Faith and the Muse

Yes, I know the title of this entry is also the name of a band. And a very good band it is!

But...I just got off Yahoo chat with a friend of mine I've known for well nigh a decade. She found my Y! profile ages ago, then found me in a chat room. We talked a bit, and she invited me to her RP writing board she was setting up.

And the rest is history.

My best characters --ever-- came to life there in her world, on her boards. It became "our" boards, or just "The Boards." Everyone knows what we're talking about when we mention "the boards." From way back in the old days. The Golden Age of Variance, I sometimes call it. The world, obviously, was called Variance.

I wrote a thief, and her name was Kyri. She was petite and had a bit of a Napoleon complex, actually. She was hilarious, totally "shoot first, ask questions later" kind of gal. Only she didn't shoot anything, she had knives hidden everywhere. I'm surprised no one accidentally stabbed themselves whenever they got near her, actually. That girl went from being an ill-treated, misused, insecure and dangerous young girl to a strong, confident, inspired and loyal woman with an iron core of strength forged in the hottest of fires. And her boundless love for her once-and-again husband, the infamous and Most Wanted thief Ravin Rue, was the stuff of legends.

Together, they could have conquered the stars, but were content with life in their small cottage a short walk from Ravin's vast gypsy family. She'd come full circle, and as I live and breathe, a richer and more vibrant character I've never written.

Then there was Rei, my shy little former courtesan... There was some fire in that woman! Once I was able to unlock her nature, she came in a rush of emotions and expressions, insecurities, and quirks.

My girls came alive on those boards. I wrote with quite a few other people. The boards were set up round-robin style, but over a period of the seven years I participated, we wove such a rich tapestry of history and life and love and tragedy, it still stops my heart when I think about it. I've never written better than I did in Variance.

I met my muse today, and I know my muse's name. How many writers can say that? Something I thought I'd lost years ago I found out was never truly gone to begin with. It was simply...different than what I'd believed. I suppose, when I "lost" my muse, I went through a long period of mourning. Something in my writing was missing ever since, actually, and I tried but could never quite regain it. I thought I was simply going through a fallow period. All artists do, and I accepted mine.

But the passion was never really there. Not like it was back then. I never got over the mourning. That connection I'd felt to my best characters was a sort of wellspring, a verdant field with soil black as night, rich in all the things I needed to cultivate new stories, new characters, and new adventures. Without it...everything was contrived. It felt contrived, anyway. The enthusiasm for writing suddenly had a very short half life. I'd thought the connection was gone.

Now I know it was never really gone, it's just transformed. Cool, huh?

the one with the pseudo deadline

Okay, so I haven't posted in a while. There's really been no new developments on the writing front lately.

...That is, until today.

I ran into a friend of mine online today whom I haven't spoken to in quite some time. She's a writer of surpassing skill I've always been a little envious of, to be perfectly honest. Together, we wrote on a fantasy message board for years, enough time to actually get to know each other as well as two people can online. We got to know each other's writing, and characters, a whole lot better.

Once upon a time she told me that she would be honored if I asked her to critique some of my work. Back then, The Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius hadn't even been a gleam in my muses' eyes yet, but I remembered it. In fact, I never forgot her compliment.

So today I asked her about it. Unfortunately, right now she doesn't even have the time to help crit half-page fan fics. I told her it was no problem, really. I understood, and I did. It's just --and this was not in any way motivated by self-interest!-- I had to give her a compliment equal to the one she'd given me so long ago. Also, I thought it would help if she knew why I'd asked about critiquing my work, out of the blue, after not having really spoken in a few years.

I told her that I'd dropped out of my crit group because of time, and because they were retards. Of course, they're both true. There was one torturous novella I had to plow through, in agony. It was just so terrible!! I finally had to just write down what I really wanted to say, and then burn the pages, just so I could get it out of my system enough to write down a more palatable critique to send to the author. It was so awful there came a point where I couldn't even cry anymore.

