Lifting the sag

For my entire writing career I have struggled with “sagging middles,” fighting and failing to sustain a story’s plot in the middle. That’s right: I can write a riveting opening and a memorable ending, but the middle of my novels sag like an old mattress, whether writing a rollicking romance or a thriller-suspense. 

My last novel, Undercover, was a finalist in the Writers’ League of Texas 2013 Manuscript Competition, but judges only considered the first section, and as I said, I sizzle when it comes to the opening scenes. Alas, I have sent the novel to a dozen agents who have returned it with a “no thanks… not the novel for me… good luck…”

I’ll be honest. These rejections unleashed my Internal Critic constant taunt: “Why are you still writing? You know you’re gonna write another milquetoast middle.” I stalled on Chapter 5 of my current novel.

But no more.

I’m home from the summer writing retreat, sponsored by Writers League of Texas, in Alpine, TX, and I am so PUMPED. Thanks to the amazing novelist Charlotte Gullick, I am confident that I have the skill-set to lift and tighten those middles by following her advice.

I finally understand revision, as in “re-vision,” as in “see with a different lens.” I’m ready to look at my Undercover manuscript again, but today I’ll use a focused lens to review the plot. Does the character in each scene have a goal? Is there a drama in each scene? Predictability breeds reader boredom.

It’s okay if you don’t understand, because I do, and I am sure that Undercover, after its next revision, will be marketable. 

The current novel? No longer stalled, it awaits its turn in line.

NOTE: Please order Charlotte Gullick’s novel By Way of Water on Amazon.com. She is a phenomenal novelist (referred to as “the current John Steinbeck” by Jody Pryor—and I agree, although I think she carves a deeper emoitonal landscape). She is also a creative writing professor at Austin Community College, and all I can say about that is, her students are both lucky and blessed.

Writing in Alpine

I spent last week in Alpine at a summer writing retreat, sponsored by the Writers League of Texas. Writers swooped down on the tiny town from all corners of Texas and parts of Louisiana and Oklahoma. They were writers of fiction, non-fiction, memoir, and poetry, and like me, they came to explore their craft--with each other and with the pros who make up the WLT faculty.

This is my third year at the retreat. My sweeties comes with me every year and hangs out while I'm in class. At night we go out and do fun things... for me anyway.

The first evening we gathered at a writing instructor's rented casita and watched the sky turn orange, red, purple, deepening to navy as the sun sunk behind the Davis Mountains while a version of King Ranch casserole cooked in the oven. We listened to the night birds, watched billy goats across the road, slapped at biting mosquitoes, and talked about the juicy alchemy of Alpine on the writer's soul.

The second evening a panel, comprised of the WLT faculty, fed our curiosity with details about their successful writer lives. Although these journalists, authors, and poets seemed to have fallen into their writing careers by accident or the intercession of a benevolent Fate, Joseph Campbell would be proud of their heroic quest to become noteworthy. We listened, infatuated by their stories, and yearned for our own benevolent Fate to favor us with the Holy Grail, a publishing contract.

The third evening three of us drove to nearby Marfa and sat on the patio of the Hotel Paisano where Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Natalie Wood and other cast members stayed while filming the movie Giant. We watched other tourists and a couple of ranchers and their families enjoy the cool desert evening and a fine meal. We had the restaurant's signature entrée: pistachio crusted fried steak, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh string beans. If you want to know how to charge $16 for a chicken fried steak, I just told you. Alas, even though it was past eight o'clock when we headed back home, it was too early to see the Marfa lights.

The fourth evening we met up with 2008 Texas Poet Laureate Larry Thomas and his wife Lisa in the Holland Hotel bar. My sweetie and several writer friends are partial to the margaritas there. Larry, an Alpine resident transplanted from Houston, pumped us for city news while we envied his and Lisa's languid life in the Big Sky Country. Afterwards we went to the public library to hear fellow workshop participants read their work. Yes, I was the designated driver, and happy to be of service.

The fifth night we fretted over our approaching departure. This annual summer retreat is grueling work, but I am so viscerally affected, being among this tribe of writers who migrate to the desert every August, that I feel a deep sadness when it is time to leave.

In the flow

The writing life is multi-layered. The fun part is the creative process. It's what keeps us coming back to the computer screen.

I've been struggling with my main character in my second novel, which is about a race for Texas governor. The race itself has lots of twists and turns—typical Texas politics with backroom pacts and dirty tricks in the mix. She’s covering the race and you’d think she’d be as flashy as the plotline, but she’s been stiff as cardboard.

My friend Karleen reminds me that this is typical in the process. The character is new to me and I don’t know her yet, so I put her in different situations and figure out how she might react. Eventually, as I will get to know her and what makes her tick, I won’t have to force anything. She’ll take over and write her own story. I’ll just be taking dictation. Until then, my job is to keep exploring her character, looking for the interior story, for what motivates her.

Last night, for example, after weeks of drafting five chapters and moving her from scene to scene, she showed me how ambitious she is. It helped me see why she wants to make this journey. She’s going to risk her reputation in this story, and I couldn’t see how someone so strongly identified by her career would put it on the line. But now I see: her ambition drives her to the brink. Wow. I did not know this when I started writing this novel.

Today adrenalin is popping through my veins and I’m writing “in the flow” as Karleen likes to call it. In the flow, for you who don’t know, involves those times when the story comes out hard and fast. A writer’s job, when this happens, is to jump into the rapids and write as fast as she can, capturing the story. (To hell with punctuation and spelling, I’ll handle that in the editing.)

Will I be able to ride the flow to the end of the book? Possible, but unlikely. And frankly, I don’t care. Right now I’m just thrilled with the ride.


PostScript: I mention my friend Karleen Koen occasionally in this blog. She is a best-selling historical novelist who will be revealing ways to wrangle a finished novel from the rough draft at a weeklong retreat in Alpine, TX. She’s an amazing Sorceress who graciously shares her magic potions.

Interested? Go to http://www.writersleague.org/ and click on Conferences and Retreats for detailed information about the 2014 Summer Retreat. This will be my third time to attend the retreat. Hope to see you there.

 

Finding an agent

Writers League of Texas awarded my novel UNDERCOVER a finalist place in its 2014 Manuscript Competition and I've been sending queries to New York literary agencies trying to find an agent to represent me. It's a long, arduous process.

Each agent has specific guidelines--one wants a short synopsis and five pages, another wants a chapter-by-chapter synopsis and the first ten pages, another wants the first chapter but in rich text, and another wants... well, you get the idea. And each agent is unwavering about following her particular guidelines, or else. The "or else" means that she won't read the partial manuscript, and since that is the whole reason for contacting her, I follow each one meticulously.

It's not easy finding someone to represent an unpublished novelist, even if I'm a contestant finalist. Literary agencies receive hundreds of email and snail mail submissions on a daily basis. Okay, I get that. They're busy folks who have lots and lots of wannabe authors vying for their attention. But hey, isn't that the core of their business? Could they exist if wannabe authors weren't trying to get agency representation?

 My man created a manuscript tracker for me, so I could keep up with my queries and to whom I sent them. I've got nine queries out there right now, looking for a connection.

It's funny but I feel like I'm on match.com because even when an agent expresses interest, she may not be the right agent for me. I'm working on the draft of my second novel and have started the idea file for a third one. This lady is no one-trick pony, so it's important that I find an agent who is interested in my writing goals and publishing dreams, not just in selling one novel.

The dance has begun. I'm both excited and impatient to see who will be my partner.