Pronouns

I dusted off a manuscript that I had written a couple years ago which is in line for developmental edit. The name of the novel is Reclaiming the Balance, and one of the main characters is Amarel, who is balanced on the point between young and old, wise and foolish, human and Archetype — and male and female.

In other words, Amarel was born genderqueer, complete with ambiguous genitalia.

When looking through the story, I realized that I had used the word “him” to refer to Amarel, which was first and foremost offensive, because the pronoun boxed him into a binary Amarel didn’t belong to. I misgendered Amarel.

So I introduced gender-neutral pronouns for Amarel — ze for he/she, hir for him/her and his/hers, hirself for himself/herself. I wrote a lot of substitutions, given that Amarel is one of the main characters.

The revised novel is a bit harder to read, because I am not used to gender-neutral pronouns. This might be a good thing or a bad thing for the reader — good in that the reader feels the discomfort of the people around Amarel; bad in that this might make it more difficult to read.

The gender-neutral pronouns also tend to add a feeling of isolation to Amarel’ s situation, which is accurate. Amarel is the only person referred to as hir and ze. We still treat the gender queer as “other”, as people who purposefully isolate themselves from society through their rejection of the binary gender construction of society.

If the story had been written in first person, Amarel may have seen everyone as ze/hir/hirself, which would make a pretty inescapable point to the reader. Alas, Reclaiming the Balance is a third-person novel, so it will only convey so much of the point.

Finals Week

I haven’t been doing any editing lately (apologies to my dev editor) because I’m in the middle of finals week. For those of you who have never been college students, this week is a twice-a-year ritual in which professors torture students by making them demonstrate that they actually know the course material. For those of you who have been college students, this week is a twice-a-year ritual in which professors torture students by — you get the drift.

From a professor’s point of view, it’s a strange week where office hours are empty and professors prowl around the halls to tell stories of the worst requests they’ve gotten from students. Best one yet: the student who demanded an A because his “answers were right”. (Spoiler: No, they weren’t.) It’s a hurry up and wait time, where one waits to give exams and then frantically grades them so that semester grades can be turned in by the following Monday.

It’s a time when the outside world is calling — in December, the delights of Christmas; in May the beautiful weather. But to the professor or instructor, they are at best fleeting until the grades go in.

*****

I am giving my first final today — actually, they are turning it in because it’s an essay final. I will spend the next couple days grading it. I am wearing my ugly Christmas sweater (the reinkitty one — think of Santa’s sleigh with cats) because I need a little Christmas during finals’ week.

I anticipate having grades done by Thursday to turn in, and then I’m done for the semester. I’ll restart editing Voyageurs then, in the hopes that it will be a worthy submission. I will wait for query responses on Prodigies, hoping for a Christmas present.

May your days be merry and bright.

Update — not knowing

Sorry I have not written lately — I’m still feeling discouraged, still struggling. I’ve sent the rest of my queries out for Prodigies, and I know there’s always a chance one of the agents sends me a request for a whole manuscript. If I don’t get a nibble, I’m not sure what to do next with Prodigies.

I mean this literally. I don’t know what to do.

My friend Lynn tells me that it’s okay not to know. I do very poorly with not knowing. It might have to do with my disordered childhood, but there it is: I don’t like not knowing. I don’t like not having a plan B, and right now I don’t.

Except I do. I have Voyageurs in dev edit, and I can ship it out next. I will send Apocalypse to the developmental editor next, and there are other novels to be dev edited.

I don’t know when to quit, perhaps. I don’t know how to quit.

Maybe if I found something else that fulfills me as much as writing does, I would quit it. But I haven’t.

PS: I may be having mood swings right now because of the high stress of finals. Please be patient.

Struggling

I got three rejections yesterday.

I don’t know how much more of this I can take, though. It’s very disturbing to write something, work through multiple edits and editors only to find that it doesn’t connect with the agents.