So I dropped out for what I thought would be a month or two, and it's been just about a solid year. I'll join back up....eventually.

Maybe.

So I told her that there's just no one out there I trust who's also competent. Those I trust really aren't suitable to actually critique my work. And I don't even know anyone who's competent, whether or not I trust them. Except her. She's the only person I trust who also possesses the ability and competence. Only belatedly did I realize it might've sounded manipulative, like I was buttering her up, or begging. Only I wasn't. I was just giving her what I thought was the biggest compliment I could give another person. And it's all true.

So she said maybe after summer school's over, when she's not grading papers and reading, etc. Maybe in July.

WONDERFUL!!! oh joy of ecstatic joys!

....ah crap. That means I actually have to get a substantial amount of the Heartbreaking Work written now....

the one with the new author hopeful

Hey everyone! I just thought I would like to introduce everyone to another fellow author and friend of mine, Ravyn. Readers of iGoddess will know her as *ds*. She and I get together a lot to commiserate and encourage each other with our respective writings. Where I'm definitely a High Fantasy writer, she's more Dark Urban Paranormal.

I dunno. That's how I would categorize her, but she might feel somewhat different.

Given her comment on one of my entries here, I emailed her with a, "Hey, Ravyn! Wanna write with me over on Author-Hopeful? We can bitch and rant and wail and gnash our teeth together!"

And she said, "Hey, yeah! Sounds great."

So whenever she gets around to it, she'll be posting here, too. Look for her posts, and welcome her to Author-Hopeful! Where wannabe writers author hopefuls strive beyond the walls of That State called Published.

the one with the frustrated lesson learned

my hook was FINALLY reviewed. i'll keep my mouth shut about my feelings on how late it was, promises broken, etc.

i knew it wasn't going to pass to even the next level of the competition. that wasn't why i entered. i entered to get feedback from someone other than the people around me, someone actually within the walls of that State called Published.

my hook didn't raise the questions it had been intended to raise. apparently i did a lot of "name dropping" even though i cropped out 80% of the names in the original hook written last year. i took a bird's eye view of the plot, the story arc, according to randy ingermanson's snowflake method, because he said this would form what would/could someday be the hook for the back cover of your book.

the basic form is:
sentence one: introductory sentence.
sentence two: disaster #1
sentence three: disaster #2, caused by consequences of actions taken because of disaster #1.
sentence four: disaster #3, caused by consequences of actiosn taken because of disaster #2, which are now even greater than after disaster #2.
sentence five: resolution and closing

the response i got from whatever judge read my hook caused feeling in me that i'm just going to have to get over, even though i'm feeling quite homicidal right now. the one useful sentence in the entire Pile-O-Crap that was that judge's opinion is this: focus on my main character, contrary to much other advice out there which states to "focus on the story arc."

i hate how subjective this business is. i had a job once, customer service call center, which graded employee performance on a purely subjective set of guidelines. not only that, but they had a team of quality control, and i was never evaluated by the same person. one person's advice to improve was another's way of doing it completely wrong. i never did well there. i was fantastic at what i did, but on paper i sucked hardcore. there were many days i wished i had the guts to go completely insane and just go postal in there. just columbine the whole damn building.

luckily i'm a writer. i vented my feelings in a more literary fashion and got it out of my system.

for the most part.

so should i go back and revamp my entire hook? should i revamp my entire plot, after months of plotting what i think is a really fantastic story? i've given it to people whom i know read the same genre, and they all say they would love to read something like this. i write high fantasy, and apparently this judge didn't like it and says it's going to be a hard sell.

and yet i see much high fantasy on the shelves all the time, and a lot of it's quite shitty. i wrote better than much of the slop out there back in high school, and believe me, my writing's only improved over the years. i blame mental health and bad marriage for holding me back as far as i've been. i should at least be at the submissions to agents and attending regular conferences stage, at least. it's frustrating. but i'm trying. dammit, i'm trying.

