Novel(s) Update

I recently came to the conclusion that I was trying to cram too many stories into a single novel/series of novels. I was intertwining different stories together (each with different voices/narrators), thinking that because they had some of the same themes, they should work together - but really it just became confusing for any potential readers to follow, and each part started taking away from the other parts, rather than building off each other and making each other better.

Further, I decided that the reason I was doing that (the reason I OFTEN do something like that when attempting to write novels) is because I don't feel, for whatever reason, like I am allowed to tell the story I really want to tell. I doubt my abilities as a writer, or I worry that the story will be unmarketable, or I worry that the story's subject matter will offend people - in short, I worry too much what other people might think. In an attempt to still write, but somehow soften the writing, I therefore BURY my writing - underneath other layers of writing. I posit that a story that reads not good enough or not professionally polished could be more easily forgiven if it was framed within the context of someone writing the story, and so I bury the story I am less sure about within a larger story of an author's life. Or I use too much vague symbolism or too many extended metaphors to make potentially abrasive content easier to swallow (for me to write, or for others to read), and then try to pair it with another story with less symbolism to mirror that story and help explain it. None of that is necessary to do - nor particularly helpful, or original, or easy for someone to read and enjoy - but I do it because I feel like it would be presumptuous of me to assume people might care to read my writing. I make my stories discoverable only to those who are willing to put in the effort to prove they want to hear what I have to say, the archeologists who are eager and capable of unearthing the fossils I've hidden in the dirt. I do this because I feel like I am not allowed to let my words shine on their own. It's a habit likely born from low self-esteem and a penchant for making myself suffer. But it's also a habit I'm trying to break.

What I am in the process of doing, then, is splitting up the story I was writing into two separate narratives. I am also changing the structures and timelines of these stories a bit, to make them work better as standalone stories. For each, I am figuring out what the real story I want to tell is - and then I am trying to find the courage within myself to sit down and tell it, without burying it and watering everything down.

Right now I'm not quite working on them simultaneously - I'm working on one and then the other - but that may change once I have new outlines and plans drawn up for both. One story is well outlined and already at least 1/3 complete, based on what I had already written; the other is going through more drastic structural changes, and I'm still working out the exact details of how it's going to look. But once I have all those ideas in place, I could foresee it being relatively easy to go back and forth between the stories, working on them nearly concurrently, if I wanted to. We'll see how I feel.

In any case, even though it's a lot of work to rethink and rework my novel(s), I do think it will make for better writing, when all is said and done. And hopefully I'll be able to continue this process as I write, stopping to ask myself every once in awhile if I'm "doing it again" - burying my words under other words and not letting them shine.

Novel Update

Last month, I (again) finished going through and editing my novel (or rather, the first book in an intended series of novels). That means my goals for the month of November include doing research on literary agents, sending out query letters, and starting to go through and edit my draft of book #2 in the same way I just went through and worked on book #1.

Of course, November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and with all the editing I've been doing lately I feel like I haven't done a lot of actual "writing." But there are definitely some things I want to add in to book #2, now that I know what changes made book #1 so much better - and some of those changes will feel more like "writing" than "editing." Plus, just working on book #2 instead of book #1 will be enough of a change of pace to keep me excited about this project.

It's not that I don't like editing. It's a certain kind of excitement to watch something you were already proud of get even better - and thus more proud-making. It's just that sometimes editing feels a little stagnant, and it can be hard to notice the "hey this is actually worth it" changes until you step back and look at it from a bit more distance.

So for this year's NaNoWriMo, I'll probably be doing more editing than writing. But what is editing other than "rewriting"? And shouldn't rewriting also count?

Manuscript Editing Update

If I haven't been posting much of my recent art projects lately... It's because I haven't been working on anything.

With the Scarab Club and the downtown Rochester Gallery Stroll - and my trying to finish my six acrylic paintings in time to display them at the latter - I was prioritizing my art for several weeks, at the expense of writing. Now that I'm working part-time as a graphic design, I don't always have the time I'd like to for both, and I have to pick and choose which I want to focus on any given week (though - to some extent, I was doing that already anyway, before I started the job).

