Choosing a World to Build

In the past, when I've finished a book, I take a week or two off to clear out the previous book's webs in my brain-attic, then start on a new project.

This time, I took a different approach. I asked Agent B (the incredibly marvelous Barbara Poelle of The Irene Goodman Literary Agency) if she thought I should come up with a few more book ideas and we could chat about them before I started the next book. She said to come up with 20. Not 19, not 21. Exactly 20. She told me a story about another client of hers (who I have MAD respect for) that did this same thing, before she wrote her first best seller. So you can imagine how pumped I was to start.

Twenty is HARD.

Firstly, I always have a couple of ideas rattling around my head. Once I cleared out the dross and glitter globules of my brain, I found I had four.

Four is far away from twenty, you know.

Also, some of these ideas were a sentence. They needed some serious fleshing out.

I spent December's waking hours fleshing out my four initial ideas—giving them character names and ambitions and tweaking the blurb (we decided I'd write a 'blurb' for each of the books, as if I'd already written the damn thing and knew what happened at the end. Which I don't.)

But when I was asleep, or running or shoveling snow my brain was churning. The challenge and glory of having to come up with 20 story ideas is that you need to be less precious. You can't wait for your muse to hit you over the head with the story-stick, you need to grab ideas, turn them upside down and shake them until they say 'uncle' or until they bloom into something good. Every article I read I asked myself, Is there was a story there? Every TV show I asked myself if there was a fresh, me-like angle on the story. Music videos, billboards, other people's conversation. I was like the prince in Cinderella grabbing on to anyone with a lower limb trying to fit a shoe, uh, I mean, story on.

It felt a little feverish, seeing every tiny thread as a story waiting to be told. And exciting, and a little exhausting. Even after I had 23 ideas I could refine, I kept searching. A lot of my ideas came from dreams. A lot came from reading articles. Two came from something my kids said.

That was only part one of the exercise. The heavy lifting came when I spoke to B. She asked a lot of questions. Poking my ideas with her own Yoda-like story-stick to see if they held up, made sense and had legs.

The twenty became seven. Then were down to 2. Now I have narrowed it down to 1.

This story is where I'm world building next. I'm excited.

Shiny New Projects

How many books have you written? (and by written, I mean finished.)

I’ve written three. And one thing keeps surprising me. How hard it is to start the next thing.

When you’re waiting for some  form of rejection/acceptance - be it from an agent or publisher or some other interested party, the best advice (which I follow) is to get busy and work. Work is the only thing that will ever get you closer to whatever your goal is (unless your goal is to give up. in that case, don’t do anything, you’re good.)

But getting back on the horse is HARD. and even though I blogged about the last time I did this here, I was still a little blindsided by how hard it is.

Finding your next WIP. 

What will you work on? There’s no shortage of ideas in your head, your mind is a beehive and the honey is flowing, but which idea is really worth it? And how do you know? While my book was with beta readers in December, I started to outline (see here for more about my religious conversion from Pantser to Plotter) a story I’ve had in my head for a long time. I’ve been thinking and talking about this book for years. I even have a pretty solid idea of what happens. Plus, it involves stand up comedy, a mermaid and a girl who may or may not be hallucinating. Even to me it sounds like it’s right up my alley. My outline made it on to my whiteboard and I got books out of the library and started researching and talking to my husband.

Maybe that’s where it all went horribly wrong for the book I call JOKE. I told my husband I had three stories in my head and didn’t know which one to go with. One was called JOKE, the other was called VOX and the third was literally only a title. Guess which one he thought had the most promise? Yeah, the title.

I basically thought he was insane. and anyway, it’s not like he reads a lot of YA/Children’s books. Mostly he’s reading Stephen King, TITUS GROAN and Dennis Wheatley. I went back to work on JOKE. And I couldn’t get it off the ground. I mean, the sucker just didn’t have any lift. I knew the story arc; I had figured out a lot of plot logistics. I probably spent about two weeks with JOKE before I realized it was a dead parrot.

When something feels like a heavy lift - even if all the elements seem to be there for a great story - I believe there’s a reason for the drag. It’s not that the idea sucks, necessarily, or that I can’t write it. I think it means that this isn’t the time for THIS idea and I’m not ready to write it NOW. I trust those instincts. So, if something feels lifeless to you as a writer before you have written it, it will in all likelihood feel that way to your readers.

Loving your next WIP.

