Problem chapter.

I've been happy with the final rewrite of The Dead Spend No Gold so far.

The last version is the one where I finally let go of some things that I've suspected are unnecessary.

Bren's been on me about the way romances play out, and I think I finally got what she was saying.  So I trimmed some of the earlier scenes, made them more subtle.  Several others cuts where the point is implicit and doesn't need to be spelled out.

I'm getting to the point where every scene is the way I want it, and they all fit together to create a satisfying story. 

The writing has been sharpened.

But I did finally run into a problem chapter late in the book.

The final confrontation between the good guys and the bad werewolves, in the middle of which Bigfoot's (Grendel's) mother stomps into.

Complicated action that I didn't fully think through.

So I'm going to block out the action today, and then rewrite the scene to make it better.

I should still be able to finish the whole book by the end of tomorrow to send off to Lara for a clean edit.

I think all the work has paid off, and the book holds together very well.  I'm hoping that everyone who liked Led to the Slaughter will like this book too.

Virginia Reed is a pleasure to write.

The book is shaping up.

The Dead Spend No Gold is almost done.

It is really pulling together.  It has been much work, and there were times when I wondered if it would match the quality of Led to the Slaughter, but I think I'm getting closer with every day.

It is a completely made up story this time, using the facts of the California Gold Rush and the Indian genocide as the framework, but with the plot completely created.  Led to the Slaughter had some stricture imposed by the real events, which was both a help and a hindrance.

This book is all mine.

I have several characters from Led to the Slaughter -- most notably, Virginia Reed who is the heroine of this series.

Anyway, as I've said before, with the help of editors many of the problems have been resolved and the book is starting to read the way I wanted it.

It will probably be hard to get as many people to read it as Led to the Slaughter, but I committed to trying. 

I'm proud of it.

A massive game of Concentration.

I hate it when people tell me how hard they work.  You work as hard as you have to work to get the job done.

I have no excuse.  Especially since nobody is making me write.

But damn, this is exhausting.

Writing a first draft is energizing and fun, almost exhilarating.

Writing a last draft is enervating and mind-draining.  I feel like I've been working in the coal mines. It's a giant game of concentration, especially when I am moving parts around.

But...

I see the book getting better before my very eyes.

I had a moment of doubt the other night and so I read the fully re-written first chapter to Linda and she seemed impressed.  She felt it was vastly improved.

That's when you know you've done something, when you re-write something that was already OK and make it better.

I'm a third of the way through this final re-write, which is behind schedule.  I've put the hours in, but I'm trying to respond to all of Bren's criticisms, which means having to create new material (that part is fun) and integrating it seamlessly with the existing stuff (that part is not fun.)

This is more like work.  Doing due diligence.  Making sure the book is as good as I can make it, and not just sloughing off when it gets hard.

I'm proud of the books that have been published so far.  I can pick them up and read them at random and see the work and time and effort I put into them.  They read well to me.

They are real books.  Professionally written.  Fast and entertaining.  Even bits of depth.

I want to be able to continue to do that.

Final rewrite doesn't mean no changes.

So I'm incorporating Bren and Lara's revisions.  Combining the best of both.

There are spots that Bren points out don't work.

So I'm dealing with them.

For instance, the mustering of the search party.  She found it boring.

So I had two choices -- either cut it, or make it interesting.

At first I cut it, then I tried to make it interesting -- by delineating the characters more.  Giving them more personality, including more plot points.

I think it worked.  I passed it by Bren, and she agreed.

Then she thought that I 'told' about the plight of the Indians when I could cover the same ground by a conversation, so I did that.  Again, it strengthened the characterizations in the process.

This along with the regular stuff of better wording, which is what I thought I'd be dealing with this draft.

I've already arranged for a final copy-edit by Lara, so I feel safe in making the changes.

I'm still learning a lot by this process.  Bad habits, if pointed out often enough, can be corrected.

I'm proud of myself for making the effort.  If there is a problem I try to address it.  No sloughing it off.

The only thing I'm not changing is the love story between two of the characters that Bren didn't like, but which I do.

But in everything that I feel that she has a point, I'm working hard to address that point.

It does makes the book better, and that is the whole point.

Editors are a great luxury.

