Where is he?

Has almost a year gone by since I posted anything to this blog? Clearly I'm not one for writing diaries.

I'm still working on my new novel, A Different Place. Here's the logline: After triggering the birth of a duplicate world, a misguided angel hopes to protect its messiah by manipulating an American couple into a time-bending love affair.

With luck, I might finish the book in June 2011.

Decisions, decisions

The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold contest requires entrants to select from a list of five possible genres. The options are Romance, Speculative Fiction, Mystery, Mainstream and Action/Thriller.

The contest also requires identification of a subgenre. If I go with Romance as my broad genre, I can choose between paranormal, time travel or fantasy as the sub-genre. On the other hand, if I choose Speculative, I can pick either fantasy or supernatural.

Let's look at sub-genre first. Two of the major characters in my book are a witch and a sorcerer. Neither has what I would consider a super power. For the most part, they're skilled illusionists and hypnotists. Selection of paranormal or supernatural will pit my book against novels whose characters have far more interesting powers. I'm not sure that's the best fit.

Time travel is a major element of my story. However, the majority of the book takes place in the modern era. I suspect most time travel stories take place either in the past or the future for the most part. Therefore, I'm not comfortable selecting this sub-genre, either.

Finally, we have fantasy. My book introduces a vast hallucinatory universe. This is the element that makes my novel unique.

I'm going with fantasy as my sub-genre.

Now, I have to choose between Romance and Speculative. I've entered about eight Romance Writers of America contests and done well in them. I want to see how my book measures up in a different environment, so I'll be entering the book as speculative fiction and hoping for the best.

Agent pitch post mortem

Around the end of April, I began rewriting and praciticing my agent pitch endlessly. I got it down to a couple hundred words and recited it so many times, it will be stuck in my head forever. However, I never used a word of it.

When my timeslot came up, I sat down with the agent and told him I had completed The Vagrant, a 90,000 word paranormal romance. He then asked about my paranormal element. I told him the story involves time travel and dreams. That made him slump in his chair! For a few very good reasons, time travel and dreams aren't popular themes among agents. However, when I got into the particulars of my vision, he shot back up. My idea is unique, and that's the key, particularly for time travel. He asked for a partial before I told him anything about the story.

I really like this agent and hoped I'd perk his interest. I also heard later that he didn't request many partials that day. So, YAY!

Agent pitch

I'm pitching my novel to an agent during the WisRWA annual conference in May. Here's my draft so far:

The Vagrant is a 90,000 word paranormal romance for young adults. The story is set in Modern-day America with a few flashbacks to earlier times. Throw Rip Van Winkle and Alice in Wonderland into a witch's cauldron, stir them up, and you might conjure this tale.

Rebecca, a young Salem witch, escapes a centuries-long slumber and hooks up with an eighteen-year-old boy named Michael. Each has been longing for a sense of purpose and finds it in the other, but their goals conflict. The boy wants to be Rebecca's white knight. He follows a haunted path through magic mirrors and weird illusions trying to free the girl from her exile in the hallucinatory World of Mortal Dreams -- unaware she doesn't want to be rescued.

Rebecca believes she's linked to Michael by prophecy and hopes to use her netherworld as a time capsule to pull him two centuries forward. He'll lead mankind from the edge of darkness and she'll be the pure witch standing by his side, but she can't tell him that. The Witch's code precludes the girl from revealing anything about her quest except through riddles, illusions and dreams.

Rebecca's sworn secrecy becomes all the more difficult when she and the boy fall in love. The ability to keep slipping out of exile and visit him is diminishing fast. She'll soon lose Michael if he doesn't figure things out. But if she relents, ignores the Code and tells him everything, she can't possibly be the pure witch described in the prophecy, and he might not be the messiah.

On New Years resolutions, contests and writer's block

Reading fifty-two novels in fifty-two weeks requires a lot more commitment than I imagined. I've had to give up some TV shows. That's a good thing, right? Anyway, I'm midway through novel #5, and the year isn't four weeks old yet, so yay!

Books read: The Lay of the Land, One Second After, The Financial Lives of the Poets, and The Zero.

Now reading: Then We Came to the End (This is a wonderful book. Anyone who enjoys watching The Office will love it)

I've been posting reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com after finishing each book.

