author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Sent out two copies of my picture book manuscript today. This means I have fulfilled my "one submission a month" requirement for January. Nyah.

I'm very pleased with the latest rewrite--the story's a lot tighter now, all extraneous elements removed, each remaining Thing tying setup and ending together in a neat little bow. OK, well, it's probably not that perfect. I can think of one Thing still in it that serves no purpose except 1) to establish the main character's physical setting in a "Damn That Television" sort of way, and 2) to establish a Saturday morning routine for the family. But I do think a certain amount of extraneous detail of this sort is necessary; otherwise, your characters might as well be floating in front of a blue screen.

What do I mean by "Damn That Television"? Well, it happens to be the first line of a Talking Heads song, and it got stuck in my brain after reading a forum post by James D. McDonald. Who's he? He's the "Uncle Jim" of "Learn Writing With Uncle Jim" fame. The forum post I'm thinking of addresses the issue of Point of View, and quotes an instructive article by Rob Killheffer. (Notice that the link in the AbsoluteWrite.com forum post no longer works; the article had moved sometime since December 2003. My link does work. Please click on it.)

Here's the relevant excerpt:

Interlude: The Voyeur Camera

It’s television’s fault. Television and movies. Visual media. In so many of these indie publications the narrative point of view slides around like a hot rock on ice, and observations intrude without any clear viewpoint at all. Consider this, from Thoughtmaster: "a skeletal face…whose shifting features left the viewer confused." What viewer? Or this: "The voice was surprisingly strong from such a diaphanous figure." Surprising to whom? Surely not to the only other person in the scene, who knows the speaker well.

These writers’ imaginations have been shaped by visual storytelling, in which there’s always an implied viewpoint — that of the audience, the camera, the peeping lens. They conceive their scenes as if they’re presented on a screen, and when they commit their prose, the camera remains, lurking outside the frame.

There’s no other explanation for scene shifts like those in Exile. As Jeff Friedrick and his pal Carl leave the bar where they’ve met, we’re told: "At the bar, a man turned his head and watched them go. He was tall, and a brief flare of light revealed reddish hair. Before the spotlight moved on, odd points of light deep in green eyes gave the impression of motion.…" Gave the impression to whom? The viewing protocols of film and television help us make sense of it: The two men who have been the focus of the scene get up and head for the door, and the camera pans aside to settle on this watcher. His reddish hair is "revealed" to us, the audience. We’re the ones who receive the "impression of motion." It’s as if, in these moments, the authors are not crafting prose but working out a screenplay. I recall the oldest and most basic advice offered to the aspiring writer: Read! Read! And read some more! If you want to write a novel, don’t draw your skills from the big — or the small — screen.

Yo. Novel's on hold for another few days, as other obligations require. Between one thing and another, I probably won't get back to it until this time next week. But I will get back to it. Oh yes.

Met up yesterday with the Greeley folks at the Borders Bookstore (in Greeley, of course), some of whom also didn't make their Jan 5 goals (but some of whom did, Gods bless 'em). Discovered that "that song with the states in alphabetical order" has an actual name ("Fifty Nifty United States") and was not in fact written by my grade school music director; it is actually quite widespread, like a successful virus, and I was not the only person at the Greeley meet-up who knew it. I was not even the person who brought it up. But I was not the person who forgot New Hampshire, thank you very much.

And then there was the point at which the conversation turned to State Farm's "like a good neighbor" jingle, to which it was revealed there is a whole song out there, written of course by Barry Manilow. We very nearly ended up singing Manilow's "Very Strange Medley" right there and then, which I fear would have got us kicked out on our collective ear.

We shall reconvene in Greeley on Feb 15. My hope for Jan 5 had been to complete a revision cycle; my new goal is to have the book ready to A) submit to WOTC, or B) start querying agents. Either way, I should be ready to hit NaNoEdMo proper and attempt the 50 hours thing with, I think, my 2002 manuscript.

One other thing came out of the trip to Greeley. Whilst driving up Diagonal Highway towards I-25 and using my laptop as an oversized MP3 player (wired into the car sound system via one of those cassette-tape sound converter thingies you can get at RadioShak), I remembered that I had this on my hard drive. *Bliss* If you wanna know more, go here.

OK, so it's not really a misery journey. I admit I am misusing the term. But, never having revised a book before, let alone one of my so-called novel drafts, and knowing how I start to get the creeping horrors when it's time to revise a short story... I am being duly pessimistic. Misery! Horrors! Novel Revision Hell!

Why am I doing this now? Well, it's too soon to start revising my 2004 novel. I am a firm believer of composting the first draft, having that quiet faith in round new potatoes springing from the rotten, sprouting remains of the old tubers you pitched out into the backyard. Also, which is more to the point, having the too-close-to-the-text syndrome something awful. And as for my 2002 NaNoWriMo expedition, well, it didn't seem as good a fit for what I have in mind...