When I see what Bren and Lara did to The Dead Spend No Gold, it's enough to make me wonder why I'm so enamored of my first drafts.

I mean, about 90% of their suggestions for improvements are right on, and the 10% I don't like is probably my fault.

I have to remember, I wrote the original words that are being shuffled around, I came up the ideas, the characters, the story and plot, the pacing, and all that.

Anyway, the editors are a great help, the kind of help I've always wanted... and thought I needed.

Oh, I always felt I got the majority of the way there to a final book, but there was always the feeling that I didn't quite have it done.  I'd have the vague feeling it could be better.  But I'd fiddle and fiddle and not get any closer, sometimes even going backward.

I don't feel that way as much now that I'm getting a couple of edits and a couple of rewrites.  (Oh, there is always the feeling something can be better -- in all things, right?)

In my earlier career, I had little or no editing.

The publishers and agents?  Forget about it.

Friends and family?  At first, a little.  (Linda is absolutely wonderful about it.)

Volunteers?  Well, sure.  But when they found out how much work it was, it usually fell through.  Not always, but mostly.  Even when they were willing, I'd feel like I was imposing after awhile.

I hired my mentor, Dwight Newton, to help me edit Deviltree way back when.   (How I don't know -- because I certainly had no money...)  I remember liking my own version more.

I think I'm much more open to changes now.  Much less defensive.

The upshot is that I suppose I should be thankful that I didn't take up my writing career again until now.  I don't need to write for the money.  Oh, I want to be professional.  I want the validation, and money would be nice.  But I don't have to have it to continue.

In some ways, since my desire to write is as great or greater than it has ever been, I may have dodged a bullet not picking up the gauntlet earlier.

I feel free to write what I want, when I want.

And I can hire editors.

Both editors are very reasonable in their costs.  I think they are doing it as much out of friendship and curiosity and just being involved in the writing game as anything.  But still...it is an expense I couldn't have done before.

I see it as an investment -- which may just turn into "hobby" expenses -- and in either case, the amount of money I'm spending isn't going to break me.

I want these books to be as good as possible without tipping over into obsessive/compulsive.  Which I can do.  I can also be intellectually lazy.  So I'm trying to find the proper balance.

Not to mention the copy-editing.  Amazing how a manuscript can be read by multiple people and still miss a simple typo.  

Anyway, I think these books are turning out better than I could have ever expected and much of that is due to having some outside -- objective -- help.

So thanks to Linda, and Lara, and Bren.  And earlier, out of kindness, Martha and Dave and Wes ... I'm going to forget people here...but thanks to all.

Tuskers. Chapter 22

First draft again, so be nice.  But if  you see anything too out of line, let me know.

Chapter 22

Peggy knew more about what was going than Mark, even though she hadn’t left the building all day.

They’d starting getting reports in the grocery store early in the morning.  Rampaging pigs.  They turned on the radio, not believing it, despite the continuing reports.  Peggy had tried calling him, to tell him about the joke, but cellphone service had died at around the same time.  Not much later, a customer had come in to say that the one cellphone tower in town had toppled over.

“Gophers,” the customer had said, knowingly, and again they had laughed at the absurdity of it.

They’d laughed about it, that is, until a customer came in bleeding from the thigh.  The tusks had hit her femoral artery, and the old woman had died in an aisle of the grocery.

They’d closed for business after that, but kept the doors unlocked in case anyone needed shelter.

“I tried to talk Justin and Brian into staying,” she said, sounding worried.  “They wanted to get home to their girlfriends.  I hope they made it.”

Mark hugged her, and didn’t tell her what he thought.  Without a .30--06, he doubted they had made it very far.

“What about Mrs. Andrews?” he asked.

“She didn’t show up for work.”

Mark didn’t say anything.  Both of them knew how unusual that was.  In fact, Mark didn’t think that anything less than the End of the World would keep the woman from showing up.  Which just meant the End of the World had indeed arrived.

About that time, they heard crashing down below them.

“Someone’s in the store,” Peggy whispered.

Mark was pretty sure what was in the store, but didn’t say anything.  He looked around the apartment.  It was pretty sparse.  They hadn’t been able to bring anything with them from Idaho, so they’d scrounged from friends and relatives.  Cast-offs, like what Mark imagined a hippie apartment must have looked at in the sixties.  A wooden wire spool table, a broken down lawn chair, a black and white TV, which was probably the last one in the entire country. 

