Obviously this needs a quick update!!!!

I haven't been over here at this blog for a while because I seem to be doing all my blogging at rosefiend.livejournal.com. I used to double-post on both blogs, but when the last Apocalypse hit I fell out of the habit and haven't gotten back to it since.

Anyway, if anyone's looking for me acting silly, or getting all crazy about writing, that's where I've been doing it at. And you can even friend me. :)

What! Another blog post!

Yeah, actually.

So this afternoon I disgruntledly (?!) went back to my Symphonians MS to start whipping it into shape. I had to shut off the computer that had internet access because I kept messing around on the internet instead of writing. Cripes.

And I'm looking at the first chapter, thinking, "You know, those two stories -- that is, the Kay story and the Symphonians bit -- actually went together pretty well right there." And so I took a bit of the Symph story from the other document I'd saved, and I dropped it into the first chapter. It nestled in all nice and tidy. I said, "Hm!"

So I went looking around in the book for another place where I could put a chunk of story, and what do you know, Wyatt and Kay were playing the same part in band (they play tuba and bass clarinet, respectively), and hey, in this Symph bit, Roderick and Violet were playing a song together on tuba and regular clarinet, so I dropped that chunk in right about there. And it looked nice there, too.

So NOW I have figured out how to fix the problem!

The Symph bits are big enough to give the reader a good idea of what's going on in their narrative, and they're right in Kay's text so she can comment on them. But their narrative is being kept to a bare minimum at this time so Kay can take center stage. But hey, I'm fine with that.

So I guess that sometimes you have to bring the world to an end to make something work. Though in the end it's actually a beginning.

Typical!

Just this afternoon I got an e-mail from an agent who wants to see Symphonians.

Is my timing great, or what! I'd say "or what."

I told her I cut the story-within-the-story, so she had two options:

1) I put the whole story-within-a-story back and send it to herimmediately with a smile.

2) I take a month to revise the novel and then send it to her with a belated smile.

So we'll see how that goes.

So ... maybe I should get off here and start fixing the novelistic hash so it's, like, readable and stuff? Yeah, I guess I will.

People, I've reached a decision.

To do the dishes!

As if. No, the other day I got a very nice personal rejection from an agent. She liked the Symphonians, but the Symphonians' novel and Kay's novel seemed, to the agent, to be at odds with each other.

I keep telling myself that I'm going to make these two novels live harmoniously within the same book, but then every time I prepare to sit down and work on this, I end up springing from my chair and running into the street.

This is not a good use of my time and energy.

So last night I made a copy of my Symphonians document. Then I went through and took the whole Symphonians novel and COMPLETELY CUT IT OUT.

Alas, I loved that novel. But those days are gone.

Then I went back and started reading through the MS. It seems to flow better, the pacing's better. And of course the whole document is about 75 pages lighter.

I'm planning on going back and inserting bits of the novel and have Kay actually dealing with her text, instead of setting out these two texts side-by-side and hoping the reader will catch on.

I had such high hopes for intertextuality! But alas, I was not pulling it off. So I'm a little bummed. But not as much as I thought I'd be, because now I feel like I can work with the novel again. I got rid of the brick wall, or radioactive force field, that kept me running away, and now I'm like, "Well, okay, I can manage this."

Not the end of the world after all. Not today, anyway.

Done! For the moment.

Got all the cuts I'd made in the Symphonians novel incorporated in the computer. I busted 327 pages down to 243. 84 pages altogether. Took a whole week to do it. Gaah.

My work's not done yet. Next I need to figure out what's at the heart of this novel. And then I need to rewrite everything toward that. If something doesn't contribute to that overall motion, out it comes.

After that, I have several new scenes to write, too, which will jack up the word count again. Can't win.

I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't end up cutting more words. I was hoping to cut 100. I'm just 15 pages shy of that goal. I could surely find 15 more pages to cut!

Symphonians update!

I went through the returned MS and cut every word I could. I did a document-wide search for then and just, which are two words I overuse. I cut most adverbs and even some adverbial phrases. And if there were only a few lines on a page at a chapter's end, I'd go back and find other stuff to cut until I lost that extra page.

Also cut the two chapters that deal with the State Band plot, since that seems more like a tangent. I'll replace those later with more of an exploration of Kay's relationship with Mom and Wyatt "Gatlin Gun" McStudmeister.

I'm on page 200 in the MS and have cut 50 pages thus far.

So little cuts all through the MS will get you a long way.

Both agents that requested the MS said no. I've sent out eight more queries. Nothing yet. Sometimes you catch a fish, sometimes you don't.

I'd like someone to take me on who can help me with this novel-within-a-novel conceit. That's the thing that's kicking my tail right now.

Back to work, since I have to incorporate 127 more pages of corrections. I'm getting there! But man, I wish I could go faster.

