In Praise of Dev Editing

I’m almost ready to send Apocalypse to dev edit again.

Almost.

That’s not saying it’s flawless, just that I will get to the point that I can’t find any flaws myself. That’s why I need editors — because they’re new eyes on my work. Because they can see things I don’t. Because they’ve read enough that they know what the shape of a novel looks like. Because I want to be read.

I am about at the place where I need to send Prodigies out for queries again, but my dev editor wants to work with me first to find a new angle.

So I prep and I wait till June, when she’s ready to work with me on my books again.

I’ve learned so much about myself and my writing since I found a developmental editor. Here’s to improvement!

The Flow Is Not Happening

So I made my summer schedule nice and neat — only to have to revise it already.

Rain, of course. A visit to the acute care clinic. Best intentions gone to hell.

I wonder if my schedule’s too strict. I wonder if it’s just me being reluctant to follow a schedule. At any rate, the flow is not happening.

I’m second-guessing my schedule just like I’m second-guessing my editing.

I’m editing the bulk of Apocalypse, trying to cut out what isn’t necessary, and I’m struggling between “burn it to the ground” and “I can’t kill my darlings!” Some good quality time writing should solve that quickly — or perhaps slowly. If I get the hang of what should stay and what should go, I should be done by June 1 because the story has good bones.

I guess the motto is to try for excellence and not perfection. Perfection has me chasing my tail and getting nothing done.

Flow doesn’t happen when I’m nitpicking details.

Teasing you on Apocalypse

Adam settled himself in his corner of InterSpace, wondering whether it was truly his corner or whether it was the recycled molecules of someone else’s materialization. He pulled the black crystalline walls closely inward, with the only furniture a futon he had materialized. He lay on it, looking at the fathomless ceiling, and reached out with his mind to another Archetype, one who he knew well.

I have taught Laurel how to transport. It did not take much teaching, Adam spoke, feeling the granite and heath of the Archetype he addressed.

What does she remember? The other asked.

She doesn’t remember much. She mindspeaks, but she doesn’t remember that she has known my signature before. She transports, but she doesn’t remember where she has transported before. She doesn’t remember me.

She doesn’t remember you, the other repeated. She will not remember us, either. We need to awaken her, but there’s the chance that we damage her if we awaken her too quickly. We can’t afford that. The mindvoice spoke tersely, but Adam understood the carefully concealed swirl of emotions behind it. Emotions could be dangerous if not banked; one of the realizations of the renegade Archetype.

I want her to remember, Adam admitted. I want her to remember me.

You’re asking for a lot. She doesn’t even remember the last ten years, and you want her to remember her origins. She will, eventually, remember when we bring her back into the fold. But first, she needs to remember her exile, if not the reasons for it.

I know, Adam sighed. It just hasn’t been the same without her.

Take care of her. Adam felt the rugged edge of the Archetype’s warning fade behind his words.

Adam lay on his futon for a while longer, listening to the wooden flute he favored. He paid attention to his breathing, feeling each inhalation and exhalation, turning his attention away from the roiling thoughts.

He had learned the meditation a long time before, as a refugee from InterSpace, hiding from his heritage in a Buddhist temple in the south of China. There he learned to draw upon the unemotionality that was his heritage as an Archetype, to hide the human turmoil that represented the special circumstances of his creation.

Breathe in, breathe out. Let go of the longing, the impatience. Let go of the very human frustration. Let go …

Six thousand years of existence, bouncing between the monastic cell of InterSpace and the Buddhist temple, and the civil service in a beautifully cultured Luoyang, and the days set laboring on the railroad that eventually stretched across the States. Hiding in plain sight despite his unearthly beauty and his freakish strength.

Six thousand years of existence, and his mind still wandered back to one day, the day he was created, his first glimpse Earthside. A verdant landscape, with a riot of flowers, an oasis in a dry land.
The only time in his life — moments, it seemed — he felt accepted for himself.

After a long time, Adam awoke from his reverie, and he thought about Laurel.

Laurel looked like she hadn’t aged a day. Of course she did, Adam countered; Archetypes didn’t age unless they committed evil against their charges. She had stayed pure despite her exile, despite the centuries she had spent, as he had, Earthside.

He had kept track of her when he could, staying out of her sight. He realized there was a word for his behavior in the modern day — stalker. He could not help it, however; he had been charged with her safety. And the safest thing for her those millennia was to not remember him.

