war – House of Error

War of Exiles Has Been Submitted

People are talking a lot these days about the horror of letting go of their manuscripts. It’s established that it’s something you have to learn to do and that it’s difficult, like sending your child off to college.

But I don’t have kids and, even if I did, that metaphor wouldn’t be perfect. It’s close, but it’s not quite there. So Imma tweak it, just to make it absolutely clear how I felt about submitting War of Exiles for the first time.

It was like sending a child off to college completely by your will–and only your will–with the horrible certainty they’ll just be back in 2-3 weeks with a note scotch-taped to their face.

Cringing, you pull it off, open it, and read, “Thank you for giving us the opportunity to stare critically at your child, but it’s not what we’re looking for right now.”

You take a deep breath, hold it as you look up at your child, standing there, saying nothing because it’s a metaphor for a manuscript and manuscripts don’t actually talk.

And then you let out that breath in a sigh. And even if you don’t smoke, it still sounds like you’re a smoker when you rasp, “I knew you’d be back.”

Submitting War of Exiles was more like that.

I hit this strange wall near the end of my third edit when I realized that the entire series needed to be more thoroughly planned out; Exiles is only book one of three, and although some people can probably just jump into a new book with no real plan, I’m neurotic and needed a very definite plot for the rest of the books. This turned into daily brainstorming sessions with only War of Exiles’ epilogue left to edit.

The result of those brainstorming sessions? Finding a new plot twist that drastically changed the second and third books. And also the world itself; it’s easily the biggest endeavor I’ve ever taken as a writer, and although I’m excited by how much I like it, I’m also already exhausted; I wound up spending the last two weeks of February knocking around the one, crucial detail, making sure it worked.

And then it did–I reached the point when the next two books had a direction clear enough for me to finish Exile’s epilogue and do some last minute tweaks. Not hard, in comparison to the weeks of brainstorming.

But almost impossible when I realized it was another step toward that point when no more tweaking could be done. For me, that is the true difficulty. You hear constantly that an artist is never satisfied with their work. It’s true; every time I reread War of Exiles or Memory, I can always find something to improve. And, despite the fact that I’ve caught myself occasionally undoing changes I’ve made on previous edits, I’m still brutal enough on myself to want–to almost need–the luxury to change what I write. To try to make it perfect.

If I was a different man, I would never let go of that luxury.

Instead, I spent my Tuesday packing a suitcase for my metaphor child. One summary of the kid’s entire being? Check. One letter where I quickly talk about how awesome my kid is? Check. Again, to make this metaphor closer to the experience it represents, imagine that synopsis and query letter as a single shirt and a pair of pants that you continually fold, place in the suitcase, yank out again, reexamine, refold, place back in the suitcase. Just over and over–for actual hours–until you’re exhausted. Until a voice inside of you is all, “Just do it! Come on! PAX is like… tomorrow or something! Get packing or I am going without you!” And for a moment you’re tired enough to feel truly threatened by the voice in your head.

So you center yourself on that Send button. Your finger hovers over it and the same voice comes back, pricking your index finger with, “Don’t do it!”

But then the desperate rush–the incoming flood of a single promise: if you don’t send your novel now, you never will.

So before you can argue, you’re all, “I’m doin’ it.” And even if you don’t put shades on after you say it, you still click Send and it’s still the most simultaneously terrifying and gratifying thing you’ve ever done. At once, you shove your metaphor child out the door and you’re all hoping he doesn’t come back while also totally hoping he does.

But either way, you throw your hands up because it’s done. You’ve written the Synopsis and Query Letter. You’ve followed your agent’s guidelines. You attached a fragment of that whole book you wrote. And you sent it all. There’s no taking it back and no more fussing. Unless the response to your query is negative–then you get to go nuts fussing for a very short window before sending it off again, the second time already easier.

