Tools for Writers: WikidPad

One of many doodles from one of many notebooks

  

I'm currently revising book 3 in my Halcyone Space SF series and if you've ever tried to keep the details of three books in your head, you'll know that it's pretty much impossible.

I've tried various methods of organizing background material, from the simple to the complex, but ultimately, what I have is a ton of notes on scraps of paper or, if I'm lucky, in the staples single subject spiral notebooks I buy by the dozen every year at back to school time.

What that means is when I'm drafting, I have to pour through the prior books AND all my notes for world and character building pieces. Which is time consuming and frustrating.

I've recently come across a program called WikidPad which combines the notetaking abilities of wordpad with the linking capabilities of a wiki. It's not perfect, but it's been extremely useful as a repository for the Halcyone Space universe.

The main breakdown of information 

It's taken a bit of time, but I'm slowly building up a knowledge-base for the series. I've broken it down to stories, history, characters, technology, society, and setting. If I decide I need another category, it's simple to add.

A character page

This is an example of a page for one of my characters. Because I have such a large cast, I need to be able to see at a glance which stories they appear in. In addition to physical descriptions, I also have snippets of key passages from the books that define or help identify each character.

Notice all the blue words. Each is a link to another part of the wiki.

 

HTML view of the character example

You can look at the information in its native view or in html view, which is a bit cleaner/prettier.

One of the limitations of WikidPad is that it doesn't integrate images into the wiki page. As you can see here, it's just text. You can add a link to an image, but it's not the same thing. Ultimately, I'd love to have that functionality.

I haven't yet explored all of what WikidPad can do, but one of the lovely things is that it can export as a single html page, so you can toss it online if you wish and access it in any browser. I will likely put it on a private page on my website, so I can access it on the fly.

It's an open source and free program and if you have a lot of information to organize in one place - especially if that information is interrelated, I highly recommend it.

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Fail Again. Fail Better.

Photo by Feral78 used under CC license, with attribution

So far, this year - and it's not even the end of the first month of the year - I've already done 2 things that challenge me.

The first was to craft a short story that fits as a prequel to the universe of Halcyone Space. The second was to submit a manuscript to a publisher during their open call.

The short story was hard for two reasons - first, short fiction doesn't come easily to me. Creating a story is  vastly different than creating a novel and most of my short stories end up reading either like ultra-compressed (and ineffective) novels or the first chapters of a novel. Where I have been successful is in writing more poetic/literary speculative fiction short stories that are less plot driven than idea driven. But for this project, I needed to capture the narrative flow of the novels in a format that worked for a short story. AARGH.

The second reason it was a challenge is that I needed to match/sync up with what I have already written in 2 published and 1 in process novel for this universe AND make it work as a standalone short story. It's the problem of continuity on a whole other scale.

The submission challenge involved a full revision of a project I had written a number of years ago and make sure it was at the point where I would be proud to have it stand next to my recent work. Then I submitted it to Angry Robot for their open call.

Why was this a challenge? Let me tell you - writing something new, starting from scratch is far easier than doing a revision of an old work. Think of the difference between building a new home and renovating one from 100 years ago. You have to find the healthy foundation and bring everything around it up to code.

And submitting it for publication consideration means that rejection (my old friend/nemesis) is a very likely outcome. It's also letting go of a degree of autonomy and creative control I've enjoyed on all my own imprint's projects.

I decided to go ahead with submitting OATHBREAKER'S PRICE to Angry Robot because I'm focusing on the Halcyone Space books under my Interrobang Books imprint. I had the manuscript available and I didn't have a publication slot for it this year. I'm not fully convinced that going with a publisher will be a significantly different experience than being my own publisher, but I'm interested in finding out.

And before the month is out, I'll be starting on my third out-of-my-comfort-zone project: a collaboration with writer Rick Wayne on a novel whose inception happened in a strange conversation thread on google plus. I've never written with someone before and I'm nervous, but also excited and energized by the thought of it.

This is what I believe: The life of an artist of any stripe means living balanced on the edge of fear and joy, being driven by both. I believe the act of creation is essentially an act of sacrifice. Being willing to fail is part of that sacrifice. If I don't challenge myself, if I'm not willing to reach past my limits, I back away from that place where what I create is greater than what my mundane self can imagine.

