The old one-step-forward-two-steps-back

Sunday, I hit 76,000 words on the First Rough Draft.

Mostly, I have some bad writing to cover everything that's happening. There are a few important scenes in the last quarter of the manuscript that exist only as
"Maggie and Doyle stagger upstairs and make love'
or
'All the good guys sit at the kitchen table and plot'
or
'Everybody goes into one room. They duke it out and the bad guy loses.'



After agonizing back and forth, I've decided to change a perfectly good opening for what may be a better one. I've lifted out Chapters One to Five, 12K words, and saved them in my discard file.

Now I'll redo the beginning. We're still in Rough Draft One mode.

So ... I'm back to:

64000 / 80000 words. 80% done

Progress of a sort, I suppose.

Me ...lolcatting

Ok. Ok. I know I have better things to do.
But I can't resist lolcatting a bit.

Edited to add:  There's no picture on this post.  There used to be.  There was a day I came back and found all my pictures had disappeared.  I found most of them.  Not this.

Writing along in Rough Draft One

Lots of stuff to write today. They're amorphous scenes, some of them, because I haven't done the research. I have to sketch.

My H&H feel mushy. Everybody else who walks on stage steals the story.

And I'm not happy with anybody's 'voice'.

Problems:
(minor) I'm still dithering about the action that kicks off the story.
(major) I don't have my teeth gripped into Maggie's motivations.


I didn't get much done yesterday. I stopped to chat with a friend.
Good prospects for work today though. They had Danish at the coffeeshop, (yeah!) and I think it may be going to rain.

Mulling the opening of Maggie

I'm zipping right along to the end of the First Rough Draft of MAGGIE.

Rough Draft One

64300 / 80000 words. 80% done!


You will note I'm much closer to finished with the First Rough Draft than I was a few days ago.
This is because the First Rough Draft is going to be shorter.
Not 130,000 words.
More along the lines of 80K.
Progress is like that. Illusionary. Or illusive. Or hiding in the bushes laughing at me. Or something.

Where I am ...

-- I have the last scenes imagined, but not written. Some I can see clearly and it's just a matter of sitting down and writing.
Some, not so much clear.
I'll keep plugging along, doing that.

-- Next ... I'll look at the 'shape' of everything that's happening in the whole plot. I'll see it visually and in color. I'll draw the plot on paper with high excitement points and low and see what characters are coming forward or falling back. I'll draw character arcs. See how my central love story is holding the stage.
Or not.

I do know I need more of Maggie and Doyle. I need them together more.


-- Then there's Major Research.
I have major and weird research to do.
I'll have to visit the university library. But I'm not going to find most of what I need.
I'll try.
Then I'll bother actual living folks only as a last resort.

-- There is this one pivotal scene.
I have to put my villain and Doyle and Maggie all in the same room right near the end. This is, of course, for the express purpose of allowing them to be, respectively villainous, heroic and heroine-oic.
And we do this denouement thingum.
I just need to get them there. Plausibly.
That's technical plotting junk and will doubtless clear itself up.


-- All the time, I can't decide which of three possible ways to write the opening scenes.
Things are not looking good for the bunny scene, though.

Alpha Heroes

Christine Wells said, over on the Berkley-Jove board : here


And Jo, about talking your way out rather than hitting someone--do you think that characteristic precludes Doyle from being alpha? I never quite know what an alpha male is. To me, he's the one who will take the lead in a given situation, the one other men/women will instinctively turn to to solve their problems. A man of action, yes, but not necessarily violence.

What does an alpha hero mean to you?


So I replied ...

I've done the ponder-ponder-muse-muse bit on this.

This starts out being a little confusing to me because 'alpha' in Romance does NOT mean the same thing as 'alpha' in animal behaviour. I keep forgetting that.

In Romance, 'alpha' is all about the power balance in the male-female relationship.

