slow dive, surfacing

First line written yesterday:
"I'm back, and nothing is the same."
Last line written yesterday:
"Maybe I should tell her about the trolls."

First line written today:
"The gas station has swollen hugely."

So far I have held to the no-deletion-except-for-errors rule. Today I want to add in speed, and throwing the wrong word in if I cannot bring up the right word right away. This is particularly difficult because my usual comfort is that I can fix a poor wording in editing. But I have never had time to edit a 3-Day ms. and I know I won't have time this go-round either.

Lacking a plot and characters, I've brought out versions of both from a short story that wouldn't come together earlier this year. I suppose it might be a poor omen to re-use aspects of a failure, but one reason the story wouldn't hold was that I couldn't bring it to a resolution in 5k, and had to keep cutting out bits that would have given it more resonance. So it may fill out a novella more successfully.
First person and present tense for the present-day storyline, and 3d-person past tense for the past storyline. It's surprisingly difficult to move to present tense after working in past, especially keeping track of which clauses and sentences should be in past tense while the narrative is in present. "The road was paved (at some time in the past)" and "The road is paved (and I am just seeing that now)"  have different connotations.

The cats have been relatively non-obstructionist so far. Khandi paces around on my desk and sticks her face in mine, or curls up and purrs in her basket. Priss demands to be on my lap when I go downstairs for food, or lurks on the stair landing to protect the house from evil other cats. There has only been one noisy cat-altercation, but it came when I was writing with concentration and had not noticed it building, so the effects lingered more than they might have.

sleeping while writing

Didn't post last night because about 9 pm the sleepy-and-stupid fell on me with a thump, and I went to bed. Mark followed me up and read in bed for a while, so I didn't fall asleep as soon as I'd hoped, though that might have been due to plot bubbling around in my head.
I woke up about 4 am from a vivid dream of forests, and of scrambling up a steep slope of red duff (red because of the cedar bark, I think) to get off the logging road before a logging truck barrelled down on me. Oddly, although the duff gave under my feet in that way it does, there wasn't any of the dream / nightmare run but get nowhere element.

Well. Yesterday's progress:
Drank entire large pot of tea, started second pot. This may not be the best practice.
Drank one cup of coffee.
Iced and heated muscles behind right shoulderblade, as directed.
Wordcount at lunch break: 2218
Wordcount at supper break: 4007
Wordcount before bed: 5268

That made my absolute minimum, but won't bring me to the 20k mark unless I make up the deficit today. I do wonder if I'd be better not to write at home, for this. There are too many distractions, like dishes to be done and clothes to fold, and the plums coming ripe, and pears and apples falling off the tree. The first year I had to break for teaching a class, judging a display, and the usual camping stuff of setup and takedown, but my writing was done in a coffeeshop by night, without company, so each session was more concentrated.
On the other hand, where would I stay? Hotels are classed in my mind as too expensive, last resort only, can't you sleep in the car?

Oh well, plot. Since the mpd plot escaped me last year, I decided to make it central this year, and to pull in some of the ideas growing from the Climbing Boys story that were discussed at Potlatch, of trafficking in ghosts.
Tim Powers's idea of addicts snorting ghosts is of course the best ever, so I've gone with a lower-key and smaller market. The opening scene is the theft of a ghost (but not the ghost they thought) from a castle during a tour. The motive for the theft isn't explained yet, but the castle staff assume it's to reduce the tourist attractiveness.
When I quit last night, it was in the midst of another pair of characters, one being a natural ghost-attractor, about to discover how that works, by sucking up a ghost. For mutual benefit.
I'd really like to hit 14-15k tonight. So this may be a late one. I'll see if chocolate covered coffee beans work better than coffee does for me.

symbolically overweighted dates

There's a folk belief that whatever you spend New Year's doing is what you will do the rest of the year. There's empirical evidence that it isn't so, or a lot of people would be spending the year hungover and in their pyjamas. Oh, wait. At any rate, they'd be spending it sleeping in, which manifestly isn't the case.
I suppose I'd spend this year packing and on the road, which wouldn't be that surprising, even though I'm hoping to cut down the travelling.
Alicia, Halima and I were on the road before 9 am, leaving the Scribal Retreat behind and on our way to Port Angeles to take the Coho back to Victoria. We caught the 2pm sailing, and had about an hour to wander around the town, window-shopping. Which wouldn't be a bad way to spend some part of a year. I keep thinking it would be nice to spend a weekend or at least a day in Port Angeles, instead of an hour while waiting for a ferry or for my ride when most shops are closed. There must be bed&breakfast places.
That and the BC wine tour--things to plan for in the new year?

