POV thoughts

The WIP, the novel currently titled The Sabbatical, seems to be asking for at least two alternating point of views. I feel having two narrators will give the novel more depth--almost like adding several new dimensions with one additional POV. It will be much more fun to write, that's for sure. However, as a reader, I strongly prefer novels with a single point of view. Whenever I encounter a second POV in a novel, I tend to stop, or at least pause. I hate switching between characters. At best, I'd be putting such a novel aside for a couple of days. At best, I'd be flipping through the pages, searching for the original POV, and reading ahead one character's story only, then going back for the second character.

However, I love novels in stories, and enjoy various POVs in them. How can that be? I've tried to figure out what's the difference. A novel in stories, offers, by design, a somewhat disjointed world view--I love this. The more gaps I need to fill in, the better. A new POV is almost an independent entity. It is a photo album of snapshots. In a more traditional novel, I wonder if adding a POV is a bit like cheating. It is a portrait, in one big frame, but there are other people competing for my attention, and one of them is necessarily more in focus than the others.

Now back to my novel. I think I'm going to stick to a single POV. I find this more challenging, and therefore, it is a different kind of fun. I wonder if I can achieve the dimensionality I crave with a single POV. If not, I can add a POV later.

I am wondering whether I'm the only one who is not so keen on multiple POVs while reading, and more excited about them while writing? Please share!

Cold and Hot

Staying under the blankets was so delicious, it took some willpower to drag myself out. I had a little dialogue with myself going, and I don't know how the responsible part of me managed to convince the sleepy part of me so early in the morning. The house is poorly insulated and gobbles up quite a lot of heating oil, so we are trying to keep it cool. I'm not a big fan of cool. I'm dressed in three layers now, but I'm sure most people would be comfy just in a long sleeved shirt, or maybe a thin sweater. Yesterday the blankets won. Today I was quite stern with them and kicked them off. 1000 words--ta DA--done!


After completing my morning chunk of writing, I'm procrastinating. I need to start re-reading (I'm dreading this part) Swearing in Russian, as I need to make some factual changes and who knows what other changes to the novel before I hand it over to my editor.

Instead, I find myself thinking about this: Scientists have created the hottest temperature ever in the lab -- 4 trillion degrees Celsius -- hot enough to break matter down into the kind of soup that existed microseconds after the birth of the universe.

The Sabbatical--my new WIP

I've been thinking about this (new) novel for over a year. I had the setting, the characters, the opening, the ending, and a vague idea of the middle. I remember the dinner I had with my friend C. in Iqaluit at the Frob, just over a year ago. I told her about the plot, and we brainstormed a little. She's a writer too, so she understands. I remember being stuck on my protagonist's intentions--why would she do this? I wasn't sure. Then for the entire year I thought about writing it, but something held me back. Meanwhile I revised Swearing in Russian for yet another time, moved to Halifax, bought a new house and moved there, and didn't feel like writing. I convinced myself that thinking about writing was actually good enough. And actually, it was! I came back to the novel (tentative title is The Sabbatical) and the outline came out of me. This is pretty new, as I usually struggle with outlines and do better without them. But after working with Victoria, I started to internalize some of her principles of tension building and pacing. And this is how the outline just happened, with this basic idea that one conflict leads to another and yet to another. I don't have a very thorough outline, I don't think I will enjoy that, but I have a functional outline that helps me to navigate to the ending, with some basic ideas of how relationships between my characters develop.


This morning I woke up 2 hours before the first kid woke up (3 hours before the second, 4 hours before my night owl who will go to bed after midnight)...This is all courtesy of the City of Halifax, who needed to dig up our water pipe this morning, so that the plumber could replace the shut off valve, so that he could hook up my washing machine. Did I tell you we just moved into an OLD house? Yeah, most things don't work. Yet, I love being here.

I wrote about 900 words. What a pleasure to be finally writing it! I feel like I'm weaving with words. It is the joy and the energy of a first draft--rough weaving, no worries, just the process. But I can see the characters are already much more defined that in my previous opening chapters. (I had written about 15000 words of it already, but I'm writing from scratch now, and might use the previous work in later revisions, or I might not. The focus is somewhat different--there's much less of the supernatural in this version. I simply don't want to have a ghost in every novel!)

