Revisions are Groovy

It's kind of amazing how a couple of editorial sentences can make you look at an ms and suddenly you see exactly what isn't working. The email I just got from M&B was just like that. In fact, in terms of revisions, it was one of the best ones I've ever received in that it was very clear what wasn't working and had suggestions about what could make it stronger.

Admittedly, the things the editor pointed out were things I had wondered after I'd completed the ms and sent the partial away. The heroine's conflict wasn't enough for example. The hero, hey, he was fine - joy! - but she needed work. I think I'd got to the point where I just wasn't sure of the balance. The hero's conflict was very dark and I thought giving her too much heavy stuff would be over-egging the pudding. Apparently not. :-)

But, happy days, I had an idea to make her conflict much stronger and more intense, and also tied in to the other thing I'd forgotted - external goal. Bah. I've even done a blog post on it and yet I STILL forgot in this ms. I got so focussed on creating tension between the hero and heroine that I forgot the external goal could create the tension, not the other little things I'd put in there. It's like I'd given the hero and heroine bicycles, their conflict driving the pedals and making them move forward, but instead of putting them on the road and letting them pedal to the finish line, they were on a circular track going around and around, and going nowhere. Doh.

In fact, it's quite amazing how the interaction of conflict, motivation, and goal intersect! Yes, I know, I should have realised this YEARS ago but I haven't seen it quite as clearly as I have this time.

I guess you learn something new every day. Anyone learn anything else new today?

How Throwing a Tantrum Can Work

Soooo....you know how I threw an epic tantrum about how nothing was happening??  And many of you said to hang in there and things will start to move?

Well, I woke up this morning to an email from the wonderful editor at M&B about Mr Sheikhypants. They love him and his conflict (yay me for getting the hero right for once!) but the heroine needs a little more work. Best of all I got a great list of the issues that were of concern and some ways to tackle them. So thrilled! They were actually things I was feeling a little doubtful about anyway so it's great my instincts were spot on. I have to tweak the partial and send back as they were keen to see how I dealt with it.

As you know, my subs with M&B haven't worked out in the past couple of years so I'm beyond pleased that a) my voice works for Presents and b) they like my hero.   Oh and c) it's not NO!

Have already sorted out how I can make my heroine's conflict stronger which will make her pursuit of the external goal stronger too. And everything will tie in together and it will be wonderful and rainbows and unicorns and flying ponies shall flourish. :-)

Here's to finally getting out of the quicksand! Clearly I need to throw tantrums more often.

Oh and you know how I've been waiting in the supermarket? I've actually been in a couple of other supermarkets too and now I've finally reached the checkout and my goods are being rung up and bagged as we speak. ;-)

In Which Jackie Drags Out Yet Another Tired Analogy

For the few people still reading this blog, I thought I'd vary my analogy today. I've given up supermarkets for the moment, since supermarkets imply movement. I'm going with quicksand today since there is absolutely no movement whatsoever. Plus I can also get in the whole 'journey to publication' thing since, apparently, it is a journey.  Except I guess that too is a misnomer since 'journeying' also implies movement. And I'm not moving. I'm stuck in the quicksand of waiting.

It's depressing. You can't do anything. You can't move forward and you can't even go back. Oh, you keep writing but you wonder what the point of it all is. You've got stacks of stories but why write more? No one's ever going to read anything you've written anyway, right?

Even your blog posts start sounding the same.

I'm not quite sure what to do really. The quicksand is steadily sucking all my enthusiasm for writing away and soon I'll have nothing left. The real world is calling and a job that actually pays money for hard work is seeming all the more attractive.



I thought this year I would start to get somewhere. I've had few modest successes and I think my writing is better than it's ever been. But now the successes haven't lead anywhere but into more quicksand, things are starting to feel like retread of last year. And the year before that. And the year before that.


So what's the point with continuing to standing here, stuck in the middle of a journey that isn't going anywhere?  Anyone got any sage advice for a quicksandee?

