Too Many Metaphors for One Post...

I had a whole post ready to go about my weekend... about what I wanted to be doing this weekend (going to the Joint Services Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base, walking around awesome jets and helicopters and military men, and taking amazing photos of them flying... these are from our trip out last year, before I got the new and better camera... I really, really wanted to be there this year to get better photos with my new and better camera!!)...




But what I did instead was clean the house - namely my daughter's room, which she had taken upon her six year old self to reorganize and it closely resembled the local dump, with higher quality stuff...

And while I'm quite sure there is a great metaphor for writing in there somewhere, I'm going to skip that and head right into something else I read today.

Janet Reid directed me to Courtney Summer's blog post about the editing process. And while I'm not there yet, boy oh boy did I identify... and surprisingly find a bit of encouragement.

I loved this part:

If I don’t make note somewhere about how hard they were to write–because they’re all hard to write–I would never believe they gave me any problems at all. The euphoria of finishing acts like a pleasant amnesia ray, which I’m assuming is a kind of mental suit of armor designed to keep me writing books.

Which reminds me of labor and giving birth, which makes sense, because writing a book has often been compared to giving birth (which makes the book the baby, which then becomes the object of the common editing phrase, "You gotta kill the baby," which is really just perverse and sick and begs the question... huh??? Could we as writers not come up with a better metaphor??)

But I digress.

The thing is, this book I'm writing is really hard. It's like pulling teeth. Or cleaning a six year olds' room. Every word is hard. And it's easy to think that the last book just poured out of me so naturally and easily. Which I'm sure it didn't. And remembering that would help tremendously every time I think I need to give up this one because something this hard just can't be a good book in the end.

Which bring me to the editing part of the post. She did major editing. Like spring cleaning a six-year old's room editing. Like "lets take this manuscript and put out three boxes - one for stuff to throw out, one for stuff to take out of the room but maybe keep for something else, and one for stuff to deal with. Now lets take all that stuff that's left to deal with and find a new place for it, clean it off if it's dusty or covered in the sticky stuff that's left when you remove stickers from places they shouldn't have been, let's vacuum out all the excess lint and dust bunnies and webs and polish it all off to a shine!"

(Look at that! There was a writing metaphor there after all!)

What I most found encouraging was the even though the first draft of her book was in very rough condition, even though it got a major overhaul and replotted, reworked, rewritten, she ended up with something she is very proud of.

So even though my writing right now is tough... even though I fear it may not be the book I want to end up with, I can't rewrite it better until I'm done with it, and actually have something to work on.

So time to stop whining and wondering and second guessing and just get to work.

When I've finally birthed it I can kill it.

(yeah... I still don't like that metaphor!)

Scenes from All We Are

Cliff Diving at Maui 2
Originally uploaded by DrSilver

There will be cliff diving. How cool is that??

I'm sure it will end up being a metaphor for Amery and Riley - not necessarily together but for each individually. There is a certain amount of leaping each is going to be required to do.

This is where I wish I could actually go out and do live research. Sadly, not too much cliff diving around Virginia.

This book is making me very nostalgic for CA!

I wrote a critique partner last night that I had another breakthrough. It feels like every few days there's another breakthrough, and I think it's because this time around, I have only the faintest outline of the book, and the details - sometimes big ones - come to me as I write.

It's a good lesson for me. MOCKINGBIRD came fully developed before I put a word on paper. The characters grew and deepened, for sure, but mostly, I knew the book before I wrote it.

I was waiting around for that to happen this time as well, but it didn't. And finally I said, I can either wait around, or just write and see what happens. What happens may be crap and I may end up throwing it out, but at least I'm writing, and developing my skills. Turns out, something may come of it after all.

It's like standing at the top of that cliff and deciding, What the heck. I think I'll jump.

It may not be the smartest thing, but at least it's an adventure!

New Book - Scene 6

I'm beginning to nail this book down. I had a major breakthrough this weekend, the one thing that was holding me back, and now I am knee -deep in a book I am starting to really love, and a character I am starting to love.

Riley was a tough one to grab a hold of. She's changed since when I started this. Usually, my characters are the first to come at me - loud and in charge. The story somewhat follows. Riley came, shyly and a bit sad... a woman with a huge hole in her heart.

But she didn't sit well with me. After the snappiness of Babs, Riley seemed too depressing. I wanted her to be more upbeat and fun to hang out with day after day. But to do that brought complications to the plot I wasn't ready to dive in to.

For a while it seemed she could be depressing and sympathetic, or fun but hate-able. I didn't like either option.

I kept writing. Rewriting. I think I now have four or five first chapters, as well as other snippets of other scenes in the book. And I finally found her.

It was the kind of WOW moment I really needed. Defining her - and a huge event in her life - has redefined the book into something WOW. It's the kind of thing I lay awake at night thinking, "I can't believe I thought of this! This is it!"

