I’m thinking about adding to the content of this blog.  It can’t be interesting to read me rambling about writing all the time, and I’ll probably annoy myself doing it too often.

I think ideally I’d like to add some kind of creative writing to this.  Maybe a serial or else some short stories that don’t fit anywhere in what I’m working on.  Eventually, I could add extra content for characters in my books, but since none of them are published yet that’s probably best left until people might care about it.

I can’t decide if I want to do a fiction or nonfiction serial.  I have a couple of nonfiction projects that are half finished and might serve as a good jumping off point for this.  I could do something on the craziness of having a newborn, for example.  Or maybe I’ll start working on a book idea and see where it goes – that would make it be a lot more rough drafty, but it still might be interesting.

Or I could write about life in Japan.  I’m an American expat living on the outskirts of Tokyo after all – that’s probably interesting enough to get some content out of it.

I could do all of it!

 …or maybe none.

They say that for most people, writer’s block is just having too many ideas and not getting them down on the page, rather than running out of ideas per se.  This feels like a straight shot to that kind of problem.  Probably should just pick one thing to add, for now.

Today I’m thinking about the two mindsets you’re asked to keep together to be a novelist.  Practical and impossible.

To write, you have to lie a lot.  You have to spend a lot of time in worlds that don’t exist.  Today I spent time thinking up a writing system that doesn’t exist and then taking it through the steps from inception to a modern world in which it was the primary means of communication – looking at how it would have changed and what technologies might have come up alongside and with it, and what tech we know today that would never have been invented at all.  I spent a long time exploring how even different people groups might be thought of differently if we wrote with something other than the materials and systems we actually use.  And why a culture might decide to use something else in the first place.

And now I’m writing a blog post explaining that I didn’t actually write anything down during that whole time, and I feel bad because I now have a lot of “actual work” I have to do – querying (always that nowadays) and revising and outlining and writing some non-fiction (this post, some emails, a newsletter, etc), and now I’ve added some research that I need to do, because maybe the system I spent the morning dreaming up does actually exist somewhere in the world, and if so I need to study it in all its forms, figure out if it’s useful to me or if I need to change my thoughts entirely, and make notes on the whole thought process because I might need to use some part of it later even if this exact thought is a bust.

It’s a strange transitional world to work in.  I mean, that’s the job right?  You have to dream up stuff that hasn’t happened, but you also have to develop the practical skills needed to be able to communicate those impossibilities.

I think the worst part is actually thinking about the process.  I find myself becoming 120% more insufferable when I think too hard about what exactly I’m doing.  Especially if I then talk about it.  That can’t be good for anyone.

The problem with a first draft is that you might die.

(Why am I thinking about first drafts when I’m querying a finished manuscript?  After my last ramble on what I should be writing I came up with some interesting thoughts for a new book, so I’m working on that as well as the Quirk sequel.  Because my answer to whether I should write something new or the sequel is apparently “do both and stop sleeping”.)

I remember in college reading Anne Lamott on first draft fears (Bird by Bird) and thinking, “Oh!  That’s me!”  There’s other people out there who are just as insane as I am!  This is…good?  Reassuring, anyway.

What I mean by all the above is that when you write a first draft, it’s awful.  Seems obvious, but if you’ve never written anything long form before, let me be the one to let you know:  the longer the first draft, the worse it is.  And what is even more tragic is the fact that you forget that sometimes.

It goes like this – you’re writing along, thinking things are going pretty well, when WHAM- you hit a word that doesn’t quite fit.  So you stop and correct it.  Then you realize that it didn’t fit because actually, the sentence you were working on was wrong.  So you delete that and start to try again.  Except with that sentence gone you question the meaning of the entire paragraph.  And that’s usually all it takes for me to fall into an abyss of wondering WHYIWRITEANYTHINGATALLISUCKATTHIS

It’s all very well and good to remind yourself that it’s a first draft and it’s supposed to suck.  But what I want to do is stop up my ears because I’m either perfect or worthless and there is no in between stage and every other writer is perfect I’m sure.

So I walk away and don’t look at that section for the rest of the day.  This prevents me from deleting it all wholesale.  And the next day I’ll either confirm that it’s all crap but probably have an idea of where to start fixing it…or, possibly, see it’s not so bad after all.  And then I can keep on writing trash after that.

The trick is, I might die in my sleep.  And if it was a crap day, maybe it’d be best to destroy anything I left behind.

…I should get my will up to date.

What should I be working on now?  This is the question bothering me (well, let’s be honest, one of many) as I query away for Quirk.  I know I want to still be writing, and ideally I’d love to get to a spot where I’m writing something, editing something else, and publishing a third thing, pretty much all the time.  That just sounds lovely to me.  Busy, but ideal.

So I know I want to write, the question is what?  Right now I’m working on a sequel to Quirk, partially as a default answer to the question and partially because certain members of my family have threatened me with bodily harm if I don’t get one into their hands soon.

This seems like the right call, because then I should be on the right track if Quirk sells the way I hope and I get a deal for more books.

But what if Quirk doesn’t get published?

