Why I Will Never Ask You

For the record, I did hit my 50,000 words on Thanksgiving morning. It was not a big moment; I knew I'd get there, and I knew once I did that I likely wouldn't be done telling the story. Both of those things came to pass. The motivation to push forward is certainly less now that I've reached that bar, and honestly my word count is already well below 50,000 again since I've started putting it through the revisions it needs before it sees the light of day.

And it's that light of day that we're discussing today. A few posts back I asked who wanted to read this when it was done, and I did get a few responses. If you were one of these people, I'll have a .pdf copy of the whole thing on its way to you the moment it's ready, which will be in the coming week. And I'm glad people did ask, because other than a handful of loyal beta readers I've collected over the years, it's very possible this manuscript that has absolutely eaten me alive over the past month will never be seen by anyone else. Because I have completely given up on asking people to read anything I write.

To clarify: I want people to read what I write, but I will never again* ASK anyone to read something I've written. I want people to read this book, even if it turns out they don't like it much. I still want people to read "Emily," even if all I see in it are flaws right now. I still want people to read "Infinity," because it's just THAT GOOD, and even "Two Years" if they aren't afraid of just how deep into the darkest part of my life it's going to take them. But here's the thing: I've had too many experiences when someone casually discovers that I write books. There's that moment of surprise when they discover something new about me, especially since writing books isn't really the most common of hobbies. And since its kind of an intellectual exercise, people are generally at least a little impressed to find out that someone they know even bothers trying to do it. But you know what? It rarely, RARELY goes beyond that. Example: Someone I know overheard me talking to someone about writing. Their reaction: "You write BOOKS?!?" and then the usual excited follow-up questions. So the next day I asked if she wanted to read one and of course she said she did.

It's been two months.

To the best of my knowledge, she hasn't even started it yet. And I'm not picking on this one person, but using her as an example of what it's always like when you approach someone and ask if they'd like to read something you wrote. Anyone polite will say yes, and then either read it or forget they have it until they guiltily return it unread. And I'm not someone really looking for new ways to be rejected -- I've got my dating life for that. But that's what it feels like when your book gets set aside that way. So I won't do it. I won't ask anyone specifically.

Now, on the other hand, when people ARE interested and motivated, it's very different. Someone approaches you because they heard about your book from someone else and were intrigued? Great. That's what you want as a writer. Not just to be read, but to be read by someone who WANTS to read you. When you invest so much of yourself into creating something you believe in, you want to share it with people. But not in a way that makes them feel like they're taking on extra homework just to be nice.

I hope this isn't coming across as bitter; it really isn't meant to be. I'm just at a point right now where it's not as important to me for a lot of people to read my writing as it would be for a smaller group of interested people to read it.

So if you want to read the new book -- now officially titled "Iridescent" -- and you have already said so, you'll see it soon. If you would like to, let me know. Or if you'd like to read any of the others I've done, let me know.

But I won't ask.

*and all of this will change if I ever get a book deal and I start trying to get people to buy multiple copies; I'm pretty sure I'll become insufferable in my self-promotion at that point

Breakthrough

I found it.

After God alone knows how many aborted plot lines, I finally know how this book is going to come together. And in knowing that, I'm feeling much more confident it's going to work. Confident enough that I'm going to let you in on the two candidates I'm wavering between as I try to settle on a title: Either "Iridescent" or "Just Look Up to the Sky." I'll have to see which fits best when it's all over with.

Okay. Update's over. Gotta write.

Recruiting

Sunday afternoon, though it feels like Sunday evening with the darkening sky. Still not used to the time change.

I'm going to hit 30,000 words today before I go to bed. This puts me just a little ahead of my self-assigned NaNo pace, and hopefully still on the way to reaching my goal of somewhere between 60,000 and 70,000 words by the end of the month.