Resolutions: I don't make them, usually, because proverbially they're a setup for failure, and because I'm not a great believer in significant dates. Heck, I'm 50 now, and that doesn't seem to portend anything much, other than having maybe 20 years to go. There are things I would like to do during this year, but proclaiming that I will do them sounds like flicking Fate on the nose.
To get Willow Knot revised into submission-ready condition and submit it.
To write a first draft of The Cost of Silver.
To finish the Boxer Rebellion story and start submitting it.
To do the 3-Day Novel Contest again (reminder to self about the MPD plot).
To do Nanowrimo again, since I have a format already.
To finish painting the dancers wall-hanging.
To paint the view-through-door wall-hanging that's sketched out.
To reduce my SCA participation to events where I spend time with the apprenti and/or have been specifically asked to teach classes, preferably with my husband.
To visit England in the spring, ideally with both Chris and Mark, and link up with the UK Scribblers and with Lucia from VPX.
To have a weekend vacation with my husband unrelated to SCA events.
To clean out a quarter-to-half of the attic and store things so they can be found.
To watch the dvds and videos that I've bought in the last few years and haven't finished watching.

Promotions: Submissions for Viable Paradise 12 are open now, closing June 30 2008. If you write specfic, and can afford to get to Martha's Vineyard, you should apply. Seriously. It will very likely change your life. If you want to know how it changed mine, click on the viable paradise tag in the sidebar.
Changing your life is a good project for the new year. Even better than cleaning out the attic.

day of mayhem

Well, that is what they called it. "A Day of Mayhem for Readers and Writers". In practice, it was just what you would expect of a literary workshop in the Greater Victoria Public Library, in semi-genteel Victoria BC (former slogan: More British than Britain!)
I arrived early, because it was free and one couldn't reserve a spot. Biked down in the grey morning with a little spitting rain, and locked the bike up in the atrium. Earlier than I'd expected to be, and the doors were still locked. A half-dozen people hovered near the double doors, the sort of sight that reminds me of Romero zombie movies and causes me to keep a cautious distance away. In case.
Lurking behind the concrete planters, I placed mental bets on which of them were also there for the workshop and which just wanted in to the library. I was right in a little over half, which makes me not psychic.
After I'd read a chapter of King Hereafter, by Dorothy Dunnett (and decided that I'd have to treat the political background the way I treat landscape description in John Buchan, by trusting that it all made sense to the author and would work out as needed for the plot without me fussing about it), a whisper went through the courtyard that the workshop could be reached through a side door. And so it proved, though we were warned not to use the bathrooms until the library was officially open.
The meeting room had one wall all of windows, showing the atrium. Fortunately nothing terribly distracting happened out there during the day, and later arrivals had an easy time finding the right room, since they had to walk past it outside, and could see the attentive audience.
I sat between two older ladies (yes, older than me, though I'm not sure the one on my right was very much older) who had been in the same writing group. We talked about writing groups, and they compared the various groups they've been in. I recommended Absolute Write as the best resource I knew for checking out publishers and agents as well as general advice.

First talk was on plotting. Stan Evans is a stocky bald man, very English, of the sort that seems to be constructed entirely of some sort of india-rubber, perhaps the kind they make Pink Pearl erasers from. I could imagine him staunch at any outpost of Empire. Unexpectedly, he writes a Salish detective, Silas Seaweed. His view is that plot is everything. Decide on your plot and work it out before starting. Violent crime tests and proves the sleuth, and he required 'at least one death by criminal action'. Absolute authenticity was required in the setting (his stories are checked over by Salish readers and by anthropologists, as well as heavily researched before writing). He also recommended deciding ahead of time whether to have a continuing detective, and whether you are writing detective or mystery-thriller, because the rules are different.
Bob Scott looked more creased and saggy than he might have, because of being next to Stan Evans, like a comfortable baggy pair of trousers beside an ironed and brushed uniform. He told how he'd started writing. After a diagnosis of cancer, and being told to take it easy, he decided to enter NaNoWriMo, and finished a mystery novel in that month. A while later he took it out of the drawer and decided to revise it. He met an editor for Avalon Books at a conference, and sold the book. He described himself as a linear writer. He started with the opening scene, which he saw clearly, and worked the story and backstory out as he wrote.
Kay Stewart co-wrote with her partner, Chris Bullock. She found that co-writing required that they plot and outline beforehand, though the outline changed as they wrote. The first book took twelve years to complete.
Things said in the panel discussion: introduce complications, clues and red herrings to keep from reaching the ending too quickly. Pacing is an aspect of plot. Introduce new complications to keep things moving. Always ask yourself: how can I make this situation worse? Subplots flesh out characters and introduce complications, but beware of them sucking energy from the main plotline.
Names dropped: Anne Perry plots with sticky notes over a wall in her office, and was ecstatic to discover (at the Surrey Writers Conference) that N America has multi-coloured stickies, so that she could have different colours for specific characters and subplots. Marilyn Bowering says that every scene has a shift in the balance of power. Scott Meredith says to end every chapter with a hook.

