Life-Cycle of a Nora Novel

Okay, maybe a Nora novel isn't an officially recognized category—yet!

In any case, I have a pretty methodical way that I go about writing a novel, refined over several manuscripts. So I thought I would share that method in case it is helpful and/or interesting for anyone else!

The video describes it pretty well, but I thought I would also include a short summary here, in case you don't want to watch me blabber for 11 minutes. Or are at work, not that any of us would be thinking about writing at our day jobs!

The ideas for my novels usually get entered into my ideas notebook long before I start writing or even planning them. It's an outlet for all those plot monkeys that demand to be written while I'm trying to finish something else. There are all kind of random things in my notebook, ranging from snippets of dialogues to character sketches and title ideas. For example:

A long stretch of moonlit road. Dry grasslands as far as the eye can see. A lone horse rider, the clop of hooves a slow staccato, the rider slumped in the saddle. A faint wind stirs dust along the road.

This is written in my notebook with zero context. Just an image I had one day a few years ago. Anyway, I take one of these ideas that I want to work on, and I start to brainstorm. I like to do the one sentence premise -> paragraph -> plot summary progression. Then I write an outline. An honest-to-goodness, I.A.i.a. outline. From that outline, I create an Excel spreadsheet scene list. Here is where I plan out the details of the timeline, the POV, who is where, and what happens.

Then I write!

For the most part, I stick to that scene list. I guess that may seem boring to some, but for me, I like the structure it provides. It's like a checklist—butt in chair, write this scene. If I get wild inspiration, I'll pause to work it in, but that just isn't the way I normally work. Eventually, voila! A draft!

The revision process is pretty simple. Read through it, take notes. Create a new Excel sheet and, from those notes, come up with a revision plan checklist. Copy the scene list and modify it as needed to accommodate the changes. Then go back and make all the edits! X them off as I go, so I get to see my Excel percentage go up. Rinse and repeat until it feels done. Somewhere in there, try to get feedback from beta readers to incorporate into the revision notes.

Once I'm happy with it, write a query and a synopsis, and begin sending it out! At this point, the novel is basically done. If I get a partial or full request (very rarely...), I don't go back and re-read or edit, I just send what I have. Only if I am having a really bad response do I then go back and maybe do another edit.

So that's it! That's as far as it goes for me, for now. Someday I hope I will have to worry about agent edits and editor edits and all that fun stuff, but that's a future!Nora problem. Right-now-Nora needs to worry about writing that damn synopsis for Novel 7 and picking out an idea to flesh out for Novel 8...

Done done done done DONE!

Last Saturday, sitting on a cramped middle seat of a Southwest airplane, leaning forward to both escape the encroaching elbow of my seatmate and bolster the drooping edge of the tray table, I scribbled out the last edit for novel 6. (!!)

Yes, I was a little behind schedule, as I had aimed to finish by the end of April. But the end of May is not so far off! It was an extensive overhaul, fixing unsatisfying plot points, tweaking boring characters, cleaning up repetitive language. 135 manuscript pages and there was not a single one that didn't have some purple ink on it.

That's just the front...some of the backs are entirely covered!

It was a tremendously satisfying moment. I still have to type up all of my edits (and even as I am planning to start this immediately after this blog post, I still haven't decided if I'm going to edit my file or re-type in a blank one!) and then there is the daunting prospect of queries, synopses, rejections, and more edits. But just moving on to that stage is a thrilling feeling. I am so ready! It is important to savor these small victories and not just dwell on the inevitable problems to come. Life is full of good moments, and I won't let anxiety take those away from me.

Novel 6 is in the bag!

Setbacks Don't Mean Give Up

It's been an interesting time for me as a writer recently. I was so full of optimism when I set out on my editing journey, and visions of book contracts danced in my dreams. I still feel good about novel 6, but the doubt has begun to creep in. It's slower going than I expected. I'm itching to start something new. I am dreading trying to query. I haven't had any great insights in how to fix a character that maybe isn't working.

I read this post yesterday about whether or not I'm publishable, and I closed the tab with the unshakable feeling that the tea leaves were definitely not in my favor. I was in a really down place. This anxiety over my dead-end future in writing combined with my current looming unemployment to make me feel like a complete loser. But then my boyfriend came home, and after lots of hugs and crying into his shoulder, I began to see things in a better light. So maybe none of my queries have been successful. That's just a problem with my queries. It doesn't say shit about my book, because no one actually read the book. I ended up knocking out another couple scenes and reaching the halfway point of this edit.