Furthermore, my novel had been more or less "wrapped up" in its current draft, and I'd given it to my husband and a close friend to read and give me advice/comments on before I did the next round of editing. Said close friend had also been working on a novel of her own, and in return I was reading and helping her edit her manuscript. So not only was a prioritizing art for awhile, but I also had little writing of my own to work on.

Now, I'm finally finished reading my friend's story, and she and my husband have gotten back to me with lots of helpful advice for my novel. I've switched gears back to writing and editing for now; it is still one of my goals for 2016 to polish this up and find a literary agent to guide it to the road of publication.

That is not to say that I won't also be making art, or posting about art on here - just that it will probably be less often while I am really focusing on writing.

Transitions and Marketing

This week marked my husband's last week working as a high school math teacher. He's been pretty unhappy lately - with the content he was teaching, the students who didn't put in any effort to learn, and the increasingly frustrating policies (from his district specifically and the state of Michigan in general) stunting teacher growth, experimentation, respect, and yes, even pay.

Thankfully, he was able to find new employment. Though he is sad to leave his current students in the middle of a school year, everyone has been pretty great and understanding toward him - from his students and their parents, to his fellow teachers, and the administration. They all know it's been tough for teachers lately, and don't blame him for finding something new.

Starting on Monday, then, he will begin a new career as an actuarial analyst at AAA. I'm excited for him for many reasons. First, the obvious - it seems like it will be a less-stressful work environment for him, and comes with a significant salary increase. The hours are more reasonable, too - which means no more waking up at 5 AM. It is unlikely he'll have to bring much work home with him outside of working hours. Of course, it is also a slightly longer commute (especially since now he'll be driving with the traffic), and he'll be giving up school breaks and summer vacations - but nothing new comes without some sacrifice.

The biggest reason I'm excited for him though is because he took concrete steps to change something about his life that he wasn't happy with. So many people get stuck in jobs they dislike and just stay there, for years upon years, without even looking for other opportunities. Change is scary, and it's hard to take a risk.

I know that I personally struggle with "avoidance." If something makes me anxious, I try to ignore it, or not think about it. Instead of acknowledging it and dealing with it and seeing if there is anything I can do to change my situation for the better, I often actively repress it and go about doing what I've always done - even if it means I'm hurting myself in the long run. Of course, being aware of this tendency of mine helps; I try to be cognizant of when I'm avoiding and curb it. I try to push myself to do things outside of my comfort zone. But it's not something that comes easily to me - or to a lot of people.

Self-marketing my artwork is one of the things I struggle with most. It feels comfortable for me to put my art up on Etsy, or post it on Instagram or Twitter or Facebook, so I do all of these things. But those things are not enough on their own. Instead of putting my art out there and waiting for people to find it, I have to work more at encouraging people to find it, at leading them to it.

One of my goals for this year is to submit my work to more exhibitions, to look at call to entries and see if any of my artwork fits what local galleries or art groups are looking for. I also want to start getting my art onto more websites - websites that do print-on-demand art prints, or other items with art printed on them - like notecards, fabric, etc.

I have been focusing a lot lately on my story because I am almost done with editing it. Once it's finished (again), I will be submitting query letters to agents and trying to get my manuscript out there. I hope to then also have more time to work on getting my artwork in more places, as well.

As far as transitions go, however, I have another big job transition to mention - my own. I met with the communications department of Temple Israel in West Bloomfield this week to discuss working for them part-time on a temporary basis (the next eight weeks or so) while they catch up on a lot of design projects that need immediate attention. Someone I used to work with at EMU's Campus Life works there now and thought of me when they started realizing how swamped they were and how nice it would be to bring in another designer. It's always so rewarding to be remembered! I will forever be appreciative of the people who have contacted me about opportunities - especially since I'm so often neglectful of seeking any out.

It'll be nice to have regular projects to work on (and a regular paycheck) for a while. I think this will be good for me, and still provide me with enough time to work on wrapping up my manuscript edits and doing what I want to with my personal artwork.

What a coincidence that my husband and I both will be starting new opportunities next week!

More Manuscript Editing

Lately, I've been focusing on my novel (which is why there haven't been as many posts of artwork as there used to be). Most of my spare time goes to trying to make what I have work better, in the hopes that I can hook a literary agent and get my book published.

