Now Starts the Hard Part

By that I mean the real nuts and bolts editing work--going through each section of the ms, deciding which parts to keep and which to toss or expand on, and then polishing the work to where I can send this first draft out to my readers. It's here I really get to know my characters and they often surprise me! I figure this will take me into the New Year. I'll keep you posted.

Busy working on lining up book clubs and library readings and have a few coming up including Oct. 27 at the Barrington Public Library (http://home.metrocast.net/~blibrary/ ) beginning at 7:00 p.m. Hope to see some of you there!

Just finished reading The Help'" which I found incredibly moving and very well written--the voices of each of the disparate characters unique and consistent. Other recent reads include a few of Michael Kimball's well plotted mystery/thrillers: Undone and Mouth to Mouth.

Here's another shot from the island on which Reese's Leap is based, this one the inspiration for Adria's cabin, "The Birches."

I Killed Someone Today...

Her name was Nancy and she was pretty important at first. As the plot developed, she became extraneous. Hard as it was, she had to go.

Talking about one of my characters, of course, and she was central to the plot of Reese's Leap as it was first conceived. But much time and many chapters later, I realized she was just bogging things down. Sometimes it's like that. But plowing through 300 pages of copy in order to get rid of her was no easy task. Took days and days. A lot like surgery. Some of her lines--those I wanted to keep--and the plot elements she was involved with handed off to someone else. Some of the others now had to do double duty. They're not happy with me, I can tell you that. Now on to yet more tweaking to get the first draft ready for readers!

This shot was taken on one of the island trails that are part of the setting for the book on the fictional Mistake Island--in reality a lovely place off Brunswick, Maine.

Upcoming Events

Always tough settling back in after vacation. Upside is the wonderful flow of creative energy that follows a break from routine. I've got my ending to Reese's Leap now, along with a final plot twist. I'll get all that in place next week and then begin a very thorough tweaking, shifting and editing of the first draft. I'm even considering dropping one of the characters I originally felt was central to the plot but now seems quite superfluous. If you're new to my work, this book is the sequel to my manusript of Matinicus, a few chapters of which you can find on my web site: http://www.darcyscott.net/.

I've also been busy scheduling some fall and winter readings/signings as well as a few book club appearances. Monday night, September 20th at 7:00, I'll be reading at RiverRun Bookstore in downtown Portsmouth. That Saturday, the 25th, I've been invited to "Skype in" to a book club meeting outside Chicago. What fun! Hoping that one works out, cause it would be a great way to "appear" without the cost of flight. Friday evening, October 15th, I'll attend a book club meeting up in Kennebunk ,Maine, and Wednesday, October 27th at 7:00, I'll be reading at the Barrington Town Library. That's it for the fall, so far. I'll keep you posted!

Of Books and Blueberries

To me, vacations mean lots of time for reading, and I sure do a lot of it when we sail. The last few weeks, for example. So here's what I'm into these days. Lots of Charlie Huston--really loved the three books in his Hank Thompson series. Last week I read The Mystic Arts of Erasing all Signs of Death--his dark, quirky book about a twenty-something guy who takes a job with a company that cleans up after people die violent deaths. Why he chooses to do this has a lot to do with a traumatic event he lived through a while back--something that's slowly and rather deliciously revealed near the end of the book. Despite the subject matter, or maybe because of it, it's one of the funniest books I've ever read.

I'm also a big Dennis Lehane fan and just finished reading Coronado--a book of short stories he published a while back. The book is named for one of the stories therein and what I found really interesting (besides his just plain excellent writing) is that he also includes a short play that's an expanded version of that story. The juxtaposition allows for a revealing window into the mind of this amazing writer.

I also plowed through all three books of the Stieg Larsson trilogy this summer--loving all but the last one which I felt suffered for the absence of its heroine's antics until the very end of the novel. Finally, a lovely surprise was found in Julia Glass's story of two sisters, "I See you Everywhere." I've been a big fan since reading her debut novel, Three Junes (which won the National Book Award). Amazing writing. Puts the rest of us to shame...

