Oh no.

Revising is going along beautifully now.  I have 3 chapters to go and then I'll be able to send it to my critique team...or do I?  As I was working on my revisions last night, a horrible thought seeped into my brain.  "Perhaps," it said, "it isn't a good idea to leave Dream Girl as you do and continue in a sequel.  Perhaps you should continue on and make it into one larger book...to the tune of around 90,000-100,000 words."  There was a moment of panic before I answered this rogue thought.  "No, no no no no!"  I said.  "That's too horrible.  I'm continuing with the plan."  Whew, crisis averted. 
 I had recently read an agent blog post about great books with poor endings.  One of the commenters said how much they hate endings that don't wrap things up and obviously leave an opening for a sequel.  Hmmm.  I had the first sneaking suspicion that I might be guilty of doing that very thing.  I hastily retreated from that thought and back to the safety of revising. 
But today is a new day.  As I was rocking the baby for his morning nap, the thought came back to me.  My ending isn't good enough, but is there any way to do it right, given the circumstances of my story, and still have a sequel?  I used to think there was way too much information left to contain in one debut novel, but now I'm wondering if that's true.  Are 90,000-100,000 words too much?  Which option would be more appealing to an agent or editor?  Can I be honest with myself and put off the excitement of querying and write the rest of the story as one novel?  Could I rework my current ending and leave things as is and go ahead and query?  Would an agent be interested enough in the project to take me on and give me their expert answer about the ending?  Could I ask any more questions about this? 
As our friend Joseph Conrad so brilliantly said in HEART OF DARKNESS, "The horror...the horror." 

All ya gotta do is complain

Well, after the angst and suffering of my last post, I broke through the wall and successfully continued the revising!  If I'd known the only way to dislodge the fuzz in my brain was to publicly complain about how difficult the revisions were, I would have done it a long time ago.  I'm now on Ch. 35 of 43.  I have either cut or combined 6 chapters and I'm feeling good about things again.  (and in case you were overcome with worry about how I handled the party invitation, I cut it and made the party a much smaller scene.  I also trashed all the filler chapters.  Why were they there in the first place?  I don't know, but now they're gone forever.  Whew.  Now we can all rest easy.)
I hope to be done with these first round revisions by the end of this month.  Then it's off to my team of trusted individuals for their brainpower and then I'll revise again based on their comments.  After that, I expect to be agent ready and then the query process will begin.  I have already selected the first 10 agents I want to query.  In a perfect world, at least one of them will be chomping at the bit to snatch me up and then we'll wait for the inevitable book deal.  If not, you'll have a lot of posts about rejection.
In the meantime, I've put another pot on the fire and have resurrected my picture book manuscript, PAJAMA GIRL.  I read an article in the SCBWI Bulletin about MeeGenius.  They publish picture books, in a digital format that can be read online or downloaded to your Iphone, Ipad, etc.  Is this the wave of the future?  Is it a fad?  Is it career death or a career starter?  I'm not sure yet.  I'd love your comments on it.  I'm considering submitting PAJAMA GIRL to them and see what they say.  Could be interesting, could be fun, could be a bad idea.  Time will tell. 
I'd love to see a ton of comments on this one, so get to it!

On and on I go

So I discovered that my own personal hell has a first name, it's Revision.  You thought I was complaining and struggling when I was just finishing the first draft but there was a special ring of Dante's hell waiting.  It is the ring of revisions that will not come.  Seriously, things were going pretty smoothly, too smoothly, until I got to chapter 30.  Things came to a grinding halt as I realized the chapter was merely filler.  So, merrily, I gave it the ax and moved on to chapter 31.  A sinking feeling hit me when I came to the same conclusion about 31.  Scarcely daring to look ahead, I glanced at 32 and discovered there were several small things that had to happen to get us from 29 to 32.  And that is where I've been sitting for a couple weeks now.  A few paltry things to get us from point A to point B, and yet, they won't come. 
As my entire family napped this afternoon,  I decided I was going to push through and get through this so I could finish up the revisions and move on with my life.  No more procrastinating, I was determined to figure it out.  So you know what I did?  I wrote.  What was the result?  More filler.  Nothing more than trite filler to slowly move along to the next exciting bit.  This will not do.  I have been thinking about this, agonizing over this dilemma for the last couple weeks and this is what I discovered.  To get from chapter 29 to 32, I need 2 weeks of largely uneventful time to pass and the protagonist needs to get an invitation to a party.  Put that way, it seems laughable that I'm struggling with this so much.  "Seriously?"  you're thinking.  "You're that hung up about a party invitation?"  Unfortunately, my answer is 'yes'.  (unless I cut the party as well...hmmm...arrgghhh!  Now you have a tiny clue of the nightmare in my brain.)  My beautiful story has fallen apart roughly 3/4 of the way through.  How sad is that?  Sadder still, is the fact that I have to fix it.  It's all up to me. 
Sure, Jay Asher and Paula Morrow think I have a very marketable story here.  They're right.  But you can't market something that isn't finished.  I can't wow my dream agent if I'm not impressed myself.  Believe you me, I have a severe case of not impressed.
I know what I need to do.  I need to tap into the voice of my characters and let them tell me what they need to do next.  Unfortunately, it seems they're taking a vacation together and they haven't left a forwarding address.   

