Writing

Unnecessarily Redundant Overkill

Posted on by Beth Hull

And…a writing update. Um, about my writing, people. Because one six-hundred-billionth of this is about me. (It’s a bumper sticker.)

First: House Red (a.k.a. the Vampuscript) is done. Finished. Shelved. To Be Forgotten. There are some cool scenes that I may resurrect later, but HR functioned as some solid training wheels and I’m ready to move on.

Second: Savage Autumn has undergone major surgery, to use a metaphor that is quickly becoming a cliche. The first five chapters have been amputated and now I’m in the process of constructing a prosthetic. Some bones and skin grafts of the amputated limb are still part of it, but showing up in funny places. Like a toe sticking out of the knee.

An agent is waiting for the first three chapters, and believe me, I want to send them so bad. But this is one of my dream agents, and I don’t want to mess up my chances by sending something that is less than stellar.

Third, which is not related to my own writing at all (I used up my one-six-hundred-billionth space): And if you’d like a little humor today, a friend of mine pointed out a funny writer who reviews romance novels on her blog. I’ve only read the D+ reviews, since the first one I read had me in stitches. I am not nearly gutsy or, I’ve gotta say it, mean enough to post such scathing reviews on my own blog (except with hmm hmmm hmmm, which just, you know…deserved it).

And I’m off to the library so I can read a book and write my own (much nicer, I hope) review for Monday.

Writer Quiz

Posted on by Beth Hull

Dreamer? Wisher? Hoper? Player? [A Friday Free-for-All Entry]

1. Do you have at least seven titles but no salable manuscript?

2. Have you spent over two hours finessing your writing space (on purpose–not just cumulatively over the years)?

3. Is your Acknowledgments page already drafted (if even in your head)?

4. Do you read five or more different writer blogs?

5. Can you hear your friends groaning when you ask them to read your manuscript (again)? Even if you’re asking in an email?

6. How many times have you checked the query success pie charts on an authors website like authoradvance.com?

7. Have you ever used your blog as an excuse to put off revising your manuscript?

8. Have you ever used dirty dishes as an excuse to put off revising your manuscript?

9. Is your manuscript…
a) halfway through the first draft
b) finished after only a few months
c) halfway through a rewrite after it was supposedly finished?

10. If someone asked you to describe your writing routine, would your answer be among the following?
a) when inspiration hits
b) when my child takes her nap
c) when the moon is full and I’ve just finished a Laurell K. Hamilton book for inspiration

11. How many drinks does it take for you to think your writing is “really great?” Is it the same number it takes to make you think you’re speaking fluently in a foreign language?

12. Do you indulge in fantasies where Stephenie Meyer greets you with the words, “Dang, I wish I had thought of that idea”?

13. Do you indulge in fantasies where Seth Green bites your neck (as he did Stephenie Meyer’s) at the premier of your book-made-into-a-film? Have you lost 15 pounds in said fantasy?

14. Do you feel just a tad bit queasy posting this blog entry, knowing that it’s sort of a confession but put into the form of a survey?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, wow. Get thee to a writer’s conference.

Yes, yes. I’m going. Tomorrow.

Reno, bay-bee!

29

Posted on by Beth Hull

In my ongoing quest to flatter Sarah Dessen by copying her, I’m going to list 29 things I am thankful for on my birthday.

1) a healthy, happy, supportive and perfect-for-me family

2) my funny, loyal, smart, and all-around fabulous friends

3) little sprouts of tomatoes, reaching for the sun

4) ice cream in all its flavors and textures

5) SPRINGTIME!

6) the silent moments when Z is asleep

7) sunshine streaming through stained glass windows

8 ) dreams that bring ideas or allow me to work through old hurts

9) fresh, clear water

10) the Sacramento Public Library

11) Clark the cat, who so often gets overlooked now that we have a human baby

12) nifty words like “dilatory,” “numismatist,” “campanology,” “ebullient,” and “lackadaisical”

13) books, and the ever-growing YA market

14) Paper Mate felt-tip pens in many beautiful colors

15) flamingos

16) Radiohead’s “Exit Music (For a Film)” which got me through a year of teaching high school in Vallejo even though I have no idea what the song is about

17) those moments when I’m kind of bored with whatever section of story I’m writing, and some idea just comes out of nowhere and I go with it and it feels fantastic

18) the Columbine flower in the front yard that came out of nowhere, too

19) lasagne

20) my feet

21) hope

22) the night sky

23) my mistakes and disappointments

24) quiet moments spent gardening, even if I’m just pulling weeds

25) an empty kitchen sink!

