I Dream of Similar Triangles

Has anybody else ever had nightmares about the SATs? Not just taking them or whatever, but about the subjects on the test? I keep having nightmares about geometry.

Anyway, due to my SAT-related insomnia, I changed all the colors on the blog. Hope y'all weren't too attached to the old ones, because I have no idea how to get it back to normal.

Goodnight, all!

The Enemy of the Good

"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
--Voltaire.

I'd never thought of myself as a perfectionist. I mean, I'm a WriMo. I don't care if something is good, as long as it helps me along the way to 50,000 words, right? If anyone suggested that I was a perfectionist when it came to writing, I have several thousand inane words of my characters joking about cannibalism that beg to differ.

Last month, I went to read through the book I wrote before this past November, a book I thought had a ton of potential. My sister loved it. My mom said I had finally mastered the art of creating a tight plot. Even Miri liked it. Me, I got about 100 pages and had to put it down. The thing was a corny mess. I wondered why I was still writing.

A couple days later, I started wondering where I went wrong with this book. It occurred to me that it might not be that the book was that bad, but that my expectations were too high. I thought about it a little more and realized that I had thought that this book was going to be a classic--maybe even a Great American Novel. Embarrassing but true.

Once I realized that nobody writes a Great American Novel on the first try (and that historical political fantasy/romance is probably not going to get on the classics shelf anytime soon), I could start reading again without being so critical. I even started enjoying it a little. A lot of the novel still sucks, but I don't hate so much any more. Now I know it doesn't have to be perfect.

For Those Thinking About Publication...

I'm probably not the best person to dispense advice on how to get published, seeing as I'm not even close, but I'm going to give it a try anyway.

Last year, I sent out 25 queries. I got 22 form rejections, one personalized rejection, 1 request for the first five pages (I know, it didn't make sense to me, either), and one request for a partial. Then I got a form rejection for the partial. That's a 4.34% success rate. So the batting average for 2009 was Not Good. I got the names of AgentQuery, and it said that all of them were seeking new clients.

This year, I sent out four query letters to agents I found here. So far, I've heard back from two agents, and both were requests for fulls. That's a 100% success rate. 2010 is on fire.

Here's the clincher. I didn't change my query letter, and I've made only minimal changes to my book. All I changed was the recipients of my query letter. I started sending to people who really want new clients. Judging by the numbers, that makes all the difference.

To wit: only query agents who really want to be queried!

The Sad Saga of the Permanantly Clear Desk

Last October, with NaNo bearing down on me, I thought I'd take charge of my desk and put it in order, once and for all. This article from Zen Habits seemed appealing, so I decided to start there. I started out with the best of intentions. I sorted all my stuff into three piles and got rid of the bits of novel notes and weird little maps I hadn't used since the middle of November of 2005. It really did help keep my mind clear. I could find exactly what I wanted when I wanted it. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever.

Stuff started to creep up over time, in small increments. I think it started in earnest when I grabbed a piece of scrap paper to work out a math problem, and then wrote a phone number on it, then wrote "e-mail Emily" or something on it. Then I realized I needed a separate piece of scrap paper to keep notes about the novel I was working on at the time. Then I left my watch on my desk with the idea of using my nice clean(ish) desk as a vanity and putting it on the next morning. The watch disappeared under a pile of papers and I couldn't find it the next morning. I haven't been on time in months.

The final death knell was Christmas. First I thought it'd be okay to leave a few gifts I needed to wrap on my desk until I could get to them. Most of them made their way to their intended recipients, but one (a stamp with a robot saying 'Hi' on it) I decided would be happier with me. Then I left some gifts that I'd gotten on my desk. It's February and they're still there.

It's only gone downhill from there. I started leaving books on my desk and now it's just one big pile of novels. I also installed Windows Seven (I know, I know, but it's working so far), so all my CD-ROMs are everywhere. And there's an envelope with nothing inside of it and the words "Secret Agent Velocioraptor" written on the outside. I have no idea what it's for, but I'm terrified to throw it away in case Secret Agent Velocioraptor comes to collect. My desk is worse than ever before.

Such is life.

Names, Part 2.

My characters don't name themselves. When I give a character a name, it's the result of a lot of work on my part. What's weird, though, is that after the first main character is named, most of the other names come pretty readily. (But that first one is a killer.)