Because in the wild multiverse of possible you’s, you’re the one who already hit Send once.

~~~

Thanks for reading. I’ll be at PAX East this weekend, but the moment I get back, it’s time to once again do all of the above with Memory. If there’s better timing for this con, I can’t think of it. Thank you for reading and please give me a Like or Follow if you enjoyed.

As always though, no matter what you do, take care and write well.

Update: The Age of Submissions Already Sucks

I wasn’t intending to do another update immediately; last weekend was the first weekend without Saturday morning cartoons, as you may have heard. That made this past Monday the perfect time to launch my Cliché Showcase series (I’m starting with cartoony villains).

But when the time came, I just wasn’t feeling it. Although I was excited to write about Albert Wesker and the Red Skull, I was also days away from hearing back about my very first submission. And I thought, “No matter how that turns out, I’m going to have something to talk about.”

Yep. I was right.

Before I launch into this, I have to clarify that it’s more of an update on my life; I’m not trying to share any interesting thoughts here—just laying down an experience.

So, what is it about submitting a story that really sucks? There are many, many answers:

At first, it’s the insanely tense need to make sure it’s completely perfect. Not just the story—the submission itself. There’s proper formatting to worry about, of course. But there’s also your cover letter—the need to write a single, short line about yourself that’s both unobtrusive and interesting. There’s (for me at least) the magic of repeatedly comparing submission guidelines to the email / submission portal you’ve already filled out, combing for mistakes—something I did until my eyes glazed over, looking at the two windows on my computer monitor without actually seeing them anymore. There’s hitting “Send” and immediately checking your submission again, unrealistically expecting to find an error despite the countless rechecks… Maybe I’m being way, way too open about my own neurosis here, but I think these are things that will nag any writer who’s being careful with their submissions.

The post-Send waiting is fine. The hardest part about it is being honest with yourself—knowing that the story probably won’t get picked up.

The worst part, despite all of that prep for rejection, is being rejected. Opening a reply and letting your eyes shoot straight to the familiar shapes of “Thank you,” and, “not what we’re looking for.”

Because, despite what you’ve told others and yourself, you can’t stop wondering if you’re doing it again; I came from a background of cringe-worthy writing that I was too young to second-guess, so the first question I asked myself when I got my rejection was, “Is everything I write still horrible and I just don’t know it?” If you’re like me, chances are you’ll do the same.

And you might go on to ask yourself, “Or is it just not a right fit for them?” And, “But what if it’s too weird? What if it’s not a good fit for anyone?” “It’s Fantasy/Horror. Did I mess up by not submitting this in time for Halloween?” “Is anyone even going to accept a story like this outside of Halloween?” “Is it even actually scary enough for next Halloween?” And it goes on and on…

… Until you get a hold of yourself.

Somehow, despite everything that sucks about submissions, the best feeling is finding another magazine and continuing to submit your work. Cover letters and emails will always suck for me, but sending a story to someone else, sighing out the worry and accepting that everything’s fine (understanding that this is another hurdle to jump over—another part of the impossible process you’ve chosen) is oddly grounding. You don’t give up because you’ve already passed other points where anyone else would have given up.

You’re a writer. You get back to work.

I’ve already submitted “The Drowned God of the Silent Realm” again. I will continue to do so until someone bites or until I move on to a different story. Either way, I’m pulling it’s Progress Bar—it is adequately “Sent!” after all.

And now, onto the next grind. The last edit of War of Exiles. And, in the near distance, a much tougher breed of submissions.

Update: It Starts

I thought I’d take a short, casual recess from the super intense posts to write an update about my work. For two weeks, the above Progress Bar has been glowing at the top of the site. It means that I’ve finished the content edit for my first book, War of Exiles, and that I’m incredibly and finally close to starting submissions.

More immediately, however, it means that I’m going to actually start the submission process I’ve been planning for years:

Step 1 – General Maintenance (Already Complete)

Upon this posting, I’ve already made a few personal and professional changes. Admittedly, you won’t see most of these; if I had the time, I would’ve made a new background for the site and maybe chosen a new theme (kicking off a kind of… Season 3 for the site, if you will), but the majority of my changes are personal and I’ve decided to reflect them with gradual updates to the site instead (also because I just don’t want to get wrapped up doing design work or anything other than writing).

What will be appearing immediately on the site, however, are two things.

First, my new Twitter: @LSantiagoAuthor. I’ll be swapping it with my old twitter on the side bar and using it exclusively. Why? Because even though I believe in and love the idea of the Grand Silence–the strange, imagined worlds of writers, almost always private and unheard–that concept makes for a really douchey Twitter handle. It’s like calling myself @TheFugueState. And that inherent douchiness is what kept me from actually using my Twitter more often, believe it or not. So, if you’re on Twitter and want to read every… single thought that comes to my mind, feel free to give me a follow @LSantiagoAuthor.

