So That's the Problem!

I finished revising my book again, then set it aside for a week. At first I had a hard time bringing myself to read it, afraid of what I might find. But once I picked it up and started going, it was great! I've heard authors lament that they can't enjoy their own books. Not my experience. I forgot I'd written it. I forgot I was reading. I became totally absorbed in the story.

And then I got to the ending.

SPLAT!

This revision was supposed to repair the ending, but somehow I still dropped the ball and it rolled away somewhere. The ending left me completely flat. What happened? What went wrong?

After scratching my head for a few days, I decided to make a chart. I took a piece of poster board, named the twelve most important story threads along the top, and then jotted the chapter numbers down the side. Skimming through the book, I followed each thread, chapter by chapter. And lo...

Of the twelve major story threads, five are left with NO ENDING. Not just left unresolved. Left OUT! Completely unmentioned in the final chapters. And of those five dangling threads, three are important relationships between the main character and other major characters in the book. Now I don't want everything tied up neat with a bow, but I do need to at least give a hint of some level of resolution or some new direction for each of these threads.

I meant to re-submit this book before the end of the year, but it is more important to GET IT RIGHT! Back to work.

Harp Template

I've had several requests by e-mail for plans for my harp. Sadly, I don't have detailed plans drawn up. But I laid out the one drawing I did and put an inch ruler down beside it to show the scale. Here it is - good luck!

The Joys of Life

Let me tell you what's really great - jogging through a bright autumn morning, trying to keep pace with my four-year-old son on his training-wheel bike. Crunching through yellow leaves. Stopping to shout out the amazing discovery of pine cones on the sidewalk. This is the good stuff.

The Last Chapter

I wrote 3000 words today! That's top form for me. I did it by writing for one hour first thing in the morning before the children got up, and then by doing housework until one in the afternoon when I sat down for my usual writing time. Writing a little extra in the morning got my brain chewing on the next scene, and by the time I'd cleaned and vacuumed the upstairs I was ready to sit down and let it all pour out.

So who is up for test-reading? I know it is the busy holiday season, but hey, you need to take a break now and then, right?

Patience

Writers need patience.

Writers need patience when they first start out. When you write your first story, hey, that's great! You're on your way! Now, go write five whole books, pour sweat, blood, and tears over them until they're the very best they can possibly be, and then put them all in a box in the garage because only now are you ready to write something worth publishing.

Writers need patience when they finally get to that book that's going to be the one. Books are like delicate little plants growing in a greenhouse in early spring. Send them out too soon, send them out before they're ready, and they die. It is so hard to wait, so hard to do one more revision, so hard to think it all through and think it all through again. But, with time, the ideas grow stronger, the characters grow stronger, the story grows stronger.

Writers need patience when the time comes to submit. Researching agents and editors, preparing query letters and synopses, all of this takes time away from writing. And then the waiting. The eternal waiting. Six weeks, eight weeks, three months... yes, you can draft a new novel in the time it takes to hear back on a submission. I know. I've done it.

Writers need patience as their agent or editor asks for revisions. I have a friend who was asked to do four re-writes before signing a contract, and then another four re-writes after. It takes years, years upon the years already spent in learning the craft, to create a book and get it ready for printing.

So the next time you hold a good book in your hands, think of all the patience that went into it.

I Love the Internet

Today I'm drafting a new ending for my science fiction novel. I don't know how people used to write science fiction before they invented the internet. Right in the middle of a paragraph I can open up a window and in a few clicks I have several newspaper articles about actual hostage situations to read, plus a chart of the international radiotelephony spelling alphabet.

The Great Tomato Cover-Up

I've been trying for six years now, and I have not yet been able to grow a tomato in Henderson, Nevada. This week I checked on the internet and found out that tomatoes don't like temperatures colder than 53 deg. F or hotter than 95 deg. F. That means the only time tomatoes would be happy here would be for about one day in April and then maybe one week in September.

So, even though it is nowhere near freezing at night yet, I go out and cover up my tomatoes every evening. They seem to be enjoying it. In fact, I think some of them are getting ripe, even though it is already the middle of November.