Is This a Novel?

Last time I spoke about the excitement of getting started on the next bright idea.  But, how can you be so sure that idea is a novel?

First, what is the difference between a novel, a novella and a short story.  Most obviously, it's the word count.  A novel is around 75-110k (thousand words).  A novella is around 45k and a short story is around 3-8k.  Of course there are exceptions and different sub-genres have their target length.  The whole length thing is quite a big debate and stress point for a bunch of writers.  But, whatever, generally, this is what "they" are looking for.

So, is word count all that separates a short story from a full-length novel? 

Yes. 

But, it's not just any words, it's having good words.  You can't just type "the" 80,000 times and claim you turned a 3,000 word short story into a 83,000 word novel.  You can't add fluff.  You can't send your character on some random tangent for a few ten thousand words.  You've got to fully use and leverage each of those words to be part of a compelling story.

Easier said than done.

So, what CAN you do if your novel is too short?
Add a subplot.
Do your other characters have their own challenges that complement your main plot?  Maybe your character is dealing with a miscarriage.  Possibly her sister could be dealing with a child that got diagnosed with a learning disability.  This compliments the issues that your character is going through and can add an extra level of drama.  "Why are you so upset that your kid has Autistm?  Mine is dead!" 

Maybe it's not the end
I know that my next great idea will be in novel form.  But I'm not sure if it's long enough.  If it's not then, I'll just have my current end goal be an intermediary goal.  Worst case, I've got a happy middle with a nice act 1 or act 2 resolution and can introduce new and exciting complications.  So, ask yourself...what next?  But, the pacing does dictate that the "what next" be even bigger, more important and more difficult than the first part.  The reader has to want to keep reading.

Add plot layers
We all have tons of stuff going on in our lives.  So should our characters.  A romance is always a fun option for a plot layer.  In my WiP, my character is a widow who is still working through the loss of her husband so that isn't a good plot layer for me.  But, it might be a good subplot.  Maybe her son has a girlfriend.

Add complications
Your character has a goal, but what are some set backs he or she can face.  You can add some to the main plot or to one of the sub-plots.  Just make sure that your main plot stays main.  The complication must be directly impacting the main plot or one of the important sub-plots.

Admit that maybe its not a novel
Writing a novella or a short story might not be as marketable in today's market, but it's still something.  Enjoy what you've written and what you've achieved.  This might be the hardest of all my suggestions.  Each piece of work is special and took a ton of your creativity and energy.  Don't try to make it something that it is not.

Getting Started on the Next Bright Idea

I've gotten to the point in my current WiP that I'm ready to send it to agents.  I've revised and revised and revised again.  It's gone from useful, actual changes to a compulsion.

So, I've decided that it's time for a new WiP. 

I've not started a new project in years.  I'm really excited about this one.  I got the idea after speaking with a co-worker about his time in a refugee camp in Turkey when he was a teenager.  He was a refugee, not a volunteer.  That little nugget spun off in a totally different direction.  I do write fantasy.  But, I think it's a fresh premise.  I won't share the premise with you as the full plot is still percolating.  I will say that it's a steam-punk fantasy about a widowed mother who is trying to keep her family alive. 

Honestly, finding the idea was not the hard part.  Picking which idea to pursue was.  I'm not one of those writers who can work on several novels at the same time.  I've got to dig in and figure out what's going on with my characters.  What do the good guys want?  Why do the villains want to stop them?  What's their world like?  Why do the characters care?  I'm just driven to answer all these questions and more.

The new project isn't the fun idea, it's all the twists and turns inside it.  It's meeting all these new characters, pushing them to their limits, hearing their snappy dialog.  That's what has me all excited!

What gets you excited about your new projects?

The Dreaded Query

So, I stopped blogging.  

That's pretty obvious when you look at this post's timestamp and the post before this one.  

I did not stop writing. 

