Mar. 2nd, 2010

mmerriam: (Dark Water)
I've been quiet here on LJ (everywhere, in fact). I've been trying to get a handle on some things in my writing career, trying to figure out where I'm going and what I need do to advance my career.

I made a post a little while back about the number of words I'd written (1.35 million) and sold (200,000) in the last eight years. I noted that I wasn't sure what, if anything, all those words meant. I still don't.

I attended a workshop recently. I took the opening of Dark Water Blues as my submission and offered it up for critique. I've said before that I think DWB is both the best and worst thing I've every written. I had hoped to finish working this novel over and have it ready to send out late this year.

What I found out was that the novel is broken. With a great big capital "B" Broken. One of the key points that underpins the novel from start to finish simply doesn't work. It is a logical fallacy. There were positive things about the novel, but this bit of brokenness stops the novel from working and would mean a rewrite from the floor up with major, wholesale changes. One of the important premises of the novel would have to written out, changed, and worked over to keep my two protagonists together.

I made a list of a dozen questions I would need to answer before I attempt a rewrite. I'm going to think about them over the next day or two. I'm not sure I have the energy or the heart to tackle this novel again. I'm unsure how to repair such massive damage, or even if I should. Maybe I should cannibalize the novel instead. At some point I'll need to get more outside advice about how, if possible, to fix this.

I've been having confidence trouble lately. I haven't sold any of my newer pieces of short fiction, though I can point to the fact that these new stories are slowly and surely working their way through the SFWA pro-zines, so of course I'm collecting rejection after rejection. Those stories are competing at the top end of the market right now.

The wobbly confidence has made it hard for me to finish anything. I keep falling into the second guessing trap. Unsure of my abilities, not trusting the story, I freeze. The monster-hunting barista story had stalled because of this. I need to put my head down and bull through a first draft of anything right now. I know this is the best thing I could do.

I've begun studying scriptwriting. For one thing, it would give me another creative outlet. But more important, I think it will play to the sharpest tool in my writer's toolbox: dialogue. This is the one thing I still have some confidence in, and I've been told over and over that my prose is so minimal that it seems better suited for scripts. I admit to being a minimalist at heart.

I have also taken on the lead editor position for a project, and am still reading slush. I was also advised that I should go ahead and write my Fringe Festival show. I could still get in, even though I'm low on the waiting list. It was pointed out to me that, as an individual storyteller, I could fill a late cancelation and be shoe-horned into the Fringe schedule rather easily. Take all this and add in the time I spend on my personal writing projects, and networking sites are getting ignored.

Anyway, that is why things have been so quiet around here lately.
mmerriam: (Dark Water)
I've been quiet here on LJ (everywhere, in fact). I've been trying to get a handle on some things in my writing career, trying to figure out where I'm going and what I need do to advance my career.

I made a post a little while back about the number of words I'd written (1.35 million) and sold (200,000) in the last eight years. I noted that I wasn't sure what, if anything, all those words meant. I still don't.

I attended a workshop recently. I took the opening of Dark Water Blues as my submission and offered it up for critique. I've said before that I think DWB is both the best and worst thing I've every written. I had hoped to finish working this novel over and have it ready to send out late this year.

What I found out was that the novel is broken. With a great big capital "B" Broken. One of the key points that underpins the novel from start to finish simply doesn't work. It is a logical fallacy. There were positive things about the novel, but this bit of brokenness stops the novel from working and would mean a rewrite from the floor up with major, wholesale changes. One of the important premises of the novel would have to written out, changed, and worked over to keep my two protagonists together.

I made a list of a dozen questions I would need to answer before I attempt a rewrite. I'm going to think about them over the next day or two. I'm not sure I have the energy or the heart to tackle this novel again. I'm unsure how to repair such massive damage, or even if I should. Maybe I should cannibalize the novel instead. At some point I'll need to get more outside advice about how, if possible, to fix this.

I've been having confidence trouble lately. I haven't sold any of my newer pieces of short fiction, though I can point to the fact that these new stories are slowly and surely working their way through the SFWA pro-zines, so of course I'm collecting rejection after rejection. Those stories are competing at the top end of the market right now.

The wobbly confidence has made it hard for me to finish anything. I keep falling into the second guessing trap. Unsure of my abilities, not trusting the story, I freeze. The monster-hunting barista story had stalled because of this. I need to put my head down and bull through a first draft of anything right now. I know this is the best thing I could do.

I've begun studying scriptwriting. For one thing, it would give me another creative outlet. But more important, I think it will play to the sharpest tool in my writer's toolbox: dialogue. This is the one thing I still have some confidence in, and I've been told over and over that my prose is so minimal that it seems better suited for scripts. I admit to being a minimalist at heart.

I have also taken on the lead editor position for a project, and am still reading slush. I was also advised that I should go ahead and write my Fringe Festival show. I could still get in, even though I'm low on the waiting list. It was pointed out to me that, as an individual storyteller, I could fill a late cancelation and be shoe-horned into the Fringe schedule rather easily. Take all this and add in the time I spend on my personal writing projects, and networking sites are getting ignored.

Anyway, that is why things have been so quiet around here lately.

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