Symphonians update!

Ever since Monday morning, I've been marking up the pages of the Symphonians MS. I'm up to p. 196; I have 131 pages to go. So far I'm mainly looking for stuff to cut, though I've also marked up stuff that needs fixed and have made notes about random things I've noticed about the MS that I need to work on later.

I've noticed that the main story and the story-within-a-story finally start working together at page 199. So I have that working for me. It's just all the previous pages that will give me fits.

I also did a document-wide change: I switched Noel's name to Wyatt. Changed it back. Changed it again.

I did that because I keep mispronouncing Noel. That would look bad on the book tour. Also my husband tells me that Noel is not manly enough. He wanted the MC to be named Wyatt "Gatlin Gun" McStudmeister. I told him that one out of three ain't bad.

I need to set some goals for myself:

1) Extensive character work for Wyatt (Noel) and Justine (Kay's mom)

2) This includes writing several scenes in which Kay discovers Noel's, I mean Wyatt's, blog. Now I have to peruse blogs written by high-school guys without looking like some weirdo stalker.

3) Reading those books that have been recommended to me to apply them to my story-within-a-story.

4) Put more funnies in the first part. In rereading it the other night, I found out that I have a lot more funny stuff in the second part. Gotta fix.

5) What the hell is the focus of this story? There is none! Maybe finding a focus would help me shrink it down a bit!

Okay, that's plenty.

Egad! More revision!

First, a weather report: KNIM reports we've had six inches of rain since it started on Saturday.

When I opened the mailbox yesterday (we just got back from Omaha), I said, "Aww!" There was a big ol' envelope in there the exact same width as my Symphonians novel.

But, a very nice letter on top from the boss:

Dear Ms. Cordell:

First off, you have done a wonderful job revising THE SYMPHONIANS. It is an incredibly honest and moving protrayal of adolescence. You have turned Kathy into a believable and relatable heroine. It is easy to see in her facets of millions of teenage girls -- her hesitant speech, her constant internal monologue of self-correction, her daydreams of having the right words to correct any problem. Her painful awkwardness is clear in the narration -- bringing the reader to not only sympathize with Kathy's frustration with her inability to get her words out but also to root and hope for her happiness.

(Hooray! I'm getting there.)

Nevertheless, I still have reservations about the manuscript. It still feels overlong, and I can't help but think it might be nice if it were about 75 to 100 pages shorter.

(She's right about that ... I got nervous printing it because I was using so much paper!)

The Symphonians trouble me. I liked and cared for them very much as characters, but I wish there was a clearer transition between Kathy's life and their story. A disconnect of some sort exists -- I felt like I was reading two separate stories that were thrown together simply because they both deal with domestic abuse. Granted, there are points in Kathy's narrative where she wishes she could be like one of her characters -- but she wishes to possess aspects of their personalities in situations that don't have anything to do with domestic abuse until the end of the manuscript. As a reader, I desperately wanted some tangible connection between the two stories that I could hold on to -- I wanted to know the events that triggered the manuscript to transition from Kathy's narrative to the Symphonians and back.

(I've had other people say the same thing, too. I thought I had finally dovetailed the small novel into the larger one -- apparently I haven't yet.)

There are problematic areas of connection in the manuscript ... and several nagging questions left unanswered (Do Noel and Kathy get together? Does Kathy finish the Symphonians's story because she no longer needs to fill the emotional space in her life with their presence now that she has friends like Yvonne?). Important characters like Noel and Kathy's mother are not developed enough. I wanted to see some sort of positive interaction between Kathy and her mother (I couldn't see any sort of connection between them -- highly unrealistic for a mother-daughter pair who appear to be trying to figure one another out) and Kathy's father is relatively non-existent (odd for a man who is said to have spent an entire morning helping out his parents next door repair a shower rod).

(She's right about that too.)

Then the letter details some smaller issues that need work -- a couple of places in the MS that seemed author-engineered, not organic; a soap-opera-like moment; some odd quirks in Kay's character that seem too odd. And then the final sentence, "If you do choose to revise again, please know that I'd be happy to reconsider this."

So I have that going for me.

Anyway, here's where you-all can help. Does anybody know of any books that feature a novel-within-a-novel? I need some models. Also, if you know of any writing books that address the narrative-within-a-narrative issue, point them out to me. I could really use some guidance on that front.

I'll go over the Symphonians today and tomorrow (it is a big tome) to try and see the story through fresh eyes. Then back to work on the raccoon story until the end of the month, just to keep my momentum up on it. I'm not tired of working on it yet, so I'm reluctant to put it aside. And that'll give my unconscious mind time to mull over the Symphonians and work up some ideas.

So ... not good news, but not bad news either. I can deal, though I'll moan and groan under my breath when I start figuring out how much work is really in store for me!