Supermarket Queues

So I'm at a packed supermarket and I'm trying to find a checkout that hasn't got fifty million people queued up and not having much luck. I can't use the 12 items or less checkout because I have more than 12 items and the self-serve checkout is a little bit new-fangled and freaky for me.

My heart is sinking cause I know I'm going to be in the supermarket FOREVER at this rate, and then I happen to see a checkout that only has one old lady in it. So I nip in behind her, looking at everyone else and feeling smug because I know I'm going to get out before them.

And then the old lady starts taking coupons out of her bag. And she's got a LOT of coupons. And then the other queues start going really fast and I realise, with another sinking sensation, that I have picked the wrong queue. *dramatic music*


Desperately I search for another queue that looks like it's going faster and get into that one. And it works. For a minute. But then the man in front of me pulls out something he has in his bag that he wants to return, and starts arguing with the checkout operator. Another wrong queue.

I skip to the next one but this one has a young woman who is trying to buy alcohol and has to have her ID checked and the operator clearly doesn't have the authority to authorise it and has called their superior. But their superior is currently arguing with the man who is still trying to return something.

I find another queue and this one looks like it's going fast, and I'm feeling once again so pleased with myself. But just as I start putting my shopping on the conveyor, the checkout operator slaps a 'checkout closed' sign down and goes off on her break.

So I whip in behind a mother and her kids and hey, she's got a LOT of shopping but there's no one else behind her, and it's going really well. Until her kids start playing up. And she starts arguing with the checkout operator about the specials. Then she realises she's forgotten to get something and heads off towards the shelves.

I am beginning to think I will never get out of this supermarket.

I try the queue with the man returning stuff but he's still arguing and now there's another checkout operator involved. Brieflly I consider the queue with the young woman buying alcohol but realise her operator is now the one involved with the man arguing. The mother still hasn't come back from the shelves and the old lady is still fumbling around in her bag for her coupons.

At this point I know that my fears are correct. There are no shortcuts. Some queues are faster and there's no rhyme or reason to them, they just are. If you're lucky you'll get a short queue. If you're not, you won't.

I go back to the queue with the old lady. And I wait. And wait. And wait.

That new-fangled self-serve checkout is starting to look better and better.

Research. It's Weird.

Another WIP finished, another ms to add to the pile. Yeah, finished Mr Rough yesterday. And I mean finished very loosely. My endings are so bad, mainly because I hate writing em. Usually because it's not until I write that I figure out what's missing in the rest of the ms. With Mr Rough I was so concentrated on the hero's thorny and knotty conflict, that I completely forgot about a major loose thread with the heroine! Argh.

Anyway, I always feel depressed after finishing an ms, usually because the ending feels so rushed and blah. But I do try to resist the urge to go through and fix it up immediately. I find that some time away from the ms and the characters does wonders when it comes to editing. A fresh eye and all that. Doesn't help with the blahs though.

The best way to help with that - apart from a  couple of stiff martinis - is, of course, to get stuck into the next idea. And this one, since it's kind of connected to Mr Rough, is one that is going to be HARD. Because the conflict for the hero is REALLY HARD.  You see he's a gambler. And a womaniser. And he's giving the big finger to the world in general. Which means that something really bad happened in his past and with a little help from Ms Yates, I decided what it was. And it's baaaaaaad.

And it's going to be fantastic to write because if there's one thing I love it's a tortured hero who really does have a reason to be tortured and not just because his mummy didn't wuv him enough.

*rubs hands* *is evil*

But I really should do some research first. Because he's a gambler, I am now going to have to go off figure out the finer points of poker etc. In fact, now I think about it, I've had to research a lot of very odd stuff over the years I've been writing. Chess. Astronomy. Handguns. Genetics. Anyone looking at my search history is going to get an eyeful of WTF. 

So what about you? What's the weirdest thing you've ever had to research for the sake of your story??