The second change on the site is a new Progress Bar for “The Drowned God of the Silent Realm.”

Step 2 – “The Drowned God of the Silent Realm”

That’s the name of a short story that, in all honesty… I wrote without ever mentioning it here.

I do not know why I didn’t mention it, just like I don’t know why it makes me feel so weirdly guilty that I didn’t. Why do I feel like I cheated on you? Why do I feel like I need to bring you flowers and make this right? All I can say in my defense, working on the unrealistic assumption that anyone is actually offended, is that “The Drowned God of the Silent Realm” happened to me as suddenly as it’s happening to you; it’s the story that was inspired by Gravelord Nito’s theme, indirectly mentioned on my old Twitter and in my Games for Writers: Dark Souls post as a “writing session.” From the first spark of the idea, I believe it took me two sessions to finish the first draft.

I honestly don’t remember my first writing session with the story aside from having Gravelord Nito’s theme on hand; I can only assume I’d listened to it enough times that the ideas had to come out–at what must have been around 3AM one morning. What I do know is that the result is the first short story I’ve ever written and actually liked. It is also the kind of story I aspire to keep writing, if that makes any sense; it has a strong, straight forward theme that doesn’t get lost in events that don’t support it. It doesn’t do everything perfectly (especially in 1st draft), but many of the things it does wrong are comfortably intentional–meant to support the theme and the interpretive message of the story (without adding any of the countless cool but totally unhelpful ideas I really wanted to add). So that I don’t keep ranting about it, I will just say that I have a lot of faith in the story. However, even though it’s an easy choice for submission, I’m cautiously assuming I’m infatuated with it–meaning that although I’ve already sent it to fellows writers who also really liked it, I’m still editing it closely and honestly to make it as strong as I possibly can before submitting it.

In the coming week(s), I’ll be updating its Progress Bar. When it’s done, Step 3.

Step 3 – The Age of Submissions Begins

The moment I start submitting “Drowned,” I’m back to what I know are going to be long nights of editing War of Exiles. Not because I’m in a rush, but because I don’t feel there’s a more effective way to do the final edit than sitting with the whole book and troubleshooting all of it at once. The idea of stopping my edit on chapter 9 to jump back to 6 and change an entire scene feels like the most tedious thing in the world to me, but, post-Content Edit, I’m already finding too many clarifications and tweaks that need doing. Clarifications and tweaks in a book that just needs to be done, which means this next edit is the last edit; as I submit “Drowned,” I’ll finish this single edit of WoE. And then, even if I have to force myself to, it’s on to submitting it, working on outlines for its follow ups until they’re strong, and then beginning to write a completely different project that I’m already casually outlining (still tentatively called The Hand and the Tempest).

In essence, Step 3, likely only days away, is the beginning of my personal, probably horrible and defeating Age of Submissions.

Very Comfortably Insane

Not to be a downer, but at the time of this posting, I still don’t feel it.

It’s been a week now. A week since I finished my rewrite of my first novel. And somehow, I still don’t really feel it. There were moments when I almost did–moments when I wrote to a friend about finishing the book and perked up, excited at the thought of moving on to the sequel and other, shorter projects. But every time, the near rush always cut short with a monotone, “Nope. That didn’t do it either–still not excited.”

I don’t want this to sound super dramatic; I’m not numb or in shock. I’m just… unfazed. It’s disappointing, really, because the first time I finished this book, I was out of my mind with joy; I’d finished a book and, oh man, I still had to edit it, but, oh geez–oh man–it was done!

This time, I typed the last sentence. Stared at it. Smirked… And then immediately admitted that I hated the last sentence. I changed it quickly to something I really liked and backed up the finished first (technically sixth) draft. And then I just sat at my computer for a while, aware that now, not only could I do something else with my day… but I had to do something else–even though, this time, I knew the story wasn’t actually done–because it was the next step in my writing plan. In the slow, determinedly celebratory and lazy way of humans, I wound up convincing myself to do all of the things I usually do when I achieve a solid milestone–I played some video games without caring about how much time I wasted that day (ultimately a few hours that felt like far, far too long without the banter of a friend over Xbox Live). I also had a decent lunch. I may have actually bought myself a cookie.

The thing is… I’m much, much different from the 20-something year old who blissfully typed, “The End,” and spent a month celebrating afterward (a month of down time that turned into months of carelessness). Past-Louis thought he was almost done–that the Content Edit and Line Edit would be easy. That he’d finished something great.

