finally it will be the more detailed edit, where I rewrite sentences and try and make the wording read better.

I find that as I pass through each stage of this process, the work gets easier but takes longer to do. For GPL, for example, I found that I could rewrite a chapter in about 2 or 3 evenings, but it could take as many as 6 or 7 to do a fine edit on the same number of words.

I need to remember, though, that this is only the second time in my life that I've gone through this process. Perhaps this time I'll find it quicker and easier. Either way, it's nice to finally have a firm first draft. It's taken me more than six months to get to this point, during which time I estimate I wrote around 120,000 words (60,000 by hand). I learned a lot though, so I'm sure when it comes time to write book 3 it won't be quite such a grind. Let's hope!

Has Anyone Seen My Quill?

I've been trying something new these past few days. Instead of using my laptop to write the first draft of MMA¹, I've been writing by hand in a notebook. It's the first time I've written a story with a pen since I was about 14. So far, my fingers are holding up, although I've noticed a long forgotten callus showing up once again on my index-finger. Welcome back, callus.

I've been thinking about trying this ever since I read a post by Garth Nix. He lists a lot of positives for writing by hand -- the main one being portability. For me, it's certainly been handy being able to take my notebook into the coffee shop at lunchtime and bang out 1000 words. Sure, I could take my laptop too, but then I have to worry about power supplies, getting it on my bike with all the other stuff I have to carry, and that self-consciousness I always seem to get when I'm working on my laptop in public (I think it must be some kind of new-writer neurosis).

But the main reason I'm trying it is a bit more subtle. I have a reasonably fast typing speed, courtesy of a course the government put me through when I worked as a clerk in my early 20's. That means I can easily type 1000 words in a very short space of time. You would have thought that's a good thing, but sometimes it's not. Speed rarely equals quality, and all too often I find myself writing whole chapters that will need serious rework, if not a total rewrite, in the second draft.

With hand-writing, I go a lot slower - my current rate being something like 1000 words in a solid hour. Because it's slow, it forces me to think more about what I'm writing, to plan more what the sentences will say before they spill out of my head and onto the page. Also, because it's written in ink on paper, rather than with 1's and 0's, it has a permanency to it -- it can't easily be wiped away with the delete key. Again, that drives me to think more carefully about what I want to write before I commit it to the page.

There's a possible negative too, which I'm keeping an eye out for. Sometimes, in particular scenes, my writing gets into a fast flow. This usually happens in action moments, like fights or pursuits, where lots of things are happening fast and there is little need for detailed description. I haven't reached one of those with the handwriting yet, but when I do, I wonder if I'll find it much harder than if it were being typed. I'll have to see.

Funny thing, this writing business. There's so much to learn, it sometimes feels completely overwhelming. But I think experimenting is a big part of coming to terms with it -- researching what others do, trying it out, and seeing if it fits. If it doesn't, move on to something else. If it does, stick with it, no matter what people tell you you "should" be doing.

It's definitely a fun ride!

¹Yes, I've started again. No, don't ask.

Plodding

I'm having a serious case of secondbookitis at the moment. 41,000 words in, and I can't help thinking this first draft has descended into a quagmire of ideas that sounded so great until I wrote them down. Situations that I was certain would be filled with tension, characters that would definitely leap from the page, backstory and worldbuilding that would grab and entice and inform. All of it has pfffft away like a half inflated balloon.

I'm thankful this experience is, apparently, perfectly normal, even expected. That knowledge has saved my desk from having a large imprint of my head permanently embedded in it, as a monument to my efforts.

On the bright side, I get to meet Garth Nix at a signing on Friday, and have him sign my copy of Abhorsen.

Come to think of it, perhaps I should take along Lirael instead, and ask if he was ever attacked by the curse of the second book. If he shares any gems, I'll be certain to pass them on.

On Outlining (Oh No, Not Again!)

I've been listening to some great author podcasts recently, courtesy of Valerie Khoo and the Sydney Writer's Festival (you can find them on iTunes if you want to check them out). Yesterday, I listened to Fiona Mcintosh, a fellow Adelaidian who has a phenomenal reputation but whose books are yet to reach the top of my burgeoning reading pile. She had some interesting points to make about the writing process, and particularly about the outline vs. writing by the seat of the pants approach (I know, I'm still harping on about this).

I would categorise Fiona as being at the extreme fringe of the anti-outlining faction. When she starts to write, she has no idea about anything - who her characters are, what will happen to them, where it will happen, what the world looks like, and so on. All of this, she insists, leaps out at her as she goes along, and the numerous loose and dangling threads have never failed to order themselves in a semi-miraculous manner, right towards the end of the book.

Now, while I don't subscribe to that approach (see recent posts), she did make one very interesting point. In her view, the main problem with outlining is that when you're outlining, you're not writing, and therefore you're not bringing the story forward. In her opinion, even writing a noodle-soup of dud ideas is better than not writing at all.

The reason this hit such a chord with me is that since I identified my need for an outline, I feel as if the book has ground to a halt. Sure, I've been spending time thinking about it, what happens and the backstory and so on, and I've come up with some interesting thoughts and ideas. But up until the last few days, I haven't written anything. My word count has stopped at 22,000, like a dodgy odometer on an old car.

