aamcnamara

I was kindly tagged for this meme by Brit Mandelo. Time for a finals break!

1) What is the working title of your next book?
Whisper-Trail (as I am sure everyone reading this LJ knows by now).

2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
Thoughts about urban fantasy--particularly, about the mundane protagonist in urban fantasy novels and how to make that work without any kind of Chosen One thing. These thoughts have been percolating for a while, it's also part of the last urban fantasy novel I drafted (not sure if that one is salvageable), but this is a different take.

3) What genre does your book fall under?
Urban fantasy, with a dash of mystery. I guess early-college-age protagonists aren't quite YA, so it's probably in that weird "New Adult" category.

4) What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?
Shockingly (I am horrible at actors!), I have some for this: Ellen Page as Heather (the protagonist). Evanna Lynch as Eva (Heather's roommate). A younger Natalie Portman as Els. I don't know who would play Francis (detective, sort of) or Marisol (Heather's ex-girlfriend) or a lot of other people--there isn't a very wide spectrum of gender presentation among young-ish female actors. (I do not blame the actors for this.)

5) What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?
Twilight for sensible people, but with lesbians. --um. Heather helps to solve a supernatural murder mystery, and gets in for a lot more than she bargained for.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?
An excellent question. When I find out, I will let you know.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?
So far, almost a year (earliest file is from January 17, 2012), due to stops and starts; I'm almost exactly halfway through.

8) What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Finder by Emma Bull, which I only realized recently. Also, Lies and Prophecy by Marie Brennan.

9) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
That is a very good question, and I have lost all my notes. (Actually they are probably in a notebook somewhere, but one I do not have with me at the moment.)

10) What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?
It's full of queer people! It's full of people frequently being horribly awkward, but well-intentioned, and mostly-but-not-entirely avoiding being total jerks to each other! Also, major restructuring of power within a city, and the problems of how to be a part of a community you really want to be a part of without forcing your way into it. And I am pretty sure the major emotional relationship in the novel is going to be the protagonist gaining a best friend.


Is there anyone who hasn't done this meme yet who wants to? If so, sound off in the comments, and consider yourself tagged.

So close, so close! Aaagh. I know what the rest of this scene should be--it mirrors and inverts the first scene of the novel in a lot of ways, and it is basically exactly halfway through the book, and that's so cool especially because I did not do this consciously (except now that I've noticed, I am doing it consciously, and trying really hard not to mess it up)--but have not yet written it. See above re: trying really hard not to mess it up. (I know, I know, it's a first draft.)

But still--words. Any day that has words is a good writing day.

Thanks to some good suggestions/feedback here and elsewhere online, I graphed my plot today:



...x-axis works by chapter; y-axis, which is "relative plot importance", runs from "that's cool" to "OH SHIT BEARS". Each plot thread has its own color of marker. As I was saying on twitter, it is a very squishy scale, but hey--whatever works.

I have realized that part of why I am running out of steam at this point is because I am not very good at large-scale plotting. There's a certain amount I can extrapolate and make bigger and then my brain stops working. Maybe I need someone to kick me and say, "More explosions!" Maybe I just need a brain that can handle all fifteen plot threads and character arcs and put it all together for me. Maybe I need to stop whining and just write the damn thing.

(This is also a "change feet" moment, where the big green plot thread recedes and the brown one soars up again. Changing feet in a novel is always hard. No momentum for the moment, a calm before the storm, a point where Heather has to stand up and drive events herself, and so particularly hard to jump back in after a long time away.)

But I have skipped/skimmed through a lot of Whisper-Trail-so-far in making the graph, which has gotten the novel-so-far considerably more back in my head than it was, anyway. Maybe one of these days I will start putting words down again; that'd be nice.

