155 posts tagged “novel”
I've finished my edits and e-mailed the new draft off to my agent.
And I'm already uneasy that she won't think I made the changes she wanted the way she wanted.
That feeling should fade once I start doing all the fun things I've been putting off while writing this book. And if she sells it, some publisher is probably going to want more (or different) changes, anyway.
It's the last day I'm editing this novel manuscript and I'm still not happy with the way I've named this one secondary character's job. He works in a children's wish charity. There are other employees who do the fundraising and the communications, IT, administration and accounting. He's the guy who is the one general laborer. He goes and actually gets the stuff they give the kids. He delivers it. He modifies it, if the kid's needs require it. He deals with anything hands-on. But I can't think of an atual job title -- Operations something-or-other? Anybody got a thought? I'm not trying to make him sound high-falutin', just want to be accurate.
I'm taking an extended break in my 25 minutes-on 5 minutes-off schedule today to post an FSotD to prove that I have been writing today!
With the goatee grown in, David now looked like his own evil twin.
(I stole this from real life -- the same is true of Cappy when he has one.)
Okay, break over, back to it.
A couple of hours in a coffee shop this afternoon got my mojo going on these polishes to my current novel manuscript (especially by having no free wireless internet accessible -- boy, does that help my productivity). Here's my first FSotD I had this afternoon:
Jane being crushed low was like the felling of a great redwood.
Then there's one that's an in-joke. I have a pitcher character (as I commented to cranky this week), and my agent wants me to put more physical descriptions of characters in the book (something I'm remiss on), so here's a line about him:
Stash was too busy checking his ego in a mirror, along with the progress of his most current misguided facial hair configuration—a straight stripe of goatee down the middle of his chin.
Yes, cranks, I decided in my mind's eye that this character, even though he's a pitcher, looks like Jayson Werth. I was inspired after reading today that Werth has recently changed his walk-up to at-bat song from "Heavy Metal" by Sammy Hagar to "Sex on Fire" by Kings of Leon. Very much aware of our pull with the ladeez, aren't we Jayson? I couldn't resist, because I agree he's hot -- all except the facial hair. All the Phillies except Chan Ho Park have very bad beardage and should shave them off now.
By the way, when I was checking the available networks on my laptop (a girl can hope), there was one labelled CrankyPants. But it was secured, so I couldn't snoop and see who in downtown Toronto has stolen our cranky's handle.
Okay, back to it. Gotta get more done before game time. Go Phillies!
Usually I use Saturday for yoga and chores, and write on Sunday, but my yoga class is cancelled till we get out indoor space back again, and I'm going for a bite and a movie with Patricia tomorrow, so today's writing day by default. I'm pleased to say I was at the computer, actually working, not surfing, by 10:07 this morning. Go me! And I already have a Funnest Sentence of the Day, to wit:
Valeria had been the most productive office employee on the planet till David taught her to play Solitaire on the computer and stop bringing down the world average on time-wasting.
My task today is working up more detailed backstories for the characters in the novel I recently gave my agent to read. She likes the manuscript a ton, but wants the characters, who are mostly only seen in their shared workplace setting, to have a little more grounding, so I'm going to massage in more details from their backgrounds and home lives into the narrative. Once I work them out. This means I'm not racking up big word count, just conceptualizing and adding dribs and drabs here and there, like a painter adding highlights to a landscape.
I'm also trying to fight distraction, or more importantly, distracting myself from the job at hand. Which means not baking the cupcakes I want to, not reading my new library book, not watching the TV show I recorded last night, limiting the Internet, getting off this Vox post kind of now-ish...
From the critiquing sessions at my writers retreat (this is a great group for critiquing, very smart and incisive and constructivie), these were the "we need that on a t-shirt" lines.
Rob, yesterday, on Madeline's partial novel: "It seems odd that there's no repercussions to being eaten."
Me, yesterday, also on Madeline's plot points: "This character doesn't just break Asimov's First Law of Robotics, she Michael Bays it out of existence."
Madeline, today, on the main character in my missing kid novel: "Outside of suspecting everyone of child molestation and avarice, this character doesn't seem to have a hobby."
The funnest sentence I wrote today:
A widescreen picture of the little boy’s vitals wasn’t much to munch popcorn to, though they were as white-knuckle as any movie climax.
Other creativity in the halls of the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts:
That's a scale model of the ferry that usually takes us to this end of the Island (when there's no strike on), and a painting in which the main subject bears an uncanny resemblance to one of the Centre staff.
Here's the "library" in the Centre, full of arts publications and copies of books written by people who worked on them here:
And thanks to the author copy I brought and inscribed for the Centre, Godblog now joins the ranks of those works.
First the news. Finally, it can be told. I've been sitting on this because it's been in the works since early April at least, but now we're down to the short strokes, and I announced it publicly at the reading last night for the first time, so...
I'm about to sign a contract for the film rights to Godblog with an independent Canadian production company.
Can I get a YAY? The screenwriter who'll be adapting the book is a friend of mine, and he has my trust. He brought this producer into the project, and will be a co-producer himself. We've already talked a little about creative direction, because some things will have to be changed for a film, and I'm not alarmed by anything they're thinking about. In fact, I even gave them some ideas for changes.
Film development takes time, so "when is it going to be shot?" and "when can I see it?" are not questions for now. Not every film that starts development gets made. So for now, I'm just celebrating the fact that there's an option on the book, that lets them start developing a script and looking for funding, and I get a fee it. But mostly, I'm jazzed about the idea that there are people out there who are so enthusiastic about my work, that they are now putting their professional time and energy into it.
