2016 Challenge: Focus!

Congratulations to Judy Penz Sheluk who won the second critique from Joan Edwards. Thank you to everyone who left comments.

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Raise your hand if you remember this commercial:


If so, then you may understand how I felt three weeks ago when my mentor, Rebecca Petruck, wrote: 

Omigosh, I'm really liking the look of this outline!

Mikey's brothers couldn't touch my excitement. 

Faithful readers of my blog may remember a post in September, 2014 when, after completing the third draft of my book, I announced I'd discovered the "clay"of my story. 

As it turned out, the clay I'd thrown on the potters wheel still needed trimming. 

In Rebecca's editorial letter about Draft #4 she identified twelve different threads I'd (oh so carefully!) woven together into Half-Truths. That did not count the threads I had in place for my two protagonists. (Do you sense a problem here?)

Rebecca wrote: 

Here is what Half-Truths wants to be:

1. A white and black girl become friends, despite social norms of 1950s Charlotte.
2. A white and black girl discover they are related, and the implications of that.

Consider: what moments show this. Every scene has to be related to this.

She also pointed out the multitude of locations and recommended thinking about my book as if was a play. Which sets would be created? She suggested just five. That was a whole lot more than were in this draft.

There were also too many injured animals and she suggested I choose one. Bird or goat? There was never a question in my mind which would win out. 

But the hardest part was when Rebecca and I skyped and I realized that the girl's love interests--which I'd spent a HUGE amount of time crafting and sweating over--pulled the reader away from the girls' friendship.

The boys got moved to the back seat.  

In November I spent several weeks writing a new outline. I drew closer to each girls' internal and external journeys and eliminated a bunch of settings. I patted myself on the back, sent it off to Rebecca, and started writing Draft #5.

As it turns out, my self-congratulations were premature. 

In mid-December (on my birthday no less!) I received these notes from Rebecca:

It can be difficult to tell from an outline, but this version seems to keep the girls separate for a lot of the novel. They have their own story lines and only sometimes interact with each other. I think what you want is for them to have a combined story line, with mini-B stories that reflect their shared story.

In very broad terms, this is the shape of a story about a friendship.

Act 1: Girls meet, forced to interact multiple times, not sure they like each other.

Act 2: Maybe we can be friends. Fun & Games is becoming friends for real.

Act 3: Being friends is harder than we thought for several reasons, including…holy cow, we’re related?!

Act 4: It’s discombobulating to know the truth, but not only are we friends, we’re family, and that’s worth any discomfort.

The only elements that get layered in are ones that reflect this journey in a different way.

......

During our last conversations, I felt you needed to do some serious pruning. Instead, elements have been added....I think it will be helpful to examine each chapter and each scene, and be super honest about how it affects the friendship. Some elements may work in different places, but go back to that first quick outline I noted about the shape of each act in relation to the girls being friends. I think we’ll need to do some shifting and rethinking.

I was crushed. I'd thought I was ready to write. In fact, I was five chapters into Draft #5!

For one night I let the pity party run its course. Then I went back to work. I thought about the basic four acts which Rebecca outlined. I pinched and pruned. I cut out another favorite location (Wing Haven gardens which I visited 20 years ago and was the genesis of this novel. I blogged about how it fit into my book here). I thought about how the girls could be together in almost every chapter. I skyped with my best writing buddy, Linda Phillips, and she offered a magnificent solution for a thorny plot problem. When I focused on how Lillie's and Kate's actions impacted each other--I finally discovered the essence of my story. 

Five days later, I sent Rebecca a new outline.

The next day she posted this on my Facebook page:

Just read your revised outline. *fires confetti canon* I'm so excited for HALF TRUTHS and proud of you and all the work you've done!!!

The pitch for Half-Truths has been the same for several years: In Charlotte, NC in 1950 two teens in Charlotte--one white and one black--become unlikely friends and discover an heirloom belonging to both  families. 

But the execution of that idea--has been far more complicated. I went far and wide and gathered a lot of ideas before I discovered the precious nugget which was right under my nose.  The girls' friendship is the heart of my story. 