Why did I stop blogging?  I felt that I kept making goals and not hitting them.  I felt like I was talking about being a writer, but had no finished novel.  I promised myself that I would not blog again until the whole submissions process was ready to go.  I started and then finished a new project.  I revised and revised and revised some more.  Then I found a nice friendly batch of beta readers who read my WiP and gave comments.  

Then I revised some more.

Now my manuscript is ready to go out to the world of agents...  But I have to take my 90,000 word masterpiece and condense it to a couple paragraph query letter.  God, this is scary.

Hailey Troubare had planned on being a Scholar, but when the Edge of the World begins to crumble she must swap books for daggers to battle political intrigue, her family, her lover and the gods themselves in order to save her planet.

Hailey’s mentor is murdered, but the authorities blame his death on old age.  Hailey investigates and uncovers a clandestine organization concealing a prophecy that could eradicate the Edge.  Unfortunately, the prophecy would also release a creature so evil that even the gods fear it.  Hailey believes that saving her world is worth risking the rest of the universe.  Others, including the father of her unborn child, disagree.  Civil war ensues.  Hailey fights against heartbreak, archaic prophecies and sword-wielding mages all while knowing that even if she succeeds, she'll likely lose her life.

I have been writing creatively for my own enjoyment since I could pick up a pencil. I have my BA in Mathematics from Roosevelt University and work in Chicago as a Director of Development in a web software company.

Complete at 90,000 words, PROPHECY’S PROMISE is a first-person fantasy.  The full manuscript is available upon request.

Two questions:

1) Any thoughts on the query?

2) For those of you who have published, how many agents did it take?

1K a Day

So I guess I'm still on this blog.  Will try to do both this and the Maybe to Baby blog.  They have different topics and furthermore, for me, blogging begets writing and writing begets blogging.  It's a nice little circle.

Many of you are just wrapping up NaNo...I had a bit of the oppiset.  NoNo...No Writing November.  This has been a super crazy year for me.  New job.  Graduation.  Traveling.  Starting a start-up (which is still in the starting phase).  It's been crazier and busier for a lot of people, but really, this is the first time ever that I feel truly settled.  And that was kinda crazy in itself too.  So I had to enjoy that.

So, to wrap up the year, I am endeavoring to write 1K a day until 2011.  That should push my first draft mostly over the finish line.  Writing over 1K doesn't make up for the next day.  Every day 1K.

Anyone else have any end-of-the-year resolutions?

Trying to Blog Again

I'm starting another new blog.  I promise this one is for real.  It's going to be pretty similar to what I've been blogging about on here, but I feel like I need a reset since I've had this running around for so long and have come and gone.  Maybe to Baby is my new blog.  I am looking forward to getting back into the community...sorry for being AWOL for so long :-P

Moving!

It is a tough decision...mostly because I really love my blog name, but I'm not writing in this blog enough anyways sooo...I'm moving!

I got a brand new url - newfashionedhousewife.com and will be moving over there.  I'm going to update the RSS feed to start getting info from there!  I hope to see you guys on the new site :)

I will still write about many of the same things that I write about here...namely writing, but it will just be MORE!  I hope you like it :)

Where I Write

We all write somewhere. Most of my "writing" involves day dreaming what my characters will be up to next and that's done walking around town, but as for physically putting words to paper (or data to screen as the case may be) I do most of my writing around my condo or at various coffee shops...but since I am trying desperately to cut back on caffeine, I'm now stuck to the condo.

This is my desk.  I am suppose to write here, but normally do not.
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This techically is not my desk, but Pete has the comfortable chair and I have the cute one.  I like to look at the cute chair and sit at the comfortable one...since I can't really see what I am sitting on, it makes much more sense to sit at Pete's desk.  Also, his screen is bigger :-P

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While this isn't the best ergonomically, I enjoy writing at the bench at the dining room (well, open/big/main room) table.  I get to spread all my papers of notes and thoughts around me.


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I also like to write at the sofa.  Skittles the cat likes it to as she enjoys to take residence on the arm of the sofa.  I couldn't get her to sprawl over it like she usually does...she was too interested in what I was doing.  She is my writing buddy and usually sits near me while I write. 