Now, the reading. It was great. Small, iconic Toronto independent bookstore with a 30-year history, and 20-some people on folding chairs filled it. Despite the credentials of the other authors, at least half the audience was from my invite list. I read first.
Michael Wex did an amazing performance, not a reading because he did it from memory, sort of a beat-poet thing on Yiddish that was hilarious. Mark Leiren-Young read from his book Never Shoot a Stampede Queen, and was hugely funny, too.
Here's me and Mark, who had also introduced me as a "superhero" in my day job protecting screenwriters and "fantastic" person and mentioned my cat rescues and everything.
And here's the piece of cake I had with Mark and his girlfriend at about 10:45 p.m., after the whole dealio.
This was my first food since a few carrots at about 4 p.m. I didn't get home till after midnight. This week has been such a whirlwind with chores and cats and obligations and all and my mind is still going 90 miles a minute with all I have to still do before getting on a plane tomorrow. But last night was huge, huge fun.
This weekend I'm trying to write, since I won't be writing the next two weekends. I also did cat trapping last night (see post below) and am trying to pick off chore after household chore on my to-do list. There is a Perfect (and I do mean Perfect) Storm of a social whirl on my calendar coming up, to wit:
- my major author appearance on Wednesday, reading from Godblog, for which I still haven't settled on the scene(s) I'm going to read and my peeps have been generally uninspired to suggest any, even for a prize
- weekend at the Chicago Squee-Up, where Cappy and I will rendezvous, of course, along with the other peeps
- Cappy coming back from Chicago with me to spend a week here, leaving on the 28th. (We actually get to fly together for the first time.)
So while I'm prepping to travel, and cleaning up to have company, and keep up with other cat and personal commitments, I'm still trying to keep momentum on my immediate missing kid novel project, which I want to have a largish contiguous chunk of for my mid-July writer's retreat.
I did 800 words yesterday, and am very proud of the fact that the last hundred came after midnight. Yes, I went back to it after the cat trapping high, and a bunch of futzing around online, not concentrating through the latter part of the evening. Good for me.
I'd like to do 1,000 words today before 3 p.m., when I'm meeting Patricia at a coffee shop. I have about 900 to go. Gah.
Here's an FSotD from yesterday, and one from today already (jumping the gun a little, I know).
In the current social climate, the latte had now replaced the bottle of scotch in the desk drawer, and even better, could be openly flaunted.
“Winsome’s never wrong,” Margaret said, proving again that everyone our office assistant met gave her the kind of loyalty one usually only commanded with a hard drive full of blackmail photos.
Have a great Sunday!
It was for once warm enough, and not too windy to write up on the penthouse patio at my building today. And bonus, I had it all to myself. I spent several hours up there, with no internet connection, and felt productive. So here's my FSotD:
My worry these days was that I’d find only one of Madison’s legs and would still have to keep looking for the other.
Tonight I think I'll go see Up at the movies as a reward.
Don't forget to weigh in on my Godblog contest!
I got an e-mail at the end of the work day yesterday from a writer friend. "Wanna read with me?" was the subject line. He's doing a reading at an iconic Toronto bookstore with another writer and the bookstore owner wanted a third person and asked Mark to suggest one. "I know this great author!" he apparently said, and promptly invited me. W00t!
Here's the really cool part. Mark just won a major Canadian humor award, the Stephen Leacock Medal (comes with a big chunk of cash, too), for his comic memoir. Mark also knows a million people, has worked in a ton of media and usually drums up lots of publicity for his appearances. He will draw a good number of people, I think. I don't know the other writer, but here are the full details on the who and the where and the when (I'll provide a link to the bookstore's events page when they have it posted -- this was all confirmed about 6 p.m. last night). I don't even know the order we'll read in.
Author Readings at This Ain't the Rosedale Library, Wednesday June 17, 8 p.m.
86 Nassau St. in Kensington Market Toronto
(416) 929-9912 www.thisaint.ca
Mark Leiren-Young, winner of the 2009 Stephen Leacock Medal for humor, reading from
Never Shoot a Stampede Queen: A Rookie Reporter in the Cariboo
Michael Wex, reading from Born to Kvetch (a New York Times bestseller)
Laurie Channer, reading from her debut novel Godblog
Absolutely feel free to pass on to anyone you know in Toronto, repost to your other blogs and stuff, and if you've read and liked Godblog, maybe add that in.
But holy crap, look at the credentials on those guys. This will be a humor lineup, and we know there's plenty of laughs in Godblog (black comic or otherwise), so here's the interactive part. I'm looking for suggestions from those of you within the sound of my typing who've read Godblog for the funniest part to do a reading from (I'll probably do up between 10 and 15 minutes worth, so I could do a couple of scenes, not necessarily from the same part of the book).
And I'm going to ask one more favor of you, too, since I have your eyes over here momentarily. If you read and enjoyed Godblog, could you please post a review on Amazon? I read recently that since book review space is shrinking in newspapers, that on-line customer reviews carry a lot of weight to the book-buying public these days. (You might only be able to put a review up if you bought it on Amazon, but every little bit helps.) And thanks in advance, and thanks to those of you who previously did so of your own volition.
Now the draw - the day before the event, I'll make a random draw of all the Voxers who make suggestions for my reading, and will buy a copy of Mark's book that night, get it signed TO YOU and send it TO YOU. You could win even if I don't read your suggested scene. I need to make this random because several people might suggest the same scene.
Here we go...