I still have about 19 queries out, and I could (and probably will) write a few more. But since this is the last substantive edit I can make on the document, this will be the last time I can send it out. And Prodigies is what I consider my best marketability wise.

I go through waves of pessimism (“I’m never going to get published, why try?”) and optimism (“I still have queries out”) When I think of what I will do once I get this book and Voyageurs queried (It’s still in edit) if no queries pan out, when I think of how much time and effort and money I’ve put into what I hoped would be a second career at retirement (I’ve got a while, but …) it’s heartbreaking.

That’s how I feel right now — heartbroken.

But then I get waves of optimism, and I don’t know whether to trust them. Should I pay attention to optimism, or is it just stringing out the inevitable moment where I find I can’t go any farther? I don’t know.

I will keep trying for a while. I will probably quit if I query the new improved Voyageurs and it doesn’t succeed. I’ll send the rest of my queries for Prodigies. Then I’ll reassess.

I don’t know if the problem is my pessimism or my optimism.

A hilariously bad day

Yesterday was a hilariously bad day for a writer.

First, I received not one but three rejections. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry about that, since I’ve done everything I could with that manuscript and query letter. It might just be that agents think my stories just won’t sell. I don’t know what to do, but I have to start thinking of the next step.

Then my blog got five hits from Poland, and I thought that my favorite Pole decided to read my blog for once (I am not his favorite American, alas) only to find out the referring address was a porn site.

So, yesterday’s theme: If I wanted recognition, it was not forthcoming.

I’m not going to apologize for wanting recognition anymore. But the desire makes for difficult days when I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Room for improvement

I’ve got my development edit back from my developmental editor, Chelsea Harper (who deserves a shoutout) and there’s plenty of work that needs to be done. I think it’s a good thing that she caught all these places, because I as an author can’t see all of them.

I should explain what a developmental editor is — a developmental editor examines the story for plot development, character development, and writing structure — in other words, she looks at the story with an eye for making it stronger and more readable. This can be the difference between a rejection and an acceptance, because agents have so many manuscripts to choose from that they’re going to skim your work initially to see if it “grabs” you. A mild introduction, an ambiguous character, an information dump (telling rather than showing), will all turn off an agent. Even if the story idea is brilliant and daring, they won’t see it through the distractions.

I think that’s an important thing to emphasize — I as an author can’t see all the places my work needs improvement. I’m too familiar with the characters to see where I’ve shortchanged them. I’m too in love with the story to see where I’ve made it hard for readers to be in love with it.

I used to think I didn’t need an editor, because I was an articulate person and I could catch grammatical and other errors. I was arrogant, and I was wrong. I now see developmental edits as part of the process if I want to get published.

If you’re a writer who wants to get published, I suggest finding the money for a developmental editor. If you can’t afford that, find someone who reads a lot to go through it — it’s probably not as good as a good professional, but it’s something.

Your work deserves critique.

An embarrassment of riches

I don’t know what to write next.

This, as you may guess, is unusual for me. I have eight novels (with two needing serious work to redo), and these were written in a five-year period. (And should have been edited more ruthlessly much sooner, but I didn’t know better).

I want to hold off a bit on editing the two that need serious work (why? Because I feel like I haven’t done anything but edit lately.)

I have a couple ideas of what to write:

Gods’ Seeds. This would be another book in the Archetype universe, taking place after Reclaiming the Balance (which needs much work) and before Whose Hearts are Mountains. and which features a brewing war among Archetypes
A sequel to Voyageurs, which would require a lot of history research, which I detest
A sequel to Prodigies, a New Adult novel, with no idea who I’d be following.
Something new and I have no idea.

None of them are grabbing me yet. Probably because I feel guilty for having books out there that need editing.

I suppose this is an embarrassment of riches and I shouldn’t complain.

Time for me to see what ideas grab me …

I’ve just sent about 20 queries of Prodigies (with the improved query letter and in in its publishing edited/developmental edited/diversity edits) to young adult/new adult agents, and I have the jitters.

