I’ve experienced yet again the miracle of manure, of starting from scratch, and following the zing.

This last week I’ve been rewriting a beginning to a novel. It’s a bit tricky because I can’t just rewrite it without constraint. Such a rewrite would cause massive changes to everything else in the book. In fact, a complete, unfettered rewrite of a beginning might end up requiring a totally different book. But Tor bought the book in hand. Besides, I don’t have time for a total rewrite even if they did want one. So the new beginning had to fit into the rest of the current story.

At three different spots where this beginning needed significant changes I have had to write a pile of cow crap because it’s all I had in me at the time. I knew I couldn’t use those plops when I finished them. But there they were.

The problem was compounded by my reading the recent Time article about Stephenie Meyer and starting to listen to Empire by Card. I have a weakness for comparing myself to others, and this time the comparison yeilded some depressing results.

Then I asked myself what wasn’t working and how I might meet the goals of those scenes a bit better. I followed my heart. But in all three cases I had to stop trying to use the brilliant words I had written originally. Not the cow crap revision, but the original stuff.

I’m not talking about the general prescription that we writers need to “murder our darlings” because the darlings are usually bad writing. I find general prescriptions to be wrong much of the time and that one in particular to make no sense at all.

In this case one of the things I had to jettison was a beginning segment that had compelled 90% of the readers who glanced at it to read more. A beginning page that snagged agents and editors. A beginning page I still loved, even after reading it as many times as I had.

But it just wouldn’t fit, couldn’t fit with the new structure. When I tried to hang onto it, I wrote crap. Which was fine. There was some good stuff in the crap. But I eventually had to trust myself and come up with something else completely.

And while I don’t know if it’s going to suck readers in like the original, I think it’s pretty dang good. Back before Card’s boot camp I would have never made it to this point. I would have given up. But this is just the process for me now. It took some time to learn and trust it. But now I know that while sometimes I can write hot. There’s no reason to despair if I don’t. Sometimes it takes a few tries before I get to the good stuff.

As for Meyer and Card, well, it’s not my goal to be a one-trick pony, now, is it.

If were smart and didn’t compare myself to other writers, then I wouldn’t care that Meyer is a true overnight success, I wouldn’t be green with envy, I certainly wouldn’t be thinking that I should write YA romance.

His eyes were smoldering…

She couldn’t look away from his smoldering eyes…

His yellow smoldering eyes were upon her…

Alas, imperfect man that I am.

Time has written an interesting article about the Meyer phenom. Of the many fine tidbits, I wanted to highlight one comparing Meyer with Rowling.

But as artists, they couldn’t be more different. Rowling pieces her books together meticulously, detail by detail. Meyer floods the page like a severed artery. She never uses a sentence when she can use a whole paragraph. Her books are big (500-plus pages) but not dense–they have a pillowy quality distinctly reminiscent of Internet fan fiction. (Which she’ll readily grant: “I don’t think I’m a writer; I think I’m a storyteller,” Meyer says. “The words aren’t always perfect.”)

I’m not a writer, she says.

I’m a storyteller.

There are volumes in that one paragraph. Meyer knows exactly why the vast majority of us fiction readers read. And it ain’t for style.

Here’s an even more interesting video clip of Meyer talking about how she came up with her novel. Notice how this woman follows the zing. Notice how she makes time (novel completed in three months). And look at her success. A lesson to all of us wanting to tell great stories.

…His red eyes were smoldering, and her brown eyes were smoldering, and together they were all smoldering…

One of the things I love about writing is that there’s always something new to learn. There’s always new content and, therefore, lots of cool research, but there’s also a lot to learn about the craft. I have no illusion that because I now have a contract I’ve suddenly arrived as a master craftsman. This art is just too big.

So you can imagine my delight when I saw that David Morrell is going to be giving a day-long workshop in my own backyard (out West, 5-8 hours is still in your backyard). I’ve signed up for Morrell’s workshop on June 6, 2008.

He’s the guy who wrote Rambo and started Thrillers Inc. He was also a professor for many years.
More on the Conference
http://www.murderinthegrove.com/index.htm

More on Morrell.
http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/shots21/intvus_21/dmorrell1.html
http://www.davidmorrell.net/
http://www.writerswrite.com/journal/oct02/morrell.htm

This was interesting.

Ali: As a Professor of Literature at Iowa, what were your experiences in academia like? Did you tutor any students who became prominent in the fiction field?