Set aside whether the hero is rich or competent or dangerous or useful to the community as a whole. Set aside whether he gives orders to other folks.
The alpha- or beta- ness of the hero, in Romance terms, lies in who gives the orders in the H&H relationship.

Do they eat Chinese or Thai? Who makes the decision -- or voluntarily passes decision power to the other?

Some of the most interesting stories involve changes in the balance of power
or struggles between the protagonists to determine the BoP
or relationships where strongly assertive H&Hs approach intimacy while dancing around an undetermined and unsettled BoP.

So ... you thought I'd never get to the point, didn't you?
... when I look at my super-competent Doyle. My sneaky and covert Doyle. My hyper-self-aware Doyle ....
I see him as alpha in a relationship.

Anyone this self-contained does not have within him the capacity for trust of a beta hero. It's going to be hard enough making Doyle even moderately honest and open when he falls in love.

This being the case, I must make Maggie self-contained and independent and a little isolated as well.

I'm setting her to useful and forceful actions, or course. But I'll also give her some kind of overt bang-slap-pop thing to do near the end -- probably in the confrontation with the villain -- just so everyone KNOWS she's powerful.

Technical Topics -- Preliminary thoughts on the Balance of Power

I blog over at the Berkley Jove site.
Here.
And I wrote a long and involved post and thought I'd compound the offense by double posting it. To wit:



This is what I'd originally posted:
All-in-all, this was a very useful bit of advice -- the call for a direct hero-and-villain confrontation. Thinkiing about it has helped me tremendously.

Christine Wells said:

That's the kind of thing you know in your gut should happen but sometimes you forget. And then someone reminds you and you say, of course! That's how such stories are usually told.

This discussion made me realize that the book I've just written is mainly my heroine's story and there is a final confrontation. But I'd like my hero to kick some butt at the end, too. I'll have to think about how I might arrange that...-

So I said:


Knowing nothing about the story, I'd nonetheless be in favor of bringing the hero in at the cusp of major struggle.

Otherwise you got all that missed an opportunity for H&H to interact and for their relationship to change or consolidate or whatever it is you're doing at that moment.

But that's the trick ... isn't it?
You bring your guy in without lessening the heroine.
You build power in both hero and heroine -- whatever power is appropriate to your characters -- without one power diminishing the other.



I try to do this. I've tried to give the overall story to the heroine. It is her 'quest', if you will.
But I want to keep the hero heroic.
And that means he has to have his own heroic story, not merely heroic attributes.

The way I think of it ... the shape of the plot should be reciprocal.

Even though I am writing 'her' story, I want the totality of the fiction to be such that if we looked at the line of events primarily from hero's Point of View, HE would plausibly be the one moving the plot.
The hero needs his own set of fruitful, effective action and a story that can be followed from beginning to growth to 'black moment' and denoument. His story doesn't have to happen 'on stage', but I feel it has to exist.

Because even where the heroine is primary,
the hero has to be an edgy force with motives of his own.
He has to be big enough to be heroic, here, in the story that's underfoot right now.
Heroism, like heroine-ism, is in the action.

Or, at least, that's what I think. I'm still working out the basics of this writing stuff.


Anyhow ...
what I've done with my villain confrontations, so far --

(Can I say 'so far' with only two books? It seems ... cheeky,)

I've made the true and important and meaty action lie between the HEROINE and the villain,
then I kinda call my hero in at the last moment to do some heavy lifting,
in part because his own 'story' calls for him being there.

This is probably not the best shape to that sort of scene.

This is a danger that the 'heavy lifting' of the scene -- which is apt to be full of bang-pop-slam action -- is so impressive, the reader can miss the quite obvious fact that the heroine -- like your heroine -- was managing nicely on her own.

So if you place your hero in the showdown scene with the villain,
which I think is a good idea,
you may wish to keep a lid on his contribution to the bang-pop-slam.
Which I have failed to do, myself.

The fact that BOTH H&H are winning needs to be, like, obvious.