Second talk, on Evil. Roy Innes, thin, greying and intense, stoops a bit forward as if scenting a trail. Holds to the Morality Play theory of crime fiction, the satisfaction fo seeing vice punished and virtue rewarded. Distinguished between the detective novel, where the emphasis is on the puzzle solving, and the thriller, where the emphasis is on the threat to the protagonist. The hero is the confronter of evil. Evil defined as 'pleasure from doing harm'. While the hero may not be pure, he cannot be too impure without losing reader sympathy.
Chris Bullock leans back in his chair and speaks calmly. He's a Jungian, and quoted Scott Peck with 'sin is militant ignorance'. Described evil as both something within people, and as a separate force with its own existence. What is the nature of the investigator? The killer may be invisible because the investigator shares (and denies) aspects of himself that he shares with the killer.
Linda Richards, arrived late and perhaps because of that somewhat distrait. Untidy black hair, comes across as ditzy granola-head, but that may be persona, it's hard to say. She doesn't believe in evil as an absolute. Anyone is capable of either evil or saintly behaviour. Allow your villains to be human and complex. Arendt's line about banality of evil quoted. Villains don't think they're villains--ask yourself what story your villain would tell about him/herself.
Things said in panel discussion: What must you connect to in yourself to write an evil character? Does it do you harm, or does the resolution of the mystery resolve the issues raised? Evil must be motivated, must have a goal that is worth what the person does to achieve it.

Setting: Lou Allin, small, tough and weathered, like a piece of driftwood, which is odd, because until recently she lived in Sudbury, not on a coast. All her stories have been set in Sudbury, but she can't take the winters anymore and now she's writing a story set up-island, where she lives. Read an excerpt from one of her books (Memories are Murder? I'm not sure) where the heroine encounters a beaver trapper while walking her dog. It probably read well on the page, but while she read it out loud, she added so many comments and explanations about what is shown or hinted at by this or that detail that I had difficulty picking the story out from the glosses.
David Russell, sleek, with smooth blond hair, a high-school teacher who set his story in a high-school. Practiced speaker (to be expected) with small jokes scattered through, enough to raise a smile without distracting from the topic. Read an excerpt from Deadly Lessons, a scene in the classroom with an inattentive student. Easier to see the virtues in that piece because they weren't being waved at.
Bob Scott, filling in for the absent Chudley. Read the opening of Advertising Murder, the discovery of a body in a highrise office. The story was originally set in Victoria, but his editor asked him to change it to Vancouver, for better recognition. (This amuses, because in films, it's Vancouver that stands in for other cities.) Since he'd relied heavily on his own familiarity with Victoria, and had never lived in Vancouver, this was an alarming development, but he did the revisions.
Said in panel discussion: landscape defines character. Setting can be a character. A school or office in the good part of town will have a different atmosphere than one in a low-income area. Juxtaposition, putting a graveyard across from a school sets up themes and forebodings. Being physically in the setting is useful for the evocation of details, texture, smells. Research, learn the geology, flora and fauna, what animal tracks you might see, etc. Keep the local colour and detail in check, enough to visualise but not so much it will distract (readers will differ on the right amount). Local colour and accurate names and mapping will make the book popular with local people (free dinners possible at restaurants).