and i have to admit, the thought has occurred to me to toss the story and write something else. but no. fuck it. i'm a high fantasy writer, gods damn it all, and i'm going to write it.

the one with the reminder why i even do this

just when i thought i should slice open my wrists with a plastic spoon, The Snarkalicious One refreshes my perspective.

the one with the frustrated screaming

okay, gonna vent here because it's bad karma to vent anywhere else.

remember that contest i mentioned? well, the deadline for getting back our hooks with author critiques was today.

guess whose wasn't listed yet!!!

i mean, almost from the very next day after submissions were due, people were getting their hooks back. talk about going crazy all freakin' week! and then, today, i get called in to work unexpectedly, which was probably a good thing because i would have gone crazy checking their website every five minutes instead of actually doing real, productive work.

AND MINE'S STILL NOT LISTED!!!

is it okay to set one's hair on fire at this point? miss snark does it all the time.

the one with the contest

So I haven't written anything for "The Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" in about two weeks, maybe three. Lots of things going on, little sister flew up for spring break and I got a new job, but still. That shouldn't get in the way of the writing.

I entered a hook contest over at Fangs, Fur, and Fey, and I thought I had a pretty good hook. However, looking at some of the other hooks, I just know mine's not even going to make it to the second round. Luckily, I didn't enter the contest for the prize. I entered it for the valuable feedback that the first 250 hooks are going to receive by denizens of that State called Published. Mine's hook #1, if any of you are interested.

Some of the judges have already turned in their reviews and nominations. However, I'm not so lucky as to be among the early birds. Seems my judge wasn't OC enough...

This is my first attempt at what "serious" author-hopefuls do. Y'know, things like entering contests, submitting to critiquing groups (and yes, I'm a member of Critters), participating in Miss Snark's infamous Crapometer...

It's funny. I'm kinda hesitant to post up any info about what I'm writing, or even what The Heartbreaking Work's called, and I don't even know why. It's not like anyone's going to steal it, and it's not like anyone really cares about this blog except maybe me. But still.

This contest suddenly has me feeling incredibly, phenominally insecure. All I've wanted my whole life is to be published. I don't know what I'm going to do when I never am.

the one with the intro

I actually sat here for a few minutes trying to decide if I was going to title these blog entries "the one with/where the..." or "in which author-hopeful verbs something."

And yes, that's a technical term: "verbs something."

I decided that if I was really going to be a serious wannabe writer author-hopeful, then I should at least have a blog dedicated to my writing. Not where I'll be posting all my writing, but where I can log my progress, mention any contests I decide to enter, post my unmentionables, and in general wail and gnash my teeth outside the gates of the State called Published.

I want to be published, I really do. Writing's all I've ever been. I mean, I was winning writing contests and gold medals at decathalons for my writing ever since I was little. I taught myself how to read when I was three, shortly after my neighbor taught me how to write the alphabet in cursive. When I was five, I sat down with Don Quixote and decided I would make my daddy proud by reading it all by myself. Had I not encountered a naughty curse word --ass-- a few pages in, I believe I would have, too. Well, instead of panicking, shoving the book back on the shelf, and running out of the living room as fast as I could.

Someone shoulda told me Cervantes was talking about a cute little burro.

My parents sent me to piano lessons, I wrote lyrics. My first grade teacher put me in the front row, I corrected her penmanship. We logged how many pages we read in English class. Where five hundred pages a semester would earn us a full score in side reading, I read twelve thousand. My classmates groaned when new essays were assigned, I cheered. I got spitballs and crumpled up papers thrown at me, but who cared?

I devour stories, and I write my own. I actually have a manuscript written, my first ever. Destinies, it's called. It sits in a black bandolier bag, in a taped-up box, inside another box, in the storage closet on the balcony. While it'll never again see the light of day, it was a learning experience.

While I know I might not quite be publishing material just yet, this author-hopeful knows that with a lot of hard work and lessons in growing a thick skin one of these days here soon I will be published.

My name is iGoddess, and I'm Author-Hopeful.