My own little novel, The Vagrant has been picked as a finalist in the Silicon Valley RWA chapter's Gotcha contest. This contest is a bit unusual in that none of the four finalists from each category (I entered paranormal) will be selected as a winner. Each of us has already won by being picked, and we'll each receive a critique from the final judge. In the past, about half of the finalists have received manuscript requests as well. I sure hope to be a lucky one. The final judge is the editor for an independent publishing house about an hour down the road from me.

Ever since completing The Vagrant, I've been plagued by writer's block. A couple of my online friends have explained this to be a form of grieving. After spending so much time with the wonderful characters in my novel, it's hard for me to let them go. I did start a new YA paranormal and get three chapters into it, but I couldn't go any farther. I became fixated with the misguided belief that I'm too old to write a sixteen-year-old's point of view, and YA is no longer the right genre for me.

I tried restarting my new story using adults as protagonists. However, I stalled again when I realized my voice isn't anywhere as good as those of the contemporary adult writers whose novels I've been reading lately.

Finally, I decided to stop worrying about the strength of my voice and just write my own unique novel in my own unique way. I'm going to blend the two story openings by using multiple points of view - two adults and two teenagers.

And today I wrote 300 words.

Besides reading all of those novels and writing one of my own, I made a New Year's resolution to ride 1,000 miles on my bicycle this year. Sadly, the weather has been too cold and icy to get started. When does spring start? I'm ready!

New Years Resolutions

New Years resolutions have always struck me as unsustainable, behavior-changing promises. They might see the light of day, or perhaps a week, but certainly no longer than that. Few of us can escape from ourselves.

Yet suppose we resolve to do things that aren't behavior-changing? Suppose we identify certain positive activites in our lives and simply resolve to engage in these activities more often -- much more often -- in fact, so often that few people in the entire country might match the combination of feats we plan?

I could do that. Yeah.

So here's my list. Three simple things. If I can accomplish these three things in combination, I'll be unique:

WRITING - Write a novel
I've just begun the first draft of my new novel, Invulnerable. I resolve to complete this novel in 2010.

READING - Read a ton
I received a Kindle as a Christmas gift and found I can now read in bed without getting sleepy. I resolve to read one book per week for a total of fifty-two books in 2010.

Exercise - Wear out my bicycle
Here's the really hard one. I live in Wisconsin where we're lucky to have 200 good, bicycle-riding days in a year. I resolve to ride five miles on each of those days for a total of 1,000 miles in 2010.

What's your list?

Moving on

I put the finishing touches on The Vagrant and sent it off it to the Golden Heart contest, followed up with queries to a half dozen agents and publishers, watched some movies, daydreamed, moped, critiqued a chapter for my partner, moped some more, got bored and started toying with ideas for my next novel.

There's the ghost story I think about whenever wondering what to write. And the found a briefcase full of money story. Sadly, Cormac McCarthy raised the bar for that one.

Or a zombie story . . . yeah, like the world needs another one of those.

Then it hit me. A sad, gnawing, abandoned-my-kitten guilt. I spent 10,000 words last spring beginning a story about a brother and sister, a leprechaun, a mysterious girl from another dimension and an angel. They've been frozen in the ether, waiting for me to bring them back to life.

The name of the story is Invulnerable, and I'll be working on it for a good long while.

The Story Queen's last hurrah

As noted in my previous post, I recoined my WIP The Vagrant. However, prior to the start of the rewrite, I entered the first few chapters and synopsis in the Indiana Romance Writers' Golden Opportunity contest.

I'm delighted to say the entry has been selected as a finalist in the paranormal category!

What happened to The Story Queen?

Michael Danahey's story about the magical girl who changed his life needed a second voice - Rebecca's. I'm rewriting the book as a third person narrative from both points of view. The new story has been recoined The Vagrant.

Why the change? My original novel just didn't fly with literary agents and contest judges. I want to get the darn thing published. Trying to sell a first person point of view novel is a difficult task for a first-time novelist.

More importantly, several wonderful scenes from Rebecca's POV exploded into my head. She kicked the door down to let herself in.

