Tuesday is my ambitious day.

I finished the story that I started working on on Saturday! Yep. It's pretty weird, so in the end it should come out pretty awesome. It's long right now, but it's a first draft, and I know where the fat needs trimmed.

Now, for my next trick, I'm going to finish typing up all the new parts of Vanheim, and then start arranging them. With luck and stick-to-it-iveness, I'm going to accomplish a lot tonight. And I'm at the Inn, of course, so that's going to help. And I took out the computer game that I've been playing when at home. Nothing, if I've calculated it right, will be able to distract me. Hahahah.

My plan will come to fruition at last!

Also, I've decided to have someone who's good at that kind of thing give me a thorough and technical read-through of the novel, once I've finished it. I figure it's going to be hard for me to see the problems with fresh eyes since I've already done it three times. Now I'll let someone else do it. I don't think it's going to come cheaply. Well, sometimes you've got to spend money.

And tomorrow's July 1.. I'm going to send 'Purple Heart' into 'Glimmer Train'. Oh yeah. Things are about to start happening.

Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go.

ps. (If you like it then you shouldn't put a ring on it.)

Further Advantages

Other advantages have shown up since I haven't had a tv.

I'm using my breakfast table again. For a while it was just a catch all, and I ate all my meals on my couch, watching the tv. Not anymore! Now it's a table, and I'm cleaning it little by little and eating meals on it, and reading books as I eat those meals... It's indescribably awesome, and yet, I think I just described it.

I don't have to watch Hannah Montana anymore. Okay. No one ever said I had to watch her, but I did. Because, umm, I did. Not because I like her or anything. She's far too young and pretty for me. Anyway. Listen, it's not my fault that her show is one of the most sharply written on television. I can't help that, honest. I couldn't help a lot of things when it came to Hannah Montana, like singing 'The Best of Both Worlds' in the shower, like watching the show whenever it came on and thanking my lucky stars that Billy Ray is back in the public eye again.. I know, creepy, right? Well, I don't have to be a creep anymore!

Another advantage that has presented itself to me is that the tv was on an organ bench. This same organ bench, if moved strategically, will make a great end table! So, hiyah! And an end table is just what I needed!

The TV is dead.

This weekend I got rid of my tv. I realized I just watch it all the time, and nothing's ever on, and I'm doing nothing productive when I'm watching it. VH1 is a cancer on my soul! Shame on them. I don't love New York, and I don't want to get on a bus with Brett Michaels. I don't think Daisy is hot or funny. I'm sick and tired of all night Michael Jackson tributes. Good riddance, tv.

Now, the great thing is, I feel unlimited potential again. Yeah. I figure this will force me to read. I'm crossing my fingers. I figure it will also force me to write more. In fact, I started writing a short story (which I haven't done in a while) just a few hours after I got rid of the tv.

That's about the only update I have. Everything else is moving slow as a snail.

Oh, I guess one other thing. I've been getting a lot of positive help on my story 'Purple Heart', and in a couple days I'm going to send it to 'Glimmer Train.'

Update. Big Time Stuff!

Oh yes, Tuesday nights are very good to me. After I talked about what I was going to do, I went up to the solitude of the third floor, looked out the window for a little bit, and wrote the last two new scenes. Now the real process begins. Hahah.

I'm typing them up, treating the typed copies like a second draft (like I did for the rest of the novel), and I think it's amazing how they change. The chapters are like living, breathing wonders. It doesn't matter what I wrote in the first draft. The second draft always changes. It's like the first, handwritten copy was the little kid- still with personality, but smaller and less developed. And then the second draft becomes this teenager. It has tons of developments, and often a lot of anger issues, and sometimes it talks more than it should, but it's still the same little bugger, and still lovable for all that. I still haven't thought of a proper analogy for all the third draft chapters that need revising.

Anyway, getting the chapters typed is only the first half of the process for the fourth draft. I have a whole list of chapters that need changes, anywhere from putting a small detail in, to changing the whole perspective it in which it was written. I don't know when it will end, but I look forward to the challenge of making this novel everything I know it can be.

Tonight I am going to do a ton of research. I'm trying to make my locations as real as possible, without physically being able to go to most of them. That means the southeast of England will be visited, also a greenmarket in Union Square, NYC..

A place that I might actually be able to visit this weekend is Assateague Island. It's only one of my favorite places in the world, and just happens to figure prominently in the novel. I just have to decide if I have the balls to go and do it. I think I do, but I'm often subject to the whims of laziness, which have prevented me from going there three times already this summer.

On the Cusp of the World

Today I received a fifth rejection, but this was a good one. For starters, I sent it to one person at an agency, and it came back from another one. And it was in the third person. They said they read it, they considered it, then decided that it wasn't the right fit for them. So, this leads me to believe that it's a possibility- however slight- that the first person gave it to the second one to read saying, "what do you think about this?" and the second person said, "I don't think so."