Yes, it's been 2 months and I'm only halfway. It's frustrating. I gave myself a 3 month deadline, and obviously I am not on track for that. It's tempting to give up. It's like when you're trying to eat healthy, and you end up having a piece of cake, so then you think "Well, I already fucked up," and go on and eat the entire cake (I'm not the only one that does that, right? RIGHT?!). But eating a whole cake is way worse than eating a piece, and giving up on something because I'm behind is way worse than just finishing late. So it's time to gird my loins, buckle down, and finish what I've started. And maybe eat some cake.

I'm not kidding about the cake. This was mine and my boyfriend's Saturday night last month!

Hell, it's not even too late for me to make a good push and still meet my end-of-April deadline!

Writing is Rewriting...

...or so the saying goes.

I think that the consensus among writers is that editing sucks. Rewriting sucks. Polishing sucks. While there are certainly some frustrating aspects to it, I actually rather enjoy it. Covering clean printed pages with scribbles of brightly colored ink is almost cathartic. I can look at the edited pages and feel like I'm really doing something. Not to mention that it isn't nearly as long of a process. It took me about 13 months to write the first draft of novel 6! Two months of editing is right now looking completely doable. I'm still sticking with my end of April goal.

Of course, I'm still in the early sections of my manuscript. I know that it probably needs a lot more work towards the end, as some of the structural and plot difficulties come to a head. But for now, I'm still in the beginning, falling in love with my characters and my story all over again. Right now, I feel like this could be the real thing for me.

A typical page from my editing.

And maybe that's optimistic. Maybe I said that about my last one too (hint: I did). But that's okay! There's nothing wrong with believing in myself, and I'm going to keep on doing what I do.

Editing Embarkation

Well, I've been saying it for weeks. Now it's time to pay up or shut up, and since I've never been particularly good at shutting up, I guess I better just do it.

I write pretty slowly, and I outline thoroughly prior to writing. While I write, I also maintain an Excel spreadsheet with all the scenes being updated as I write them. All of this combines into what I consider a pretty passable first draft. I never call them "rough drafts" because they really aren't that rough. They are usually internally consistent, grammatically correct, and wholly complete. That doesn't mean they are done, but it means they need a hell of a lot less work than they could. (Does this save me time overall? No, probably not. Like I said, I write sloooowly!)

Which is my little pep talk for gearing myself up for an edit. It can't be that bad...right?

I am planning to basically do my own version of Holly Lisle's one-pass revision method. I've got my printed copy all ready to go, and I am preparing my nerves. After a brief (BRIEF, self, BRIEF!) Target run to get some shiny new pens, I'll be butt-in-chair, ready to go. Kill my darlings, or breathe more life into them, or whatever it takes to make novel 6 a ready-to-submit gem of a work.

And, just for funsies, a wordcloud of the 200 most common words in my first draft.

My favorite are the random letters from contractions—ll is a top 200?!

Hm, wonder who the main character is? (There is a reason the working title for novel 6 is "Anna in Space"! Also, I need a new title. =\)

Digging Through the Past

The other day I was having a little trouble coming up with the
inspiration to work on my WIP, and so I indulged in a time-honored
writing tradition: procrastination.

I wanted to be able to pretend I was going something useful, so I
decided to stick with something relating to my writing. I began to dig
through the "Archived Projects" folder. I ended up spending several
hours throughout that day reading up on several manuscripts at varying
stages of completion. Some were years old, some as recent as last year.
And I discovered the strangest thing--I like my writing!

This might sound ridiculous. Because why would I write if I didn't think
I was any good? But it's hard to see that when you're lost in the thick
of the weeds that consist of the middle of a first draft. To be able to
back and read something I wrote years ago and be drawn in and want to
read more is something different. I was actually mad at myself for not
continuing on with those projects because I wanted to finish reading
them!

But then, I began to think, maybe this isn't such a good thing after
all. Where is my critical eye? How can I ever hope to improve if I can't
tell myself where I suck? I'm not saying they were perfect, because of
course they weren't, but I didn't get the editing bug that sometimes
strikes me when I am reading less-than-satisfactory books by others. And
shouldn't I be growing as a writer? Why isn't my writing now leaps and
bounds above where it was two years ago? And if my writing is as good as
all that, why does it get form rejected time and time again?

I don't think there is a perfect answer to this conundrum. I eventually
closed out of the old files and put some work into my new one, and I
told myself not to worry about it. Do my best, keep writing, and keep
submitting. Hopefully someone else will someday be as enthralled with my
writing as I am, and then I can pass a little bit of pleasure along to
the lives of readers everywhere. And that is a dream that hasn't changed
for decades!