What sells? Editor Lynne van Luven, possibly the most businesslike-looking person present, short styled hair and suit-jacket (business casual? not that I'd know) described the process for NeWest press, a slushpile and panel of readers. First reading was of 2-3 chapters, submissions divided into regrets (the really impossible ones) and potential (anything not really awful). Next round was reading by group of 3, required 2 of the 3 liking it. What they looked for:
1) good writing, not ornate but simple clear style
2) a new angle, but not too cute, an inventive but credible detective
3) credible mystery.
Frances Thorsen, Chronicles of Crime bookshop, also in a suit jacket, but wearing it in a more rumpled and professorial way, thick black hair and a narrow face. Local bookseller working closely with local authors. Victoria is a tourist town, often visitors will come in asking for a mystery with a local setting, for combination souvenir and vacation reading. She recommended that new writers try to have a personal relationship with local bookshops, being available for signings and readings, be willing to work with bookseller. It helps if the bookseller likes the story, finds the setting and characters enjoyable and evocative.
James Hawkins, grey hair and beard, would actually be a good character actor for a tv detective series (BBC most likely), gives the impression of much stored energy and determination. He's described as a consumat salesman, criss-crossing Canada signing and reading at every bookstore he can reach. Often sells 80 or more books at a signing (since the average number is supposed to be 5, this is darned impressive). Anecdotes of setting up signing table for best traffic, being helpful to staff, attracting passers-by.
He reminds writers that they are small businesses and should take advantage of that. Revenue Canada recognises the difficulty of making it as a writer, since they allow authors to declare a loss for 7 years, and other businesses only 3 years. Selling to the publisher is only the first step, next writers must sell to the public. Mystery writers need a new book coming out each year, to keep their names current.
Discussion of covers and their effect on sales, that small presses may consult with authors on cover art, that display space, posters, shelf space etc. are all paid for by publishers, their investment in the books (so writers must invest as well, was the moral, I think). Writers need to learn about the media, about opportunities for radio interviews, especially locally (major media coverage also bought by big publishers), don't expect any radio hosts to have read the book, other than Joanna Roberts at All Points West.
Of note: Dundurn Group pays an advance of $250 Canadian (no, that's all the zeros, there are no more). That's based on an expected 500 sales. Selling 3000 in Canada makes you a bestseller.

At the lunchbreak there was an opportunity to have a page of your work critiqued by one of the writers present. Oddly, I don't think more than 5 or 6 people took advantage of this, and yet the audience (varied, but about 50 present) must have been largely composed of hopeful writers. Since I do have the first chapter of a historical mystery (written for the Debut Dagger contest) handy, I printed out the first 2 pages (because it's double-spaced in SMF, and there's no point giving anyone a page that isn't the first page) and brought that in. I figured if 2 pages was pushing it, the person could always just read one.
I got David Russell, and very nice he was. I apologised for the black line running down the page, since I hadn't had time to fire up the good printer. He read both pages, and turned the second page over looking for more, with a faint noise of surprise that there wasn't.
Good things: good turn of phrase, dialogue rang true, evocation of setting, encouraged not to let myself be pressured into watering down my prose.
Things to fix: the wider setting, like what part of Italy, needs to be established by the second page, and it's okay to drop in terms like 'painter of Florence' to satisfy that curiosity. Also, the murder or mystery needs to come in pretty quickly.

During lunch and afterwards the authors had books out for sale and signing, but I'd spent my money on lunch, so was unable to buy anything then. No, wait, I had $5 left, and James Hawkins sold me one of his for that price, because the first hit is free. I chatted with him briefly, and got the impression that his major motivation for the frenzied selling is that he enjoys it. He wants his books to be read, he wants to affect his readers, he believes in his books. And more power to him, but I'd rather be writing, myself.

The first lines thing

Since I've been mostly offline for a week, and am even more of a sluggard about keeping up with LJ and blogs than I am about critiquing, the first lines thing pretty much passed me by, until Bart mentioned it at Potlatch. His post links to a useful Bear post on the topic of first lines, which I'm not sure I'm presently skilful enough to apply to my own work.
I'm not altogether convinced that first lines are crucial, but I suspect the real attraction of such memes is that they allow one to talk about one's work. In a strictly academic and comparative manner, of course, rather than with self-centred egotism or anything like that.
Being as self-centred as any other writer, I've given in to temptation. Herewith some of my first lines and what I think about them.

Completed short stories, in reverse order of completion:

Chimps on a Blimp
Valves hissed, and Willow saw the blimp's gasbag swell to a monstrous black egg outlined by pink sky.
[blimp and valves hopefully signals that this is alt-hist or steampunk and not fantasy; the blimp inflation should suggest a journey about to begin; main character's name helpfully provided; a naive hope on the author's part that the combination of 'monstrous' and 'pink' is a hint of both danger and light amusement to come; oh, yeah, and the time of day.]