Hope

The SCBWI-Michigan spring conference took place yesterday and it was incredible.  Jay Asher was the keynote.  His book, THIRTEEN REASONS WHY is currently #4 on the NYT Bestsellers List at 60 weeks!  (if you don't quite get what that means, trust me, it's a big deal).  (if you click on his name up there, you will be taken to his blog post about the SCBWI-Michigan conference.  Quite entertaining, even if you weren't there.)
Jay gave a tremendous keynote, entitled "How to Sell a Book in 12 years or less!"  He said a lot of interesting and inspiring things about the big conference I'm going to which gave me a lot of hope for networking and really making some professional strides through attendance.  I'm actually more excited to go than I was before and I was already pretty giddy.
I attended a great breakout on character development by Ruta Rimas of Balzer & Bray. That proved very valuable as I continue the revision process.  I also attended Jay's breakout on injecting suspense into your work which was also fantastic.
All of these great talks led up to the pinnacle of the day for me...a 4pm manuscript critique with Jay Asher himself.  What I was promised was 10 minutes of Jay's time to discuss his thoughts on the first chapter and 3 page summary of my novel.  However, there are advantages to being the last critique of the day, but more about that in a moment.  Jay wrote on my critique worksheet, "Fascinating premise!"  Who wouldn't be excited to hear a successful author say that the very idea of your work is fascinating?  But what really hit home was the portion marked 'notes on marketability'.  Jay's comment there:  "No problem with a premise like this."  Hmmm, where had I heard similar words before?  Oh yes, from Paula Morrow, former editor from the Cricket Group and currently an owner of her own publishing business, Boxing Day Books.  She also told me that DREAM GIRL was highly marketable.  These are the words that make a wannabe author's little heart go pitter patter.  So I now have two professionals who think my idea is unique and cool.  Jay actually said, (and this part is only from memory) that my novel sounded like a great story about really cool characters.  To say I was happy with his critique is the understatement of the year.
     But this isn't where the bliss runs out.  Oh no.  Recall that I said there are advantages to being the last critique of the day?  Well, the critique rooms were way on the other side of the hotel from where  the main action was happening.  When my critique was over, Jay and I had no where to go but back to the other side of the hotel...together...whilst chatting.  The final breakout was already half over and as we approached the room, I asked Jay if I could ask him a question about his book.  He said sure and we proceeded to talk about his book and a few other fun literary things until the other breakout was finished.  All in all, I had Jay Asher all to myself for about half an hour!!!  People who sat at his table for lunch had to share him.  I didn't!  It was totally awesome!  I'm even fairly sure that I managed to carry on intelligent conversation and not be a rambling fool.  That's a big accomplishment! 
     Should you ever find yourself in the position to hear Jay speak, I recommend you do it.  He is such an approachable, funny, genuine, humble person.  His talks were exciting and fun and his advice in my critique was thought provoking and great.  As a result, I'm all Jay Asher, all the time at present...except that I'm fired up to polish DREAM GIRL into the jewel I know she can be.  After all folks, I've got a marketable story here and, after five years, I still love her.  Things are looking good.

At last! (and yet we're still not there)

Well, I'm sure most of you know from my Facebook page (Sarah Perry, Children's and Young Adult Author), I finished the first draft of DREAM GIRL.  Surprisingly, after 5 years of on and off writing, there was no fanfare, no blast of trumpets, no earthquake when I keyed in the final word.  In fact, I couldn't even celebrate with anyone because it was going on midnight and the rest of the household was asleep in their beds.  Even Facebook was a desolate place.  So I watched Youtube videos for the songs I'd listened to while writing and ate a victory bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream.  Then, with nothing better to do, I crawled off to bed myself.  Can you stand the drama?
So when is the book coming out? you may well be asking.  Ah, my friends.  Now is when the real journey begins.  I am now revising, as best I can, in between work, mothering, and a negligible amount of housework.  (Ask my poor husband.  A good housekeeper I am not!)  The struggle of revising has also been put a bit on the back burner as conferences approach.  In a mere 4 days, I'll be attending a conference.  The main attraction, for me, is that Jay Asher will sit down with me for 10 minutes to tell me if my first chapter has any merit.  He is the bestselling author of THIRTEEN REASONS WHY, which is, last time I checked, on the NYT Bestseller list at 59 weeks.
I also signed up for the big conference this summer and booked myself a manuscript critique for the first 15 pages + 1 page summary.  This will be another chance to get the work in front of an agent, editor, or other industry professional who can give me advice which will help me from looking more foolish than necessary when I'm really ready to query.
Oh, and did I mention I won a free agent query letter critique from Elana Roth of Caren Johnson Literary?  That was already enormously valuable.  Thanks to her, I now know that the part of my query that I thought was intriguing and compelling was actually vague and generic.
The bottom line is I feel things are going well with revising and that I'm enormously happy to have access to all this good advice before I start sending it out.  The more mistakes I can correct now, the better my chances of piquing someone's interest and moving to the next step.
In the meantime, let's all read THIRTEEN REASONS WHY and hope Jay has at least one nice thing to say before he rips into my chapter.