I'm finding that more than usual, I'm anxious to see what people will think of this project. Most of the time when I write something and I get a certain amount of progress done, I get excited about sharing it because I feel so confident about the responses being positive, which is how most writers would think at the end -- why bother with the effort if the book going to suck?

But this time, I'm anxious for opinions just because I really don't know how this one is going to work. Will it connect with people on multiple levels like I'm kind of intending it to do? Will the imagery work? The parallels? The characters? I just really, really don't know. My stock answer right now when I talk about this is that people will either take to it in the way I'm hoping, or they will politely describe it as "interesting."

So, I'm asking ahead of time for anyone reading this: If you've ever read anything else I've written before or even if you haven't, would you like to see this thing when it's done? I don't feel any remorse in being this shameless about asking. Usually I don't ask people directly to read anything because it seems that almost EVERY TIME I do, they'll say yes because they feel obligated to after I've asked,and then they just let it sit around for months before they read it, if they ever do at all. Which bothers me a little, but not tons because it'd be tough trying to win over a non-motivated reader in the first place. But this time it's different, because when I hit The End I'll be curious right away, and if I know ahead of time how many people I can send the file to, I don't have to bother waiting for reaction from one or two people at a time. Now, I'm talking about a PDF file, so you'd be reading it off a computer screen. For some people at longer distances, this is really the only option. People more local, we can probably work something out with printed copies. But once it's done I want to get it out there.

So, if you'd like to see it, just leave a comment, either here or on the Facebook link that will lead to this post. A simple "yes" with your name will be plenty. I don't want to say too much about it ahead of time, but just so you have some idea I'll say this much: It's a novel written for older children (no surprise). It's not scary. Nobody dies.

Anybody want to help me out here? You've got sixteen days to decide.

Knee Deep in the Word Count

NanoWriMo Day 9, or as I might choose to start calling it because I don't care much for the cutesiness of that name, "Nanoblahblahblah," with credit to Mr. Bomani for riffing up that handle.

Anyway. Call it what you want, Day 9 is now a memory. I'm sitting right at 18,500 words which puts me at a much slower pace than I was last year with Infinity, but still ahead of the recommended pace so I'm fine with that. With this word count, I should be just over one-third of the way finished. But it surely does not feel that way. I'm planning on taking this one at least to 60,000 words just to give myself some edit room, and who knows? It might even go on longer than that. It's impossible to say since I've just had to face up to the fact that when I write a manuscript, as confounding as it might be for some people to think about, I am seemingly unable to write it in chronological order. I have chunks of ideas that I'll explore, and then find ways to link them together as the story develops. Without exception, every manuscript I've finished that doesn't suck has been done this way. I do not discount the idea that because I'm writing like this, I'll possibly reach the end of November and this thing still won't be finished.

But I'm honestly looking forward to it being done. Not to get it over with so much; the work hasn't been hard. I've had the discipline to wake up an hour earlier than usual and knock off 1,000 words before my day really starts, which only leaves another 1,000 in the evening, and seriously? That's nothing. A thousand words is three pages, give or take a paragraph. Not that tough to do once you set your mind to it. But I want this done so I can see what it turns out like. The idea I have, the overarching concept or theme or story or conflict or whatever you want to tag it as, I think it has the potential to be something very original, and -- though I loathe the word from the abuse it receives in staff development sessions -- powerful. But will it be? I honestly don't know. I think some people will read this and instead of being moved or touched or reached in the manner I hope they would be, I think it's possible they'll just dismiss it as kind of interesting but won't admit how it didn't really capture their imagination. Which in the case of this one, would actually be more harsh than having someone say they really disliked it.

I could take dislike. I could take any reaction that had the force of opinion behind it. Vague ambivalence would be harder to take. And I kind of feel like I might be setting myself up for that in a lot of cases. I think either people just aren't going to get it, or, more likely, I'm not going to get it across the way I want to.

Time will tell. But if I manage to pull this off, I'm going to be pretty friggin' happy.