Jennie, my book coach, provided her feedback on her read through of my manuscript. She writes: “A couple of big, but TOTALLY EASILY SOLVE-ABLE issues.”

I read: BIG ISSUES

Jennie writes: “A couple of medium issues.”

I read: Even more issues? Really?

Jennie writes: “And a couple of small issues.”

I read: Big, medium and small issues?! Oh my God, that covers the whole book!

Jennie writes: “I still love, love, love this story as much as I did as you were writing it but reading it through as a whole showed me the problematic patterns that need to be shored up.”

I read: “but… whole… problematic patterns…”

Jennie writes: “This is a totally normal process–it happens all the time.”

I read: This writing process will never end.

Am I being irrational and illogical? Obviously. Does that change anything? Of course not.

Every day in my Writer’s Craft class, I write on the board an inspirational quote from a published author to encourage my students.

Here’s what I wrote last week: “Sometimes writing sucks.”–Ms. Braaksma

Okay, I also wrote something uplifting from some already successful writer and I told my students I was joking about my quote (well, I wasn’t exactly joking, and then I told them that, too).

What I told them is that it’s normal to doubt yourself as a writer. What I told them is that it’s easy to know, cognitively, that another set of eyes will obviously pick up on things you can’t see–like proofreading your own work is almost impossible. What I told them is that knowing that still doesn’t make it any easier. What I told them is that they’re not alone if they feel doubt and frustration and dismay at ever finishing a good story. What I told them is that it’s okay to feel that way (but they still need to hand their story in next week if they want to get a good mark on their midterm report card).

What I told them is everything I believe to be true (especially handing in their assignments on time.)

And maybe, just maybe, someday I’ll actually believe it to be true for me, too. 🙂

My book coach Jennie is editing my full manuscript. It’s her first time reading it all the way through–before now, she’s only read the scenes out order.

She knows the book; she likes the book and yet still I found myself nervous. Despite overall positive feedback from my beta readers, still, I worried. What if I hadn’t stitched the scenes together very well to satisfy a professional? What if she doesn’t like my new title? What if it all falls apart because the story was really built on a house of cards?

Jennie’s first update, at the end of Chapter 11:  “Your revisions are spot-on and they deepen and clarify everything, and the story is just so much more present, and so much more harrowing and I think it is going to have a deep impact on your readers.”

Whew.

Then… then…

“I’m at ch 16–but I am feeling a stuckness around chapters 13, 14, 15. There’s too much hand wringing (compared to the action)… I need to think about it a little more.”

Ugh.

Stuckness… I’m not even sure exactly what that means. Something not good, obviously, but not good as in disastrous or not good as in a few minor fixes? I trust Jennie’s instincts; if there’s a “stuckness”, then I believe there’s a “stuckness.”

Jennie assured me there was nothing dire, but still I worried.

It took her a few days wherein I did not check my email every 10 minutes to see if she’d figured out the problem. (It was every 15 minutes.)

Finally: “So I figured out the issue that was bugging me and have a solution and am moving forward… and it’s all good!”

But no more detail, since she’s still editing.

I tried to be reasonable and rational and professional and patient. Still, I couldn’t help it. I email back immediately: “Just curious if this is a huge rewrite I need to be planning for?” (Does that sound reasonable and rational and professional and patient? ‘Cause what I really wanted to say was, “What the hell is the problem?! And I beg you to tell me it’s ridiculously minor, please?! Please?!”)

Jennie kindly replied right away: “They’re small things, but they are threads that run throughout… more systemic which is why they are hard to suss out and you need the full manuscript to do it!”

Think that was enough reassurance for me?

Not in the least.

I sent another message, playing it calm and cool. “I get the need for the whole manuscript to do it… (but you do have a potential solution, right? right?”)

(That was calm and cool, right? right?)

Jennie, (mostly likely sick of her needy client) finally assuages me: “TOTALLY have a solution, fear not!!”

Music to my ears.

And that’s why I work with Jennie: encouragement, advice and, more importantly, answers. 🙂

I await her detailed comments next week, but at least now I await without holding my breath.

(Okay, maybe a little bit of holding my breath…)

It’s my new title.

Like it?