While this might be good from the point of view of planning, it's not doing a lot for my piece of mind. There's something wonderfully satisfying about churning out the words, not matter how bad they might be. It shows you're progressing, you're actually getting somewhere. It boosts your confidence, particularly when the days are flying past and you have a sneaking suspicion the delivery date of June 2011 will be here before you know it.

So, enough outlining for me. A few days ago I picked up the dog's breakfast of a 22,000 word manuscript and resumed, although my recent planning means the story has a vast discontinuity (I plan on going back and fixing up those 22,000 words last). As of this moment, I'm at 29,000 words, within sight of the half-way mark. And it feels good. I feel like a runner who's had to spend a few weeks recovering from an injury, and can finally get on the track again and blow off the cobwebs.

I think in the end it comes down to balance. It's important to spend time outlining and planning, but you need to learn to recognise when it's time to start writing. It's OK if there are plot points yet to be clarified, or characters who are vague, or you haven't quite nailed down the landscape. All you need is a skeleton, a loose idea that you can build on as you go.

I think I've reached that point. Onwards we go.

A Change of Tack.

Remember how I waxed lyrical about my Driving Without Headlights approach to writing – the method of not using outlines that worked so well with The Weight of Souls? Well, 22,000 words and several months later, I’ve come to the conclusion that I got lucky on that occasion, and that writing without an outline is more often than not a recipe for wasting time.

I started Mapmaker’s Apprentice with a solid idea of its beginning and end, and a burning ambition to write 1000 words per day until I’d come up with an 80,000 word initial draft. Things started off well, with the first chapter looking pretty good and the whole thing flowing well. But, by the time I reached the 20,000 word mark, the whole thing had become a veritable bird’s-nest of oddly-placed plot-points, disjointed conversation and wobbly characters. If I squinted down the road hard enough, I could clearly see a total re-write sitting in a deck-chair in the distance, waving at me and grinning.

That's not to say everything I've written has been a complete waste of time, or would have been if I had kept at it. By the end, I’m sure I would have had little bits and pieces that I could have tinkered with, ideas that came from nowhere as I bravely battled on. But now I think I can achieve the same thing in less than half the time and with less than half the effort, simply by spending some time working on a constructive outline before I begin writing.

*Sigh*. I never thought I’d say that. Many would say it’s glaringly obvious that writing with an outline is better than travelling blind. But I was so keen to try an exciting new method, and so convinced it would pay dividends, that I pressed on regardless. Now I know better.

Part of the problem has been a misunderstanding of how an ‘outline’ type approach should work. I had pictured a series of bullet points – something along the lines of “Fred walks into bar. Fred gets into firefight with Sheriff Dwayne. Fred shoots Sheriff Dwayne. Fred spits in spittoon as he ambles out.” Every time I’ve used this kind of thing, it’s been hopeless. It’s just too low-level, too detailed, and it fails to take into consideration the way characters have a habit of bouncing off each other and the situations you put them in, often leading to them acting differently to your initial expectations(the scoundrels! Don't they understand who's boss?).

But now I've seen a new method that's kind of half way between a bullet-point outline and a blindly written first draft. I first saw it mentioned in a blog-post by my writing-friend, Jonathan Danz. The idea is that, rather than churn out a blow by blow outline of the flow of action, the author should start by summarising the book in 15 or so pages, a summary that will contain the main themes of the book as well as the ways in which the characters develop from beginning to end. It’s almost like writing that first draft, but in micro-form, therefore saving a lot of time and avoiding a lot of unnecessary and certain to be changed detail. This summary then serves as a high-level roadmap, allowing detail to be fleshed out with a clear idea of the underlying drivers of action.

I saw something similar in a page by Garth Nix, where he explains his process for writing a novel. He describes the first stage as a kind of gestation of ideas, a time of thinking and musing on the story. From this, he writes a chapter by chapter outline of the book, with each chapter summarised in a few sentences. Again, this is not a blow by blow detail of what happens, but a condensation of the main events and themes of each chapter. Armed with this, he moves to the next stage - the long, hard slog of writing.

Garth mentions that he fully expects to depart from this outline, but that having it gives him a sense of security, a sense that he knows where he wants to go. I can certainly relate to that need for security. It's terrifying to launch into a book without really knowing what happens, doubly so when the manuscript happens to be contracted. What if you never do work it out? What if the ideas never come together in a coherent way, and all you end up with is mush? Starting with an outline means you know (or, perhaps, are fairly sure) that's not going to happen, and any deviations from the outline can only be because you've come up with something even better. Very good for your peace of mind.

So, feeling wiser and grayer, I’ve put down my 20,000 words of literary spaghetti, and picked up my moleskine notebook. I’m now working towards building an overall picture of what I want to happen in the book. So far, I know how I want each of the characters to develop over the course of the novel. I also know what information I want to reveal that pertains to the overall series. From this, I’ve managed to build a skeleton chapter outline, which I’m currently tinkering with as I think about characters and details. All being well, by the time I start writing again, I’ll know exactly where I’m going. I’m certain that, by the end of the process, I’ll have a much better product than I would have done with my no-headlights approach. Fingers crossed!