Writing – The Craft of

To Rewrite

/ Lisa / 7 Comments

I’m struggling with rewriting a story.

Editing I can do. Revising I can do (after all, revising is a lot like editing, right?)

But rewriting is a whole different game.

I’ve spent a couple months with some health issues which meant I didn’t get any work done on the new story. I know it’s going to be easy to pick that thread up again but right now the energy I have for writing isn’t streaming toward creating. So I pulled out an old story I wrote almost twenty years ago.

I love that story but there are serious structural issues with it. Not enough characters, so that the antagonist is glaringly obvious. Not enough conflict. And not enough subplots. Well, let’s be honest. There’s basically one subplot and that’s it. Which, as any writer of fiction knows, won’t support a novel-length story.

demolition 09 001

Symbolic of structural issues, wouldn’t you agree?

So I decided to use this time of healing to rewrite that story. And I’ve discovered it’s actually hard. I’ve been trying to come up with something to compare the process to. And the closest I can get is baking.

Have you ever baked a cake, finished the batter, poured it into the pan, and then realized that you forgot something vital, like the eggs? So you dump it back into the mixing bowl and try to add what you forgot, but it just doesn’t mix up quite the same. And doesn’t bake quite right.

Rewriting is like trying to add those darn eggs after the cake is baked.

Arts birthday & climbing 003

Guess this is the only photo I have of a cake. Obviously not one I baked!

So much energy is invested in creating and editing and polishing. And then there’s the process of letting go so the story can go out into the world. Rewriting is also like trying to pick up that energy after it’s long dissipated. Trying to find the mood that story was written in.

It’s challenging to find spots to slip in new characters or new dialog. That seems much harder than adding in bits of internalizations. Then there’s trying to figure out conflicts and subplots for secondary characters that I’ve now realized I never knew.

There’s too much in the story that’s good to just toss and start all over. I’m not even sure I could start over and end up with the same spirit that’s in this version. I definitely don’t want to lose this version.

So I’m plugging along – literally – plugging in bits and pieces as I go. I still like this old story. But my writing has changed since back then.

The process of rewriting is more challenging than I expected. Luckily I like a challenge when it comes to writing.

We’ll see what happens.

Kindle Pricing

/ Lisa / 4 Comments

I’m curious to see what others think about the price of Kindle books.

Here’s how I browse when looking for a new author. I scroll for a title that catches my eye, and more importantly, a tag that looks professional. I saw a tag after a title not that long ago that said, ‘A thriller mystery romance!’ Well, if the author doesn’t know the genre, I’m certainly not going to be able to figure it out either. Plus exclamation points telling me I should be excited have the opposite effect.

After I find something that catches my eye, the next thing I look at is the price. If the Kindle price is over $4.99 I move on. Even if it’s a big name author. If the book is written by one of my favorite authors I’m still not going to pay more for it. Because if I’m going to pay $15 for a book, it’s going to be an actual book I can hold, especially if it’s a favorite author.

One of the reasons I won’t pay much for a Kindle book is I always wonder how they justify the price. ‘They’ as in the authors or publishers. If there are no printing costs, no shipping costs, etc., then why does the e-book cost the same as the paper version?

Once I did spend $13 for a Kindle book by a big name author. I’d never read the author, the synopsis sounded intriguing, and I figured if I liked it, the author had a lot more books I could read. It was one of the worst books I’ve read. I should have at least downloaded a sample first.

I understand the whole concept of valuing the author’s time and how long it takes to write a novel. I understand publishing costs, the cost for editing services, cover art, etc. And I also understand that people want to make a living. But even with all that understanding, I just can’t bring myself to spend a lot on an e-book.

I’m curious what others think about this. I keep my Kindle prices low, and keep the first book in the series free hoping to make the books accessible to all. Do you equate cheap prices with low quality? How do you justify spending on e-books when there are little production costs? Does it bother you that an e-book can  cost almost the same as a hardback book?

I’d love to hear opinions on this as I’m very curious – and also looking for something new to read on Kindle.

 

Then There’s This Question

/ Lisa / 5 Comments

Those who read this blog know I love any question that begins with ‘What if…’ and all the stories that question leads to. But over the past couple years I’ve been noticing a new question creeping in. Not sure I like it, not sure I want to ask it, definitely don’t want to hear the answer.

I think this new question has to do with the gray hair starting to come in. They both seemed to arrive at the same time.

‘Is this it?’

Not so much ‘is this the sum total of my life?’ or ‘is this who I am to be from here on out?’. Or even ‘is this all there is?’.

Those of course are deep questions that can be asked at any stage of life. But it’s not how I’ve been asking that question. It goes something more like this.

When a semi truck going way too fast on the narrow bridge over the Skykomish river confluence is way over into my lane and there’s no place to go but the river. That brief second before the driver gets the truck safely back into his lane.

When lying on the table with your breast covered in ultrasound goo.

When you’re feeling up your arm pit thinking, has the lymphoma come back?

When you’re standing in the pantry trying to remember what you went in there for, and then can’t remember if you even wanted to go to the pantry.

When you realize that the generation older than you is fading and you’re becoming that older generation.

It’s actually an odd thing to think about, but I assume as everyone ages they begin to wonder what their end will be like.

In a way, it’s a rather sick humor sort of version of the ‘what if’ question. That makes me laugh now that I think about it.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not brooding or even worried. It’s just occasionally the question pops into my head.

Is this it?

Well, not today. Today all is good.

Except for the housecleaning bit. But even that’s not so bad when music is blasting and the husband is helping and the dog is protecting me from the killer vacuum cleaner.