You might think rewriting an entire novel to change the narrative style is tough enough, but that's the least of my worries. Michael's motivation had to be strengthened, particularly early in the story. Occasional passive sentence structure weakened my voice throughout the book. (Find all uses of that in your own work - a great way to flag passive sentences. Then go to work on other losers such as was, were, so, because, there). Finally, I have a frustrating tendency to tell rather than show Michael's emotions and reactions to things. Somehow, I don't have this problem with Rebecca. Go figure.

I started the rewrite two months ago. Despite the fact I've spent almost all my leisure time on the thing, I'm only a third of the way through the book. But that's okay. This has been the most absorbing, enjoyable project I ever worked on. I'm an alchemist, turning tin into gold! All other WIPs are on the back burner until I finish this one.

Special thanks to eharlequin. I used their bulletin board to find a critique partner. After two unsuccessful attempts, I had the great luck of finding a writer whose skill level matches mine. She's a wizard at identifying duplicate words and the queen of showing not telling. When this novel gets published, she'll be the first one I mention in the dedication.

Joe

The Story Queen is a Finalist!

The Heartland Romance Authors RWA chapter has announced The Story Queen as a finalist in the 2009 Show Me the Spark contest.

I was blown away by the scores and judges' comments. I have three fans out there!

So, now what? Well, for one thing, I need to edit the 17th century Salem passages and sharpen the dialect, using my brother's helpful critique as a guide. And the modern-day dialogue has a bit too much teenspeak in certain passages. I'll fix that, too. After that, I'll wait for the final results and hope one of the final judges asks to see the manuscript. I still have some queries to agents floating around out there, too.

Mostly, though, it's time to move on. I've started a new WIP, tentatively named Invulnerable. It'll be another young adult paranormal romance, this time with a comic book theme. I've completed the first chapter (fodder for a few contests next year!) but only have a vague idea where the story will go. That's the fun part. Getting into that zone and letting the story tell itself.

Joe

2009 Fab Five contest

This was my first time coordinating (Paranormal) and judging (Historical Romance) in the WisRWA FabFive contest. In the words of Groucho Marx, I’d never join a club that would have me as a member, but Karen took a chance on me. Being a newbie, I worked extra hard to get it right.

Coordinating fit like an old glove. I love converting chaos to order. That’s why I’m the one at home who does the laundry at home. I draw the line at dishes, though.

Twenty-four contestants entered my category, the bulk of them arriving in a flurry during the last couple days. I edited format, organized the entries and got them off to fourteen different judges. Each entry was judged by three different people, so my twenty-four entries exploded to seventy-two separate documents! Naturally, a bunch of the judges waited until the last possible moment to do their judging, so a wave of critiqued and scored entries came back right at the deadline or a little beyond. I was happy to see that even the stragglers did a great job of critiquing. Only one of my fourteen judges was stingy when it came to writing comments all over the entries.

As a coordinator, I had the opportunity to read twenty-four pieces of unpublished work. I didn’t really need to do that as part of my assignment, but how could I resist? I also read all of the critiques. Let me tell you, seeing the entries through so many discerning eyes was a major educational experience. It will undoubtedly help me improve my own writing going forward.

Judging was a great experience. The poorest entries were the hardest to critique, of course, and I spent extra time on them. Hopefully my gentle explanation of concepts such as GMC and POV will encourage the struggling new writers in my group of entrants to read a few books on writing and become better novelists. I tried to help even the best writers by pointing out where sentence structure could be made more interesting or where the dialogue might flow better with fewer tags. There was a time many years ago when I thought about becoming a teacher. Judging brought out that side of me.

Finally, I made new friends among the judges and some of the entrants as a result of my FabFive participation, so I got something of lasting value from the experience.

Can’t wait till next year’s contest!

pi

I had forgotten how good this movie is. I love picking up a book or DVD that has been set aside so long the story is fresh and interesting again.

Post-story funk

I need to be patient about my new novel . The first chapter is entered in three contests. Since most editors and agents ask to see the beginning of a book, I don't want to start querying until I receive judge feedback. It'll be important for me to put my best foot forward when submitting, and I want to correct any shortcomings the judges identify.