Present-Louis, however, has already moved on to another story because he kind of had to. Because Present-Louis knows now that it’s time for the Big Push. The Long Halloween. The Whatever You Want to Call It. This is the year where I keep going and move on to another story with my insane, custom-made, self-taught, monster outlines and try to refine them while learning more about writing; about establishing a flow of projects and trying out my approach for Growing Outlines.

Essentially, now is the time when I actually level up as a writer, again. And it’s terrifying! Maybe because I’ve already finished this same book once without knowing it was terrible. Or maybe it’s because I have almost no outside opinions on my extremely personal techniques–no other writer to look in and say, “Do you really need to list the clothing your characters are wearing?” or “You should make an extra part in your outlines for [this]. [This] is super important and you’re missing it.”

Or maybe it’s because of that moment in front of my computer, staring at the monitor–at that last line–and realizing that I was nothing without the ability to tell stories. I’ve moved on to a new outline of a standalone idea, deeply revised from the super vague, over-excited concept I had in high school (forged from listening to the heartsick intro music from Chrono Cross), and I’m clinging to that outline for dear life. Because I’m not the kind of writer who can take breaks anymore. I’m the kind of writer that’s too far gone, who’s only real fear is the imagined point when I have no more stories to tell.

Well, that and the impending rejection letters. You hear that, slight inkling of victory? Reality’s a-comin’ for ye!

To put all drama and preemptive bitterness aside though, I am… content. Yes, everything is a challenge right now. But, for writers, toiling away, constructing worlds that may never, ever reach readers, everything is a challenge. I’m glad to have found new ones, but they’re still challenges and they’re still daunting.

Regardless, and because I want even this post to be somewhat constructive, the attack plan is as follows:

Spend March away from War of Exiles before beginning my Content Edit. In that time, I’ll take the month to work on a sparse Chapter Outline for the new story I mentioned, The Hand and the Tempest (expect to see it temporarily replace War of Exiles in my Project Progress bar at the top of the page [although its bar will be stranger, as the goal is to progressively build on the outline until it goes from ‘Short Story’ to ‘Novella’ to (maybe) ‘Full Length, Stand-Alone Novel’–this being the purpose of my “Growing Outline”)]).
When April hits, all outlining for The Hand and the Tempest stops as I return to WoE for the Content Edit and, after using The Hand and the Tempest for practice, begin writing a Chapter Outline for War of Masks, the sequel to War of Exiles.
From there, it’s moving on to a Line Edit for WoE while Chapter Outlining the third book in the series (currently unnamed).
After that, when my submission packet is finished, I’ll review the outline for The Hand and the Tempest, and write it as I submit WoE.
And after that, it’s off to work on an outline for another standalone story–I have another in mind.
And all while, I’ll be staring at the intimidating mountain of information that is my actual, main series–my magnum opus that terrifies me as much as it excites me.

This, it turns out, is what being a devoted, aspiring novelist is like; poor and terrified. Unrealistically devoted and absolutely proud of it (if you’re here with me on this obnoxiously lonely, writers’ path, hi there. Let’s revel in our wildly unstable, conflicting emotions together).

To put it simply, being an aspiring author means that you’re very comfortably insane.

Brand New Day – Week 13 – Things Unsaid

Last night, I decided to delete a chapter and a new character from the book.

Don’t freak out! Doing this hasn’t set me back at all. To the contrary, getting rid of an entire chapter and a new character who wasn’t exactly helping is incredibly healthy. Particularly for a first time writer who intends to submit to agents with strict guidelines for manuscript length; part of the reason I’m rewriting War of Exiles in the first place is that the original version was over 100 pages too long.

That wasn’t the entire problem though; it was too long and there were so many unnecessary plot points that I didn’t know what to delete and what to leave in. It was like looking at a tower of bricks loosely stacked on a tangle of wooden chairs and being told that you had to pull out half the bricks and chairs without bringing down the tower. In contrast, deleting Chapter 4 when I’m only up to Chapter 7? Getting rid of Ozi entirely? Saving him for a short story? Completely worth it.

In retrospect, the inability to make this kind of cut is what left me with a 461 page, bricks-and-chairs-golem of a first novel. And to me, it’s one of the things that separates an amateur from a writer who really wants to improve—the ability to be your own worst critic. You can sit back and judge everything else until your face turns blue (which most amateur writers do all the time anyway), but until you can do the same thing with your own work, you’re just wasting your own time.

And this is true for every kind and level of writing; after being a college tutor for nigh on seven years, I can tell you that the major flaw of students is a very common inability to pass judgment on their own work or deal with it from others. The amount of times I’ve had students get impatient with me because they didn’t want to acknowledge a grammatical error as a mistake is absolutely uncanny.