Which to me is gold. Because, BECAUSE- I don't expect any of the agents I sent this thing to to accept it. I don't think what I submitted was good enough as it was. The only way anyone is going to give it a chance is if they see the potential in it. Which is a long shot. So if two out of five have at least considered it and not sent me just the standard rejection back, I feel I'm on the right track. So the fourth draft is going to make the manuscript kick so much ass.

I'm not getting down with these rejections because I believe in the concept. I'm not stupidly unrealistic about it. I know the novel has flaws, but I also think I know how to fix those flaws and make the truth of the work shine through more.

Speaking of the fourth draft and making changes, I am very very close to finishing the new scenes. As of this moment, I have two left, out of eleven original new scenes. I plan on going to do them right now. I'm at the hotel at the moment, where I find it's easiest to work. I'm going to go up to the third floor, lock myself in the Legacy Room, and write until the damn thing is finished. And then I'm going to laugh and say "Tuesday Nights, once again you have proven how much you love me!"

I might have just got carried away there.

Off to write. Ta-ta.

WIP Status Report

Another day, another rejection (that makes four so far), and I'm still feeling pretty good. The
new scenes are going well. I have six written, out of eleven, and four actually typed. The first chapter has been completely changed, and some other ones are on the schedule for getting changed. The fourth draft is going to be one hell of an interesting thing. I'm focusing on making the prose leaner, tighter, stronger, and not shying away from making the plot as nutso as I need it to be as long as it helps the overall effort. All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about the novel.

Now, on another note- I'm going to be recording fifty songs with my cousin very soon. It'll be me and an acoustic, like the old days, and I aim to have them be the last songs I record. I'm retiring from solo musical endeavors. They just make me too sad anymore. There's no joy in Mudville. Not when it comes to playing music by myself. Devonshire, however, Devonshire still kicks my ass. I just came up with a new tune last night, and I think it's the catchiest, grindiest one we have so far.

That about does it for developments as of 6.19.09

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I fixed what needed to be fixed on 'Purple Heart', and I still think it holds up well, though my writing style has changed a bit in the year or so since I wrote it. I tried to submit it to 'Glimmer Train' and was disappointed that I forgot about their submissions policy. Essentially, they're just submitting for two contests right now. They won't be doing general submissions until July. So it's a waiting game.

The other thing... I was gathering materials last night to start working on the new scenes of Vanheim, and, yeah, I found a whole chapter in the back pocket of pants I had just washed. It was completely ruined. So it hurt a little, but the good thing was it was the only non-original chapter in the whole book, actually being a mythological story. And at this moment I've almost written two chapters today (remember, they're teensy weensy). So things are looking up. That was the first time I've ever lost anything like that, and it did make me sad. But I'm over it! Hah.

Tsunami!

This was the other thing I needed to post about: Tsunamis. Yeah. They're a real drag. To write about. I mean, sure, they're probably also a real drag to survive, or not survive, as the case may be, but they're a real drag to write about.

Allow me to explain.

One of the main points in my novel is a tsunami. It happens right at the beginning and serves to get the ball rolling, so to speak. I also discuss its effects later on in the book. The tsunami, at least to me, has never been what the book is about, so I don't care to discuss it that much. When I wrote about it I wasn't going into detail, I was just using it as the trigger for the action. It wasn't that any of the information was inaccurate, it was just not detailed.

The problem with this approach was two-fold. First, I was writing this book for myself, at least at first, and not for the reader. The book didn't confuse me, but that's because I knew what was going on. Now that I'm doing edits, I find that everything that needs work is the stuff I wrote just for myself. It's a pain in the ass, but it's going to make the book far better in the long run. So when I was making the tsunami just a vague wall of water in the beginning, that was all I needed, but it wasn't what other people would necessarily need. Second, the tsunami came in the first chapter. It doesn't matter if it's not a central point of the plot from that moment on, it matters that that's all the reader is going to know up to that point, and if I don't do a bang up job on it, they're not going to buy the rest of the story.

So I rewrote the first chapter completely. There were other problems. I'm trying to make it at least five pages, and trying to go into the nature of Timmy's relationship with his family, and trying to make it more detailed. The first five pages, as I've discussed in previous blogs, have to be the best writing I can muster. They have to be. They're what the agent is going to see and they're what is going to stick in the agent's head.

One other problem with the tsunami as it stood was the type of tsunami I envisioned. There are two main types: One with the trough-first, and one with the peak-first. My original tsunami had the peak first- that is, nothing changed about the sea until the wave came. The new tsunami has the trough leading. The trough-first kind is the most famous kind, as evidenced by the Java Trench Tsunami of 2004. A trough-first tsunami sucks the water back a few hundred feet, so the ocean life is exposed, and people come out to see the novelty of it. Then the wave comes and traps them. The sucking of the water back takes a few minutes, so the tension mounts. As a disaster opener, you have to understand the drama of this! I had no choice, I had to put it in!

