Sometimes the Magic Works

It has never been a secret that I want to be a writer, so it is totally normal that I received Terry Brooks's Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life for Christmas sometime in high school. (The book was published in 2003, so probably my junior year.) I read the book a couple times, but this is not going to be a review of that book. Mostly because I don't remember it well enough to say much about it! (The thing that sticks out most is him saying that lounging by the pool with a drink is working for a writer mulling over ideas. I think of that almost every time I go to laze outside!)

But the title of the book, ah now there is something. That has been popping into my head all week. Why? Because it's true. Sometimes the magic works! And it is amazing.

Writing is not an easy business. I've never heard of anyone say otherwise. There are days—and months and years—where it can be incredibly frustrating. I don't even want to go in to how many times I have been checking my email, refreshing my QueryTracker list for new comments, stalking agents on Twitter hoping to glean a hint of where they are at with queries, checking my email again, etc... Rejections mount up. Ideas dry up. Words refuse to come. We wonder why we ever wanted to do this at all, and we think about giving up.

But then! There are the times that we write and write. That what we are writing may not be earth-shatteringly great, but it's pretty damn good. It's a book that I want to be written just so I can read it already. Words pour forth, scenes flow, a book comes together almost as we envision. It makes almost everything else worthwhile, to be caught up in the creation of an entirely new thing that has never existed before. It can't really be predicted or pinned down or explained completely. We take it when we can get it.

Sometimes the magic works.

I still have the book! It sits on my shelf between Theodore Rex and Service Etiquette. And don't judge my messy office!

Every Writer's Most and Least Favorite Part*

*Note: I have no idea if other writers feel the same way, the title just sounds better that way!

There are a lot of things I love about writing. The way I can send myself anywhere in space and time and universe. When my characters come to life and make me laugh or cry. That moment when I look up and realize two hours have flown by while I was engrossed.

There are a lot of things I hate about writing. The crushing feeling that my writing is not good enough. The hopeless mountain of rejections. When my characters refuse to do anything believable and creak across my landscape as cardboard cutouts. That moment when I look up and realize it's been two hours and I still haven't written a damn thing.

But one of the things I both love and hate is that first step. The beginning.

A moment of sheer terror and joy.

You've created in your mind this wonderful novel that you are going to write. You've plotted and planned it out (if you're like me!). It is going to be funny and heartbreaking and speak to our inner fears of loss and the pointlessness of life and the meaning of home and family. In your mind, it is an unputdownable masterpiece. The possibilities are endless!

Unfortunately, one of those possibilities is that what you write will in no way live up to what you've envisioned. For me, the doubt can creep in almost immediately. "That's a terrible first sentence. Where's the hook?!" you might wail. You picture a legion of readers being bored by the first paragraph and putting your book back on the shelf (but wait, that's assuming that it doesn't go straight to the circular file of every agent, editor, or publisher that looks at it!). The first scene is limp. The second is too short. You're giving too much detail, you're not giving enough.

It's maddening. While the page is blank, it could become anything. And you're so excited to start crafting, but once the page begins to fill up, reality sinks in.

But the best solution is to just push through! I'm not one who believes in the Total Shit First Draft, but I also don't believe that the work is set in stone from the first keystroke. Write something decent now, get it down there, and polish into the beauty it could be later.

I am onto the third chapter of my new novel (novel 7, it shall be known), whose very beginning is pictured above. It is still an exciting ride and I hope it remains so until the end!

My #SFFpit Experience

#SFFpit is the brainchild of author/scientist Dan Koboldt. It is the spec fiction specific version of #PitMad. Basically, it is a 12 hour window where authors can pitch their books using the #SFFpit hashtag, and agents and small press editors can fav the pitches they want to see queries for. The most recent #SFFpit was on June 11 this year.

The timing was perfect for me. I had literally just finished the final touches on my query letter for novel 6 and was getting ready to submit some queries. The only problem is that I had no idea about it! It wasn't until I saw the hashtag in a retweet on my timeline that I even had an inkling. But I immediately wanted in! The event went from 8 AM - 8 PM Central time, and I submitted my first pitch after a five minute scramble at about 3 PM my time, which was 5 PM Central. Yikes! Spamming isn't part of it, only 1-2 pitches per hour, so I only got a chance to put 5 pitches out there. Which I wrote in between sending off unsolicited query letters to agents on my list. What a day!

Dan talks about #SFFpit winners here, and while that article hadn't been published yet, I went to bed on June 11 thinking I had won in the sense of #3 and 4. I had a couple new people to follow, and I had put novel 6 out there for all the world to see. It was actually a bit terrifying, especially thinking about all the non-SFF people on my Twitter. Are they going to think I'm crazy? Is my book so terrible that I shouldn't even be pitching it? Getting over those fears and just putting it out there was huge. And it was great practice for crafting a short, snappy pitch!

But a funny thing happened. There were people who hadn't followed #SFFpit in real-time, but they were still interested. On June 12, the favs started to come in! I ended up getting four requests, split evenly between agents and small press editors (including a small press that was on my list to query!). Dan's article says that only 79 of the 530 participating authors got 2 or more agent requests, so that made me feel like maybe novel 6 isn't the worst thing that has ever been written and I'm an idiot for trying to get it published (yeah, I'm at that stage!). So now I can count myself a #SFFpit winner in ALL of the ways Dan listed!

