Editor Follow Ups

So, there's a reason that I haven't really filled anyone in on say, how my kid's book is going or how to handle the other book I was offered.

And that is because I just couldn't quite deal with any of it.

As far as the kid's book went, the rewrites they wanted were just so extensive, after we've been spinning our wheels and doing nothing for so long, that it was hard for me to want to keep working for them. I got a note from the editor this week, however, asking if I had any thoughts and did I want to go ahead, so I'm going to have to start dealing. I told her I'd write her my response next week. Ultimately, I think I'm going to tell them that I'm interested but it's time for me to get some money up front. (Lest you think I'm crazy for having written a book for them without money, just know that a) I do at least have a contract with them -- first payment is on acceptance -- and b) the kids book industry is totally different from adult books, and since everyone wants to write kids books, the publishers often get to just do whatever they want to.)

As for the second book. . . well, it was left with the editor that I'd more than likely do it, but I'd start after the new year. She made it sound like a project that at 25,000 words could be turned around fairly quickly. Maybe in two months or so, and the project WAS interesting. We'd left it at that -- no contract signed or anything, but they'd made me a money offer and basically it was left that we'd be back in touch with each other in the fall. I e-mailed her yesterday, and the e-mail bounced. It bounced again today. Serious searching for her name on the publisher's website has had no success. She has clearly dropped off the face of the earth. Well, I guess that helps me make THAT decision!

Orson Scott Card . . .

. . . is brilliant. He is a fantastically compelling writer, who has the amazing knack for churning out novels that have -- get this -- different plots and characters in them. He even writes novels that are vastly different in tone when they have the same characters in them. He is the only writer who has two whole books on my favorite books of all time list.

This is why I am thankful for him today. Having read pretty much all of his books (I'm not that excited about his Alvin the Maker series, simply because I don't love fantasy -- which for those of you who are not up on the genre, is way different than science fiction.) I just discovered he has a non-fiction book out there -- Characters and Viewpoint. It's a book on how to write interesting characters, and so in my current Definitely Need Others To Jumpstart Me phase (which is still going well, by the way), I bought it.

Card pointed out that while the temptation is there to write about characters based on people you know (and one should of course draw on what one knows) this doesn't actually work in practice. For the simple reason that you don't know the people around you as well as you need to know your characters. If you draw from real life you might tell a story and justify it by saying: "Well, that's what happened." But the reader is left bewildered as to why the character might have done that. If you don't delve into your character more deeply and let the reader know the character's motivation -- something you truly don't know at a fundamental level about the person who did it in reality -- then your prose will fall flat.

And wow did I need someone to tell me that. I'm not, obviously, writing about people I know. I am writing about something even harder. Real people whom I've only read about. Or read their writing. And I have been trying to stick to that -- I use dialogue culled from words they actually wrote, I rely on versions of their personalities that others have described. I mean, no wonder I have gotten bored when writing about Tycho. He's as one-dimensional as I could possibly make him. He's totally the character I got stuck on; writing from his perspective was what jammed me up two months ago. I have to let my creativity really fly free and turn him into a much rounder person.

I am realizing that I have to take this attitude when working with the plot too -- just because that's what really happened doesn't make it interesting. I am smart enough to know this to a certain degree. I have definitely embellished, or at least tried to come up with explanations for why things happened the way they did. In addition, I am lucky because most of the stuff that these guys did really is fantastic and enthralling. But I am understanding in a way that I didn't before how much I need to make sure that the whole book reads with that level of excitement -- and I am finally freed to really make the story interesting.

Card is brilliant I tell you.

It's On!

Yes, I am going to interview him! I am!

Mystery Interviews

I don't want to jinx anything, but I think I'm going to get to interview one of my favorite mystery writers for my alumni magazine. Could be NONE more excited.