Bride of the Vampire
Of course the wedding was at night.
[both the title and the first line signal that this is about an unusual wedding, hopefully piquing the reader's interest about why it has to be at night; the 'of course' should provide a matter-of-fact tone that indicates the subject will not be treated altogether seriously, as should the B-movie title. I fear this is a girly story, because the two readers who have utterly not gotten it are both male, whereas the female readers have all gotten it, whether they were positive about all of it or not. But I digress.]

Foretold
"That which you love best will turn on you and destroy you."
[story about prophecy begins with a prophecy; ominous mood and threat presented; a conscious attempt (and therefore itself Doomed in Big Doomy Letters) to catch attention with the first line; should raise the question of how the oracle can be interpreted and how it will play out (badly for everyone); ending echoes it with possible double meaning.]

Fluke
Sheep were good at dying.
[short, hopefully punchy and establishing comic tone; introduces sheep, possibly a rural setting; establishes a problem.]

The King of Elfland's Stepdaughter
I dreamed of the Wild Hunt and a child wailing, and woke to gusts rattling the windows.
[kind of a Gothick feel, perhaps; introduces the precipitating event which is the stealing of a mortal child; introduces the question of why the narrator dreams of the Wild Hunt, especially as later in the opening she looks at a digital clock-radio; ominous weather; the more discursive style suggests an older, old-fashioned narrator.]

Uncompleted short stories, in no particular order:

Climbing Boys
"Tain't rats, yer leddyship, I reckon it's ghosts."
[story about MPD kids used as psychic chimney sweeps; the speech is meant for Dickensian style, somewhat parodic; comic tone with hints of grimness, I guess; introduces problem; suggests setting; establishes two characters in dialogue]

Elementary Magic (title subject to change)
Her Majesty's High Sorcerer accepted a glass of claret from the nervous young lieutenant and leaned back in the camp-chair.
[again a more discursive style to suggest Edwardian fiction; fantasy or alt-hist setting; possibly in a military camp; question of what the sorcerer is doing there and why the Lt. is nervous; introduces two characters, both named in succeeding sentences.]

Refuge
The bell at the postern gate cried at two hours before dawn.
[another story messing around with gods and prophecy, this one in a more trad fantasy setting; time of night and verb 'cried' to suggest urgency or tragedy; postern gate to suggest ancient/fantasy setting; may suggest bell tolling for end or death, which is the ending of the story.]

Aptitude Test
Mam bent down and smoothed the edges of Maymay's yuvee mask flat under her dark curls.
[introduces two characters, including pov (Maymay) and suggests that family & relationships will be central; minor sfnal touch of UV mask; gesture meant to suggest Mam's worry (over the Screeners' coming inspection of her children) and Maymay's sensing of her mother's worry. sf, so not one of my stronger stories and may not transcend its origins]

Firestriker
"Is that a real fire?"
[I still have no idea where this story is going, but I've long wanted to start a story with this famous Question Asked of Reenactors. Not an urban legend, by the way, as it was asked in our camp two years ago, by a visitor. Blatant attempt at hook; leads into establishing of Living History setting; mildly funny in context.]

Uncompleted novels:

The Willow Knot actually begins with the first lines of Grimm Tale 11, so it's a special case. The first bit of my own writing is:
Myl stood in the chicken run, throwing handfuls of seed to the greedy hens.
[introduces main character; rural setting; themes of eating and hunger--the stock of fairy tales.]

The Astrologer's Death
The boy Tom huddled against the wall, hands tucked into his shirt for warmth, water dripping coldly off the high thatched eaves onto his outthrust elbows and splashing on his bare feet.
[old-fashioned diction to suggest historic setting; general air of misery; main character introduced; question of why he's standing there getting wet.]

Children of Mercury
With stealth surprising in so stocky a man, Maestro Agnolo di Lorenzo stepped to within a pace of his intended victim.
[historical mystery. Opening is a bit of a cheat, as the victim is his lazy apprentice about to be hit with a stick. Introduces main character and a secondary character; suggests main character is more than he looks; hints at crimes to come.]

Fold
The line stretched on in front of Palev and behind him.
[the 3-day novel, litfic so needs no hook, perhaps. Introduces main character; bureaucracy as theme; simple language for child character.]