So, yeah, this is the year I'm planning to fail better.   


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"I never look back darling. . . "

So, I've been looking back. But it's because I have to. DERELICT is being produced as an audiobook and as part of that process, I need to listen to each chapter and compare it to what is written. I'm checking for missing words, incorrect pronunciations, anything that is not clear. It's inevitable that with 90,000 words to read, there will be errors, just as there are inevitable typos in the written version.

I'm now about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook files.

It's weird listening to someone else read and interpret your story. It's especially weird if you're not a person who tends to listen to audiobooks or doesn't enjoy being read to.

I'm mostly over that discomfort. Part of that is how much I love listening to Bill Burrow's lovely and resonant voice.

The hard part is actually listening to the story and resisting the urge to make changes to it. I started drafting DERELICT in the summer of 2012. I finished it 6 months later. It went through four revision rounds over the following year and a half, to a completed final book that was published in June of 2014.

It was a good story. A solid story. It was ready for publication. And it was the best I could create at the time.

However, between the time I drafted DERELICT and now, I wrote two other novels and revised a third. With each book I write, I learn to be a better writer. That is the nature of artistic work: you change, you grow, you improve.

It is extremely hard not to want to go back and re-write DERELICT. But that way lies madness. I will change obvious typos, but nothing beyond that. I know other writers feel differently, but I believe to make significant changes in what should be a fixed work is unfair to its past readers.

So I work to channel my inner 'Edna' "I never look back, darling, it detracts from the now."

There are small things I would have handled differently in DERELICT if I knew then what I know now - primarily because at the time, I hadn't been planning to write a series. (Note to self: next time, keep better world building notes. Your future-you will thank you for it.) Some things I would change because my ear is now 'tuned' more precisely and there are sentence structures I would smooth out here and there. Other things I would do differently, planning ahead for an audiobook version.

All I can do is take this knowledge and apply it to the next book and the next one after that.

DERELICT is still a good story. I'm proud of it. I can even listen to it without wincing. Many, many readers were moved by it. And soon, it will be an audiobook. Which is very, very cool.

And in a few months, ITHAKA RISING will be its companion. From where I stand now, the sequel is a stronger book. I hope than when I look back in another year or so, I'll wish I could make changes to that one, too.

Because that will mean I'm continuing to grow as a writer.

From the reader's perspective, what do you think of the ability for the author to change a story 'on the fly' as it were?

If you are a writer, would you do so? 

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Sometimes you have to hit it with a stick

. . . Or why revising is like trimming in ceramics.

This is what a bowl looks like after it's been thrown and taken off the wheel to dry for a few days. Do you see the thick mass of clay at the base of the bowl? (It's upside down, so you are looking at the 'foot') That's clay that will need to be trimmed away to reveal the profile of an ideal bowl.

First you need to trim the bottom of the bowl flat.

Then you choose the diameter of the foot and trim away the excess.

Trim the slope of the side smooth from foot to body of the bowl.

To remove weight from the bottom of the bowl, and to create the 'ring' of the foot, carve away excess from the base.

Now we have a bowl with a nice balance of foot to body, and a foot that fits the slope of the bowl.

Unfortunately, when I went to remove it from the wheel, I compressed the side, warping it. And once that happens, there's no way to recover it to round.

So I did what one of my teachers taught me. I hit it with a stick.

Now I have a squared-off bowl.

That will be a dramatic piece, like this one. (Yes, I've done this before. . .)

This is the 'revising' phase of ceramics.

In writing, the first draft is the just-thrown bowl. You really can't do much with it. It needs to dry, to set up so it can be shaped into something finished, something able to be used. While a piece of ceramics will reach that stage in a day or two or three, a first draft story often needs to sit for weeks or months, letting time pass between the writing and the revising so that the writer can approach the work as new again.

Revising a manuscript is the act of shaping and altering. And just like something doesn't work out exactly as you'd planned, you can hit your story with a stick. Metaphorically, of course - turning it into something that may be quite different than your original conception.

And that's okay.

Not all bowls need to be round.