She had done a fine job of taking care of herself. She had remade herself many times, as he had: as a hedgewitch, as a cloistered nun, as a nanny, a shopkeeper, a manual laborer. She had studied human cultures, much as he had, trying to find a home and never quite finding one. She had never found a partner, just as he never had, because she knew instinctively that sex would result in half-human Nephilim, a taboo for their people.

But he had been instructed to bring her back to herself gently, for reasons he didn’t understand. He felt the ambivalence rise in him, wondering if she should be left alone, wondering if she would remember him and what she would say if she did.

Writing Retreat Goal Achieved!

My goal for writing on this two-day retreat was to complete the building/writing of the first third of Apocalypse, which went entirely too fast (and was a lot shorter) in the original product. This was the hardest item in the rewrite, because it required writing some 18,000 words from scratch that nonetheless segued into the rest of the book (which needs severe revision).

Other things I needed to do: not give away the secret identity of one of the leads, develop the antagonists so they weren’t so black and white, put some tension between the male-female main protagonist pair (and it’s going to get worse before it gets better).

I’m done with this part! My writing retreat kicked me into some creative thinking!

Make time

I need to start writing today!

I’ve spent the last couple of days prepping and planting in the garden (there will be more to come) and not touching the edit of Apocalypse. But I’m close to done with the beginning part, which is the part I had to add to the manuscript. I don’t know if rewriting the second part with its many faults (point of view confusion, dragging plot places) is going to be easier or harder.

I’m going on a writing retreat tomorrow afternoon through Thursday morning at Mozingo Lake. That will get me away from the many distractions here (including cats, which my husband will take care of before joining me).

I suppose the break was good for me, although I feel like if I don’t write today, I’ll find something else to do like making plant labels. Or shopping for more plants — stop it!

I still have to make myself a routine so I don’t spend the summer surfing. I’m going to have a TA to help me organize classes, so I need time for that. And my summer class next week …

I’m obviously an extrovert, because I’m thinking with my mouth open — or, more accurately, while typing. But there’s an important lesson here for writers: Make time.

Excerpt from Apocalypse rewrite

Forty-five minutes later, as Laurel finished fluffing up her masses of curly golden hair, she heard a knock on her door and opened it to a grinning Adam. “May I come in?” he asked gallantly.
“Adam, you sure like to live dangerously. Someone could have seen you. Where did you teleport into?”

“Transport, not teleport. We transport ourselves, we teleport apples. And we’ve barely touched on transporting — there’s certainly more interesting places to go than your porch, true?”

Laurel smiled despite herself, despite the total disorientation of the past couple days. “I admit teleporting — um, transporting — would be an easy and ecological way of getting places. As long as nobody was there on the other end to see you. So where are we going today?”

“What is a place where you’ve been before, that you can visualize well enough that you can take us there?”

“Safely? Without people seeing us pop in from the middle of nowhere?” Laurel asked skeptically.

“You have a point there. Maybe we should wait until dark. We have some time to kill — a couple hours, I suspect.” Adam crossed his legs and leaned back. “Tell me about yourself.”

“Well, given that I only remember the last twelve years of my life, there’s not much to talk about. I woke up in the hospital, broke out, and spent a twilight existence working under the table for subsistence wages. I’ve slept in basement apartments, squatted under bridges, lived in homeless shelters. I’ve …” Laurel looked over at Adam, her eyes blinking. “I’ve kept apart from others. I’m not used to talking to people, because I’ve been afraid I would give away something, like my freakish ability to heal. I’ve lived a solitary existence.”

“Most Archetypes live solitary existences. We were created that way, as Archetypes who gather together could be a danger.”

“How? A danger to what?” Laurel leaned forward, as if she could find a clue to herself in Adam’s revelation.

“Remember,” Adam said, steepling his fingers. “The Maker created us as vessels for human patterns. If we die, the humans whose patterns we carry die as well. We’re nearly indestructible, but that small possibility can’t be risked. Conflict could set us up for battle, and battle against other beings like us — strong and swift and almost indestructible — could result in our death and the death of the millions whose patterns we carry. So we are kept apart from each other.”

“Whose patterns do I carry?” Laurel asked.

“That I don’t know. I’m sure the information is in the Archives somewhere …” Adam trailed off, remembering his own unique status as an Archetype who carried no patterns.

Interrogating Laurel Smith

I sit in the Garden at Barn Swallows’ Dance — a sacred place that exists nowhere but in my imagination. Dappled sunshine flashes as a breeze stirs the twinned apple trees that sit atop a mound. It could be spring or winter, because in the Garden time makes no difference; the Garden remains protected by an unseen force.