Maybe you can have the heroine stab somebody or run over them with a truck.
Or something.

Making progress

I'm making progress. But I'm writing the easy parts, kinda.

What it is ...

My Averatec stopped printing the 'm'.
This makes an appreciable difficulty in writing, by the way. You'd be surprised how many words have 'm' in them.
I await a new keyboard.


Rough draft 1

59000 / 130000 words. 45% done!


Meanwhile, I'm sitting in coffee houses, working on my old laptop, doing the easy stuff.

This old laptop is the one I wrote Anneka on and I'm fond of it. But it is gaping open at the corners with its mechanical innards showing and 10% of the screen doesn't work and the 'b' key is unreliable.
Though not as unreliable as the 'm' on the Averatec.

My soul gets battered when my laptop doesn't work well. I have a close and personal relationship with my laptop.
We are more than friends.

So I am doing easy little sketches of the scenes I see.

Even taking this into account, I've made some progress.

Progress in Maggie

Moving right along in the rough draft of MAGGIE.

45200 / 130000 words. 35% done!


Very choppy. Very sketchy. and my H&H are not together. I'm trapped in the toils of the plot ...

New look to the blog

You know how folks decide to put up a website and three or four weeks later ... Shazamm ... there's a website?

It's taken me a little longer.

Ok. Much Longer.
But I'm getting reasonably close. Couple of weeks now, I think.

Anyhoo ... I've changed the face of the blog so it'll look sorta like the rest of the website and everything will be symmetric and pleasant when the website goes live.
(Cue to spooky music and someone shouting, 'Give my creature life!')

So what am I doing this week?
I'm settled down firmly on the first draft of MAGGIE ...


Rough Draft of MAGGIE ...

37000 / 130000 words. 28% done!

Which is less progress than it may look like,
and less progress than I should be making,
but we're headed in the right direction.

Can I speak up about Nora Roberts here? Or is that name-dropping and crass?

I saw Nora Roberts at a panel she gave at RWA National. It was one of about four workshops I actually got to attend in the whole four days. I had no idea National was such a madhouse.

But I picked well. It was useful as well as decorative.
N.R. said her working method was to write her first draft right from beginning to end, not going back to fix anything. Just laying it down.

"Oooooh," says I. "That sounds good. I can do that, too."
It kinda 'clicked'.

The meter shows my progress, NOT on the story, but on the First Rough Draft.
(Which is a really, really rough draft.)
When I get finished with that first draft, I'll be about halfway through the writing.
Maybe not quite halfway.
And this is not counting research, which I have, like, the Baltic Sea still to go through, teaspoon by teaspoon.

This zipping-to-the-end approach feels comfy, natural, satisfying, fruitful. If it were food, it'd be pumpkin pie.

I've been trying to find an efficient modus de writing. I'm optimistic. This might be it.

Where I am right now in the story --

Adrian has just crawled his secret and unregarded way out of British Service Headquarters in Paris, headed for the slums of ... someplace in Paris. I haven't looked up where the slums were. OK.
Adrian is -- putting it in modern terms -- pursuing his own agenda.

We're in his POV.

Re Adrian POV -- this is challenging because
a) Adrian-at-twelve doesn't sound like Adrian-at-twenty.
b) a long stretch of Adrian POV gives him more weight in the story than I really want him to have.

But my plot demands it.
If I could just learn to plot.

So. Next.
I have to balance my people here. I can't do too long a straight run of Adrian because this is Doyle and Maggie's story and the secondary characters are not allowed to run away with the reader's sympathy and attention.

So I now need a strong vignette of Doyle -- which I have in my head. And then I need one of Maggie -- which I haven't the least idea of what it is.

Maggie, Maggie, Maggie ... tell me what you are doing.
If you don't, you're going to sit there with a hairbrush in your lap, looking at mirror, thinking about things.
We don't want that, do we?