When the Shoe is on the Other Foot: An Editor Speaks

Photo by Holaday98, used with attribution, cc license

Please give a warm welcome to the inimitable Rebecca (RJ) Blain, the unfortunate victim wonderful developmental editor I hired to help me transform one of my trunk novels into something readable. I've blogged about it from my perspective here and here, as well as on many agonized status updates on G+.

Well, fair is fair, and I've invited Rebecca to tell us her side of the story. I had long suspected I was not an *easy* client to work with and Rebecca certainly confirmed that. But she (and I) seemed to survive the process. I know my writing is far better for it.

So without further ado, I give you RJ Blain:

Working with Lisa

When I recently asked Google+ if anyone was interested in me writing a guest post for them, Lisa Cohen grabbed her Red Sox cap, stuffed it on her head, cocked the brim to the side, and came up to bat. I had just finished writing a post about one of my other clients, and she had read it.

She wanted to know what it was like working with her, from an editorial perspective. She’s written about my experiences working with her several times, usually painting me as an evil dentist or a construction worker who has gone on some sort of terrible rampage. I find this sort of thing hilarious, and she knows it.

My name is RJ Blain, and I have survived editing for Lisa Cohen. I should have this made into a t-shirt.

Every writer is different, and most of the time, Lisa is a gem to work with. She’s normally patient. She’s normally laid back. She’s normally eager and willing to take a machete to her words. She works hard. She expects me to work hard, and is understanding of the fact that working hard sometimes means working longer and harder to get a job done.

She asked me not long after I had finished combing through her manuscript how many hours I had spent working on her novel. It’s a pretty common question among my editing clients. My go-to answer is that it, on average, takes me 80 hours to completely work through a novel. This counts the first editing run, the second read through and editing run, the time it takes me to email with clients, the time I spend hooing and humming as I edit, and the time I invest talking with them over IM to help them hammer out plot problems and the kin.

After doing some math, I figure Lisa’s edits were in the ballpark of 120 hours.

Lisa is normally a lot of things, but when it comes to her writing, she can be exceptionally stubborn. This isn’t a bad thing, but sometimes, I had to buckle up and be extremely patient as she worked her way through the thought process.

Writers often need to come to their conclusions on their own. No matter how often I explain something, if the writer doesn’t follow the line of logic and come to the conclusion I came to with, they won’t take my suggestions seriously. If I force it down their throats, they won’t take it seriously. It’s a hard line to toe, but if I manage it, I get to watch, first hand, how much a novel can improve.

Lisa is stubborn. In the grand scheme of clients, she’s one of the most stubborn I’ve worked with. She goes in with a set vision, and things that go outside of that vision need a great deal of thought – and explanation from me.

And a patient ear as she works out her frustrations when things she thought were strong could be made a lot stronger, and so on.

One thing I really liked about working with Lisa was her openness to talk about the editing process from her perspective. A lot of writers go into editing without really knowing what to expect. This can lead to some unpleasant surprises. Many writers don’t understand that different types of editors have different strengths. Some writers don’t understand that it can sometimes take two, three, or maybe even more editors to make a novel really strong. I’m not a copy or proofing editor. When I do my developmental editing work, I do pick apart an author’s writing style as I make suggestions on how to improve their use of language. Unlike a copy or proofing editor, I don’t adhere to a single style guide. My focus is more on reader impact than style guide perfection.

In a way, I think Lisa got more than she bargained for, when I blended the character and plot development work with stylistic suggestions and improvements.

It’s a lot to digest. And, I think, because Lisa is inherently stubborn, she was able to bite off more than she could chew without choking on it.

Writing a novel is easy. Any person who has basic control of language can sit down and write a book. Editing, however, is hard work.

Working with Lisa was a pleasure, because she understood that from the very beginning. I didn’t have to try to teach her that fundamental lesson, which meant I could focus on my work without her becoming too overwhelmed by the amount of work I was throwing her way.

Lisa likes to say I really helped her improve her writing. That’s not true. She helped herself improve her writing. I just gave her a road map and some directions.

All I did was point out the weaknesses and flaws while also giving her tips and tricks to overcome them.

She was the one who did all of the work.