Jackie's Little Checklist

Again, thousands of apologies for my lack of keeping this sorry excuse for a blog up to date. And also apologies for not doing my usual round of visits to other people's blogs. I've been keeping my social media distractions to a mimimum for the purposes of pretending that I am an NYT #1 bestselling author with millions of readers waiting for my next book. I'm kind of doing a series you see and that's a little risky for an unpublished author. So to minimise my risk, I'm pretending that I'm not unpublished. It's working so far...except when I happen to catch glimpses of my bank account....

Aaaaaanyway, moving right along....

I think in my last post I mentioned a little checklist of things I need to keep in mind whenever I start a new story and some of you suggested that I post it. This of course meant I had to think about it and actually list some those things. It was a lot of work I tell ya.. :-) It is by no means complete - there will be other things I don't know that I need to know to add - and also it is my list and designed to help me and my weaknesses when it comes to crafting a story. Some of the things on it you'll probably think 'WTF? She hasn't got that yet?'. Other things may make you get down on your knees and worship my genius (I'm not imagining this will actually happen but dreams are free).

Okay, this is complicated and actually, I'm wondering if this mightn't be better as a flow chart or mind map...yes, a freaking mind map!  But basically this checklist is a series of questions, since that's what works best for me. They're also all interelated which further complicates stuff.



1. Character: The most important part. Character should always come first IMHO.
Who is this person? How do they behave? What do they do when they're under stress?  How do they act when they're confronted or challenged?  What do they do when they're happy? How do they see themselves? What do they want most? How do they handle emotion? What are their opinions about: friends? family? love? work?  What annoys them? What makes them happy?  What makes them afraid? What emotion are they most afraid of and why?
  
2. Conflict: What was the event/thing/person that changed the course of the character's life?  What was the character like before it? How did the character change afterwards? Does the character think they changed in response or do they think it didn't affect them? What story do they tell themselves about this event and is it what actually happened? What fear did the conflict plant in the character? And how does the character hide this fear? What does the character do to make themselves feel better about their fear/conflict? How does the conflict relate to the character's view of love?

3. Goal: What does the character want? How does it relate to their internal conflict? Why is it important to them (conscious/unconscious)? How do they feel about it? What do they think it will give them? What are they prepared to do to achieve it? What lines will they not cross (and why)?

4. Motivation: Does the conflict affect the character's motivation (hint: it should)? In what way? What emotion is driving the character's motivation? Are they aware of it? If not, then what other reason do they give themselves for what drives them? Why do they deny the real reason?  

5. External conflict/set up: How does this relate to the internal conflict? Is the external goal reflective of the internal goal?

6. Character arc: I guess this should go up with character but what the hey! How does the character change? How is this reflective in their behaviour?  Who are they under the mask they wear to show the rest of the world? Why do they hide their true self? What do they discover about themselves that helps them overcome the problems of their conflict and drop their mask? How does the other character help them discover their potential? What is their true potential??

Now, I don't hold this list up in front of my computer screen and tick off each little box, nor do I have to have all the answers up front (but at least an idea is a good plan).  It tends to happen in a much more organic way and depends on how the idea came to me at the time. If the conflict idea comes first, I think about who this thing might have happened to and why it would have been so terrible for them. From there the character starts to form in response to the conflict. Or sometimes I'll have an idea for a character, then I'll try and think about what could have happened to them to make them who they are.

No doubt there are more things I need to think about that I haven't listed here and I'll probably add to it. When it comes to discovering these things, I don't do characters sheets or whatnot because I find them artificial and I end up with a robot, not an actual person. The best way for all this to come together is just good old-fashioned thinking about it. When I'm doing the washing. Or having a shower. Or yelling at the kids. :-) It works for the most part.

Anyway, that's my checklist for you. It's kind of random. I might see if I can mind-map this though it may be waaaay too complicated. Anything anyone else wants to add? 

Alternatively, if you don't want to read this post, head over to the Sassies site and see some pictures of moody men. :-)