Okay, so, obtaining carrel: best idea. I didn't have PE this morning, so I picked up the box I'd shipped to myself, stuck it in my room, grabbed my laptop, and hied myself to the library for the hour and a half before class. Turned off my wifi, settled into the desk/the quiet space/the nice window with sunlight and fresh air right next to me and just wrote. I am definitely making an effort to categorize it as "the space where you don't worry about the internet" in my head, because having that? Priceless.

Of course, other Mondays/Wednesdays I'll have PE (and then hurry back to my room to change before class), but I will work out other times to do this. Like the hour right now--other Monday afternoons, once I establish a routine, I'll have 1-2 open. If I can figure out what to do with my laptop during lunch (key question! I can't bring my bag in to lunch with me) I could in fact head to my carrel right after eating...

...anyway, I have proven to myself that this works. And I got words! Writing always makes me feel good about myself.

No words! Because I got up and packed the rest of my belongings and then aliseadae and I went to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and then there was dinner and the tail ends of packing...

...so I guess I will be trying to write 1.5k tomorrow on planes. Should be a good time! While at the museum I did scribble down a few plot points, so at least I have some things to be getting on with. And then I'll drop all my stuff off at campus, dash off to visit my grandfather for a day or so, and return just in time to move in properly/figure out my entire schedule/start classes. Not necessarily in that order. It's kind of surreal that it's all happening so soon.

We'll see if I hit 35k proper by the end of tomorrow, but as-is I am pretty pleased with my progress during August. If I keep going through the semester, I should have no problem finishing the draft.

See you all in a couple of days!

I have succeeded in providing my protagonist with a Deadline. Also, in achieving word-count for today, despite initial uncertainty as to one antagonist/ally's motivation.

My subplot is veering wildly between implications-of-romance, BFFs, and total bros. Best relationship or best relationship? (Answer: better than most of the other ones the protagonist has had!)

In any case, past 30k, and word-count for today. Yesterday I wrote approximately nothing and actually I have no idea why; part of it was running head-first into the middle of a scene where I had to stop and think and rearrange the pieces before the conversation became coherent--which I couldn't manage yesterday, but did today. And on account of which I have a new plot complication! Those are always nice.

Five days left in August to reach my goal of 35k. Even with a couple of lost days in there, I have not gotten off track (rah!), and hopefully I will be able to keep it going through the vagaries of Seeing Friends and Packing Everything Ever.

Only ~700 words for today, but I need to pause before the next (big) scene and figure out exactly what's happening. In it, in the story...

...also, I am technically on vacation--well, on a trip--and there was much sitting in the car today. We're staying just across the street from Lake Superior, close enough to see it from windows and to hear the waves (if we left the windows open on this chilly night). Earlier in the evening, we had a fire and watched the stars. But now, I think, it is time to sleep. I can catch up on novel-words some other time.

And then my urban fantasy protagonists have an argument about classism and its ramifications for supernatural crime-solving. This is probably how you can tell that I am the one writing this book.

Someday I will have to decide whether the central relationship in this novel will end up best friends or lovers, but I do not have to choose today. (Best friends, I'm pretty sure, but the potential for lovers is there. But, of course, both of them have some serious growing and changing to do before they can get to either of these happy states.)

Building a nice amount of inertia here. Still on track for Planned Event to happen when I want it to, as far as I can tell. (There's the getting of information, and then the arguing about what to do with it, and maybe the going-for-backup...)

Woot! Past 20k and the approximate one-quarter mark of the book! New progress-bar color to celebrate the passing of another 10k.

I reconfigured the one-off character I threw in two days ago to introduce a character who needed to be introduced, and that helped me figure out how to reorganize the exposition/discovery of information. And I may have even figured out how to get the event I thought should end quote-unquote Act One at about the one-third mark. Very win. (The ideas were hiding in the shower. They always are.)

So, onwards, and I have got some good momentum--I know what the next scene should probably be, I just have to place it in time/space and figure out a few more characters' details. With luck I will write that tomorrow, figure out the next scene, and keep moving along. I hope that this novel is actually worth something; I am quite enjoying writing it.