Writing Workshop

I failed to post here for my last writing workshop, because I had to take a business trip shortly after and I really didn’t have much to say about it at the time.
Now, after a few weeks, I have some things to say. As always, what happens in the writing workshop stays in …

One more member joined us, but I’m still the only male. I guess writing is not a male interest within the company. After the second workshop, we all can really say who is interested in what type of writing : there is the lit chick type, the travelogue type, the philosophical type, and me, the fiction writer.

Sadly, the others only write about what they are feeling, and no-one but me tries to come up with imagined stories.

In fact, this has almost become a game for me : I take the writing assignment and try to build a story about it. The first occurence of this was : “describe a list of emotions describing a particular place and time you’ve experienced; all sentences have to start by ‘I remember'”.

That is a quite dull writing prompt if I follow it to the letter, so I perverted it to show a number of flashes showing a marketplace with vegetables and all, then the inside of an inn, then people coming to get me and drag me before an inquisitor with a blazing fire next to him, then…

Yes, I wrote a story with this dull writing prompt. Other described the smell of their parents couchs and stuff. Not that it was badly written, but it is a heck
duller than telling a story!

So, first time around, I built an horror story, then a straight historical. I’m two for two.

Next exercise had me pick three words and another group member had to select one of these words that I’d have to use to describe a place I had slept in one day.
Luck (bad luck?) had it so that I got paired with the group trainer (as we were an odd number). In my head, my three words were a clear sequence showing three stages of a PI investigating some gruesome case. Of course, knowing me, the instructor chose the least interesting of the three words : airport. She all but begged me not to build a story on that and do a straight description.
I gave in, describing a man sleeping in an airport, waiting for the next morning to see if the airport employees were going to give him a flight away.
I stuck to the description, but I stayed with my character. I may not have told my story, but I talked about my character, and I had a story in my head.

Yes, I’m stubborn. I guess that doesn’t actually make three for three, but I’m close. Can’t win them all.

Next workshop on march 31st.

Novel #1

On the first novel front, there are quite some developments.

I started to submit my book to the writing group!

Let me tell you : writing groups are tough. This is not a group of people amicably chatting around a cup of tea. This is a group of
“would-be-professional-writers” with only one thing in mind : making your work the best possible one.
So, no kid gloves in the writing group : we say what we think. We try to keep it not personal : this is about the work, not the person writing it.

Well, it may not be personal, but when you’re the writer being critiqued, it’s tough!

The first comment was the hardest. I don’t know if it was a good thing or not. It came from someone I don’t like that much, so I didn’t take it too much to
heart, but it was difficult. In a nutshell, my writing was described as a “flux between childish and almost witty”.

That hurt! At this point, I could understand some stories I had heard about writing groups completely destroying the will to write from some if their members : I can totally see that happening.

The next comments were a little better, and some were actually encouraging, if not outwardly nice. In a sense, the worst comment was the most useful. It
pointed at some real problems that I had to correct, so thanks to this guy : the others provided me with an ego boost, but he provided me with some real things to look after.

This was for the prologue.

As a result, I redoubled my efforts on chapter 1, which I submitted last week. The comments were much nicer, saying that the writing had improved much in between.

Yet, these efforts do have a cost : it took me two full afternoons, with detailed comments from my wonderful alpha reader to get to this. I have 44 of
those chapters to edit, so it will be a very long time before I have something I can really send to an agent, since I’m not willing to stop writing book #2 to
get book #1 out faster and I obviously can’t send out the book as it is.

At least, the writing group allowed me to get to know a wonderful new writer. The guy is actually talking to agents to represent him (and he has requests for full manuscripts, which is something big). I had the privilege to read and critique the entire manuscript and it’s beautiful. I really hope he gets published because he deserves it, and let’s face it, if a novel like that doesn’t find a publisher, nobody can. I know that some people are saying that NY publishing is dying, but if they do die, let them die after they buy and publish his book… and mine if possible.

Which brings me to…

Novel #2

After months of writing my mystery in the dark, so to speak, light finally came to me at about 3 quarters of the novel : I now know who did it! Let me tell you that discovery-writing is fun, but it’s not for the faint hearted. I spent months writing that mystery without any clue about who did it. That was not easy on my arterial tension all this not knowing. Hopefully, now that I’m almost closing act 2, I’ll get to steer my character in the right direction.

I wouldn’t say that writing that book is easy going now, but a big weight has lifted from my shoulders. I hope to be done by may, so that I can direct all my attention to editing book #1 as I let book #2 rest for a while. I can already tell that that one is going to need a lot of editing. Sorry alpha readers, but first draft of this book may never see a sheet of paper : you’ll have to wait for draft #2…

Final note on editing

I always say that I’m lousy at editing and that I hate it.

In part, I did hate it because I never knew what to do with the chapters I had written : I always knew that something didn’t feel right, but I never quite understood what. Now, about a year after I finished the first book, I begin to understand what is wrong with it. I now can edit out entire parts of a chapter and add entirely new material. I’m not quite there yet and need much editing after I add something new for the seams between old and new to disappear, but I’m getting there. All the readers comments are starting to get in and now, I know what I need to add or remove.

As a result, part of the editing process has become more fun. I get to see my work better itself, and that’s wonderful.

Never thought I would like editing. I guess I can always surprise myself.

Next blog post should be on early april, after my third writing workshop. Until then!