One of my biggest concentrations right now is purpose - giving everything a purpose, from minor characters to the setting to the scenes themselves. I've been giving minor characters "double duty" - as in, instead of just pushing the plot along, they also contribute something else to the story, like conflict (by irritating the main character) or by paralleling or adding to a major theme.

I've been doing the same thing with the setting for each scene. I'm trying to avoid cliches (kitchens, cars, etc.) as much as possible and put the characters into more interesting venues. I'm also trying to have the settings work "double duty"... In going through and looking at word choice in an earlier round of edits, I realized there were a lot of references to height. Some of the characters are building a treehouse, and so there are references to climbing up and down, or calling up/down to other characters. In another part of the story, there are also hills, which create the same situations. This wasn't really intentional, but maybe on some subconscious level it was - the differences in height often reflect the character's state of mind, and how they see themselves/the people around them. (Looking down/up at other people, putting others on pedestals, thinking they're better than others, etc.) So in places where I can change the setting, I've also been looking at how I can add height into the mix, like having conversations on rooftops and in basements.

As for the scenes themselves, I'm trying to make them more engaging by increasing the tension or conflict. There isn't a whole lot of action (instead, there's a lot of existential rumination), but I have found ways (often through the minor characters that I wasn't utilizing in the best way I could) to irritate the main character more.

I have also been trying to turn exposition into dialogue whenever possible (while making sure that the dialogue remains the sort of thing someone would actually say and isn't an obvious "info dump"). I've found that this also increases the tension - when the characters revisit memories together (instead of just thinking about them silently and ruminating), arguments often follow. At the very least, it's easier to get an instant sense of the characters - when they talk to each other more, their personalities and how they relate to other people come out much more clearly.

It's been a lot of work - there are scenes that I'm basically rewriting entirely - but I really do think it's making my manuscript better. It's hard to tell until the whole thing has been worked through, but I think it's getting there.

All of these ideas came (at least initially) from a great book I've been reading - "Revision and Self-Editing: Techniques for Transforming Your First Draft into a Finished Novel" by James Scott Bell. If you're looking for ideas for fixing plots, scenes, and characters, definitely check it out.

Novel Update

I spent a lot of the end of last year working on editing the first book of the series of novels I've been writing. It's not always easy self-editing your own stuff, but I think I did a decent job, considering.

One thing I noticed as I was going through and doing this editing were several themes that started popping up. Some of them I sort of intended (or at least, noticed early on and played up a little), but others I did not notice until this recent bout of editing (though, again, I played those up a little as I went through and edited, since I did like them and wanted them to be more obvious). It's always nice to go back and read something you've written and realize there are interesting and profound nuggets of thought that crept in that you weren't totally conscious of at the time. To be honest, it makes me feel pretty damn proud of myself - like I'm doing something right and supposed to be a writer.

Other than editing the parts I do have written, I also have been working on some new sections to incorporate into the novel - sections that are basically straight up non-fiction, or at least non-fiction memoir essays (except that they are written as if my fictional main character wrote them). My manuscript already consisted of a contemporary story line, a dystopian future story (a novel that my main character is "writing" that sort of parallels her own life), and short sections of descriptions from the main character's dream journal - and now I'm also adding in sections of essays. I'm not trying to overly complicate things - I really do think it'll work, and add to the story. What these sections are are parts of the honors thesis the main character supposedly wrote at the end of her undergraduate program, and they give a lot of insight into how she interprets the world and what she's learned. Before, I had the character just sort of thinking about her thesis intermittently, as asides. Now I'm including parts of the "actual" thesis instead.

But to do that, I had to write the whole damn thesis - not just the parts the main character would consider for this first book. Because I had to know how the thesis would be organized so that I would know how the parts of her thesis relate to each other. And also, I'll use the thesis for all seven books that I have planned for this series, so I thought I might as well write the whole thing now so that I already have it ready to reference in the future.

The thesis is basically a list of philosophical conclusions/interpretations that the main character has written about some of her favorite Latin quotations. She looks mainly at ancient Romans, but also Catholicism, and even some Enlightenment-era philosophers (those who were still writing in Latin). But of course, I knew basically nothing about ancient Rome, or Latin - though I have been doing research into those topics for this story all along, since I know my main character would know all about Rome and Latin, and I'm trying to get her head to embody her beliefs and her voice. So I had to up my research and do a bunch more - all so I could write a "fake" thesis for my main character to reference.