You settle on your next project. You do your research. You start to plot out your story arc (or you do what I did and take Ramona Defelice Long’s excellent online course on story arc - but warning, she will kick your story’s ass.) Or maybe you are a degenerate pantser (KIDDING!) and just plunge in with full heart, bright eyes. Great. But as you get deeper into the first draft, still in Act 1 but maybe two, three chapters in, you realize you are not singing the Ava Marias. You are not going, "Damn, I’m good." You are going yuck and god that’s so boring and MAKES NO SENSE. You know what happened there? You forgot to zip up your inner editor. It’s natural, especially after coming out of the revision period you spent (months in my case) shining up your last WIP. You’re still in edit mode and you must get out of that mode. It’s hard to do. It’s more than just saying to yourself “Self, now stop that editing nonsense and let the free flow of ideas come forth.” It’s not that easy. I have to constantly remind myself that the reason these words on this WIP are not as lovely and shiny as the words on my last WIP is not because this one is sub par, but because I spent SIX MONTHS with the other pretty. This one I’ve spent a week and a half on. Give the relationship some time, won’t you? Before you break up? It won’t feel comfortable and zingy - it can’t yet. You’re back in the basement building with Legos - foundation up. Give yourself time.

Don't Bring Your last MC to this book (unless your writing the next book in a series.)
Because I’ve written a couple of books before I am keenly aware (and concerned about) having my main characters sound like each other. It's so easy, after getting into the mind of your last MC, to just stay there, change the skin of the character (now she's a he and instead of a teenager, he's ten!) but unintentionally be writing the SAME CHARACTER. Ask yourself the questions about who your MC is before you start writing. Be aware if the new character and the old character are too similar. I find that doing a deep character write up of the MC before I start writing helps me get the voice of THAT character started, and helps me leave the voice of the LAST main character behind.

Clean the palate, start at zero. Your new WIP is a new world. Be ready.

How do you start a new project?

How to Say Goodbye to your MS

You've hit send. You're done with the book (unless someone - your agent, a publisher, an editor, your mom comes to you with edits/revisions.) How do you move on to your next project? How do you stop obsessively thinking about the people and world you created - spent months or years shaping - to move on to the next project?

Every writer gets to this point, regardless of whether you are published or not. For whatever reason, more tinkering cannot be done on your baby. You need to let her go (SNIFF!)

Here are my tips for saying goodbye to your ms and moving on to your next Work In Progress.

1) Bask in the Glory That is You (I know this is grammatically awkward, but cut me some slack.)
You wrote a book. Regardless of what happens now, nothing and nobody can take that away from you. My excellent writer pal, Jenny Herrera sent me a care package, just because I finished a book. (Obviously, she is awesome and I will have to work hard to reach that level of awesome.) She sent me homemade cookies (choc chip w/ popcorn!!! go harass her for the recipe, it's amazing.) an inspiring writing book, oranges, a funny pin, book plates - just things that let me know she was proud of me. But she wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't told people that I'd finished FIND ME. So brag a little. Post your accomplishment on Facebook. Tweet about it. Call your friends. Let them throw some love on you. Then throw some love on yourself, too. Take this moment, before anything else can color your perception of yourself or your book to realize that YES. YOU WROTE A BOOK. That is something most people have never done, and will never do.

2) Take a Break (part 1)
The state of my housekeeping during the last weeks of revising was, shall we say, less than stellar. My hedges were overgrown, I forgot to send snacks in for my pre-schooler's school (the shame burns) and the lady at the Burger King was starting to call me by name. Everything took a backseat to the book. Now I can cook. I can plant my seedlings. I can work on my other (non-writing) projects. I can have clean underpants. The Villasante household is humming along again and I've even completed my taxes (4 days to spare, WOO HOO!) Take a few days to take care of non writing business. This will make you feel less frantic when you jump back into writing.

3) Take a Break (part 2)
You've been in your writing cave, working and re-working your ideas. If you are smart, you've also been reading the whole time -feeding the hopper of your mind with how other writers craft. All good. But now that you're not actively crafting, you need to step up your exposure to culture. Art. Writing. Music. History. News. Your kids art show in the gym. NATURE (especially now that the world is exploding in floral gorgeousness.) Nourish your writing soul with things that are not necessarily writing. I'm not saying don't read. But I am saying PLAY. All these things will feed your future writing.

4) Start Again - And Don't Panic
The first time I said goodbye to a book, I took the advice of starting a new project to heart. How do you stand the waiting (which is indeed, Tom Petty, the hardest part)? You start your next project, says everyone, ever. All well and good. But what they don't tell you is that you'll feel like you're two-timing your last ms. You'll feel the pull of the world you left on your new, fledgeling work. It's kind of unfair. You're last manuscript is gorgeous, polished and refined. You're new WIP is messy, kind of short and shallow. OF COURSE if you compare the two, you're going to prefer your last ms. You might not feel the same passion for your new project as you did for the one you just left. This is normal. I remember feeling quite depressed, when I started FIND ME almost a year ago, that it wasn't as good as my last book. I felt like it wasn't taking off, it didn't POP. It took me two solid months of writing FIND ME to feel like I'd found the story's groove. So: Don't give up on the new project too quickly. Don't compare it to the last project. Don't feel badly if you don't fall in love with it right away. Writing love will grow.