New Contract

I just got the signed copy of the new contract with Berkley.

Two book contract.

Two ... book ... contract.

Oh my.

Desert Island Keepers VII

KSGuard says ...

My DIK list? Do I have to only have one?
Difficult, very difficult.

Shanna - for certain. My first love in historical romance since the age of 11.

Uncertain Magic and The Shadow and the Star - Kinsale

Outlander - Diana Gabaldon.

Bet Me - Jennifer Crusie, though it'd be a tie with Welcome to Temptation.

Bible - it should be first or the lightening might get me.

Montana Sky and the Chesapeake Bay Series - Nora Roberts. I just never get tied of them.

Charm School - Nelson DeMille - not romance but a page-turner

A Macgyver How-to book

I'll stop here...for now.

I loved Shanna when I read it many years ago. Must have read it three or four times. I still have the copy on my Keeper Shelf. Would I enjoy it now? Would it feel dated?
I just don't know.

Outlander ... oh yes. Hmmm ... or maybe Drums. Which would I rather reread if I could only do one. I'd have to think about that for a while.
Great, great books. Such fluid expression and vividness.
(le sigh.)

Crusie ... the book most recently read and loved with an unruly passion was Faking It. But Welcome to Temptation is probably favorite.

I have never read Montana Sky.
So weird. I can't imagine how I missed it. Maybe I slipped into some alternate reality for a while.
I'm pretty sure I have MS tucked away in the TBR pile where it sits like the cherry on the Sundae, waiting for last.
I must think up some plausible excuse to reward myself. Yes.

Haven't read the DeMIlle. Can I say spy thrillers are not my usual cup of tea? Perhaps I will thumb through it in the library and see if it grabs me.

and in Library Journal news ...

Blowing my own horn a bit,
Neal Wyatt here offers some summer reading in the Library Journal, 8/18/2008

You see me in illustrious company.


The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne (Berkley)
The Pretender by Celeste Bradley (St. Martin’s)
Daughter of the Game by Tracy Grant (Morrow)
All the Queen's Men by Linda Howard (Pocket)
The Seduction of the Crimson Rose by Lauren Willig (Dutton )

I post this, not just for the satisfying blare of trumpets ... but to offer the other books to you. If you like Spymaster's Lady, you're likely to enjoy the others as well.
I'd be delighted to know what you think.

Desert Island Keepers VI

Liz Baldwin says:

This is too tempting to pass up, but I fear making my DIK list has exposed a nasty practical streak. I would pick:

Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl - Very basic so I won't have to waste a book choice on a tool-building book.
U.S. Army Survival Manual
Persuasion by Miss Austen (THE BEST EVER)
Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale - one of the first romance novels to just catapult me.
The Complete Works of Robert Frost

And a Blank Book so I might write. Otherwise, that way lies madness.


This does betray a very practical streak.

The hero who came to rescue a heroine with this set of books wouldn't know whether he was dealing with the
'find fresh water in the jungle inside bamboo stalks' woman
or the 'can that possibly be Fabio on the cover?' woman.

I loved KonTiki.

I have always rather doubted folks came from PreColumbian South America to settle the Pacific Islands, (or vice versa, for that matter,) but the chicken bones from 1300 -1400 BCE intrigue me. here. Oh, Yes.

It's all a lesson to me to be more open hearted and open minded.


Kinsale is wonderful, of course. Maybe I will reread me some from the Keeper Shelf when I am desperate on this next manuscript.

Desert Island Keepers V

Marie Jolie said --

Oh well! I must contribute. If stranded. My DIKs would be. . .

1. Lamb: The gospel according to Biff Christ's childhood pal-- Chris Moore
2. The Viscount Who Loved Me-- Julia Quinn
3. Pride and Prejudice. . . I would re-read and envision a different Darcy each time. They are all so yummy.
4. The Complete works of William Shakespeare. . . The sonnets and the comedies would come in handy. . . and I'm sure the Tempest would feel most ironic and perhaps nervous that my island had a Caliban.
5. The Time Traveler's Wife--- Audrey Niffenegger
6.The Poisonwood Bible-- Barbara KingsolverSo I've got half fun half serious.