I mean, sure that’s a worst case scenario, but it isn’t out of the question.  First novels often suck, and mine might too.  (cue panic attack)  In that case, wouldn’t it make more sense to write something else, so I have something else to query should this all go sideways?

Maybe I should work on Quirk until a decent amount of queries have been sent, then switch just in case?  Or outline one or two other things so I can move between projects easily and not commit to just one right now?

As always, there’s a lot I don’t know, and opinions out there seem to vary.  Considering I got into writing so I could stop having panic attacks, I’m going to need to take a few deep breaths.

At least I managed to write a blog post.  Progress.

So.  Looking for an agent is exhausting.

Of course I knew it would be hard – everyone says so – but I had always assumed the hard part was writing queries and waiting months to hear back only to be rejected.  So I prepared for that.  Silly me, I never thought about how hard it was to decide who to query in the first place…

I don’t know any agents, nor do I know anyone who knows any agents (I don’t think?  I mean, please DM me if I’m wrong and/or clueless here.)  So I’m starting from scratch.  Which is a phrase that I think refers to what you want to do to your own eyeballs after staring at agent pages for entirely too long.

Quirk is speculative fiction, which is the kinda generic genre that encompasses sci-fi/fantasy/other.  (Quirk, being about villains in modern day, is “other”.)  There are a grand total of 29 agents who specifically list speculative fiction as something they look for in Publisher’s Marketplace, so that does help narrow it down considerably.  That’s assuming I’m right and I shouldn’t actually be looking in urban fantasy or something.  There aren’t a ton of similar books to compare it to that I’ve found (I’ve had to try though – some agents request a list of books your book can be compared to.  More on that another time.)

So you find an agent, and you look at their Manuscript Wish List and see if your book might kinda sorta fit  with their interests.  And you check their twitter and see if this is a person that you think you’d work with well.  And you check if they belong to the guild, make sure they’re not listed as being fraudulent or having a bad reputation, and see what books they’ve sold recently to which publishers.

And then when you decide to go ahead and query – you discover they’re currently overwhelmed and just stopped accepting them for now.

…

This must be a sign that it’s time to shut down the laptop and take a walk…

I’m looking for beta readers.

Yes, I know I said that I was done writing the book – and I am! – and that I had finished all the polishing – and I have! – but the thing is, as someone I can’t be bothered to look up said, books are never finished, only abandoned.

I know I’m at the agent-getting part of this process, and I really am working on it (more later on that), but in the meantime, it would be helpful to me if I had some feedback.

There are two main reasons for this.

First, if (when) I get rejected a zillion times, I may end up starting from scratch or rewriting this book.  In that case, the more information on what may have gone wrong, the better.  I’d really like to have that information even if I disagree with it right now – I may love that maritime reference right now, but after say, 30 rejections, maybe I’ll go through the feedback, see that everyone else hated it and say “Hm.  Maybe this should go.”

Second, if I get encouraging feedback, it will help me know that, even after a zillion rejections, SOMEONE had a nice time reading my book.  That seems worthwhile as well.

Also, there’s a good chance someone could find that typo or worse, plot hole, that really messes with the book…and I could fix it before sending it out.  That could be downright lifesaving as far as I’m concerned.

Of course, the problem with beta readers is finding the right ones.  I’ve read that you want at least two – both people that you trust.  One who will tell you that you’re wonderful and they’re so proud of you.  And another who says, hmm, maybe fix that?

That sounds really good.  But, (surely unlike any other writer) I have very thin skin, really.  I assume.  Which is why, of the people that I trust, none of them apparently want to be the one who says bad things.  Either I’m the best writer in the world (well I mean, obviously) or perhaps I have too nice of friends.

I recognize that I am wishing for something I may quickly regret.  Maybe I won’t be able to take criticism well at all.

I’m going to ask for it anyway though.  Because I could just be blinded and unable to see that all I write is trash.  (Yup, that escalated quickly.)

I’ve finished my book.  And now, the work begins.

Or so I’m told.  I am officially entering the realm of “I know nothing about anything”, so who knows?  Perhaps I will be one of those blessed writers who find the business side of things exciting and enjoyable.

I doubt it though.  Not that I’m a pessimist, but everything does tend to go wrong.  I’ve heard scary words like “networking” and “contacts”, and as a being who is not adept at connecting with other beings…that doesn’t seem to bode well.

But I’m game, mostly because I apparently have to be?  I thought a good start would be to blog some.  Get me used to talking with the outside world more, even if that “outside world” is probably imaginary and the “talking” is just more writing.  To myself.

I don’t mind that.  I don’t mind writing more, certainly, and I don’t mind writing to myself at all.  And if people started to read this writing I would not mind that either, I don’t think.

Ok I lied, that would be scary.  My heart rate just shot up 24% from thinking about it.  And I just spent entirely too long looking at that number and wondering if I should change it to a more sensible 25%, or a more quirky 23%, because if PEOPLE ARE LOOKING it has to be right…right?

Anyway.

I’m a mess, but probably every writer is a mess, I hope.

And that seems like a start, at any rate.