Where do you write?  Do you like to write at home or away from home?  Does anyone belong to those "writer workplaces" where you can go to a place that is for writers and write there?  I was thinking about joining one.

July Update

Hello Everyone in BlogLand!  I hope that your first 1/3 of the summer has been productive!  I cannot believe that it is flying by so quickly!

My summer has started out pretty well.  I found a new job (yey!!!) and will be starting that on the 19th.  I am sooo unbelievably excited.  I'm ready to start today!  Some of you may recall all the drama at my current job...and for keeping-my-crappy-job-sake, it was only the tip!  I'm very excited to be leaving this drama behind me.

I went to Charleston on vacation last week to visit some of my hubby's family and stopped at the smokey mountains on our way back.  I worked on a short story and a lot of technical documentation and training material so that was fun and different.  I'm hoping to get back to my novel here in the next few weeks which has been on ice for about nine months while I've been doing all these other projects.

I have also worked on alot of my 101 things in 1001 days over the past couple of months so here they are!  I threw in a couple pics for good measure :)

# 17 Get a leadership position in JLC (1/1)
I co-chaired the associate clothing drive.  We raised $1400! :)
 
# 23 Timeshare a sailboat for a summer (1/1)

Doin it right now!  That is the view from "our" sailboat.  We get it about 3-4 times a month for the summer.

# 36 Do ten "touristy" things in Chicago (6/10)
 Biked Lakeshore Drive, Played around at Navy Pier, Checked out Buckingham Fountain

# 40 Get caught up on dental work (1/1)
Bit the bullet and did it!

# 54 Create a budget and stick to it for three months (doesn't have to be consecutive) (1/4)
Created the budget...now to stick to it :(

# 63    Go skiing  (1/1)
It was just baby skiiing up in Wisconsin, but it was still fun :)  I do still want to go out West sometime.

# 64 Visit fifteen states (5/15)
I went to:

California (above--the vineyard Becky and I biked through),
Indiana (many times to visit my family),

South Carolina (above--the beach at sunset),
Tennessee (on the way back from SC to go white water rafting),
Wisconsin (back in early March to go skiing)

# 65 Visit to Central America, Mexico, Africa, Europe, Caribbean (1/5)

Went to Cabo over Thanksgiving...forgot to say that!

# 67 Girls Only Trip (1/1)

California wine country with my friend Becky!  We went to San Fran then to Napa and did some biking around the area. 

# 68 Go white water rafting (1/1)
Went in Tennesee last week.  In addition to white water rafting I also went white water canoeing!

# 95 Take each kid out to something fun three times (4/9)
Took the girls out to Ben and Ari's and seperatly, bowling!

# 102 Host twenty dinner parties with food from various cultures (2/20)

Mexican and Creole.  Above is the Creole Mardi-Gras-Lite Dinner

It's a Matter of Time: What's your Calendar?

Obviously, there are seven days in a week.

Why?

Realistically, it's an arbitrary grouping of days. And there is a grouping of these weeks into a month. And a grouping of these months into a year. To become even more granular...what's a day. Obviously of all these divisions, day is the easiest to understand. However, do you measure the start of a day by the opposite of the highest point of the sun (like we kind of do) or does it start with the sunrise or the sunset?  And then what about divisions within days? Twenty four hours containing 60 minutes which each contain 60 seconds is all very arbitrary.

For those of you writing anything relating to our world then this doesn't really matter, but for those other fantasy writers out there, perhaps building a calendar will add a bit more believability to your world. That being said, you don't want huge nerdy chunks of exposition explaining your calendar or your religion, but having a solid handle on how this works and just showing your reader pieces of it as needed can allude to a complex and vast society that they are only able to see a sliver of and this will leave them wanting more.

Last year I wrote an article (as part of a group project although I did most of the research and all the writing).  The following are excerpts.  If you find this interesting and want more information (the full paper details nearly a dozen different cultures and their calendars) feel free to email me to request the full text.