But hey, lest you think I did nothing more than bury myself in the pages of novels for two weeks, here's a shot of me cleaning the blueberries I'd just picked from a huge field in Bucks Harbor Maine!

Final Input

Well, okay. After taking a long weekend for a High School reunion I was badgered into attending (despite which I had an absolutely fabulous time, so thanks Becca and Liz, for insisting I go), this morning it was back to the writing. A very special morning, too, as I input my final pile of notes for the last part of the book. Which requires, I guess, an explanation of the way I work.

When I get an initial idea for a book, I find myself jotting down little thoughts--ideas for character, bits of dialogue, etc., and then I throw them in a file folder. When there are too many for the folder, they get tossed into a basket. As I start the book, the ideas come faster and faster, thus more and more bits of paper. One basket becomes two, then three. When I have a sense of where things are heading, I loosely organize the notes: one basket for the beginning of the book, one for the middle and one for the part I call "headin' for the barn." Further down the line, I divide them up even further, clipping groups of notes for sections within the baskets, then sections within sections. All of this lives on the floor under a long work table in my writing room, and as things heat up the piles begin snaking out from under the table and around the perimeter of the room. Gets messy. Pretty basic, I know, but it works for me.

So anyway, the big deal about this morning? All the little notes I've been collecting for over two years now are finally gone--absorbed into the ms in one form or another. Now the real work begins: honing character (expanding some roles, maybe deleting one or more altogether), tweaking plot, etc.

Onward!

Too Funny

Working from the boat today. Love it out here--quite, peaceful, great for those creative juices. But I had to take a break to share this one with you. Seems after all my recent chest-thumping and pleading with Snowbooks to please, please, please get my listing for Hunter Huntress up on Amazon.com (their US site, opposed to Amazon UK--a totally separate corporation with its own bizarre set of rules) and getting nowhere because it appears this is not something publishers can control, it seems I finally am. Listed I mean. Not because some big US wholesaler has decided to stock the book, which is the only way to get listed if your British publisher doesn't happen to have a US distributor (ah-hem), but because some readers with Amazon Seller Accounts are putting new and used copies up for sale.

Which got me thinking...

I, too, have an Amazon Seller Account. Maybe I could get Snowbooks to use me as a shill? Of course with the enormous costs involved in shipping crates of the things to me from Britain, not to mention Customs charges and the enormous discounts Amazon demands, I'd make about $.13 a book. That's thirteen cents.

Amazon. Amazin.

Hidden Pictures, or Just When You Had It All Figured Out

Remember the magazine, "Highlights for Children?" A monthly, I think. Anyway, I used to go through it looking for the "Hidden Pictures" page each time my mother dragged me to the orthodontist's office--you know, the one with a list of objects you're supposed to identify within a larger, far more complicated picture? Maddening as hell. There were always two or three I gave up on, only to stumble across them while I was looking for something else entirely.

Last week's writing went something like that.

All week I'd been smugly picking my way toward my "I'm-sure-this-is-how-it's-going-to-go" ending for Reese's Leap, in-putting the final plot elements (later to be more fully developed, edited and polished), when I came across a Hidden Picture. Same kind of thing. I was looking for nothing more than a simple segue from one scene to another, when out of the blue one of my characters uttered a line to another that changed everything. Well, maybe not everything. At the risk of sounding overly dramatic here, let's just say this one innocent comment exposed a deeper truth at the base of the entire book. No lie. This, maybe twenty pages from the end. Imagine.

After a nerve-wracking half hour calculating how much rewriting it was going to take to make this change work (not so much as it turns out; appears the germs of this particular plot element had been there all along), I spent another bit of time wondering why this particular insight hadn't occurred to me before. Why a comparatively minor character knew more about where the book was headed than I did. Know what I decided? No matter how fast I try and pound my way toward the book's finish, gathering the seams of plot lines and cinching them in, the big truths simply won't be rushed. A fact it seems I have to relearn constantly.