Because you’re loyal blog followers, I’ll let you in on the secret of its meaning (instead of making you wait for the book to be published and finding out from the story what “Amaranth” means).

Some of you may recognize the name as a grain (technically, it’s a seed), or as bright, colourful, decorative flower. It is, but because of the plant’s longevity, it’s also considered, wait for it…

…  a symbol of immortality. Often the symbol is compared with that of a phoenix, something that rises from its ashes. Appropriate, yes?  “Amaranth” is derived from the Greek word “amarantos” which means “unfading”.

(By the way, please don’t tell Lyra–she doesn’t find out the meaning of the flower until the last chapter. I’d hate for you to ruin the end of the story for her. 🙂 )

Why the change? Partially because of my beta reader comments and partially because, well, I’ve never liked The Phoenix Cell Saviour.

I’ve always hated coming up with titles. I never know what will best represent my story, but the pressure to get it right, in my mind, is immense. (I mean, I need to picture it on a movie poster when I sell the movie rights, right?) More than that, though, I need to be happy with it because this is how the book–my creation, me–will be known to the wider world. Like we fling about the “Harry Potter” series, or “Hunger Games” or “the Twilight saga”, the title becomes the first point of contact, the entry point, not only into the book but into any discussion about the book. (Including the all-important, vital word-of-mouth.)

Titles are to have significance not only to the plot, but to the messages, values and meaning of the story itself. I think of the novels I teach: The Great Gatsby, where the title derives from the singular, idealistic, hopeful romantic character of Jay Gatsby whom the author F. Scott Fitzgerald uses to prove his point about the American dream being an illusion. Or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, a phrase six-year-old Scout Finch hears from her dad Atticus in 1930s Alabama as she learns how, like the innocent songbirds, many innocent people suffer because of inherent, systemic racism. Or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a mouthful of a title for the novel by Mark Haddon, taken from a line in a Sherlock Holmes story, “Silver Blaze”. While superficially, the title explains the plot, it’s in fact much deeper than that–it addresses an important theme in the book about how what’s missing is as important as what’s there.

I’m not trying to get my book onto the school curriculum (unless teachers want it!); I am trying to find a moniker that will best reflect my theme, my character, my story.

Thanks to my husband, I believe I now have it. Scott was the one who stumbled on the word–a word, a flower, a grain–I’d never heard of before. We played around it with, discussed it, and I decided to go for it.

The problem?

There is not one mention of amaranth in my book.

The solution?

Add some in.

The conclusion?

The beauty of revision. 🙂

I took the proposed new title back to some of my beta readers (and a few who know of the book but haven’t yet read it): they like it. (Whew.)

My draft is with my book coach Jennie now, going through one last round of edits before I prepare to submit it to literary agents, and she may not like the new title, or may have thought of other problems with it that I haven’t, or may think that I’m stretching my revisions, but all that remains to be seen. The other possibility is that she loves it.

So for now, begone The Phoenix Cell Saviour and make way for Amaranth.

A book–I mean, a flower–that will live forever.

Why I’ve had no time this week to improve my own writing:

I’ve been revamping my Writer’s Craft class to help other people improve theirs.

Turns out that as much as my first set of beta readers liked my book, it ain’t perfect.

A number of them picked up on the same issue, and when more than one notices the same thing, you have a problem.

My problem is the bad guy.

In fact, my problem is three problems about the bad guy.

1. He has two courses of action he can choose from. Path A leads to a lot of conflict for Lyra as the bad guy strives to get what he wants. Path B could lead to the bad guy’s specific goal, but would barely impact my heroic protagonist. Therefore, I need him to choose Path A, or I got nothin’.  Yet my beta readers asked why didn’t he choose Path B? It seems easier. Uh, yeah, well, umm…? Now I have to figure out why he won’t choose Path B and make it make sense in the context of the story.
2. His motivation–why he wants what he wants and why he’s willing to tangle with Lyra to get it. The info is in the story, but it’s obviously not clear enough if my beta readers are asking about it.
3. His backstory. This is tied into his motivation–what happened to him in the past to make him want to confront Lyra in the present. This sequence of events (before my story even opens) perfectly explains his motivation and his choices (including the nefarious Path A). And it’s all crystal clear in my head. But alas, it seems my beta readers can’t see into my head. For some reason, they expect all of my thoughts to be clearly spelled out on the page.