For example. In the novel I'm working on now, the Heretic King, I had two main characters. It's offworld fantasy, and one of the main characters is from fantasy-Egypt/Greece and the other MC is from fantasy-India. I had a bunch of scenes in my head that I was just bursting to write, but I've never been able to start a novel without named characters. So I spent a day (literally, 8+ hours) trying to think up names for these characters. I must have read half of behindthename.com. Then I had to go to a baby shower. I spent the car ride there and back (and the whole party, except, of course, while we were having cake) thinking of names. At twelve that night, I finally came up with some names and started writing. (The girl's name is Sabrai and the guy's name is Ptolemael, in case you were interested.)

I've never really given a character a name that had a meaning, like Miri does--I go more for form than function, I guess--but I really like most of my character names all the same. So the moral of this story is: when it comes to names (and most other things), do what works for you.

On Names, or, Characters Do Name Themselves, I'm Not Crazy, I Swear

Anyone who knows me and has been on speaking terms with me since mid-October or so has heard me chatter (nigh incessantly at times) about my fifth National Novel Writing Month Novel, Clockwork Wings. And anyone who's spoken to me further knows that I attribute a lot of rather active traits to my characters - that I discuss them more in terms of living "people" than most people really get.

This year's effort stood out in a number of ways. From a practical standpoint, it's the second NaNo I've finished within November (the fourth NaNo I've finished overall) and the first I've finished within November with a book-length wordcount (my first year didn't precisely limp to its conclusion at 52k, but there wasn't a great deal of urgency in its pace). This year presented me with my greatest extra-NaNo workload - all the high school juniors in the audience can sympathize here - and somehow it was my best showing to date. (And I confess I'm worried about my next attempt, considering that several fellow Mooselings suffered something of a sixth-year NaNo slump. But I think my stubbornness is equal to the challenge.)

Maybe I'm finally learning to finish what I start. Maybe it's true that if you want something done, you should ask a busy person to do it - to quote Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo, if you've already got a million things to do, adding number one-million-and-one is no big deal.

But I'd be remiss in not crediting this year's monumental sucess at least in part to my cast of characters - an astounding group of people that I'd known (if you'll forgive the conceit) anywhere from two weeks to four years before I started writing their story.

My focus on the characters was an interesting reversal: while many writers I've spoken with (though by no means all) identify themselves as either a plot writer or a character writer, I've always been an avowed setting writer. A compulsive worldbuilder. I started drawing maps shortly after reading The Chronicles of Narnia in the second grade - my middle school notebooks are riddled with them. I love flags, I love cultures, I especially love languages (as anyone who's seen my class schedule can attest) and there's no greater intellectual joy than creating a world that is complete unto itself, with its conceits and dysfunctions providing and enhancing any conflict, any story I could place there.

This time, now that I'm thinking about it, I guess the setting did come first, or a very (dimensions-wise) small part of it: the Gray Tower, the site of the execution of traitors, my analog to London's Tower Green. (I can admit this.) For most of 2006, I planned to write my second NaNo about a young captain of the royal guard who would be forced to execute her two best lieutenants and best friends. (I was a morbid twelve-year-old. Sue me.)

The captain's name, from the first time I pictured her, was Marsa. I didn't look into it, didn't run searches on word elements like I do now that I've discovered BehindTheName.com. I just knew that it was her name, that it fit.

Marsa. My duty-bound militant guard captain.

Mars. Roman god of war.

I put this together in December (2009) and it blew my mind. I'd read mythology before, so I'm sure I was very, very subconsciously thinking it when creating this character, but it still surprised me, this accidentally perfect name.

That's not the only example. My main character this year popped up in a scenelet I wrote on the bus last May, and that morning in first period I asked for a female name at random. A good friend said, equally at random, "Claire." I decided I liked it, stuck it on, and didn't think much more about it until October came and I was putting together a plan for my story. Claire's clarity - her clear vision of problems and solutions, her brightness of outlook - were her defining characteristics. Another perfect name, without any input from me.

Now, several of my names were researched and planned. The deciding factor in naming the bodyguard Alexei was that one of its meanings was "protector"; my wing-technician Ciel was very intentionally named for the sky. Claire's parents were named, in a roundabout way, for the gods of tricks and fire in a couple of different mythologies, and that says a lot about their personalities. I liked names that say something about the character - I think it's my right as a writer to have as much fun as I possibly can with them.

And I do. Names are fun. Great fun.

But they're even more fun when they present themselves to me whole-cloth, hiding their true importance until I stumble across it.

Names. Reason number #23 I love writing.

And We're Off!

I'm finished with The Heretic King, nine pages into my NaNo novel, have really no plot at all, and I'm loving every second of it. Forget about Christmas. November is the most wonderful time of the year.

4052 words,
Ink