A petite woman with curly golden locks walks into the Garden. “I’m sorry — ” she says and makes a motion to leave.

“No, it’s okay,” I tell her. “I already know your secrets.”

“Oh.” She drops down next to me as if deflated. “How do you know my secrets?”

“It’s okay. I’m the writer.”

Laurel takes a deep breath, and her demeanor changes. The timid shell evaporates and she holds herself with purpose. “You know who I am, then.”

“An Archetype. An immortal.” I pause, gathering my words so I don’t give away more than she’s ready to hear. “A holder of human patterns, of cultural memory. Our cultural DNA.”

“Yes. I can feel it — I’m a part of something bigger than me.” In her voice I hear a shadow of millennia, of great personal power, of weariness. “But I don’t know what that is. I’m told that I’m six thousand years old, but I remember nothing except the past twelve years.” Laurel gave a wry smile. “Twelve years of living underground without an identity, hiding the freakish parts of me that I’ve just learned are my legacy.”

“I promise that you will get your memories back. You will know who you are.” Again, I pause, because I know her future, with all its strife, and its unbelievable burden.

“I think Adam knows, but he’s not telling,” Laurel sighed. “Adam can be pretty annoying at times.”

“But you like him,” I prompt.

“I’m afraid so.” Laurel smiles sardonically; dimples show in her cheeks. “He’s endearing, even when he’s being arrogant.” Her smile fades. “But he knows who I was. Who I am. He’s hiding something, and I don’t know what he’s hiding. And — “

“And?”

“I’m afraid to find out.”

Springtime and Struggles

Prodigies just got rejected by a small press — the usual “I don’t think this is a good fit for us”. Remember this is one of about twenty-plus rejections of the seriously revised version of Prodigies.

I’m currently rewriting Apocalypse (which in and of itself used to be two books) to add back some of what I lost in the combining. It’s hard to do right now because of the rejection. It’s very discouraging, and my mind isn’t wrapping around it very well.

Prodigies is still out at DAW, and the highest likelihood (given other evidence) is that they will reject it. Being accepted by DAW after being rejected by a small press would be like getting a Nobel Prize for something that failed to get a ribbon at the county fair. Yet my mind still fantasizes about the next step with DAW as if the next step isn’t a rejection letter.

I’m not sure I like optimism. I feel like I’m just setting myself up for disappointment.

What’s next? I rewrite Apocalypse, which I think will take longer than originally writing its two pieces took. (Writing is easy; doing it right is harder). I talk to my dev editor about what we can do with Prodigies to attract a little more attention to it. I go to that writers’ conference in St. Louis in June.

Or I give up. I’ve talked about that before, but I don’t know how to quit.

Editing into the Future

On my second editing pass through Whose Hearts are Mountains, I realize the story reads better than I thought.

My first edit is for word use, and I mostly eliminate as many of the passive verbs — have, had, has, was, were — with some fixing of awkward sentences as I see them. This gives me at best a choppy feel for the story.

My second edit is a reading edit, where I read to hear the sentences in my head and make sense of them. The book sounds good in my head.

Whose Hearts are Mountains isn’t even the next book I’m sending to developmental edit. I’ll send Apocalypse, which is the merciless edited version of three novels, first. But I have good feelings about Whose Hearts are Mountains that I didn’t expect I would have.

I still have to start writing a new novel soon. The only novel I have left to edit is Reclaiming the Balance, and that one has some necessary stylistic divergence (use of gender neutral pronouns for an intersex character) that I’m afraid will get in the way of its success.

I’m still wondering what I will write next. I have a few leads but do not feel passionate about any of them, mostly because they’re sequels to things already written but not yet accepted. Perhaps I’m looking for a new idea.

A good rejection

Yesterday I got another rejection, but I didn’t feel too bad about it.

I sent the query out for Mythos at least a year ago, and since then, I’ve learned a lot about writing. I’ve learned about developmental editing and beta-reading and about taking out the cherished bits that don’t do anything to further character or plot.

In fact, Mythos as a book doesn’t exist any more — part of it has been cannibalized for the book Apocalypse, which is the next book to go into dev editing. There’s been lots of editing there already. So I’ve gotten a rejection on a book that no longer exists.

Every time I think I’ve learned nothing, I can look back on what Mythos was before its editing and incorporation into Apocalypse. In effect, Mythos was an idea with a lot of character development and a plot driven by nebulous bad guys and disconnected portents. The bones, however, were good enough to develop into a different story.

So all in all, this was a good rejection.