The first ... I have to admit, I've never heard of.

Time Traveler's Wife and Poisonwood Bible have been in my TBR pile for about a year. I'm really looking forward to them.
But when I look up from working and pull out a book to relax with ...
I pick something real thin and easy.

However, when I do get stranded on a desert island I'll finally have time to sit down and read them,
so maybe they should have been on my list.

Have you noticed that Caliban had all the good lines?
I see a great paranormal. Miranda and Caliban -- Now the story can be told.

Desert Island Keeper IV

Oh ...

I should put my own Romance DIKs up top here where they can be seen, instead of in the comments trail.

It's confusing the way posts pile on top of each other. You probably want to read through these I-IV instead of IV to I.

My DIKs

Alinor, by Roberta Gellis,
The Windflower, by Sharon and Tom Curtis, (Laura London,)
Angelique, by Serge and Anne Golon, (Sergeanne Golon,)
By Arrangement, by Madeline Hunter,
It's in His Kiss, by Julia Quinn,
An Unwilling Bride, by Jo Beverley.

I got two of the 2007 RITA winners on the list. I got taste, I do.

Desert Island Keepers III

Catherine Scott said --

1. The Bible
2. Desert Island Survival for Dummies
3. Swiss Family Robinson
4. A book from the Bermuda National Trust about how the shipwrecked inhabitants built the Deliverance (don't recall the true title)
5. Shanna (in case none of the previous books prove effective)
6. The Complete Works of Shakespeare ('cause along with the bible, it's the most quoted)


I would -- being just ruthlessly practical here -- want Shakespeare and the Bible, (King James version,) with me if I were going to have just a few books for a long, long time.
(Willie Gavin -- of Modesty Blaise fame -- memorized the Book of Psalms when he was doing a little prison time.)

I wouldn't exactly recommend memorizing huge volumes as preparation for writing Romance. But if one had too, those would be the ones I'd pick.

Have I ever read Swiss Family Robinson? I've read Robinson Crusoe, and it is wonderful. Very good DIK book, actually.
I don't think SWR ever fell into my hands.

I love and love and just lap up and bask in the splendor that is Shanna. The trade paperback is on my Keeper Shelf. I should be able to reread it in a year or two. I'm looking forward to that.

Desert Island Survival For Dummies
(sputter. snerk snerk. giggle.)

Desert Island Keepers II

Moth said --

Oooh! I want to play the desert island game. Here's my six:

1. These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
3. Agnes and the Hitman by Crusie/Mayer
4. Nine Coaches Waiting by Mary Stewart
5. Brother Cadfael's Penance by Ellis Peters
6. One of Terry Pratchett's Guards books
but I'd just have to close my eyes an grab because I just couldn't pick ONE in cold blood...

Actually...I am rather well-endowed. I would so be willing to stuff a book down my cleavage to have extra reading material on a desert island.
In that case, I should be smart like Jo and say a ship building book- instead I'd probably take another Pratchett.


I will read Agnes and the Hitman. I haven't bought it yet because there is physically no more room on my TBR shelves.
Agnes can only squeak in on the left side when I pull a book out of the right.

Nine Coaches is a leading entry in my internal 'What the Hell is That Title Supposed To Mean' contest.
While excellent, it's not my very favorite Stewart ...

(jo ponders which is her favorite Stewart ... ponder ... ponder ... maybe My Brother Michael.)

Gaiman I haven't read. I know him only as a blogger.

A fine and proper Cadfael to choose. I would probably have picked One Corpse Too Many by the merest hair's-breadth. Her series is so consistently dense and so good that any one of them could represent the body of work, so to speak. Penance is arguably the one with deepest emotional stakes for Cadfael himself.