Which reminds me of Professor Higgins's triumphant song in My Fair Lady:

(I dare you to not start singing "The Rain in Spain" now!)

Only two beta readers read Draft #4. Their probing feedback helped me confirm my decision to take the boys out of the book. Since then, they've read the first five chapters of Draft #5. One told me, "My biggest observation is that you're saying more with fewer words."

Which came from writing all those previous drafts.

Which led me to gaining more focus.

How about you? 

What are you focusing on in 2016?

Mark Every Milestone

Congratulations to a new blog reader, Chris Hoerter of Chapel Hill, NC, who won the autographed copy of The Nine Pound Hammer. He attended John Bemis' class at Central Carolina Community College last year and now will have one of his books!

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Warning: Reading this blog may get the tune, "Climb Every Mountain" the the Sound of Music in your brain. 

Two weeks ago I finished the fourth major draft of Half-Truths. Writers are encouraged to celebrate each milestone and this one feels particularly significant to me. I read through the entire draft for the first time since starting it in January. And I am excited. It feels like a book!

But this draft did not happen without a lot of work as well as some writerly anxiety.

The week before I finished the draft, I was writing a brand new scene that would occur at the end of the book. I had a few sleepless nights when I was plagued with, "What if I can't write this scene well?" doubts. At night I worried that the magic wouldn't happen the next day; each day it happened! It seems somewhat silly now, but as I wrote to my friends Kathy Weichman and Rebecca Petruck, I was full of questions."What if my book is not as good as I think it is? What if I can't find an agent or publisher?" 

Here are their wise responses: 

Kathy wrote: "Carol, all those questions you ask yourself, I asked myself for decades. And my responses from editors made me question myself even more. The only question you really need to answer is "Why do I write?" If you can honestly say you write because you love it, you want to, or it satisfies that creative something inside you, then you keep doing it. If you answer "because I want to be published" or "I want a lucrative contract," then step away from the computer. There has to be a joy in the process or surviving this business will be brutal. It took me 39 years of submitting novels before I was offered a contract, but they are 39 years I would never trade. I enjoyed putting words on the page and crafting stories. I learned a lot about writing and about myself. I met fantastic authors, editors, teachers, and readers.

So stop questioning, stop worrying, and just write. And enjoy doing it. 

Rebecca wrote: "This sounds like "what will they think" anxiety which...snap out of it! You CANNOT IN ANY WAY CONTROL WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK. Maybe it will take a long time to find an agent. I have friends at it for YEARS with DIFFERENT manuscripts that are all good. It's a totally subjective crapshoot out there + market trends so you CANNOT KNOW OR PREDICT anything related to an agent or selling the MS. I know it's hard but let it go. 

You won't write a new scene great the first time, especially an important one. When I wrote Diggy and Wayne leading the steers to the packer's truck the first time in Steering Toward Normal, a hugely important scene, I cried the whole time and did it in a scant 3 pages. It was terrible, but now the bones were down and I could go back when I was calmer to flesh it out (and cry some more). Point being: You won't get it right. Don't worry about it. Getting it right is for later. 

I hope this helps. Go! Write, my friend. All will be well. 

Kathy's and Rebecca's boosts got me through my last mad dash of writing. Then I edited out over 8,000 words and sent it to Rebecca who (as some of you know) has been enormously helpful through this process of shaping my story. 

Now I'm celebrating. How?

#1 - NOT tweaking Half-Truths. (Well, only a little teeny tiny bit.) 

#2 - Doing some things I've pushed into the corner. Clean my house. Finish my presentation for the SCBWI-Carolinas conference on "Using Your Own Diversity" with Linda Phillips. Get the next issue of Talking Story together with Joyce Hostetter. Work on a yet-to-be-announced writing workshop with Kathy and Joyce that is going to be awesome. Create a writing wiki for Alexander Christian Academy. Go shopping. Take in a movie. Make my husband take me polka dancing!

#3- Using John Bemis ideas from last weeks blog I may start brainstorming my next book which I hope will be a prequel to Half-Truths. 

So join me in celebrating and remembering that books, like mountains, must be conquered one step at a time, and don't say I didn't warn you!