The good news is that I have solutions to all those problems. Yay! I’m psyched. I got this.

Except for one tiny little thing.

The implementation of those solutions.

That’s all. Just that.

(Damn.)

After months of feedback from only book coach Jennie, my story, which is now flying on its own out  in the world, (well, the small, beta-reader world), is garnering quite the buzz.

From all of three people.

But that’s three more people than before, of course.

Feedback #1 (from my 13-year-old daughter who refused to let me tell her anything about the book as I was writing it so she could get the full experience): “Where’s the sequel?!”

(Yay!)

Feedback #2 (from my adult friend): “Loved it!!!!” (Note the FOUR exclamation marks–and that’s not my interpretation. I have the text to prove it. 🙂 ) “I couldn’t put it down.”

The backstory: I was chatting with my friend Saturday morning; she mentioned she’d just started reading it; I got the text Sunday morning. “I was bound to the book for 24 hours!”  she said.

(Yay!)

Feedback #3 (from a 13-year-old family friend): “Could I use it for a book report at school? I asked my teacher and she said it would be ok.”

(Yay!)

It’s true that a sample size of three (and all from family and friends) does not a conclusion make, but I’ll take what I can get. After months of living with this story alone, it’s heartening that other people like Lyra as much as I do.

Next week, I’ll tell you the rest of their responses–what the first batch of beta readers felt I could improve on (because, funny, it seems the draft wasn’t perfect. Go figure.)

For now though, I’ll bask in the glow of the compliments.

It’s a nice place to be. 🙂

Eight months ago, I wrote a post–“The First Verdict Is…” It was about the feedback I got from my first beta reader (my daughter) on my previous manuscript, the one I thought was great (until I realized how much it really wasn’t…)

I’m there again. A completely new story later, I’m at the beta reader phase, where I have asked handful of friends and friends’ teenage kids and grandkids, to help me out. I’m much more organized now, thanks to Jennie’s advice: ask them well in advance if they’d be interested and if they’d have the time. Set a deadline–two or three weeks, maximum. Prepare a list of 5-7 questions for them to answer as a way to guide their feedback. Distribute hard copies so it’s easier for them to read and make notes (if they choose to).

Check, check, check and check. The copies of the manuscript are out in the world. Yet this time, I’m not biting my nails or sitting on pins and needles. I’m surprisingly not nervous. Maybe that’s because I’ve already gotten professional feedback through my coach, or maybe because I feel more confident about the story. It’s true that my beta readers may not like it, or like all of it. It’s true they may find holes in my plot I need to fill or character inconsistencies I need to fix. And I also know that a thumbs-up from my beta readers doesn’t guarantee publishing success.

But since I finally feel like I know what I’m doing, I’m okay with whatever comes next. I’ve put my best foot forward (at least the best that I can do at the moment–I do plan to keep getting better and better…) and I will now let the chips fall where they may. (Don’t you love a good set of cliches? 🙂 )

Still, keep your fingers crossed for me (a little superstition never hurt anybody, right?) and I’ll keep you posted.

In 15 days or less.

Because that’s the deadline of my beta readers.

Not that I’m counting, of course.

(14 days, and three hours…)

It’s all there. The whole story. On paper!

All my scenes, edited separately, are now in order. Now I can start on page one, chapter one, and flip through the whole thing.

Very cool.

Or not…

Because as soon as I started reading it, I stumbled upon some significant issues–like I never seem to have bothered explaining what a “phoenix cell” actually is. Considering that’s the crux of my story, I kinda think I’d better add that in…

So, that’s where I’m at: round three. Reading on paper, marking up my copy and making the changes.

And you know what?

I don’t think my book is half bad. 🙂

Let the revisions begin…

And yet again, I have a lot to learn.

Going solely on past experience, I assumed one made revisions chronologically. Even though I wrote the scenes and chapters out of order, I figured that since I need to now stitch them together, I should edit them in order.

Jennie, it turns out (and I shouldn’t be surprised), has a better way.