It was a lot of extra work. I like to make extra work for myself. I do this kind of shit often. "Yeah, my story is good... but it would be EVEN BETTER if I added in this whole other idea/layer and made it more complicated! Or changed the point of view and entirely rewrote it!" "What if this is the only set of novels I write ever? I better make sure I put EVERY IDEA I'VE EVER HAD in it. Leave no philosophical stone unturned!" I don't know if that's just a me thing or a writer thing, but I do all this research and put all this thought into it and combine all these ideas - and then I get to the editing of said writing, and end up paring a lot of it down or not even using whole ideas, or scraping entire weeks of research. Writing, it turns out, is a lot more than just writing. There's a lot of behind the scenes stuff that no one else ever even sees. (At least, how I do it there is.)

So anyway. Now that I've finally (more or less) finished the fake thesis, I'm back to editing the book by adding the sections into it that need to be and giving it another read-through. I am hoping that soon I will be at a place where I am comfortable sending it out to literary agents again. Because I would really, really like to find an agent. I have all these ideas and outlines and drafts and plans, but I don't really know how to go about turning my plans into a reality.

My goal would be to have the entire series published as a series of seven books. Very J.K. Rowling of me. And then, when the series has TAKEN THE WORLD BY STORM and is beloved by everyone and I am rich, maybe also publishing some of all this supplemental stuff I've gathered, like the fake thesis I've written/am writing. (I'm sure I'll come back to it later and add in more stuff. Things are never quite "done" with me.)

I don't really expect that to happen, but it certainly would be nice if it did. ;)

It's Not a Step Back, but a Reevaluation

I've been busy with editing my novel manuscript lately, so I haven't done much artwork, and the artwork I have done are small 4x6, 5x7, or 8x10 works. (The leaf paintings I've been posting about the last several days were completed a few weeks ago - they were being flattened under stacks of heavy books for awhile, and then I had to mat them and take all the photographs and I only just recently got them up here on the blog and on Etsy.)

It's been a couple months since I started those two larger patterned rose paintings and for several weeks I've kind of been "stuck" - procrastinating on working on them.

2 Rose Watercolor Paintings In Progress - by Andrea Arbit

The reason for my stalling is this - I'm at a point with these paintings where I've put so many layers down that it's hard to see the pencil lines underneath, particularly in the centers of the roses, where the shadows are darker. These paintings are not stapled down, so I could easily redraw some of those lines (maybe even try to retrace them, if the autumn-winter sun would ever be bright enough to penetrate through the layers of paint and let me). But that seems like extra work - to go back to the drafting and planning part of the painting. And I haven't felt like taking that step backward.

I mean, the solution is clear - swallow my pride and take the extra hour to "replan" where to go from here. Consider the pieces as a whole and make decisions and plot a course for bringing these "in progress" paintings into the end-zone. I just haven't wanted to take the time to do that.

It occurred to me that this is not unlike where I'm at with editing my manuscript. I've already planned out the story and used that plan to write the story. I've even already edited it (several times). But now I'm going through and re-reading it again, so that I can evaluate what's working and what isn't, and pare things down to let the essence better shine through. And maybe it's just the nature of the beast that the editing is more tedious and less fun than the writing parts, but also I think I haven't been enjoying it as much because I keep getting into this mindset that going through and making these edits is a "step back." I think - I should have gotten this right the first time, but instead I have to go back through and revisit it. And of course it's not going to be enjoyable if I think about it like that!

Lately I've been trying to focus on the parts that are working. It's not that I should have just "written it right the first time" - it's that I did write it right the first time, but then I covered up the good stuff with mediocre stuff like a pirate burying his treasure, and now I'm digging back through to uncover the treasure and let it shine. It's not really a step back, it's just part of the process.

And I need to think about my larger artworks in that same way. It's not a step back to look at the painting as a whole and make decisions about where it needs to go from here. I did it all the time in my college studio classes - we were required to. We even had to do it in front of everyone. We all hung our paintings on the wall and critiqued our own stuff and critiqued each other's stuff, while it was still in progress, so that we could incorporate critique epiphanies into the painting before it was too overworked to allow further changes. In the case of art critique, it is literally a step back, since we walk away from the piece to see what is working from a distance, but it is not metaphorically a step back - as in, progress the "wrong way." It's just part of the process. Reevaluation is necessary to get to the finished product. No one "gets it right" the first time without taking that reevaluation step.