But really, nearly everyone is guilty of this crime. No one wants to accept criticism, particularly because half of the writers out there, who all seem like worthy readers, are usually waiting to shit on your work so they can feel better about themselves; I’ve actually had a trusted writer chuckle as he dismissed a short sample—of my outline. I remember sending it to him and thinking, “Do I even need to add ‘it’s an outline and I’m sending it to you because I need real, constructive criticism, or else why the hell would I send it in the first place; this isn’t to show off at all—I need help, not a snap and a headroll?’ No. He’s a good writer. He’s actually going to help, not take this tiniest opportunity to be a shithead.”

Lesson learned? All writers are readers, but not all writers are good editors. And, also, some writers are such amateurs that they’re absolutely in love with passing judgment because it makes them feel special. More important lesson learned? I’ve been that asshole reader. And, to the person whose manuscript I read, I’m sorry you had to deal with me being a total amateur.

Getting back on topic though, an inability to proofread and copy edit is only the basest facet of the amateur writer’s folly. A more mature form is the inability to trim; despite what many people think, the important difference between “we will have been there ten times” and “we’ve gone ten times” isn’t the subtle nuance of tense that imparts a delicate nugget of specific meaning. No, the important difference here is that “we will have been there ten times” wastes the reader’s time and bores the crap out of them. In my experience, there has almost never been a time where a flowery phrase couldn’t be reworded and trimmed into something far more engaging.

Take something like, “Then, he pivoted to his left, took out his well-sharpened dagger, and lifted it up as he struck!” With something like this, the writer felt it was necessary to give you a lot of extra details. The subject didn’t just pivot, he “pivoted to his left”. His dagger was “well-sharpened”. He “lifted it” as he struck. Fine, but none of those details are necessary. Look at how much more engaging this simple edit is: “He pivoted, drew his dagger, and struck!” There’s no filler to dull down the intensity and slow the action. And all of that nonessential information should be provided by other means anyway; we should know from this character’s personality that his dagger is well-sharpened. We should know that he’s a skilled fighter who would know which way to pivot—and really, in a basic, human way can infer that he pivots in one direction anyway and it really shouldn’t matter which way he chooses regardless. It shouldn’t matter how he lifts his dagger either, for that matter. But sometimes, people fall in love with the very particular scenes and actions they have in mind. And the inability to let go of that, to make scenes simpler and more engaging—the inability to embrace the things unsaid—is the heart of the amateurs’ inability to edit themselves.

And somewhere further down the line, there’s the inability to remove whole chapters, characters, and their plot lines.

Now, am I saying I’m the most epic writer of all time? No. I’m just saying that I’m incredibly glad I cut out Chapter 4 and Ozi. I know I’ve got a long way to go to being an author, but I think I’m getting there.

Brand New Day – Week 1

Last week, on Wednesday, the 14th, I worked my last day at Borders. The rest of that week and the weekend that followed disappeared in a bunch of Borders closing parties (and the hang-overs that followed).

Yesterday, Monday, the 19th, was a brand new day. In short, it was the beginning of my gamble to finish rewriting my first fantasy novel, The War of Exiles, within the next six months. And it began with a few wake up texts from Ronin at Hot Mop Films, asking me what time I’d be in. And, no, it wasn’t that I’d forgotten—I just thought we’d discussed the projects they wanted to recruit me for enough through email (and I also didn’t expect to sleep in ’til 11a.m. [memories of waking up at 4 o’ clock in the morning for Borders shifts that started at 6 are already so distant]).

This, in all honesty, was not how I expected the first day of the rest of my professional life to start, but there are worse ways. The meeting got me up, got me working, and (probably more importantly than I’d like to imagine) got me outside. It was still a little annoying though—not because I’m not excited to work with Hot Mop again, but because I was planning to roll out of bed and get right to work on chapter four of WoE. But now the entire day’s flow was thrown off; I’d get home and someone would be on Xbox Live, or there’d be something to work on for Infinite Ammo. There’d be no time to—

Wait. No. To hell with that.

When I got home, I ate dinner, opened the outline for WoE, and worked from 7p.m. to 5a.m. (allowing for the short breaks that often plague writing [which I hope to siphon out in the next few weeks because, seriously, ten hours?]). Not the amount of work I was expecting, but the amount I had to do because I could (there were at least five more times when that same voice came back with things like, ‘Well, you don’t need to write this character’s bio right now. Leave it for tomorrow! You’ve been at it for like, 8 hours!’ and ‘You don’t need to figure out this cultural detail right now. There’s always tomorrow,’ but each time I fought down the arguments and just didn’t stop]).

Today is Tuesday, the 2oth. And a brand new day.

It started with a wake up text from Chaos Mechanica, asking what stories were ready to post on Infinite Ammo. I spent an hour or two editing two of them and making and assigning images to both. Now, I’m moving on to writing ideas and drafts for Hot Mop.

And I’m also doing “alpha bullets” for chapter five of WoE.

Because the outline for chapter four is finished.

And now, completely unlike Louis from last week, I know I can get it all done by tonight.

Because now, every day is just another, oddly busier work day than I ever knew at Borders. And I’m absolutely loving every second.