Getting over that hump was hard. But it wasn't going to come if I didn't sit down and write, even not knowing where I was going. I had to write - a lot of crap, actually - to get to the gem. But now that I'm there, I feel like I'm back in it. I'm where I belong.

I've found another song that fits so well. It's another one for John, who has become a much larger - and at the same time smaller - piece of this puzzle. He is the key that will tie it all together.

If he could sing - I think this is what he'd sing to her.

I'm leaving but don't worry 
I'll be back again
You're always right here

And you're grieving but don't hurry to your pack of friends
I'll stay 
It's clear

The one you knew from your love 
I grew into complete and whole 
And the way I justify
It's my way to control love everlasting 

I see your sweater rests upon your bed 
Reminds me of home

It can't be any better than it is in my head 
I'm blinded by roam

The one you knew from your love 
I grew into complete and whole 
Ad the way I justify 
It's my way to control 

There's only one way I know how to do this 
Stay here and help me live through this and I'll always be 

The one you knew from your love 
I grew into complete and whole 
And the way I justify 
It's my way to control love everlasting

New Book - Scene 5

Sometimes, what you start out with is not what you end up with.

New Book - Scene 4

A wise writing partner pointed me to this song, and reminded me that this story is not just Riley's.

Wherever there is someone leaving to find themselves, there is someone left behind, with a story equally compelling.

I often have a soundtrack that runs through my head - or through my earphones - that helps me focus on the characters, the moods, the emotional aspect. So here is John's song.

David Cook's Come Back To Me

The New Book - scene 3

Originally uploaded by macorlin

I have a landscape-living view of my life. If you ask me what happened today, I'll tell you I dropped the kids off at school, went to the gym, came home and showered and sat down to write. The same as Friday. And Thursday. And Wednesday. And so forth.

I see my life in big sweeping pictures, broad strokes, and I often don't see the details that make my life different from anyone else's, or any day different than another.

This has become overly apparent through Twitter. While others seem to be able to endlessly narrate their days in humorous and delightful chunks of 140 letters or less. When I sit to update mine, all I can think is the same thing as every other update of mine... I'm sitting at the computer ready to write. Because when I twitter, that's what I'm doing.

But as I've gotten into my new book, I realize this book may have landscape photography in it, but the story is all about the macro. It's about seeing the tiny things we miss everyday because we are swept up in the larger things... or about seeing the details that make a person go off the edge one day, when seemingly that day is the same as any other.

It's important that she's had her plates for fifteen years and no one has a chip in it. It's important that she has conversations with her daughter where neither look each other in the eye as if they are both invisible. It's important that her husband falls asleep each night in the middle of their conversations. It's important that she tucks her hair behind her ears without noticing that she's doing it.

In a small thumbnail, this photo may look like a leaf with a water drop. Click on it and see the amazing world inside each of those drops. If you stop to look at droplets after the rain, if you tilt your head just the right way, get close enough, this is what you'll see. A world inside a world.

This is Riley's life. In the landscape of her life she is mom, a wife, a neighbor. In the macro, she is something no one bothers to take the time to see.

Until someone does. And that will change everything.

The New Book - scene 2

Photographer
Originally uploaded by jj8rock

There's photography in the new book. I love that! I love that I get to mix my two passions, and have one of my main characters as passionate, and a bit as clueless, as I am about it. I expect there will be lots of researching involved as well, which I am excited about.

It's a great metaphor for the book as well. Everything else I've written I've started at the beginning and worked through to the end in one long sweep. This book is coming at me in snapshots. I have the entire book loosely plotted (until the characters take over, that is), but when I try to work through it chronologically, I am overtaken by scenes later in the book. The character, Riley, looks at life through the eyepiece of the camera in bits and pieces, seeing only what catches her interest, blocking the rest out. And so I see, clearly in my mind, exactly what bits and pieces of the story look like.

The structure of the book may very well end up following in Riley's snapshot lifestyle. Or eventually all the pictures may end up weaving themselves together in a beautiful mosaic to make a much larger picture.

In any case, it's a world I'm thrilled to get to live in every day alongside Riley. Not that the road won't be rough... not all photos are of beautiful things, and there are plenty of un-beautiful things about Riley's life. But overall, it' s going to be a real journey for both of us.

The New Book

Ventura sunset
Originally uploaded by Amery Carlson

I'm trying to focus more on writing the new book these days than blogging, even though I have lots of ideas to blog on. But for now, I need to focus on writing, on the new ideas that are taking root, and giving them a firm foundation to grow.

So for the next few days, instead of writing, I'm going to share a few images that are inspiring my writing, and maybe some of the music as well. The book is as much emotion and setting and mood as plot at this point.

So here is the first... a scene from Ventura, California, as taken by the phenomenal photographer, Amery Carlson.