Life is often interpreted as a race. We start at the starting blocks and end at the finish line. Time is linear. We march forward along its line, and that's it. But who actually lives life that way? (And how boring would it be if we did?) Life is more like a dance than a race. We're not always moving in the same direction. We turn, we spin. We double back. And that's okay.

Completing projects are like little lives - whether they're manuscripts being written or watercolors being painted. They don't surge forward without break, without consideration, without the occasional pause to reevaluate where they're going. I need to stop thinking about these breaks as taking a step back (as if that were a bad thing!) and I need to stop letting myself procrastinating working through the important things that need to be recognized and dealt with. It has to be done, but it doesn't have to be a chore, and it's certainly not worth getting anxious about.

Manuscript Editing

I've started following authors and agents and accounts with writing tips on Twitter and I'm so glad that I did.

I saw mention the other day that descriptions of body language during dialogue is a big no-no for fiction writing. You know - sighing, staring, blinking, frowning, fidgeting, shrugging, breathing, rubbing chins, crinkling foreheads, biting lips, and the like. It doesn't add anything meaningful and a lot of people tend to skim over such descriptions anyway, focusing instead on the actual words being said.

When I write dialogue, it bothers me to leave that stuff out - the page looks too sparse with short paragraphs, quotation marks, and 'he said's/'she said's. But when I read a book, I prefer conversations that are quick and easy to follow.

I need to be thinking about the potential reader now. After going through two drafts and getting input from friends on content, characterization, and flow, my story is fleshed out enough that I can focus on this type of editing. So I've been going through my manuscript recently and "killing my darlings," as they say - finding all the places where I made those newbie mistakes and hitting the "delete" button a lot.

I copy-pasted my entire manuscript into a free text analyzer online to see what words/phrases I overused. In addition to those dialogue issues, I found that I'd made several other offenses.

Here are some of them:

1) First-grade adjectives like good, bad, happy, sad, warm, cold, young, old, kind, beautiful, afraid, large, small.

I'm trying not to use these words at all - nor any of their synonyms. I should be able to convey that emotion without coming out and saying that the character feels sad (or disappointed, or pessimistic, or destitute, or somber, or whatever).

2) Colors that are found in the Crayola-eight.

Why say "brown" or "red" when molasses, henna, bronze, cinnamon, raw hamburger, merlot, and even "recycled paper bag" paint such a clearer picture?

3) Unspecific nouns like people, someone, anyting, everything.

There has to a better way to say these. What kind of people are we talking about? Adults? Students? Babies? Firefighters? Southerners? Millenials? Dog lovers? Chain smokers? Feminists? Specificity is so much more interesting.

4) First-grade verbs like go, come, leave, keep, hit, give, eat, cry, bring, put, show, work.

Go/Come/Leave --> Advance, Proceed, Progress, Approach, Decamp, Withdraw
Give --> Contribute, Deliver, Donate, Provide, Dispense, Endow, Issue
Show --> Demonstrate, Exhibit, Reveal
etc.

5) Cliches and other extraneous/uncreative phrases.

- All on ... own: "The skin repaired itself all on its own."
- Fall to / down on / brought to ... knees: "He fell to his knees"; "She was brought to her knees."
- The world: "When the world is crashing down"; "His favorite possession in the world."
- What to do: "I can show you what to do."
- No idea why / Don't know why: "I have no idea why he's suspicious." "Why is he suspicious?"
- With a press of a button
- On the other hand
- On behalf of
- Without thinking / Without asking
- Particularly / In fact / The truth is / Actually
- Really / Very / Quite / Only / Just / Still - These are there for emphasis and are completely unnecessary.

I'm trying not to feel bad that I made such Writing 101 mistakes - and forgot to check for them before starting to send out query letters. Instead, I'm choosing to focus on the things I have to be proud of - that I started following the right accounts, that I listened to good advice, that I'm willing to go through my manuscript again to look for these things, that I'm not daunted by the task and eager to put forth the effort.

And thankfully, I only sent out four queries so far, so I have plenty more names to send my improved manuscript to once I finish making these changes.