Aww, shucks, ma'am. . .  Thank you, Rebecca! I'm glad I didn't break your brain during our wranglings. :) As I've said before, working this way with an editor isn't for every writer. A good developmental editor (and Rebecca is very, very good) will challenge all your assumptions in the way a smart-ass two year old will, with her incessant 'why's. While you may be tempted to resort to the 'because I'm the author, that's why!', in the end that answer works as poorly for your novel as for your toddler. If you're willing to challenge yourself and your own writing and are able to leave your ego at the door, then I highly recommend this process. You will reap benefits far beyond the particular manuscript you offer up for editing.

A million reasons to keep writing

I started to write fiction with serious discipline in September of 2004. While I had written since childhood, primarily poetry, but some short stories, I had never considered myself a "W"riter before then. That was when my husband tossed a book away in disgust, turned to me and told me that I could do a better job than that.

That was the year I blithely decided I would write a novel. Now, I had no idea how to write one, but I didn't let that stop me. I played with an idea I had worked on in my high school and early college years, discarded the actual writing (which was really, really terrible. (Un)fortunately, the pages I had on yellow legal pad in my spidery handwriting were destroyed in a house fire and are gone forever), and started over.

Somewhere along the way, I stumbled into Forward Motion for Writers and joined an online critique group there. A year later, and over 150,000 words of overly dramatic, cliched writing, I had written 'the end' on my epic fantasy story.

What I discovered was a deep love for novel length fiction and a deep need to tell more stories. So I continued writing. And continued after that.

It's 8 1/2 years later and I'm still writing.

They say (and by 'they' I mean it is attributed to various writers without a definitive citation) that it takes a million words to figure out what you're doing as a writer. I decided to look through my computer files and tally up how many words I've written in the past near decade to see where I am on this grand metric.

Ground rules: I only count each book once, even though for several of them, I have torn them apart and rebuilt them many times over. In reality, counting revisions, my tally would be far higher. I also selected the wordcount from the completed first draft, rather than the final revision.


Completed Novels:
2004-5: Wings of Winter 150,000 (2 rev)
2005-6: MindBlind 87,000 (3 rev)
2006-7: House of Many Doors 68,000 (4 rev)
2007-8: Oathbreaker's Price 109,000 (3 rev)
2008-9: The Between 77,000 (5 rev)
2009-10: Future Tense 72,000 (7 rev)
2011-12: Unnamed Ghost Story 78,000 (1st draft)
2012: Derelict 105,000 (3 rev)
2012: Scarecrow and the Princess (children's story) 4,000

Partial novels:
2009: Medical Thriller 10,000
2010: Sisters of Lilith 14,000
2010-11: Unbound Helix 20,000

Short stories:
9 @ 3,000 each (approx) 27,000

Blogposts:
approx 1000 @ 350 each 350,000

So what's my total?

1,171,000 words written since September of 2005. That's one million, one hundred and seventy one thousand words. Wow.

If I average that out over 8 1/2 years, that's 11,480 words a month, every month for almost 9 years. This doesn't count story plotting, character sketches, or revision work. Nor did I count the hundreds of poems I wrote during that period, or the pages and pages of beta reading/critique I wrote for my fellow writers.

If you look at my writing timeline, you may notice that 2010-2011 wasn't a very productive writing year. That was the year we lost our home to a fire and were displaced. I struggled to write much of anything and picked away, but ultimately didn't complete, two partial novels. Someday, I plan to get back to them.

As for 2013, in the past 4 months, I've been a revision machine, working on DERELICT, my SF novel, and completely unraveling and reknitting OATHBREAKER'S PRICE. I'm considering a big push on the medical thriller, but also have plans for several other stories in the universe of DERELICT.

All in all, I'm pleased with what I've completed in my almost decade of serious writing. Certainly there are writers who can produce far more in the same time frame, but comparisons aren't helpful. I have found the methods and processes that work for me.  I'm happy to write at my turtle's pace and know that I can consistently finish what I start.

Here's to the next million words!

ETA: Clearly my skills and talents cluster in the language areas and not math. Between September 2004 and April of 2103 is 8 1/2 years, not 9 1/2! I redid the numbers. D'oh!

Suck it up, Cupcake

Suck it up, Cupcake.

That's what I kept telling myself when all I wanted to do was stick my fingers in my ears and tell the developmental editor, 'La-la-la-I can't hear you."