Of course, the thought that some ignorant people whose only brush with tsunamis was the 2004 event would say that I was being inaccurate with my depiction of a peak-first tsunami did come into my mind. But only about ten percent.

So, let this be another reminder that the fourth draft of Vanheim is going to be completely different than the third draft.

Semi-Literary Garbage

Okay, so I finished the edits on 'Purple Heart', which is my favorite story so far. I like it because the protagonist is an "amoral piece of shit" (someone who read it called him that), and because he says the most clever things. I guess I like clever pieces of shit. Never knew that, did you?

I'm going to submit it to 'Glimmer Train' after I post this blog. 'Glimmer Train', along with 'Zoetrope: All Story", is the top of the heap when it comes to short fiction these days. I have no idea if my story is even good enough, but I know that if I get into it, that's a massive plus on my next query letter.

Here's what I hope: I hope that the magazines I'm trying to submit to aren't all about shitty semi-literary works that mean absolutely nothing except that the writer doesn't know how to write. I'm tired of "writers" like that wasting everybody's time. I love literature. I happen to think that the best literature should both mean something and be completely accessible. Just like I think the best music should be that way.

So, I'll let you know what happens. There are tons of short fiction magazines out there, so I know somewhere down the line I'll end up getting published, but I don't think there's any harm in trying to shoot for the best.

New Strategy

Alright, I have a new writing strategy, which is the same as my old strategy with one minor variation. Perhaps I should tell you my old strategy first.

My old strategy was to get started in the writing business by sending in stories to magazines. I looked at the old writers and saw what they did, and how they supported their novel writing endeavors by selling stories. Now, I'm not stupid enough to believe that anyone can support themselves by selling short stories anymore. That train has left the station. People don't buy the short story magazines like they used to. They watch tv. Novels still sell, though. People still read short stories, but not as much, and certainly not so much as to make someone rich.

That's fine. I don't want to get rich off my short stories. Hell, I don't even care if I get paid. That's the main difference now. I just want resume fodder. I have sparse publishing credits. And 'sparse' is a really nice word to describe what I have. I wrote a poem that got published in a tiny poetry magazine. And that's it. Nothing else.

So, I'm trying to get an agent interested in my new novel, and for the life of me I can't figure out why what I have would be compelling enough for them to want to. Sure, the concept might intrigue them, but there's nothing in my cover letter that inspires faith on the part of the agent to give me a chance.

Agent: This dude got a poem published? What the hell is 'Mastodon Dentist,' anyway? Doesn't this cat know that a novel isn't the same as a poem?

Yeah. Does this need explained any more?

So my wonderfully ambitious plan is this: I will find the three best literary journals or story magazines that I can, and send my three best stories. I've been meaning to edit the kinks out of my stories for a while, anyway, and this adventure will give me the excuse. So 'Glimmer Train' is going to get something. So will a couple other ones. And then, with a little luck and a little chutzpah, I'm going to get myself a few publication credits and make the agents happy.

Sound good? I guess you know what my plans for the weekend are.

Massive Fail

So, you know how they say to work on your query letter for a month? I chose to throw that advice out the window. I worked on my letter for four days, got some people to read it, edited it and sent it out. How professional of me. And the weird thing was, it wasn't the worst query letter I've ever seen. It wasn't great, either, but it wasn't terrible. People have gotten published on a lot less (or so I hear. I'm not published yet).

Of course, after going to different sites and reading successful query letters from other authors over the past few days, I've seen areas that do need improved upon and will be changed next time I send out letters. For one thing, I spent all this time working on making sure I didn't sound like an idiot, and I forgot to put my contact information on the first four I sent out. I guess it wasn't that bad, because I sent the letters via email, and the agents probably will just email me back if they're interested, but it's the principle of the thing that counts, in my opinion. For another thing, I got stuck with the idea that I had to keep my synopsis to one paragraph, for all the good that did me. A lot of successful query letters have more than one paragraph, which helps when your book can't be pigeonholed into one topic (like mine). One other thing: I forgot to write to the two agents who cared that I was sending out the letter to other agents. I wasn't intentionally lying, but that doesn't matter. They're still calling me a liar face behind my back. I can feel it.

And how did the agent responses go? About how one would expect for only working four days on a query letter. The first response I got back asked for some pages, and I figured that was awesome. I sent them to the lady, and she wrote back a few days later saying the pages didn't grab her like she thought they would, and that she had reservations about the project, so she probably wasn't the right agent for me. Which was fine. She was super cool and polite about the entire thing, and I appreciated that she was prompt and honest with me. The second agency gave me a standard rejection letter.