Lessons learned: thinking about a novel, even for more than a year, is a good thing; outlining can be learned (but I think it comes easier to some than to others); writing is a true pleasure; quiet mornings are an inspiration.

Riding on the Night Train

I haven't been motivated to post lately. I keep thinking that in the last years I haven't grown as a writer, haven't accomplished much. I'm not sure if this is true, as I've been focused on my novel, and there wasn't the almost immediate gratification of flash fiction (both writing it, submitting, and getting pieces accepted.) I'm re-reading my novel and making more changes.


This time I'm finally distant enough from my writing, and I'm able to actually read it, rather than simply remember it. I think I've done a really good job with it. (Is this normal to be impressed with one's own writing?)This might sound like I'm contradicting my first paragraph here, but I still feel that I could've written this very same novel three years ago, hence the issue of "growing." Is it really happening? Silently and invisibly? Or am I stagnating? I simply don't know. Only time will show.


Another issue that has been bothering me is this: What if in my efforts to remain positive about my writing and not to get too affected by rejections, I'm creating an illusion that my writing is better than it actually is? How do I find the right balance? I started this post to shout about my new / old piece in Night Train, and ended up whining about my lack of progress. This is the story with the words penis and vagina in the opening lines. How's that for a hook? I wrote it 3 years ago, when we just arrived to Iqaluit. Read it here!

Representing the Process of Writing--Visually

For some reason I'm not able to embed the video in a way that shows all of the viewing screen, even if I fiddled with the html. And it buggs me. Here it is on Youtube.

Novel as a scarf?

I’ve had a busy week—being new in town, even in a town I’ve lived before for two years, takes up different energy and creates different energy as well. I look at things already with nostalgia—we’ll be leaving just in a few short months. There are new buildings, new people, the same snow covered hills.

The kids have settled into a routine of watching old Russian cartoons before bed, and this leaves me with a good couple of hours of writing time. Or doing nothing time. Doing nothing is still doing something—so I sit and think and try to weave my novel, my characters’ stories in my head, while my baby sleeps on my lap. I sometimes wish I could write novels in 3-D, with things happening simultaneously on different facets. Does this make sense? I don’t know.

Last night I saw my novel as an unraveling scarf, and it totally made sense, but this morning, when I tried to imagine it again, and to bring back the thoughts that came with this image, nothing happened.

I just finished a short chapter, only about 800 words, to be expanded. I noticed that my writing style is different, but I’m not worried yet. Anything goes in the first draft.

Un-stucking my characters over tea

I went to the Frob for lunch with a friend today. We haven’t seen each other for a year, so it took us about 20 minutes to get ready to order and then another hour to get ready to pay. Then we drove to the Fantasy Palace for more tea. I love discussing my novels in progress with C. I told her about the chapters I already wrote and where my characters were stuck. C always asks the best questions. Like, what are their motives? This helps a lot. The twin sister is hiding in the woods in a tent, with her kidnapped niece. Why did she kidnap her? For some reason when she asks me, I can start brainstorming possible solutions and everything comes together, in a fluid, organic way. When I ask the same questions myself, I often don’t have any answers. So now I feel I made major progress in terms of moving my characters in the direction of…well, I’m more aware of their motives and I think I’m good for the next several chapters.

Mini Stories

I'm addicted to fifty words mini stories. Yes, there's a prize involved, but the fun is still pure. I love the challenge, and am impressed with the depth that one can get with such brutal constraints. Another advantage? I can compose them in my head! I come up with a version late at night, before falling asleep, and in the morning I write it down and polish. Last night I tried to summarise my novel in 50 words. I wasn't successful, but I'm working on it.

The deadline is August 1oth. With the rate I'm going, I should have about 100 mini stories to choose from.

Writing is hard

Today every word is a struggle. The story, which is a chapter in my next novel, is getting pulled together against its will, and it is not making any sense yet. I have a vision, but I'm not able to convert it into words. I just spent the last thirty minutes writing one painful, awful, sentence after another. I have barely 400 words, and I don't even feel like re-reading them.

I do know that tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, I'll be able to make sense of it all and flesh out the chapter. At least for now I have images and ideas already written down.

How does your novel breathe?