Terry Pratchett is someone I enjoy, but not one of the thirty or so S.F. writers I seek out.
Pratchett sold his first story when he was 13.
(Definitely kissing cousin to envy.)

Desert Island Keepers I

Keira Soleore said --

I cannot think of worse books to take with me to a desert island:
1. Atlas Shrugged
2. Crime and Punishment
3. War and Peace

I want entertainment away from the rigors of omg-am-i-going-to-die thoughts, not be so bored where rigors resulting in death become welcome.

My DIK would be full versions of:
1. Count of Monte Christo
2. Three Musketeers
3. Pride & Prejudice
4. North & South (Gaskell)
5. Devil Cub by


I have to agree with Keira. One does not want to be trapped on a small island with big fat books full of angst. Sharks in the lagoon are trouble enough.

The High School summer reading list is where depressing classics go to die.
As the most local teenager put it, 'Horrible things happen to everybody. Then it gets worse. The lucky people die. Now can I get on the computer?'

I read The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers when I was a teenager myself. I remember enjoying them ... but I've never gone back.

Is it because they're perennial movies? Is it that I get my 'fix' at the movies and don't need to go back to the book?
I should indulge in TCoMC at the very least, as background reading about France.

P&P -- I've read P&P six or eight times -- the last about two years ago. I'll probably wait another couple years before I drop back in yet again. So I'd be more likely to do ... hmmmm .... Persuasion, which I like as much and haven't reread so recently.

North and South is on my buy-and-add-to-the-TBR list. I've heard such wonderful things about it. I promise myself to read it for background before I place another story in England.

And a Heyer. Devil's Cub. This is, interestingly, the sequel to Moth's choice -- These Old Shades.

What it is ...
Heyer did only two lines with recurring characters.
--Judith and Peregrine from Regency Buck appear in An Infamous Army.
-- Leonie and her people appear in our books -- TOS, D'sC, An Infamous Army (Barbara is Leonie's granddaughter,) and in The Black Moth (same characters, different names.)

I think Heyer had a soft spot in her heart for Leonie.
I do myself.

I find These Old Shades the most poignant of Heyer's works. For me, TOS is the textbook on how to do classic, Romance 'High Fantasy'.

Heyer was 24 when she published TOS.
(She was 17 when she wrote The Black Moth). I never know how I feel about that. It's not envy, exactly, but it's a kissing cousin.)

I'd say Grand Sophie is the best written in her 'Comedy of Manners' vein. I've read most of her mysteries too. I put them midway between Christie and Sayers on my mental map.

Me, being a fool at RWA

I'm at the RWA (Romance Writers of America) National Convention in San Francisco.

You know how when the Shriners come to town, they wear funny hats and all the sober, careful, respectable dentists and lawyers and insurance salesmen swing their tassels and make fools of themselves?

Romance writers do this too.

In specific, they make fools of themselves in front of people who have these really cute little electronic cameras about the size of a pack of cards and who say --"Can I put this up on my blog?" and you say -- "Yes."

So if you want to see me making a fool of myself -- it's here, courtesy of the truly delightful Ciara Stewart, whom I met.

Every year, at the National Convention, publishers (yeah, publishers!) contribute free books, authors (yeah authors!) get together in their masses (500 and some, this year) and sign the books (well, yeah books!) for the public, (yeah, readers!) to buy, and the money is contributed to Literacy (yeah, literacy!)

I signed books and it was an utter blast. I got to talk to these really cool people, some of whom I'd met 'online'. They have, like, faces and bodies and can walk around in the real world. Who knew?

Oh -- the answer to the question Ciara asked me is ... "A good book on boat building,' but I only thought of that later.

That's the difference between writing and real life. Redrafts.

RWA National Conference.

Packing ...

This is like planning the invasion of Normandy.

Wasn't it Thoreau who said to beware of any enterprize that calls for new clothes?