  The concept of time--be it through hours, days, weeks, months or years--is a fundamental aspect of human life. We need to know when to plant and when to harvest. We need to know how much food to gather in order to survive the long winter.  We need to plan when to meet up with other groups or peoples in our culture and we need to measure the lengths of our lives. These needs can be solved by use of a calendar. A calendar of various levels of complexity existed in every culture. While each culture began with the same clues--moon, stars and sun--different cultures observed different celestial and earthly occurrences depending upon their location on the globe, their culture and their history. But, when trying to map the occurrences in the cosmos to an earthly calendar, problems arise because celestial events do not occur in perfect ratios of each other. A lunar month contains 29.53 days. A solar year contains 365.2507 days. A lunar year of twelve months contains 354.367 days, which is around 11 days short of a solar year, causing the months to slowly pull away from the seasons.
    Thus, compromises are needed in order to create a usable calendar. Different compromises seemed reasonable to different societies depending on their mathematical sophistication, their understanding of astronomy, and their culture. A wide variety of calendar systems have been developed throughout history, each with its own set of trade-offs that reflect how each culture understood math and the cosmos. Some cultures created a calendar based upon the moon, but annual events such as the solstice fell on different days each year. Other calendars respond this by basing themselves upon the sun, resulting in an arbitrary or unrelated lunar cycle. Others interject extra months every few years, a technique known as intercalation, to keep the seasons occurring at approximately the same time each year.  Still others, such as our modern calendar, follow the solar calendar by adding days and even seconds to keep the calendar aligned.

But, all of the first calendars were based upon the moon which has been heralded as the "first chronometer" (Rice 38). The moon, in addition to waxing and waning in a predictable, very obvious and relatively short pattern, also affects the tides. In coastal areas the correlation between new and full moons and a very high tide contributed to civilizations' central view of the moon for calendar purposes and caused them to associate the moon with their deities. As time went on groups had to either live with a calendar that did not predict yearly occurrences such as seasons or change the calendar to accommodate the year. 

The calendar often will also contribute to holidays.  Most cultures, for example, celebrate their new year.  

So, if this has gotten you thinking a little bit just drop me an email at lauren.amundson (at) gmail (dot) com and I can share the full text of the paper with you.  I've got details from why the Egyptians first started understanding the solar year (Nile floods yearly at the same time and colloates with the rising of the star Sirus) to why the Mayans didn't think the world would end in 2012.
 
Every culture has a calendar.  What's yours?  Do any of you fantasy writers out there have a different calendar or any special holidays?  My culture, for example, celebrates the summer solstice as their most holy day.

Start of Summer

Happy Unoffical Start to Summer!  I've had a crazy first half of the year.  Work's been insane.  Very busy with a big project which has completely derailed my writing.  But, something amazing happened this weekend...I started writing again...something that I've not done since around Thanksgiving.  I got only about 700 words in, but it's better than the 0 I've gotten the rest of year...and the 700 words is net...there was a bunch that I had to rip out and I'll be working more tonight, which is great.  I finally feel like being creative again, which I've missed.  It's a funny thing to miss writing.  I knew that I could open up my document on the computer and stare at that blinking little line and maybe put words next to each other, but I was just wasn't feeling it even though I missed writing.  Weird, I know.  But today!  Today, I went to the Coffee Studio and put good ones next to good words and ripped some not so good ones out and thought of a much better progression and minor character development.

Other than the writing, things are going okay.  I'm time sharing a sailboat, which is heaps of fun and might require the addition of pirates into my novel.  Well, not the current WiP as it's all plotted out, but maybe the next one! That's me sailing the boat off to the side.  It's so relaxing...I feel like I'm on a vacation even though I'm still at home in Chicago.  I even have the horible vacation tan line complete with sun burn.  Not fun, but worth it.

It's been exciting to follow/lurk on everyone's blogs over the past several months.  Many people that were just figuring it out as I was are now getting agents and book deals which is crazy exciting!

So, everyone out there, how has it been?  How is your summer shaping up and how is the writing going?