Coldplay knows

"Nobody said it was easy.  No one ever said it would be this hard.  Oh take me back to the start." -Coldplay  This song, "The Scientist" came into the rotation as I was writing.  I have a soundtrack carefully assembled to help me keep the mood and momentum of my story.  I have been struggling all day with this chapter, #43 and when this song came on I knew I had to take a break and blog my way through it. 
Ladies and gentlemen, I am in labor.  Labor in all senses of the word.  This book is nearing delivery and we're both struggling hard to get it here. 
I recently read on an editors blog that a mistake newbie authors make is trying to sell a book they haven't finished writing.  This happens because a new book is all consuming, energizing, amazing.  It grabs you in a passionate embrace that doesn't fade until...oh...say, several chapters in.  Once the blush of infatuation has worn off it can be hard to stay with your new book.  There are a lot of break ups.  It's been five years now, but Dream Girl and I have held on to our relationship.  Other potential books and I have flirted, even dated a bit, only to find that we just didn't have the same goals.  We had to part ways.  I've suspected for a long while that Dream Girl is "the one".  We're together and we're going to stay that way.  The only problem is that Dream Girl is the caterpillar in the cocoon and she needs me to get her out.  Let me just state, for the record, that it is a hell of a lot easier to build the cocoon than to extract the butterfly.  Yes, I'm mixing metaphors but you see how this is all swirling around in my brain.  It is harder to write the end of a book because it's sort of like getting the results of an experiment.  (Sorry, a different metaphor)  Throughout the experiment, you're adding elements getting everything set up and then, at the end, you have to make sure those elements lead to the proper outcome.  Did the foreshadowing in chapter 7 actually come to fruition by chapter 15?  Did the set up in chapter 25 give me anything to work with logically by chapter 43?  I know, I know, that's what revising is for but the business of not adding any more elements, tidying up what was already thrown out and making sure that it makes sense, is still worth reading, and satisfying is HARD work. 
There is no epidural for this kind of labor.  It's 100% all natural.  I'm feeling every word.  I love it because I know what I get at the end.  I hate it because the end still feels forever away. 
Oh for those heady days at the start when Dream Girl and I couldn't get to know each other fast enough.  I looked over chapter 1 today...where it all began.  I'm entering it in a manuscript critique for a conference this May, so yes, it's a useful diversion from finishing up.  Looking it over drove home the point that revising is easier than finishing up the course we've set.  (we = the characters and I)  However, it also made me feel that I'm doing well with this.  It's a long, slow, difficult labor, for sure but I am seeing steady progress.  Keep up the cheerleading.  It's time to birth this book! 

The Doldrums

Well, I didn't do much blogging here last month because I was on fire with the actual business of writing Dream Girl.  I managed to hammer out 4 chapters in February and felt quite giddy with joy about it.  I finished February 2 chapters ahead of my goal and down to a total of 8 chapters left to write.  8!  EIGHT!  Hold up 5 fingers on one hand and 3 on the other and you will see how many chapters are left to finish!  It isn't very much is it?  I should be blazing like a wildfire to get those last 8 chapters done, but am I?  Nope. 
The end of February found me with a 4 day jury duty stint on a very serious criminal case that was exhilarating, but energy sapping.  During the same 4 days, an insidious virus was slowly fighting for dominance of my body and the struggle ensued for a total of 12 days.  The baby has also decided that sleep is for the weak and has been slowly but surely making his wake up time earlier and earlier.  (5:30am today...sweet Lord, I can't go on like this!)  So is it really any wonder that I'm looking at my calendar and thinking, "Eh, it's only the 8th.  Plenty of time to write my 2 chapters."  Looking to the past, this would be the part when months would go by with no thought to writing at all.  Normally, it wouldn't bother me and I'd know that I'd pick up again when the time was right, when I felt the urge again.  So this is my long dark night of the soul for my writing life.  But I do have my monthly goal to complete.  I do have the looming deadline of the conference.  I do have the stab of jealous camaraderie when I see updates from fellow writers (who already have that book deal).  I've been looking at blogs by literary agents.  I see what's going on.  Deals are being made.  Writers are writing books, getting paid, feeling proud.  I so desperately want to join them, but I feel that I'm lamely struggling to the finish line of "someday" I'll have a manuscript ready to send out.  This is why writing is a lonely craft.  Besides the solitude of the actual work, you spend a lot of time on the outside looking in.  Longing with an unquenchable thirst to get through that magical door.  And yet, here I am, rubbing my two sticks together haphazardly, hoping to get that spark that will lead me through these last 8 chapters.  Anyone want to sign on as members of my literary cheer leading squad?  No athleticism required.