“We ought to sell it on eBay as an antique,” he’d joked.  “Perfect for Humphrey Bogart movies.”

There were a couple of solid pieces.  A nice table Peggy’s mom had given them.  Four nice chairs.  A sofa that wasn’t too disgusting.

“Help me out,” he said, dragging the sofa to the door.  She didn’t question him, but put her slender little body to pushing while he dragged.  They got it to the top of the stairs and let go.  It slid rattling down the steps, and banged into the door.

“That’s good start,” he said.

“Not the table!” she exclaimed, when he went over to it.

“The wire spool,” he said, turning at the last second as though that had always been his plan.  She willingly helped him roll it out the door and pushed it crashing onto the sofa below.

By the time they finished, all that was left in the apartment was their bed and the nice table and chairs, and the refrigerator, which was too heavy to move.

“What more do we need?” she asked.

Food? He wanted to say.  More ammo?

She hugged him, and suddenly her body was racking with sobs.  “They’re dead, aren’t they?” she said.

Mark didn’t answer.  He’d only told her that he’d been chased by the javelinas.  He hadn’t told her what a close call it had been.  But she’d managed to intuit it anyway.

“We’re safe now,” he said.  “Unless the damn pigs have scaling ladders.”

They lay in bed, feeling like the last people on earth.  Most of the residents lived outside of town.  There was a motel at the edge of downtown, but it was pretty much the abode of the near homeless, paying most of their paychecks in weekly installments.

Mark hugged the girl he knew he’d spend the rest of his life with.  She was skinny, with small but delectable breasts.  Her incredibly thin waist.  When she put on full make-up she was as pretty as a model, and indeed, she’d been approached by scouts.  She’d laughed it off, certain it was just dirty old men, but Mark wasn’t so sure.

But she loved art.  She loved comics and Doctor Who and Adventure Time as much as he did.  He had never imagined that was possible.  A beautiful girl with a kind heart who loved Doctor Who.  It had seemed very unlikely.

So he’d waited for the dark side to emerge.  Or the phoniness 

But she was exactly how she appeared on the surface.  Only deeper.

He envisioned a nice middle class life.  Buying a house, working until they were sixty-six.  Maybe returning to Moscow some day.  Maybe some day, he’d have time to do his art.  A nice modest life.

Without pigs.  Just the normal deer and bears and such.  Wild pigs seemed un-American.

She snuggled up to him, in that way that he knew would lead to the next thing, and he ran his hand down to the indentation above her ass, which she knew would lead to the next thing, and the next thing led to the next thing and they fell to sleep in each other’s arm, spent.

Final Rewrite, The Dead Spend No Gold.

This should take about a week.

Got the edited manuscript back from Lara and I'm going through it quickly.

Most of her changes are obvious improvements.

The only place she and I seem to disagree is the use of "had" in past tenses.  She prefers to use "had" whenever appropriate.  I try to use "was" as often as possible, even if it isn't technically correct.

There are a few other places where she is formally grammatically and/or tense correct, but I feel incorrect is better.  Hard to explain, it's just a feeling. 

She's going to go through it one more time and I'm going to ask her to again put in what she thinks is proper and I'll have one more chance to decide if I agree or not.

It would probably be safer just to click acceptance, but...well, sometimes not quite right is better.

Nevertheless, going through her changes will be relatively quick.

Consolidating Bren's new critique will take much longer.  I'm going to be much more careful this time, do it page by page, make sure everything is correct before I go on to the next page.

I more or less figured out how to do it in the last quarter of the last rewrite.  Simply put the two versions consecutively paragraph by paragraph, and choose the best of both versions. 

What I noticed is that Bren's version was often more active than mine.  Now I try for an active voice -- believe me, I try -- but sometimes without knowing it I slip into a more passive voice.

I will choose a slightly less correct active voice over a technically correct passive voice just about every time.

As you can imagine, this is time consuming and rife for error.  So I just have to do it diligently, page by page. 

Each of these changes makes the manuscript slightly better, so it's worth the effort.

I'm excited to finally be finishing this.