Writing Software

A year or so ago I was reading a blog by a published author (Holly Lisle), and she said she was using a software package called Scrivener for her writing. It sounded rather exciting. It allowed you to create virtual "note cards" with ideas for your chapters, which you could then expand upon and grow into your actual story. So I excitedly went to the website to download it, only to discover it only worked on a Mac. Well a year later I'm happily working on my new MacBook Pro which I had purchased a month or two prior when I remembered Scrivener. Five minutes later I had it downloaded and installed.

After working with it a couple of months I can't imagine writing without it. I copied and pasted my entire manuscript for Noah Zarc into it for editing. It has a couple views for different tasks. An "Outline" view that allows me to see every chapter, and every scene in the chapter with a short synopsis of each displayed. This is great for locating key areas in the story to add in new scenes, allowing me to flesh out a sub plot I'm adding to the story. The other view is "Corkboard" with the aformentioned note cards. It allows me to instantly see each scene and drag and drop those scenes in different orders. This has been invaluable as I begin to layout the plot ideas for Noah Zarc book two.

The built in help system is a bit lacking. It took me days to figure out how to get the chapter numbers and titles to print out when I exported it. (all you had to do was turn off both Outline and Corkboard views.) Also the Search and Replace tools could be a bit more robust.

I know I haven't scratched the surface with what it can do. But overall I am extremely happy with it.

Great book on how to make your novel shine

I just finished Flogging the Quill- Crafting a Novel that Sells by Ray Rhamey an author and editor. I've read probably a half dozen books on editing, but this one by far has been the most helpful.

One of the great things about the book, is it can be used anywhere along the writing process. If you are just starting a novel, or have it complete, there are sound ideas you can use to make the story shine.

He's the author of the blog Flogging The Quill, that I've mentioned before, and many of his concepts can be found there, but the book goes quite a bit further and really outlines the process step-by-step. I highly recommend this, and if you order it now, he will actually do a free phone consultation, or free critique of your first 3 pages, just for sending in a photo of yourself with the book. You know I'm all over that.

Visions of being King

A post over on Patricia Wood's blog, got me thinking about writing. I posted this in her comments.

My dad is a great story-teller. Not the fictional, sitting around the camp-fire ghost story kind. Just the everyday experiences of his life kind. Ever since I was a kid I can remember listening to him tell stories of things he'd done in his life. I discovered around high school that I had no such gift. I couldn't remember what happened last week, let alone what happened five years ago.

So I started to concoct stories up about my exploits. I worked at Disney World for a semester in college (sweeping cigarette butts) and I had all kinds of story-lines I doled out. My favorite one was I went to the lady who made our name tags and told her I lost mine. And I had her make me a "Chip" name tag (My first name is Dale) and I went around telling everyone I was twins. "Yeah, my parents were huge Disney fans, and they named us after those annoying chipmunks."

Another time I was working at a rock concert selling T-shirts and I convinced a group of girls I had fled South Africa during apartheid because I didn't like how the blacks were treated. (I'm white, born and raised in Ohio but I did a pretty good South African/British accent.) I even took it a step further and told them I was number 364th in line for the throne of England.

Then somewhere around the end of my college years, I started to realize something. I wasn't telling stories, I was flat out lying. My conscience started to eat away at me a bit. So I gave it up. Quit cold turkey. Got boring.

Then I discovered writing. The beautiful thing about writing is you can lie all over the place. You can make up the grandest stories, and as long as you make it believable, you can lie, lie lie. I was hooked. I guess I never really thought about it before, but this is probably the main reason I like writing so much. While I'm writing I can at least capture a little bit of that feeling, back when I wasn't so ordinary, and had visions of being King.

I'm a real writer now!

I've finally achieved something that up until now I've only read about. I received my first rejection letter from an agent. Okay, I will admit that I was a bit disappointed, but honestly only a little. As I said previously I had very, very low expectations that I would land an agent this easily. I'm excited that I did get an agent to request pages on my first try, so I'm still pretty pumped.

I am still going to proceed with getting Noah Zarc finalized, and then I'm going to start sending it out in earnest. So for all my beta readers out there, if you can get your thoughts back to me, I'm ready to go.

Just how busy are agents anyway?

I just got a dose of reality today. I've read it dozens of times. I even told my friends who were asking if I heard back from the agent yet, that it could be weeks, or months. But we has humans don't seem to really believe it until it happens to us.

I got an email from the Secret Agent. "Thanks! I'll do my best to get back to you within two months."

I totally understand. We are all very busy people. I have clients (at my day job) that have to wait quite a while for me to get to their projects too. But still, two months! At least I can hold off checking my email every ten minutes... At least for a few weeks. I mean you never know, she may get to it early. :-)

In the mean time I am continuing to refine the query letter for Noah Zarc, and put the finishing touches on the manuscript. I hope to start sending out to other agents within the next month. So that'll give me something else to fret about.