Now that's a good feeling!

So that was my experience with #SFFpit. It was hectic and anxiety-inducing, but it was also an excellent way to connect my work to some of the people who are most interested in it. It was a small affirmation in a journey that is paved with denials. And it was fun! My thanks to Dan for putting it together and to all of the agents and editors and authors who participated.

How It Feels to Start Sending Out Queries

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!

The Age-Old Question (of Age)

I have been writing for a very, very long time. It's hard to put an exact number on it because I literally cannot remember a time that I wasn't writing. The first story that I can vividly recall was one I wrote as part of a short story competition with my brothers. It was titled, appropriately, "The Competition," and detailed the troubles of a young girl who was the star of her ice skating team but broke her leg before their big competition. I'm not sure my exact age, although I know I was still living in Wisconsin, so probably 5 or 6. So I've got at least 2 decades of writing experience under my belt.

One, writing that makes me feel old. It brings to mind this excellent xkcd which lists the relative ages of keystone movies. "Did you realize The Matrix came out not last decade, but the one before that?" (The comic itself is dated to 2011 which just adds to the sting.)

Two, it makes me feel defeated. The real gutpunch of that xkcd comic is the alt text (the true key to xkcd's awesomeness, in case you were unaware). "If you're 15 or younger, then just remember that it's nevertheless probably too late to be a child prodigy." I know this sounds silly, but I always had dreams of being a sort of child prodigy when it came to my writing. I finished my first novel-length manuscript when I was thirteen. Sure, it had its problems. But it was my starter novel. I finished my second novel when I was a sophomore in high school. I was fifteen. Surely I had learned from my earlier mistakes. A little editing would make this one salable. I was well on my way to being an astonishing teenaged author of a blockbusting fantasy novel. I would do a book tour that included Conan O'Brien (still on NBC, hosting Late Night) and Oprah.

Me about to commence a serious writing career!

Well, that didn't happen. And to add insult to injury, that was right around when Christopher Paolini became famous for being the astonishing teenaged author of a blockbusting fantasy novel. I told myself that my second novel was just a warm-up, and my third novel would surely be The One. Maybe I was too late to be published by the time I was 16, but 20 was still far away.

Turns out I didn't even finish that third novel until I was 22 (I took a long hiatus!). And as much as I loved it, and as much as I edited it, I never got any nibbles on those queries (it is the one known as "novel 1" here). The third novel went on the back of the shelf. I worked on short stories and other projects and other novels, and eventually I started on what is now "novel 6" (it's my fourth completed novel ms). And time kept passing by. Now I'm 26, and I am old enough to realize I'm never going to be an astonishing young author. People my age are getting published all the time. And even though I've been working on it for two decades, I'm not among them. It's disheartening and frustrating and insanely stupid to worry about.

I know I'm far from old. But I'm also not young anymore. I'm an adult, and it's time to follow through on childhood fantasies and make them a reality!

Big Endings

Even the beefiest chapters eventually have to end, both in writing and in life.

This past week, I signed my name on the bottom of my DD-214 and walked off my ship for the very last time. So many thoughts have been fighting for supremacy in my head, but it is impossible to define the experience in terms of any one.

Wearing this for the very last time.

My military career began, in a way, ten years ago. I admitted to my parents that I was interested in enlisting in the military. This was somewhat of a shock to everyone, who had no idea that bookish, delicate Nora had been harboring these ideas. It was kind of a pipe dream, though, and I figured I wasn't really cut out for it—I couldn't do a single push-up, after all. But my parents encouraged me that if I really wanted to, I could try. And so I researched my options, decided on the Navy, and waited impatiently for my 17th birthday so I could enlist.

My dad had some other ideas. He was much more in favor of the whole idea than my mom, but he envisioned me as an officer. That was completely different than my plan of doing one enlistment and then going to college. I wasn't feeling ready yet to go to college. I was a stellar student, but I was still struggling with the idea of what I wanted to do. Plus I hate telling people what to do! But my dad wanted me to at least look into it, and so I scheduled an interview with the ROTC recruiter. I was offered an on-the-spot scholarship from him, and I began to revise my plans. Maybe I could go to college first. Being an officer would definitely have perks and better prepare me for life afterwards (I had dreams of a political career at that point). I applied to colleges and picked out Boston University.

At the same time, I had a friend who was applying to service academies. He teased me about "only" doing ROTC, so I applied to USNA to prove that I could get in. I was accepted, but I still planned on doing ROTC. Except there was a hiccup with my paperwork, and I ended up on the waitlist for BU's ROTC unit. I remember sitting on the stairs of my house, crying. My life was over. I had no options. I wasn't cut out for USNA. But my dad talked me down, encouraged me that I could do it, and I sent in my acceptance to USNA. (About a week before I was to report, I got notified that the issue had been resolved and there was room for me at BU's unit. Too late!)

On June 29, 2005, I stood in the hot sun of Tecumseh Court and swore in to the United States Navy as a Midshipman. I was 17 years old.

Now, 9 years later, my service is completed. I'm 26 and still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up (politics is definitely out!). It's scary, standing on the edge of a whole new chapter. Staring at a blank page of life, hoping I'll find the right way to fill it up. But there must be new chapters, and my book is far from done.