David : I have a Ph.D. in American literature and taught academic courses: the American Novel of the 19th Century, the American Novel of the 20th Century, American Realism, Hemingway and Faulkner, Hawthorne and Melville, that sort of thing. The University of Iowa has the famous Writers Workshop, but I had nothing to do with it. In fact, they hated the sort of books I wrote and hated even more that I earned money as a novelist. That was the official line. But in secret, students snuck to my office and asked me technical questions about craft or asked me to read contracts they’d been offered (to see if the contracts were reasonable). Sometimes they showed me their manuscripts. The most productive association of that sort was with Jon Jackson who later published a series of police novels about Detroit. My most gifted student was T. C. Boyle. He writes humorous literary novels and short stories that critics love. His latest is DROP CITY. I taught him nothing about writing – he was a genius. But he did ask me to direct an individual reading course that he needed in order to graduate. We had a lot of interesting discussions, and I’m thrilled by his distinguished career.

Interestingly enough, T.C. Boyle was one of the writers that made life bearable for me while I was getting my BA in English. His novels, well, I never finished one of them. But his short work sings. Heck, his long work sings, but there’s not enough plot for my tastes.

A huge part of science fiction and fantasy is the art. I’m always amazed at how powerful a cover can be. In fact, I remember buying the Thomas Covenant series because of those covers. I hated the hero. He drove me nuts. But those covers (and the other cool things) made up for it. So when I saw Isaac Stewart’s cover reviews, I had one of those V-8 moments. Of course, there should be reviews of cover art. There must be. And these are the most insightful AND funny reviews of cover art I’ve ever seen.

I always thought mongooses (or is it mongeese?) were cool. I mean, they kill and eat snakes. What’s not to like about that? But it appears they’ve got more than one trick up their sleeves.

Mongoose-robot duo sniff out landmines on the cheap

Here’s more at NewScientist if you’ve got a sub.

I LOVE TED.

No, I’m not coming out of any closet. I’m talking the annual Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED) forum. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader.The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

For example, here’s Richard Dawkins’ “Queerer than we can suppose: the strangeness of science.”

Or here’s Hans Rosling’s “Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen” and his New insights on poverty and life around the world.

Or how about Howard Rheingold’s “Way-new collaboration”There is, if done well, very few things as stimulating as an excellent speech. Thank you TED for providing a way to revive this marvelous genre by sharing it on the internet.

Go to TED. But beware: you may end up unable to stop listening to one fascinating idea after another.

This story started in the Layton, UT Lowe’s on the trim isle. Read the story of how I wrote this story on Side-Show Freaks.

One of my personal flaws is my monkey fascination. I am interested in too many things. For example, when I was at the university I wanted to major in English, History, Dutch, Art, and graduate with Honors.

Um, no. That didn’t work. They finally wrote me a letter and said 220 credits was more than enough. And I would graduate the next semester with whatever degree I could cobble together.

Of course, then I started my Masters of Accountancy and Information Systems program. (Some people never learn.)

When I was in my Masters program I started an investment club, wrote fiction, and wanted to start a FSBO home business as well as a write a non-fiction book with 4 collaborators. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to be Mr. Mom with two kids at the time while my wife put me through school.

All this did was stress my marriage to the point that my wife was considering giving me the pink slip. Of course, being so involved in so many projects I had no idea I was in danger of being layed off.

No, over the years I’ve learned that simplicity and focus is divine. It’s good to say no to the million things that vie for my attention, even the many noble causes. It’s smart to put a lot of effort into a few things. Become an expert in one area.

In business, I’ve watched some friends focus, focus, focus. They’ve put in their time and have become very successful at what they do. They’ve worked hard. . . at one thing. On the other hand, you have those of us who haven’t yet been able to give up that danged monkey brain. (Although I will give myself credit–for the last five years I’ve been trying to reduce. Trying to focus. I’m failing spectacularly. But I figure sooner or later my efforts will pay off.)

The multitasking myth shows up not only in the general activities we engage in, but also in learning. I heard this NPR story on myth of multitasking and thought I’d share.

Maybe less really is more.

BTW, I talked to Stacy Hague-Hill today and got the release and due dates.

Book 1
Revisions due May 15th, 2008
Final due July 1, 2008
Hardcover release Sept 2009
Paperback release Aug 2010

She said because it’s my first novel and because it’s a trilogy they want to make sure they properly lay the groundwork, getting cover quotes, working up excitement, etc. And that’s why there’s such a space between the contract, final delivery date, and HC release. Although the schedule repeats for every book. On the one hand, I wish they were coming out on a 9 month schedule. On the other hand, I think my focus should be making these three books the very best they can be. And this gives me the time. Besides, there will be a HC release and then a paperback and so each book will get two pulses each year. Although the paperback is released usually right before the second book comes out.

Book 2
Draft due Feb 2009
Final due July 1, 2009
Hardcover release Sept 2010
Paperback release Aug 2011

Book 3
Draft due Feb 2010
Final due July 1, 2010
Hardcover release Sep 2011
Paperback release Aug 2012? Not sure.

That’s a ways out there. Holy cow.

2011?

I haven’t planned anything out that far into the future since college and that wasn’t really planning but a lifestyle (grin).

“Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.”  –Socrates