Kerry Allen

Seems like I’m not doing a whole lot more than I am lately.

1. Gabe’s book (sequel to WL). I have a first draft. Love, love, love Gabe. Love, love, love this story. No point investing more time in it if WL goes nowhere, though.
2. “Cover” for mini-novella. No, I haven’t heard anything on that submission (and might not for another month or so), but I found a near-perfect stock photo for a cover, in the event it ends up being a freebie. We spent a couple hours removing the sunshine (sunshine + vampire = epic fail) and changing the gal’s white tank top to leopard print spandex to make the image story-consistent. It will take another couple of hours to add a frame and some texture to prettify it. It occurred to me while I was searching for materials for the next step (Obsidian Dawn, how I love thee) that this could easily turn into eight solid hours of wasted work if the story’s accepted by NB. *sigh* Drop the stylus and back away from the Photoshop…
3. SC-1. Stalled at a chapter and a half. No reason not to keep working on this book, other than being committed to finishing The (Much Less) Interactive (Than Initially Intended) Web Story. This one, at least, is next on my to-write list, barring unforeseen developments.
4. Romance Cooties. We now have hosting—premature in terms of putting up content, but the price was right and soon to expire. First priority there is artwork (ah, Photoshop, there is no escaping you), and then I’ll get back to stressing about the rest of it.

What’s everybody else working on… or not, as the case may be?

I think I’m bitter and frustrated… until I visit places where other unpubbeds congregate, and then I realize I’m Suzy Frickin’ Sunshine.

There’s a post about “bad” books at Bookends. Most of the comments consist of “it’s bad because I’ve been told I’m not allowed to do that because it’s against The Rules.” (*cough* 99 percent of how-to-write advice sucks *cough*)

A great many authors who don’t follow “The Rules” have a rockstar-like following. Even die-hard fans may admit the work has gone south, but they keep buying every installment. Whatever their flaws, the books of those authors fly off the shelves and never go out of print.

Here’s a crazy thought: Instead of slagging on published authors who have the nerve to be more successful than thou, try to identify and emulate that elusive “something” that inspires reader loyalty. I’ll even give you a hint to get you started. Contrary to one commenter’s assertion, most people read fiction to be ENTERTAINED. Technical perfection can’t save BORING from the trash bin.

Or hang onto all that smug superiority. That and 50 cents will buy you a stamp so you can send fan mail to yourself.

Suzy out, off to sprinkle sugar and potpourri on the sour and odorous elsewhere…

On the left, the beginnings of a guest blog post. Some people indicate a change of thought with a paragraph or perhaps a dividing line. I spin the page around and literally go in a new direction. There are also some random, completely unrelated jots because if I don’t write everything down the second I hear it, it’s gone forever. Not an auditory learner here—must see words to retain.

On the right, the printed version of a first draft (actually, a draft-and-a-half, since I write longhand first and do a little tweaking in the transfer to computer) with pre-second-draft notes in green. This is the cleanest page from the current WIP, as there is still white space visible and also no arrows indicating more on the back. My first drafts are about 90 percent dialogue. (And also single-spaced. I don’t know how anybody reads double-spaced type. It destroys the flow for me.)

There’s a new commercial scolding me people for the wasted paper that would extend in a 12-foot high wall from New York to Los Angeles. The largest part of my environmental footprint is probably paper (I’m pretty conscientious in all other respects). This causes me much shame, but try as I might, I am completely unable to compose on the computer. There’s a visceral element in putting pen to paper that I just can’t write without. (And spinning the ‘puter around to change direction? Not so effective.) I do make a point of using every square inch of paper, front and back, and recycling when I’ve run out of room to scribble.

But if you’re driving across the country and crash into an inconveniently constructed wall of paper… sorry about that.

I propose the term “prepublished” should be used to refer solely to books that have been accepted by a publisher and are, in fact, progressing toward actually being published, filling the gap between “unpublished” and “published.”

I was bribed into attending a writerly function, at which I was cornered by a writerly individual who, aside from lacking even rudimentary social graces and attention to oral hygiene, was so hellbent on impressing me with his “prepublished” status, I politely inquired about his experience with the publishing process.

“Oh, ha ha, I’m still papering the walls with rejection letters.”

I so very badly wanted to say, “Wow, I bet you’re a pre-ejaculator, too.” (Hence the tooth-shaped holes in my tongue.)

“Prepublished” is a prime example of a word being thrown about for the purpose of inflating one’s status in the eyes of those who don’t know any better. I admit, in a side-by-side comparison, “pre” does sound a lot more impressive than “un,” but it has a different connotation that’s being abused by using them interchangeably. 

Had he said, “I’m shopping around my first manuscript,” we would have had something to talk about: the triumph of finishing one, the thrill and the agony of sending it out into the world, the hidden meaning of rejection letters (everybody on the web is dissecting query letters nowadays—we talk about the rejection letters, it’s just not cool to put it on our blogs because that’s advertising our failures).

I’m in that place, and it’s called “unpublished.” No amount of prefix twiddling is going to put you any closer to the brass ring, buddy.

I hear there’s yet another author who has cut and pasted chunks of someone else’s writing into hers. I hear the excuse this time was something like “It’s research about the spotted pygmy thief rat. It’s not like I ripped off a real writer.”