When I first wrote my novel, it was breathless. Katya, my protagonist, was unsettled, distracted, disoriented. Her thoughts were jagged, her memories overtook her. Visually, there was a lot of white space in the novel. Even sentences were separated by white space. The white space was as important as the text--each block of white as a gulp for air. Scenes were interrupted by flashbacks and flashbacks were interrupted by the present day events, only to continue pages later.


Then I got scared I wrote something too unconventional. A couple of reviewers told me that they felt disoriented. That it wasn't a good thing. That my scenes were too short, that my transitions weren't smooth enough.


When I first tried to make the changes--consolidated scenes, reworked transitions--I felt physically sick. I read the revised parts and I started shaking. I cried. There was almost no white space. Instead of flashbacks being indicated only by the shift to the past tense, I now had proper transitions, such as "Two months ago..." I e-mailed a friend: "This is not my novel. I hate it!"


Two days later something happened. I started appreciating the new way my novel was breathing. The breathing was still fast, but more stable. It felt right. When I told my husband about it, he said, laughing, "You've been brainwashed." I said I just started seeing it differently.


Two days ago, another friend who read my novel months ago, read my first pages again. "You lost the 'wow factor'," she said. And that was it. I have no confidence in my decision anymore. I'm in agony. I can't sleep. I'm trying to mediate and I even tried to pray--for clarity of mind. I feel I lost touch with my novel. Why am I blogging about it? Sometimes when I blog about things, something marvellous and unexpected happens. I think I'm throwing this out to the Universe and hoping that a solution will come to me. Am I done with my novel, or do I start revising again? How does my novel want to breathe?


I wish I knew.

Shitty first drafts

Zoetrope is a great on-line community and workshop. I've been a member since November 2005. Today I posted a 240 word flash--a rough draft. I was stuck and needed direction. I knew the story wasn't there yet--no edge, no spark, no cohesion. And yet I wanted the story to work, wasn't prepared to give up yet, and needed help. The story is a for a local newspaper contest.
In any workshop where you've been a member for a while, were rated high enough to be in the monthly "top three" several times, as a writer and as a reviewer, there's a danger of insincere reviews. It has happened to me before--a story I thought needed major work received glowing reviews and suddenly everyone was saying how great it was. Pleasant to my ego (in the first 30 seconds of receiving such a review), but overall, useless.


Today was a notable exception. The reviewer said my story had no structure, no meaning, was poorly written, and my sentences were awful. Good luck your writing, he added. Ouch. And very refreshing too.

I hope more inspiration comes to me before the deadline.

Flashing and Blushing

My story Piercing Heat was accepted by Night Train! It was rejected by one of the Canadian print literary magazines, and after that it took me a while to submit it again. So even if it has been almost three years since I wrote it, it hasn't travelled much. I remember writing this flash, the moments of its creation. I remember thinking that it was an odd one. We just arrived to Iqaluit, the computers weren't even unpacked yet. I sat at the dining room table, in the furnished, but otherwise empty house, writing on my husband's legal pad. The truck with the hundreds of our boxes would be delayed for weeks, and the house felt bright, spacious, and not fully "ours" yet. I rarely hand write my stories. One story that comes to mind is Yevdokiya's New Name, published by the now defunct BuzzWords. The energy of the handwritten stories is different, I think. They end up being my favourite. Yet not every story is suitable for the medium. I love the fast typing and deleting and the conveniences of the computer.

I have a bad habit of submitting previously polished stories without rereading them. I reread this story just now, and wowza, it has the words "vagina" and "penis" right in the first paragraph. Though as I just told my friend Stacy, the story is not, I repeat, NOT, about sex. It is much more subtle than that. Despite its rather graphic beginning, It is about mysterious and gentle connections.

Done with the revisions!

I even managed to have the cover page without a page number on it. In the New Word (aka the biggest PITA) there's no simple option of not displaying page numbers on the cover page. Instead, there's an add a cover page option, where it gives you a number of garish cover pages--thankfully, they are easy to edit.

This, of course, calls for a celebration. I wish I were in Iqaluit today, because there, according to my google page, is SPRING. While here in Halifax it is still very much winter. Forget the melted snowmen. My kids have been storing bags after bags of the "last snow" in the freezer.