26) the years of piano lessons my parents paid for

27) cursive handwriting

28) our house, which is creaky and weird, with truly ugly drapes in the front rooms, but lovable just the same

29) the slow-dawning realization over the past year: that I would survive motherhood

Around #19 I thought I had run out of ideas, but now I don’t want to stop! I’ll save them for next year.

Prologue Problems

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Friday Free-for-All [in which our heroine obsesses about writerly things]

I’ve been reading literary agent Mary Kole’s blog, kidlit.com. Right now she’s doing a series of critiques on story beginnings and her first critique post caught me by surprise. The author wrote one word: Preface, and Kole stopped immediately to comment “Ah, our first problem! Just kidding. Sort of. I think, in a lot of instances, a preface or a prologue is a crutch. It’s the author’s way of showing the reader something gripping in the hopes that the reader will then read through some less exciting backstory…” To me, this is very bad news. I love prologues, and I especially love writing them.

A brief history of my prologues:

House Red: The prologue is a total crutch, but c’mon, it’s my first novel. In this case, Mary Kole is right.

Savage Autumn: The prologue is not so much a crutch per se…but I’ll admit Chapter One starts off more slowly than what is currently popular in contemporary fantasy YA fiction. The prologue’s there because someone had to die before the story begins, so the reader can believe the antagonist is capable of killing.

The Black City: Brand new prologue, I fell in love with it immediately (which is a sure sign that something is very wrong). Buoyed by my success with the prologue, I started the first chapter. And it’s terrible. It’s really, absolutely terrible. It starts off slowly, with too much explanation and even more backstory, as well as very dull description of the world. So in this case, my prologue didn’t start off as a crutch, but I used that beginning as an excuse to let everything fall to poo-ness.

Granted, this is my very first draft for The Black City, and there will be plenty of time to fix those issues later on. Thank heavens.

Prologues aren’t always terrible, right? I mean, I’ve read plenty of  novels where they work beautifully. I find them all the time in my favorite mysteries and contemporary fantasies. A couple of fantasy examples I can come up with off the top of my head are: Fallen by Lauren Kate, Frostbitten, and Stolen, both by Kelley Armstrong. Hmm, looking at this short list, I realize that in order for a prologue to be successful, the novel’s title must end in “en.”

That’s easily remedied. Savage Autumnen. The Black Cityen.

All better!

Seriously, though, I will go back to my Chapter Ones and pretend the prologues don’t exist. Tighten up the chapters, bring in tension and whatever else is needed. Fireworks. Amorous alligators. Really angry toddlers with kicky feet.

Invinc-ible!

Posted on by Beth Hull

A Friday Free-for-All Entry

“You have not had sex with Russian girl? Come to us and you shall have it!” Usually I barely glance at the messages in my spam folder, but this one caught my eye. I can almost hear someone whispering it in a Russian accent. I picture the speaker as Boris from the James Bond movie GoldenEye–you know the guy: He figures out some password or other geeky problem, then shouts “I am INVIN-CIBLE!”…And then he’s iced in place by a high-tech blasty-thing, fists frozen high in the air from victory.

Some of my recent experiences remind me of Boris. I’m flying high on the positive response from an agent…and then I find slugs binging on my romaine. Or I finally manage to squeeze back into a pair of old pants…and then the agent writes back with a no, thanks. Or I get to Round 2 of the Amazon contest…what’s next? I am full of trepidation. Illness? Injury? Stain on favorite sweater? Will it be major, or minor?

I guess it might come down to whether I believe the universe operates on balance. For every positive, there must be a negative. For every good, a bad. For every James Bond, a Dr. No. I guess that depends on God’s plan–at least that’s what I believe. I just tried to think of a counter-example in the world of rejection letters. There isn’t always a correlating positive for negative in querying for a novel. Usually it’s a whole lot of negative responses with the very rare positive response. BUT that one positive outweighs, and, I hope, nullifies the negatives. You just have to get there, to that positive.

And then, once you get the positive response, and the publisher, there are probably negative reviews. Unless you’ve written The Hunger Games, in which case, maybe there are other negatives going on in your life. But I’m not spiteful enough to wish that on anyone. Well, maybe that person who cut me off in the library parking lot the other day….

This entry has gone in a completely different direction from the intended. Not that I intend much for the Friday Free-for-Alls. But I’m at a good ending point for this entry, since I’m not getting that hour I wrote about on Wednesday. Z spent a few minutes “reading” my Wicked Spanish dictionary and singing along with Anne Murray to “You Are My Sunshine,” but since then she has smashed her finger in the desk drawer, tripped over a Duplo, and had a dirty diaper.

Until Monday, then!