I knew the old WIP I asked her to look at needed work. What I didn't let myself believe was how MUCH work it needed.

Some of you may have heard me say this before, but it was less revision than gut-renovation. As in taking the house down to the studs and rebuilding.

The ground floor of our house, demolition phase, after the fire, 2011

It can be done. It's just a painful process.

I don't think there was a single line where Rebecca didn't have a comment. Ouch!

This is what it looked like. And these were just the first 2 pages. After 3 chapters, she wrote 3 pages of extensive editorial notes. In red. Ouch and ouch!

I'll be honest. I pouted. I whined. I argued. I'm not proud of my behavior. But I sucked it up and did the work.

Then I re-did it.

And re-did it again.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

It took me about 3 weeks and at least 4 or 5 retries at the beginning, but finally something clicked and with the right foundation, I could start the rebuild.

Now, 2 months later, (and about 10 months faster than my house renovation process took, btw!) I have the revision complete.

Is it perfect?

Of course not. Now is when we start (to push the analogy) the punch list. When I've had some time/space away from the story, I'll send it back for round 2 with the editor. If I've done my work well enough, her work will be to help me put the final shine to it, without any more significant structural tear-down. 

In the interest of showing my process, warts and all, here is the original first page, followed by the revision.

ORIGINAL

Lilliane bolted upright at the touch on her arm. Her blanket fell away and she shivered as much from the cold as from the familiar dream--her mother’s body cooling, the spreading pool of blood, her newborn brother’s cry.

"Healer Tor, they need you in the infirmary," a soft voice whispered. A young boy, dressed in runner's black stood beside her.

Blinking, she tried to force him into focus as the dream receded and her heart’s pounding slowed. She rubbed gritty eyes and stretched the sore muscles of her lower back. It had been well past midnight when she’d stumbled into the on-duty room. That couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago.

"Who?" she whispered, mindful of the other healers sleeping in cots around them. The boy shrugged. Lilliane sighed, running her fingers through sleep-tangled hair. Why couldn’t it have been someone else’s patient. She pulled on slippers and cloak and plodded after the runner through the guild hall’s silent corridors to the infirmary. It was hard not to be jealous as the boy retreated back to his still-warm bunk.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked inside. Men in mottled brown and tan garb stood out against the infirmary’s white walls. Lilliane frowned at the soldiers who formed a cordon around the examination table in the center of the room. Her aunt Kayla leaned close to a senior apprentice, her voice low and insistent, tension in the set of her shoulders.

Lit sconces pulled reflections from the polished steel of short swords and daggers. They were between her and her patient.

 REVISION

     Lilliane waited for her turn to wash, the coppery tang of blood stinging her nose and the back of her throat. The muscles in her lower back twinged as she stretched. Their patient would live to drink and fight another day, his blind luck in having an assailant with a knife who managed to miss all of his vital organs and make a dramatic mess instead.

     At least she hadn't failed him.

     Davyn peeled off his spattered over-tunic and kicked it towards the basket beneath the basin. Hers had soaked clear through to her undergarments and hung wet and heavy against her. She shuddered in the cold stone room as Davyn slipped on a clean, dry tunic and turned, examining her as if she were one of his patients.

     "I'm fine," she said, stiffening her body to keep from shivering.

     "You're a bad liar."

     Aching for a cup of healer's tea, she brushed past him and tore off her bloody layers, ignoring the feel of his gaze on her bare spine. Rubbing her hands under the spigot, she watched the blood swirl down the drain in a lazy spiral and scrubbed between her fingers until her skin burned.

     A baby's cry echoed against the stone walls of the infirmary and her heart stuttered. A flow of hot blood sheeted from her useless hands. She bit the inside of her cheek, struggling not to cry out.

     "Lilli?" Davyn's concern washed over her.

     She stared down at her hands: They were clean and dripping with warm water, not blood, the nails bitten down to the quick, the cuticles ragged. There was no wailing infant here tonight. Their patient had been a drunk who lost a fight, not a mother hemorrhaging out her life as Lilliane struggled to stanch the flow and her little sister screamed.

 

If you'd like to read the revision, I have begun to serialize the fantasy novel, now titled OATHBREAKER'S PRICE, 1-2 chapters a week on Wattpad.