Wizards of the Coast is seeking proposals for its brand-new line of fiction! Our exciting new imprint will publish science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate history, magic realism, or anything in-between. If it can be shelved in the Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror section of your local bookstore, we want it! We're interested both in the first book in a trilogy or longer series as well as stand-alone stories.

We are looking for the best, most original idea as well as compelling writing. We'll consider any style and subject matter. Please be aware, though, that what will count most for us is your ability to tell an exciting, original story in prose that makes us want to keep turning the pages.

To launch this book and the new imprint under which it will be published, we are planning a substantial marketing campaign. This book will be one of the most important that we publish in 2006.

So I'm considering submitting this novel right here. Worse case scenario, I have a ready-to-flog book that didn't get accepted. Best case scenario, I have a humungo monster marketing machine jump-start to my career.

Actually, the worst case scenario, if my paranoia is at all well founded, is that I submit it, they like it, they don't feel like paying me for it, and they'll run off into that misty territory where the legal agreement's "idea submission" subclause (c) meets the "waiver" clause, and they'll steal my novel. I'm hoping that someone who's more knowledgeable than I in the ways of publishing contracts can take a look at the legal agreement and advise me as to whether I should even be considering touching this contest with a ten-foot pole. (Yes, yes, I know that "but what if they steal my manuscript?" worry is frightfully amateurish. Look, I'm willing to quack like that duck if it keeps me from getting slaughtered like a lamb.)

But what the hell. Even if I oughtn't to submit, I'll have a finished novel. To submit elsewhere. And to shake happily in the face of Jethro and his Greeley Novel Finishing Month Pledge, which I have Undersigned myself to as follows:

Welcome to the Greeley Novelists Finishing Month!

We the undersigned vow to reach our own personal goals by January 5, 2005. We will encourage and applaud each other to strive to reach these lofty goals (unless, of course, we fail to reach those goals which gives the other GreNos free reign to change your middle name to "Nunn.")

We undertake this challenge knowing full-well that our friends, family and loved ones will be largely ignored for large blocks of time. We understand this is the same month as Christmas, New Year's Eve and probably lots of auto-ped accidents and that no sane people would even attempt it at this time of year. We don't care. We will do this...

Name: Nicole J. LeBoeuf-Little

Personal Goal: Completing one (1) revision cycle on my 2003 NaNoWriMo Novel (working title: "The Drowning Boy") with option to submit it to WOTC's Novel Proposal Contest by mid-February.

So I got started thinking about it last night. I printed me out a copy of Holly Lisle's One-Pass Manuscript Revision technique and scrounged around for a one-subject spiral notebook and wrote down, "Theme:" ... and then I played video games until bedtime. But it's a start!

Better still was taking a longish walk down to the Whole Foods at Pearl and 30th Streets for some groceries, and rehashing the story arc in my head. Those who know me (and those who have lived with me) know that such rehashing was prone to coming out of my head. I talk to myself think out loud. Well, how am I gonna know what I'm thinking unless I tell myself, eh? Anyway, by the time I got home again with the cat food fixings and the sushi elements and the dishwashing liquid and the toilet paper (and the painful shoulders buckling under the weight of the two canvas sacks)... I had all sorts of insights about the story. To whit:

• The parallels, symmetries, and contradictions between the main character and his brother
• The odd sort of moral relativity introduced by positing a species that reproduces only by mating with drowning humans and refraining from rescuing them
• The difference between said reproduction and true sexual predation
• The way the main character's two closest acquaintances react to his time on land growing short
• And how life's basic unfairness doesn't let us off the hook from the responsibilty of acting justly.

Yes! Yes yes yes yes yes.

I have not only crossed the 50K line, but I have also finished the story. That is so cool!

Well... there's probably a few loose ends that could be tied up. I still haven't decided whether Diane's parents get divorced or get back together, or exactly how Diane met Mitch. But these and other "what happened" sort of questions haven't left big holes in the novel - they've been sort of touched on and glossed over in vaguely satisfactory ways. No, the real problems with this draft have to do with the plot being as subtle as a concrete block falling on your head, and the moral of the story getting thwacked home with a sledgehammer. Editing this sucker will be a matter of making the basic story happen a little more gracefully.

Oh, and finally managing to memorize the Lenner/Wodemeier family tree. I kept forgetting which grandchild belonged to which daughter and how old each was and whether everyone's ages were plausible for the timeline. I'll sketch that one out when NaNoEdMo comes along.

So. Yay!

Tomorrow I'm probably going to get that short-short I mentioned turned in to somewhere or other, and not get a lot more done than that. Then, Wednesday, the first of December, will see those of us who can be bothered to show up having a bit of a celebratory dinner at Conor O'Neill's.

And then it's back to life as usual.

Now, if I can manage to keep up the 2K-a-day pace on all my writing projects, I will be a Golden Writing Goddess!

But unlike NaNoWriMo, in a normal writing life, I'll take weekends off.