Noah Zarc Book Two

Before all the secret agent hooha, I began work on the second Noah Zarc book. My son has been bugging me to write the sequel, so of course I had to comply. I'm pretty excited about some ideas I have for it. I've got the first couple of pages written, but mostly I've been mulling it over in my mind. I tend to come up with scenes in my head. Little vignettes that begin to build the plot, and give me an idea of where I want to go with the story. I think it may end up being a bit darker than the first one, but that is yet to be seen for sure.

In the mean time I'm continuing to edit book one. I want to make sure it is ready to go if the agent requests the full manuscript. I also haven't forgotten Crimson Swarm. It is off to one of my crit partners who I'm doing a full novel swap with. Could be a busy summer for writing.

Thanks to all the folks who helped whip the first five chapters of Noah Zarc into shape for the agent. Hopefully it'll pay off.

Secret Agent Results

It is official. I can't stop grinning. The secret agent chose Noah Zarc as one of the runners up in the Secret Agent contest. How cool is that? The prize: Literary Agent Kate Testerman, has agreed to read the first five chapters of the book. Yikes! That means I have to put an end to my continual editing. I need to say "It is finished" and send it out. That's kind of scary in and of itself.

She also asks for a synopsis of the whole story. I haven't written one of those yet, so I'll have to get crackin'. I did just reread the first five chapters (making yet a few more edits) and am pretty excited about it. Chapter five ends with a pretty cool cliff hanger so hopefully it'll get her to want to read even more.

I know it is a very, very long shot that I would ever land an agent on my first try, but still it is cool. And it is still worth getting excited about.

Secret Agent Part Deux

I'm pretty excited... The secret agent commented on my opening, and he/she liked it.

"Secret Agent said... Tension, action, introduction of characters: all in all, a good set-up to a possibly intriguing story. I'd be happy to read more.

Although -- Sam and Ham as matching names bothers me a bit."

It's not that I place agents on a higher pedestal than the average reader... okay, that's a lie. There seems to be this almost mythological view of agents by many unpublished authors. And I can certainly understand, and relate to it. They are the gatekeepers of sorts. If you want to be take seriously by most main stream publishers you have to have an agent. So those few words from the secret agent carry a great deal of weight. I really wonder if most agents understand the power they have. Even our secret agent had some pretty harsh words for some of the other entries... I'm sure she is a nice person and certainly has no desire to hurt anyone, but if I'm this excited about the good things she said, imagine what I would have felt to have her say she "hated" it.

I'm kind of rambling here, but I'm just trying to put into perspective how I feel about the whole experience thus far. There is some guilt for the shadenfreudian thoughts I had when I counted up the nos compared to the yeses (was she hooked?) Hoping that there weren't many yeses giving me a higher chance at winning. But at the same time, that is really how the game works. Agents receive by some accounts a hundred queries a day. As a writer you want your query to stand out above all the others. But that means you want 99 people to be hurt by the rejection, so you can be seen.

Boy, maybe I'm not cut out for this. This started as an I'm excited entry, now I'm feeling a bit down.

Well, if I happen to be one of the ones who wins on Monday, I'm sure I'll get back to excited right quick.

Noah Zarc Query Letter

While I wait for feedback from my Noah Zarc beta readers, I'm working on writing a query letter. This is the first thing prospective literary agents will see. Here is version one.

Dear Ms. Agent:

I have been following your blog for years, and always find your comments helpful and encouraging. I hope you will be interested in representing my novel.

NOAH ZARC is middle-grade, science fiction, complete at 50,000 words.

JJ couldn’t imagine life without spending his days piloting spaceships through time, visiting ancient worlds and rescuing the Earth’s animals from extinction. Sure not every kid had to dodge killer robot drones, rescue their parents from the Ice Age, and save the Earth from being destroyed – again – but not every kid was a Zarc.

Nearly a thousand years in the future, humanity has moved to other worlds. The Earth, once uninhabitable, is coming back to life thanks to the efforts of the ARC Foundation. Noah Zarc, his wife Hannah and their three kids, Ham, Sam and JJ, have been given the task of traveling back in time to retrieve pairs of now extinct animals to repopulate the planet.

However dissention has arisen between supporters of the ARC Foundation who live on Mars, and those on Venus who think the Earth should be reopened to human population. The Venetian leader, Haon, has vowed to stop the Zarcs, even if it means destroying the very thing he is fighting to reclaim.

NOAH ZARC shows the power of family to overcome insurmountable obstacles, while not losing sight of what is most important, standing up for the helpless.

I am the owner of a website development company with a degree in graphic design and illustration. This is my first novel.

If you would like to see sample chapters, or the full manuscript, please respond via email at drobert@drobertpease.com, or at xxx.xxx.xxxx. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,
D. Robert Pease

Beta Readers

Editing has been progressing slowly but surely. I think I'm to the point where both of my current projects are ready for beta readers. I've sent off Noah Zarc to a few readers, and look forward to their thoughts. I'm in the process of trying to line up some for Crimson Swarm too.

My goal (I know I've said that before) is to have them both ready to go in the next couple of months. I'm itching to start submitting them to potential agents. I think I've learned about all I can, at this point, about the process and I'm ready to hit the ground running.