Then there's the matter of my test readers. Two in particular are important. My daughter plans to make some suggestions regarding the teen dialogue in the book. She thinks I may have sprinkled a bit too much urban slang into it. And my brother, a former English professor, is looking at my "Shakespeare-Lite" dialogue in the passages when my hero travels back to 1692 Salem. Two other readers (one a teenager!) liked the book.

So, I'm going to take my time with this project. When contest and reader input comes in, I'll go from there. A quick rewrite might be necessary to correct grammar and dialogue. I might decide to enter a few more contests. Meanwhile, I have a new project idea, tentatively titled Invulnerable. First two scenes are drafted, and I have a general theme in mind. I'm not excited about the story yet, but that will come soon.

On Writing

I finished my first novel in July 2008. The Martyr Club is a 90,000 word dark satire about religion, sex and violence. The book needs a rewrite before it goes anywhere, and I don't know whether I'm up to it. I'm not a dark person.

I didn't have any credentials for writing a novel, really. Yes I'm college-educated and did take a fiction writing class many years ago, but my entire career has been that of a businessman persuing the American dream, and I've had no training to do anything else. When creating The Martyr Club, I knew nothing about hooks, point of view, sentence structure, GMC or the myriad of other tools a fiction writer needs to capture a reader's interest.

So after finishing that book, I crammed. Stephen King's On Writing served as my first instruction manual, followed by Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools, Renni Browne's and Dave King's Self-editing for Fiction Writers, Noah Lukeman's The Plot Thickens, and Debra Dixon's Goal, Motivation and Conflict.

I also joined Romance Writers of America so that I could hang around writers and pick up ideas. I think of myself as a writer now. That isn't to say I neglect the business career that has paid the bills for so many years. But a businessman isn't how I want to define myself.

Last month, I completed my second novel, The Story Queen. I love the characters who came to life in this story and hope readers will, too.

Why do I write? At first I wanted to be famous. And rich. I wanted to be in US Magazine eating a hamburger with a caption beneath saying "Celebrities -- they're just like us. "

But now I write, because I find fulfillment that way. I'm proud of my stories and love turning a good phrase. I hate most of the books out there that follow the formula but lack the snappy dialogue and vivid descriptions that readers want. My books won't be like that. No matter the plot or genre, my books will contain passages that a reader might remember.

About The Story Queen

The first good story I ever wrote was done during an airplane trip to a forgotten destination. It's a ballad about a Medieval bum shanghaied to fight a dragon. The vagrant manages to escape and find the love of his life, but just as he kisses her, everthing scatters in the fading remnants of a dream. The story ends on an uncertain note when a dragon flies above the waking man, suggesting that his adventure may have been real. I called that poem The Vagrant.

Sometime later, I wrote The Story Queen to develop a side character. And after that, I wrote the Dream Shadow, to present the first two stories from a different angle and further explore the fine line between dreams and reality.

I was on a poetry writing binge at the time, in the late nineties, and not much of it was very good. However, I held out hope for these three poems, wanting to weave them into a picture book for children, perhaps adding others as well.

I never did.

Many years later, in late 2008 to be precise, I conceived the shadowy idea for a story about a teenage boy who is enchanted by a mysterious Irish girl. In the opening chapter of that novel, Rebecca pulls a book from a shelf and tells Michael that she'd like to read one of her poems to him.

I didn't know what Rebecca was going to read until I peeked over her shoulder and saw The Vagrant. From that inspiration came a novel called The Story Queen. I just completed the third draft of this book and feel that it's something special, whether it gets published or not. At the moment, it's in the hands of some test readers. I've also entered the opening in three different RWA chapter contests. Presuming the judges score favorably and don't suggest major revisions, I'll start querying agents and publishers.

Here are the first three stanzas that Rebecca read to Michael.

Sunlight bathes his face from blue skies overhead.
He blinks,
and sleep fades from his eyes.
Rising now from mounds of leaves which formed his bed,
he stands as morning dew drops dry.

Kneeling by a brook, he washes shaves and drinks.
Light beard,
blue eyes stare back at him.
Combing long blond hair, "adventure" he now thinks.
"A day
of magic is my whim."

As he walks through town a voice from shadows cries,
"Go in,
your fortune she will tell."
"No." The vagrant laughs. "The future care not I!"
"Go in!"
The voice a magic spell.