Wishful Thinking

I haven't updated the blog recently because I was really, really hoping that my next post would be one with good news. I submitted a couple of my short stories to a few different publications back in March, and I had a good feeling about them. Maybe something would come of it, even if just a little nibble in the form of a personalized rejections.

(Rejections, honestly, do not faze me. I've been collecting rejection letters since I was like 12, and it is always the expected outcome. But hey, at least it means I'm trying! I only wish I hadn't lost some of my rejection letters over the years and moves.)

Anyway, here we are now, and it is May and I haven't heard anything. Not a peep. It's been about 5 weeks, which was generally listed as the response time, so I'll either start hearing soon or I'll know it wasn't meant to be this time. It's a little disheartening (give me a rejection letter any day, but sitting around waiting is killer!), but it's not like I've been sitting around twiddling my thumbs. I've been working busily on my rewrite of my novel.

So it's not quite the good news I was hoping to post, but it is good news. I've finished eight chapters--there are only eighteen in all, so I'm almost half done. And now that I'm finished at work for a while, I am getting one or two chapters done every day. I should be finished with this rewrite by the end of next week. And THAT is good fucking news.

More Disappointment

So much for knuckling down. I had a small burst of productivity (2 days) and then nothing.In my defense, I've had some personal issues that have totally derailed my attention for anything. Not to get into to too much detail--this is my writing blog, after all--but my boyfriend broke up with me for legitimate reasons outside our control. We still both have strong feelings for each other and it has been quite the struggle to get myself to even focus on work, so writing was basically out of the question. I hate to use the "tortured artist" stereotype, but isn't it true that so many of us seem to feel things so strongly? I sure do, anyway.

But I am really determined to move on with my life, including my writing, so here I am promising more writing yet again. This time, however, I have a better plan than "just force it," which never works for me. I realized it was really sapping my creative energy to try to come up with new story ideas (I suck at plotting, I confess), make an outline, and then get 10k or 2k words into a draft and fizzle out.

So I decided I need to focus on the work I have that is complete and, hopefully, has publishable potential. Time to bare my poor little writer's ego to some barbs. I solicited some betas from an online forum I frequent, and the good folks there were quick to help me out. Now I have 3 different people currently reading it, and I am looking forward to getting their feedback and wrestling with the third draft.

I really think that after this draft I can seriously start shopping this one. I've put out a few feelers already, but it was more to force myself out of my comfort zone and get more familiar with the process than any real idea that it was ready. (Perhaps a poor idea on my part, as it has narrowed my submission options now, but it was made and done.)

I make no promises, since I break them so easily when it comes to writing goals, but I feel good about re-visiting Novel 1 instead of trying to come up with another one at the moment.

Querying!

Isn't it the thing we all fear and anticipate? Don't we have such a love-hate relationship with it? Okay, maybe everyone else doesn't, but I sure do!

I told myself I wasn't going to query Novel 1 (still nameless!) until I finished draft 3, but I decided that it couldn't hurt to put out a few feelers now. What if I spend months endlessly polishing and quirking only to discover that an agent would have been interested in January? It's all part of my weird self-perception as a writer. Sometimes I think I suck so bad that I could never be published (sadly reinforced today when I read the Scribophile blog), and other times I think I'm pretty damn good and certainly a couple notches above the other unpublished writers. (Objectively, the former is more probable.)

Anyway, so I decided to send out some queries. I worked on a query letter and synopsis, I trawled the Agent Query website for agents that might be a good fit for my work. I hit "send" and logged it and knew I wouldn't hear back for weeks. To my surprise, I heard back almost immediately from most! (I sent out 5 feelers this time.) They were all form rejections.

Sigh.

Of course that was exactly what I was expecting, but a little part of me was hoping that I'd get some little tidbit to keep my spirits up, to feel like I could someday see my books on the shelf.

Anyway, really am going to finish draft 3 before I try to query again. Doing a readthrough of draft 2 right now, taking notes about things I want to change (on a big-ish scale, like adding new scenes or deepening a recurring theme) and am going to go back and finagle around. Then I can go back and do a line edit for stuff like "Does a comma really belong there?" and "This phrasing is awkward."

In the meantime, I'm still working on draft 1 of Novel 4. Sure, at the end of the year I'll probably have 2 full, unpublished manuscripts and nothing to do with either, but I'm not ready to give up yet!