Two out of ten. The whole process has made me realize something, though. I can write a whole hell of a lot better than what I sent. It's not making me depressed, because I realize that it wasn't the most terrible letter these agents have ever read, and the concept interested at least one of them. I believe in the concept. I'm just starting to falter in my belief about how to go about it.

So I'm not sending out any more query letters for the time being. I'm going back to work- fourth draft time. I know Miss Snark says query widely, and send it out to 100 agents, but I know the problems and I know how to fix them. In my opinion, it's better to put out the best piece of work I can than open myself up for an easy rejection. And then, once I finish the fourth draft, and the writing is impeccable, and the story is less confusing, and the ending is less deus ex machina-ish, I'm going to go on a blitzkrieg of awesomeness.

Aggghh.

Aggghh is my favorite word. I think it needs to be said when one is aghast at a situation, but so aghast that the word can't come to one's head. For this reason, I say 'aggghh.'

"Now, why are you so aghast?" You assed.

I find myself in the process of writing a novel. This novel is the weirdest thing I have ever written, and trust me, I know weird.

To begin with, I started this thing about three months after getting back into writing seriously. Which would make it late January. I don't know why I started it. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have an outline. And trust me, I know plans and outlines. I've got them coming out my ears. I was looking through my word processor for projects I had started a long time ago, and Vanheim popped out. In 2006 I wrote three chapters of it, and left it there, bleeding on the figurative literary backstreets. I do that with a lot of projects. Don't feel too bad for it.

Anyway, something in my head just clicked upon picking up the writing again, and I wrote like a madman for about three weeks, handwriting the damn thing, actually, because I think it helps for some reason. By the third week, I was finished with the first draft, and had already started the second draft. I had never finished a novel before, so a first draft, handwritten though it was, was something that made me very proud. It wasn't something that I could just tell my friends, though.

Drew: I just wrote a novel.
Isaac: Prove it.
Drew: It's handwritten, and I know you can't read my writing.
Isaac: You're full of shit, man.

So the real, real joy came when I finished the second draft. Because then it was typewritten and wasn't just a glorified sketch of events. The completion of the second draft came in early April. I printed up a copy and gave it to a friend, who's still reading it, or so he claims. Of course, if he put it down in disgust, I would understand completely, because second drafts are usually still far from good.

After that, contented with myself, I started working on a second novel, this one more traditional. That worked, until I met with an author friend of mine, who told me all kinds of cool new things, about getting agents, and getting published, and all of that stuff. In my haste, I went on to Predators & Editors, found the first agent with an email submission form, and sent a query letter I made up on the spot. Give me a break! I'm new at this! (And I wonder why I haven't heard back from them yet?)

In the first thirty seconds after I sent the query letter, I realized that the second draft was in nowhere near sendable condition. So I started working on the third draft. That phase ended late last week. I believe on a Thursday night. And while the third draft is by no means perfect, I don't think it sucks, either.

Now, why am I saying "Agggghhhh?" Well, though I think the quality of my writing is good, as I've mentioned before, the book is weird. And that's being polite. Psychotic is probably the more accurate term. I didn't work from an outline, and when I did start saying, 'Where do I want the stupid thing to go?', I was already around chapter 40. (Did I mention that the book has 106 chapters? Don't worry. In full manuscript form the average page length per chapter is 3. The stupid thing only has 73,000 words). To top the rambling, frenetic pace that the book attains, I liberally switched perspectives almost every chapter. Blame my upbringing. I don't know. I know that perspective changes can be awesome, but it's not something that first-time authors are usually advised to attempt. I took that advice and threw it out the window, because I know I can do it. I know the rules of perspective change- wait until a new chapter and keep it consistent, to name the main ones. Also, to add to my woes, there are many, many asides in it. There are whole chapters devoted to side stories. I love asides. If I could figure out the footnote function on my word processor, I would rock them so hard.

I always knew it would be called Vanheim, because the name Vanheim has been in my head since high school, when I first imagined the concept of this character. The problem with a book being called Vanheim is mostly brought to awareness when one realizes the main character's name is Timothy Vines. So, I guess you can blame a lot of the book's weirdness on me wanting to stay true to my high school self's concept of the book. (Did I mention there's plenty of stream of consciousness ranting in it?)

I guess now I should wrap this post up by telling you what my book is: It's a supernatural thriller with humorous and science fictional elements. You could probably add to that: Literary fiction with a commercial bent, apocalyptically religious mystery. Did I mention that two of the main characters are God and the Devil? And another main character is Judas Iscariot.

How many books about the end of the world have all that in them?

Did I mention that I fit as much swearing as I could into the stupid thing? Just because I could!

Oh, to finally sum up why I am aghast, it's because, though I'm proud of my novel, I have no idea how anyone would go about selling it. It might be my little orphan baby for a long, long time.