Final Revisions

Final revisons are completed--on paper. Now, page by page, I decipher my notes and transfer them into Word.

Mid-march revisions

I'm half way through my revisions. This week the tempo is slower--my 6 year old is attending almost daily early morning art classes, one hour away...The weather's nice, and I'm tempted to meet up with friends in Local Jo's. After two years in Iqaluit, a nice little organic cafe is a very necessary treat on the first days of spring. I'm also emotional--after this, the novel will be truly finished, and the next revisions will be with an agent or editor. No, I'm not "too confident", I'm only trying to remain optimistic. Which means I'm not optimistic, but I'm trying to stay positive and keep on writing.

This morning I took a walk by the Alderney Landing in Darthmouth. The sun was already warm, and the wind lost its yesterday's bite.

Still progress

Another 500 words, and some ideas on what scenes I still need. Yesterday I thought I was done adding scenes, but now I see that was a bit premature. I'm both excited with the new scenes and the information they provide, and worried that I might be making it all too contrived. I hope to know the difference when I finally print it out and read the whole novel on paper.

I just ordered 12 Russian books for my children to read from a store in Ottawa. I take pride in being the store's biggest shopper, at least I think I am. I still manage to read to the kids mostly in Russian, even if books in English are much more accessible, and much cheaper too. I, on the other hand, mostly read in English for pleasure. I can't justify spending so much money on myself.

More progress

Today I had to make myself to work on the revisions. I didn't want to. To be honest, I wanted to be done. I wanted to send it out. I wanted to be writing my current novel, which is in that exciting stage of being fresh and new, flowing and unexpected. I'm proud of myself for forcing myself to get back to "Swearing." The word count is probably around 200, but these were the most important words.

In the next days I'm going to read through the whole novel again, making sure everything is consistent with the new additions, and making corrections as I go. Then I'm going to polish the newly added segments, and then I'll be done for certain.

500!

Five hundred words today, and some other major developments. I realise now my changes won't take up as many words as I thought. What a relief.

In addition we also went to the pool, which in itself is quite an achievement. Not the swimming / splashing part, but getting dressed without anyone crying, whining, screaming, or complaining. Yes! A bus driver told me today, "Your hands are full," (Which is pretty much the only thing I hear when I'm out by myself with three kids. I respond with "Not as full as my heart."), and I replied, "Sometimes." I meant, of course, that sometimes they are a handful, but most of the time they are a joy. When we got off I realised he probably thought I was babysitting.

My neighbour told me today about the time change. I love our life--we haven't even noticed.

Oh nooooooo. Oh yes!

So you thought I finished my novel? I thought I finished my novel. Then, the day after reading and critiquing my friend's novel, I woke up knowing with certainty what I had to do to strengthen mine. This realisation scared me--I've considered my novel finished for the last several months. "Finishing" it wasn't a rushed decision. I workshopped it, rewrote, revised. It has been put away and revised again.

But I'm also exhilarated, because I think I'm right, and another revision is in order. I'm developing another story line!

I made a deal with the kids--unlimited play time in the morning; unlimited reading time in the evening. But in the middle of the day, while the little one naps, it is my working time. Today it worked out perfectly. I wrote 900 words. I made countless notes and comments. I'm making progress!

82 Markets

March! I love this month. New beginnings. I haven't been submitting my short stories aggressively enough in the last year--new baby, new novel, a move cross country, another novel. I've been busy writing and living, and the little ugly aspect of actually submitting my work was on the back burner. This morning I went back to duotrope.com and hit my search criteria: literary fiction, short story, payment token and up, print publication, electronic submission, simultaneous submissions allowed. 82 markets.

I'm picky about where my short stories go. While there are great markets on-line for flash fiction, I still stubbornly think that short stories belong in print magazines. One reason for my bias--I think that flash is best suited for the Internet. Flash is easy to read on screen. But when I want to read a short story, I want an actual magazine in my hands. I want to be able to walk away from it and come back, without scrolling and going into my favourites. It is just a different feeling. Another reason--flash is infinitely more accessible on-line. I can send my links to my friends (and strangers); I can post them on my blog. I like how a flash piece becomes alive on the internet.

As for my short stories--I'll try a submission a day for the month of March.