The optimistic part of me thinks I’ve done hard work improving.

The pessimistic part of me is afraid it’s not going to be enough.

The pessimistic part of me is afraid there’s something fundamentally wrong with my stories and will keep thinking so unless I get picked up by an agent. Then the pessimistic part of me will be afraid there’s something fundamentally wrong with my stories until I have a publisher. Then …

The pessimistic part of me is a pain in the ass.

********
What is the path now?

Send Prodigies queries to Young Adult/New Adult agents (done)
Wait for a couple months.

Some of the agents will send generic rejection letters
Some notify acceptances/rejections via QueryTracker (highly recommended for agent searches: www,querytracker.com)
Some don’t send anything, so if I haven’t heard from them in 90 days, then they’ve rejected it
If I receive a request for more of the manuscript, weep tears of joy and send it. This still doesn’t mean I’ve been accepted.

Wait a bit longer and resend the new improved Prodigies to the fantasy agents who got version 2.0.
Wait for a couple of months …

Of course, I have a new improved cover letter for Voyageurs and it’s finally going through a developmental edit. Which means I will go through the process again for Voyageurs (see above).

Readers: I need your love, good wishes and prayers. I don’t ask for things like this a lot, so here I am. If you can make them non-anonymous, all the better!!

Meanwhile,

In praise of competency

I’ve always had a good imagination. This gave my parents and school psychologist a turn when I told them “the monsters are my friends!” (I was ahead of my time. Nowadays monsters are all the rage among little kids).

When I write, I get to make my imagination real, after a fashion. Not flesh-and-blood real, but living an existence in my pages. My monsters are now preternatural beings and people with special powers, but others can now see them.

I’ve always had a great vocabulary as well. In fifth grade, I used the word “flabbergasted” to describe my reaction to a classmate. When my sister protested my use of fancy words, my mother pointed out the value of the right word: “I was surprised when my classmate gave me a present. I was flabbergasted when he dropped his drawers in front of me.” Obviously, I got my love of vocabulary from my mother.

What I didn’t have, as a beginning writer, was competence. Things I thought were stylistic quirks were taking people out of the story, and I didn’t recognize that. I could have found out if I’d sent my manuscripts to a developmental editor, but I didn’t know I needed to. I thought a utilitarian query letter would work. I didn’t utilize beta-readers, because I didn’t think I needed those either.

I had ideas, I had imagination. I had the drive to be published. What I didn’t have is competence in the skills needed to make the story understandable and engaging.

I’m working on those with the help of developmental editors and beta readers and diversity editors and publishing coaches. I’m learning from them and incorporating it into my work. This gives me competence — enough, I hope, that I will get published.

My cultural sensitivity lesson

Because Prodigies’ main character is multiracial and I am from dominant white culture, I decided to get a diversity edit done. I asked the director of our diversity, equity, and inclusion office on campus to give me a read.

Justin Mallett is doing an excellent job with the diversity edit on Prodigies . So far (and he’s not done yet), he’s pointed out a lot of mistakes. A lot. As a progressive/social democrat who believes myself to be “woke”, I expected to find a couple mistakes, easily fixable.

I have some choices of how to react:

Decide Mr. Mallett is being overly sensitive
Deny, repeating to myself, “I can’t be a bigot. I have Native American ancestry!”
Berate myself for not being more culturally sensitive
Accept the gift of awareness I’ve been given and make the corrections

I’m going to choose #4. We’re allowed to make mistakes when interacting with other cultures, just as we accidentally offend people we know. But if we learn that an action offends someone and dismiss their concerns, we are saying that they do not matter. If we decide they have a problem because they don’t see things our way, we have become a bigot. If we believe the entire group they represent has an oversensitivity problem, we show prejudice.

Bigotry and prejudice don’t require hanging nooses or segregation. All they require is to see others, their culture, and their needs as inferior, and that starts with the unwillingness to listen. It starts with words.

I will be glad to correct the less culturally sensitive parts of my work.