Start with green-light revisions, she told me. They’re all the really easy fixes–grammar or spelling errors, or a change of words or adding a phrase. Edits that are quick to make. She assured me I’d fly through it and feel so accomplished–and she was right.

While I was doing my green-light edits, she said, make a list of all the yellow-light problems–edits whose fixes don’t easily come to mind. They may need 10-20 minutes of thought before you can change it. That could be altering the dialogue–making the scientist sound, well, more scientific–or addressing a problem of logic (how to completely destroy a vial of blood).

And while I’m doing my yellow-light revisions, make a list of the red-light revisions. These are the big ones. The conceptual ones. The ones that span the whole novel, threads that connect one scene to another. For example, I wrote most of the book thinking that David knew nothing about one of Lyra’s secrets. At the end, I decided he did, in fact, know about it. But that means I have to go back and change his reactions earlier–because how someone acts toward another person will change depending on what he knows.

I’m on yellow-light edits now–turns out I stumbled onto another red-light revision that I don’t yet know how to resolve. But you know what’s great about Jennie’s plan? I don’t have to solve it right now. I can put it on my to-do list and leave it for another day. Whew.

This traffic-light strategy works wonders to keep a writer from feeling overwhelmed. I like it. It’s working for me.

(Except, of course, when I finish the yellow-light edits and will then be faced with only the red light revisions… 🙂 )

…my first draft, that is.

Still, compared to the first drafts I finished for my other two novels, this one feels much more complete. I still have a long way to go before you, dear reader, can pick up this book in a local bookstore, but I feel, for the first time, like I’m on the right path–not trying to guess what the right path is.

Here’s why:

1. I’m not doing it alone. Working with Jennie, my book coach, helped me appreciate the value of a professional, someone who can guide you, critique you, and help you when you get stuck. It’s true there are a lot of DIY (Do-It-Yourself) writers out there who succeed and succeed admirable, but truth be told, I’ve never been a DIY-er for anything. I consider this writing process like building a house. I’d been trying to do it on my own, and it turns out I’m an excellent carpenter who can craft the nicest furniture for my house, and I’m pretty good at splashing the right colour paint on the walls. In other words, I’d learned how to complete the finishing touches very well. What I’d never been taught was how to build the foundation and structure and that, if you’re talking about houses, is a very dangerous thing. For books, obviously, there’s no critical damage, except wasted time, energy and a vicious blow to the ego when the rejections keep piling up. Still, learning how to build solidly from the ground up (and do all the invisible work, like plumbing and electricity) has been key to my increased confidence.
2. Start with story.That seems obvious, doesn’t it? You have to know your characters and what happens to them, but I never appreciated the meaning of “story” before. It’s not about what happens to your characters, it’s about what life means to your characters. Story isn’t about action; it’s about reaction. And every time your characters react to situations they find themselves in, we, as the reader, learn a little about ourselves and our world. Would I do that? What is that guy thinking? How could she say that? I’d never be so stupid. Ah, that’s what I want my friends to say about me.The funny thing is, I teach that kind of stuff every day–how we can learn about our world from the characters–but I never knew how to write it. Now that I know to start with what the character wants internally–his or her greatest desire–and why he or she wants it, plus what’s stopping him or her from getting it, this whole book-writing thing is a lot easier.

So, next steps: I revise my novel based on all of Jennie’s suggestions, as well as adding in details I couldn’t possibly see when I first wrote my opening chapter.

Example: Early in the story, Lyra gets into a confrontation with the bad guys. In later chapters, I decided to write that another character actually witnessed this altercation. That has a huge impact on the motivation of both characters, but since I didn’t figure out that connection until later in the story, I now have to revise that earlier scene to make sure there’s continuity. The thing is, it’s not going to be hard to do (ok, ok, I say that now). But because I now have the whole story on paper, I now know what needs to be strengthened. I’ve never had that much confidence going into a second draft before. 🙂

Then there are beta readers and query letters and agent submissions and well, a whole long road beyond that, but now I’m getting ahead of myself.

So, I’ll take a few days off, wait for feedback on my final scenes from Jennie and then dive back in.  ‘Cause it ain’t over till it’s over.

Yeah, you’re right. It means I’m not really done…