I’m not going to get into the moral and legal wrongness of plagiarism, which is being done by people far more knowledgeable than I regarding morals and laws. I’m not going to protest for the poor guy who spent ten years of his life camped out in the godforsaken wildnerness studying the spotted pygmy thief rat, five years organizing the accumulated data into a comprehensible format, made $2 in royalties for fifteen years of work, and then gets slapped in the face because it’s okay to steal his work because he’s not an exalted writer of fiction.

Instead, I’m going to teach you proper note-taking technique. It’s easy. I learned it in third grade. There’s really only one rule you need to know.

Never copy a complete sentence.

Here is an example of some of my djinn research that I ultimately discarded because I didn’t like it or need it. (I’d love to show you the scribbly original, but my scanner doesn’t work with Vista.)

djinn (race) — djinni (one)

have tribes of 7 w/king — king controlled by angel — angel’s name torture to the tribe

controlled by humans — see Sulieman (scribbled on top of) Solomon — by magically binding to objects

to enslave — know name, have item or piece of djinn (hair)

There are lines shooting all over the place, linking miscellaneous related and contradictory snippets from a variety of sources. There isn’t a sentence to be found anywhere in this folder. In order to make any sense of it, I would have to write a sentence, all by myself, using at least several of my own words.

Now, if you want really advanced note-taking techniques, you use your own words even when jotting down the non-complete sentences that are your notes, and then when you compose a sentence based upon those notes, the chances of producing an Eerily Similar Sentence are astronomically low, and in that case alone, I might buy an “oops, it was an accident.”

Otherwise, there’s no excuse, it’s not okay, and you are a thief and should be punished accordingly.

I’ve been compiling my new submission list, gathering all the details I can find into one document so I don’t have to be flitting all over the web looking up whether Agent A, who accepts both snail and e queries, really prefers one or the other, and all that tedious stuff that is so much less fun than writing.

Agent Z was on the “Possible, Needs More Research” list and looked viable… until I got to what he expects from his clients.

Must be willing to change every word in your manuscript if I say so. Um… no. I’m open to editorial suggestions and will implement any I feel improve the product, but at the end of the day, it’s my story. If you hate it so much you want to change every word, why would you even offer to represent it?

I expect my clients to produce four to six books a year. Holy crap. I couldn’t do that even if I didn’t have a day job, a kid and a dog and a house to take care of, and a life apart from BICHOK. Also, I gotta say, unless you’re Nora Roberts or writing exclusively at abbreviated length (category or novellas), I have to question the quality of a story that goes from conception to delivery in two or even three months. I will never believe it wouldn’t benefit from an additional six months of gestation. I realize more product = more money for everybody, but there’s an element of artistry in writing that’s going to suffer from mass production, no matter how good you are.

Must have a flexible schedule so edits can be returned immediately. Dude, now you want me at your beck and call 24/7?

.

This guy wants an awful lot of control over his clients, who are exclusively romance writers and therefore predominantly female. Ringing any bells? That’s right, he’s the embodiment of the patriarchal domination establishment oppressing women through the innocuous guise of romance novels!

Needless to say, due to our disparate views of what constitutes the ideal (or even minimally tolerable) author-agent relationship, he didn’t make it to the “I Grant You the Opportunity to Participate in the Steel Cage Match to Determine Which of You Lucky Agents Wins the Privilege of Representing Me” list. There is no “Crap, None of the Good Agents Want Me, Time to Beg the Second-Rate Ones” list (because I’m all over “if you can see it, you can be it” in the new year), and even if there was, this guy wouldn’t be on it.

He’ll always have a place of honor on the “Men Who Gave Me the Creeps” list, though.

I’m not even going to try Monday, Wednesday, and Friday blogging for the rest of the month. I got nothin’.

I downloaded a 30-day trial of Web Studio. I had only an hour to play with it, but it seems like a fuller-featured version of WYSIWYG drag-and-drop web design for morons. For instance, you can enter a descriptive tag that will pop up when you hover over a link (merely neat), and it WILL center the page on any size monitor (huge improvement). I’ll have to get deeper into it before I know for sure, but it’s looking good so far.

To combat my mehs, I picked up a book. Within the first few pages, the heroine was sexually assaulted and beaten within an inch of her life. Um… no. I’m not usually squeamish about stuff like that (the details weren’t even provided), but now is not a good time, thanks. My weary brain craves something fluffy. I need that Jennifer Colt in my TBR or a Stephanie Plum marathon. Now that I think of it, I have an Aisling Gray’s latest ludicrous hijinks and mayhem in the pile, too. If all else fails, I can read something kiddy.

I maintained word count on WL on the latest edit despite the added info. (Die, speech tags, die!) Time to put it away for a couple weeks before another readthrough and get it back out there, which means it’s (drum roll, please) Query Letter Time Again! The most frustrating six sentences one will ever write. The new formula: hook, setup, disaster, disaster, disaster, resolution. I can fill in those blanks, but there’s no flow from one to the next, so it sounds choppy and disjointed. I can write two-thirds of every sentence, but the last bit of every one gets limp and soggy.

Where are the freakin’ voices in my head when I need them?