The Drawing Board

This photo, taken by Alec Hendrix in 2007, shows Coffeyville, KS after a terrifying flood. Some died, and many lost their homes to the flooding.

It is also the inspiration for my second novel, which I am now, after a year of working on other projects, revising. Writing the novel accomplished a few things. It started me thinking about a lot of religious and spiritual elements in my life. It got me to the top 100 entries in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. It even helped me work on some family issues.

Looking back over it, I'm grateful that it got me this far, but I also see that it isn't going to get me any farther. In fact, it's pretty much crap.

And I don't mean that in a nice, pseudo-humble sort of way. It sucks. It's overall plot is more than far-fetched, its detail and characters lacking, its ending far from meaningful. Besides a few kernels of brightness shining, like sunlight on water at sunset, it's pretty much muddy ooze.

Fortunately, I had one reader who told me so. And I also had the wisdom to let the thing sit longer than overnight--I waited a YEAR to come back to it--so that I could come back with renewed perspective and shred and reshape the novel into what it is supposed to be.

I'm off to work on my piece of crap. Perhaps, if I can replace the rotting wood and moldy drywall, I can get the structure of it back into shape. I pretty much have a blank slate, so I'll move walls, tear down a few useless rooms, add a bathroom, finish the attic properly, and put a playset in the backyard. I'll wait on the painting, shutters, and landscaping until the last, when the plan is exactly what it needs to be.

Here's hoping you have the guts to shred your own masterpieces... to carve them into their true form...

Cheers! (Now get to work!)

Round Two of ABNA

I know all of you were on pins an needles as much as I, but I've just found out for certain that I've made it to Round Two of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel contest. That means I was roughly in the top 20% of the entries. Now my chapter selection will be posted online... though when that will happen, I have no idea.

I promise to write you when I know more. Until then, I'll just shiver in my boots a bit, giddy that I made it even through the first hurdle. (Honestly, I'm giddy that I even had the guts to send in another novel!)

ABNA Novel Has Been Entered!

I did it!

Despite all the grading I've been doing, along with all the other obligations, I actually did finish revising my novel, and late last night I entered it in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest. Hurray!

I made it through several hoops last year, and while I don't expect that success every year, I have to pat myself on the back that I actually turned it in! I met a deadline!

I'll let you know how it all goes, even if I have to admit that this year I didn't even make it out of the first round. No effort, however little rewarded, is ever wasted.

If you have a manuscript you've been sitting on, submit it! What do you have to lose?

Riding a Motorcycle

I need your help.

I am working on my novel's revision, but there is one part I simply cannot describe. The sixteen-year-old girl, the novel's protagonist, must learn to ride a motorcycle. I had intended as part of this revision to speak with several people about riding, and even ride with the husband of a friend (who owned a motorcycle), getting over my own fear of being shoved off onto the pavement and having both arms ripped off.

I know my fear is likely irrational, but I was willing to overcome it for my novel in the same way I wanted my protagonist to face the fear and learn to ride the motorcycle. She faces a lot of fear in this novel, and with each test she becomes stronger and more self-reliant. I could describe her fear and her experience in almost exactly the same way I experienced it (and much of her fear I've faced and defeated in my own life).

Only I never got around to riding on a motorcycle. And my friend's husband sold the bike.

I still intend to take that motorcycle ride as soon as I can, before I start sending out this novel to actual agents and publishers, but I need some help right now so that I can complete this version and submit it to the Amazon.com contest. I will be calling my brother in Houston, since he has a bike and has definitely ridden it, so that I can get some details (where is the ignition, etc.), but I want most of all to know what it felt like to ride a motorcycle the first few times, especially the first.

I swear to heaven that I will experience it myself, and not just rely on your observations, but I have no way to do so now except through a Craiglist posting with a stranger (scarier than the motorcycle ride itself). Can you help? I welcome any description you might lend to me (I emphasize lend, though I also promise to put you in the acknowledgments).

So, what is it like to ride a motorcycle?

Finishing My Novel Today!

I have hemmed and hawed about this stupid novel for too long. I'd hoped to finish it before Thanksgiving, and yet I am still at least two pages from being finished. It's going to take at least ten to finish the thing the way I want, but I'm carving out the whole morning and early afternoon to do it, no matter what. I'm taking my kids to school in about an hour, driving home, and sitting here until this thing is DONE.

I have so many other projects I want to start on, monologues for contests, plays destined for staged readings in the near future, another novel, a revision of my third novel so that I can enter it in the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel Contest, and so on. Plus, I have a huge canvas ready so that I can paint a painting for Crystal's new decorating ideas in her room. And I have two novels by other authors that I need to be reading soon (is yours almost ready, Rocket?). All of these things are waiting for this revision to get done, and I'm antsy because I'm not doing it.

So, here it is, the ultimatum: 

You won't see me here tomorrow--and I won't even allow myself to comment on any of your blogs--unless my novel is done. End of story. 

I will do everything possible to be here, but if I'm not, know that I am working hard to finish this %&$#)@ novel revision. 

I Swear I am Writing... Just not Here!

I checked my blog page only to realize that, even though my life was not a whirlwind right now, I still hadn't posted a blog entry since Saturday (which has been my usual MO since I began teaching heavily in August). 

Believe me, I have been busy! And, despite what you might think, I haven't just filled my life with grading and kid homework this week--I've actually been working on my novel!!!!!

Yes, the second novel, the one that made it to the top 100 entries of the Amazon.com Breakthrough Novel contest, is getting its overhaul. I've been reading madly through the draft, working to find the bad parts, the very bad parts, and the downright horrid parts, and figure out ways to make them all into great parts (or at least replace the horrid parts with not so horrid parts).

Honestly, the first half of the novel is pretty great. I was caught up into every page, trapped by the suspense I myself created... it was magnificent!

And then I reached page, oh, 167, and the bottom dropped out through the floor. Pretty much as soon as it stopped pouring (the novel is based on a modern-day Noah's ark story), the whole novel faltered. Sunshine started beating down on the boat, on its characters, bleaching out everything, gumming up the machinery, and pretty much bringing anything exciting to an absolute standstill. 

I could be discouraged. Okay, I am a little. I'd love for the whole thing to be spectacular, and for it to be ready to send to agents. Still, the first half of the novel gives me hope that the second half can be much better, as long as I recognize what worked in the first half and carry that through in the second half. 

Giving myself the opportunity to toss out whole chapters is rather exciting, too. Why settle? I have the computer memory... why not create something a whole hell of a lot better? 

I'll let you know how it goes...