Elspeth Grafton

On this date…

Posted on November 20, 2015     Leave a Comment

Well, 4 years ago today I finished the first draft of my second book. A year ago today, I thought it was going to be published. 11 months and three weeks ago, the book went from ‘we love it and readers are going to connect with it’ to ‘it’s unpublishable’, so I went from ecstatic soon-to-be published author to unpublished. I haven’t touched it in almost a year.

I still believe strongly in the story. I believe that readers WILL connect with it. I believe that publishing company was NOT the right fit for me, and obviously accepted the book without reading it, and sent countless emails supporting it having not read it. When they did, they didn’t like it, and thus started a process involving lawyers and loss of friendships resulting in remaining unpublished.

So why haven’t I touched it in a year? Because even though I know what I know now about this specific publishing company and how they operate, their words remain stabbed into a creative part of my psyche.

I pulled up the story today determined to push back their words that still whisper through my brain any time I’ve sat down to write – to write anything – over the last year.  What did I accomplish?  Nothing.  I am relatively close to finishing a reworking/editing the thing, but I couldn’t put anything, any ideas onto paper.

…

Perhaps it’s time to just let it go.  Let the project go and recognize it for what it became – a life lesson.

It can happen in a flash

Posted on April 21, 2015     Leave a Comment

And just like that, a solution that’s been plaguing me for a year has popped into my mind.

I’ve been thinking a lot about TDBD, and whether it is worthwhile pursuing completion on a story that stopped having meaning for me during The Unfortunate Events with the Publishing Company.

I knew something was off with the story before I sent it in to The Publisher (at their request – they knew it wasn’t ready), but was hopeful that in conjunction with the editor they were to assign to me, the solution would become clear.  It never became clear. After months of hearing, ‘we love it, readers will love it, we love it’ being told ‘fix it, rewrite it, you’ve got 6 weeks’ irked me badly.  Yes, the 6 weeks was an unrealistic expectation on their part, but MY expectation of the story was so much greater than theirs ever was.  I knew the story wasn’t working, and I knew I needed more than 6 weeks to fix it.  It’s taken me months since the termination of my publishing agreement to even realize what the problem is!

Their loss… and the subject of separate blog post for a different time.

What I just realized is that the story isn’t going to work as it stands now.  Not as a novel.  Half of the story is missing.  Basically, I’ve got an strong A storyline, and no B storyline – not even a minor one!  I don’t think the flashback storyline counts as I thought it once did.  The A is good, but without B it’s worthless.  I have a vague notion of how to restructure to incorporate that B line, but it’s yet to be fleshed out in my brain.

So for now, I feel comfortable saying I’ve written a novel and a half, and I’ll let the B line continue to percolate in the background of my brain until it chooses to peek out and wave me down.  I’ve got other stories to be told.  What form they’ll take, I’ve no idea but I’m hearing those voices…

It will.

I have faith.

(In)Tense under pressure.

Posted on December 9, 2014     2 Comments

I’m in the middle of edits for The Book and so far it’s been eye opening on so many levels.

It isn’t hearing ‘we don’t like this’, or ‘this needs to be changed’ that I have trouble with – that’s to be expected; it’s the deadlines.  In my normal job, I deal with deadlines every single day.  Every episode.  Some of the deadlines that I was faced with, I didn’t think I could meet while giving what I knew was needed to the script.  While most of the time, I just sucked it up and worked 7 days a week and did it because it had to be done, some were truly inhuman.  I count my blessings that I worked with a production team who listened when I said, ‘I need more time.’.  And I usually got it because they knew if I was asking, I needed it.

This is not so when dealing with publishing I’m finding.  Deadlines are deadlines and you must do it.  Full Stop.  Not what I was expecting when I know I could do better given different parameters.  Maybe I just am in deadline overload still.  I don’t know. Regardless, I’m getting it done.

Within these edits, I’ve had to change the tense of the book.  Again, this isn’t surprising as it was a stumbling block I was facing going through it on my own and knew it was an issue going in.  What I’m finding so surprising is that even though I’m writing this in past tense, when writing new material, my tense slips back into my comfort zone – present tense.  I have to go through and read, adjust, reread, adjust something I’ve missed and then read again word by word to make sure I’ve corrected what needs to be changed. It’s not my natural voice for writing.  I’m trying to work quickly, but it feels like it’s taking me 10 times longer because of the freaking tense.

If I had more time, I’d probably do the re-writes in my voice, get the words and story adjustments out faster and adjust it all to the tense required later.  Unfortunately, on this one, I don’t have that luxury.  So instead of getting uber-frustrated, (okay, I still get frustrated, just temper it with the following), I’m treating it like one big writing exercise.  Not *quite* how you want to approach something going to print, but it’s all I’ve got.

I think the story is going to be better because of the changes.  I really do. I just hope I can do the reworks justice.

:: goes back and rereads to correct tense issues that most definitely will exist ::

It’s a funny thing..

Posted on November 10, 2014     Leave a Comment

It’s a funny thing when given time.

I recently finished a long stretch of work – and for me and the career I’ve chosen, I count the blessings that come with that, believe me.  Every weekend when I was  prepping scripts we were due to shoot, all I could think was, “I wish I could be writing.”  It seemed like whenever I had the most on my plate, on my 7th 12 hour day, my brain was screaming at me with story plot points, tidbits of conversations begging to be put down onto paper.  I drove me NUTS that I literally didn’t have time to write.

Now I do.

Again today I went out armed with pen, paper, iPad, and my wee recipe box filled with ‘cups’ of ideas.  All of them have potential to be developed.  All of them could be fun to write… and I couldn’t find a thread to grasp onto with any I tried.  Oh I tried.

I came home frustrated and cleaned the kitchen hoping that I could clear my brain and start fresh.  Nothing.  I organized and packed all my summer clothes away, then tried to write.  Nada.  I went online to research something that had sparked a story idea many moons ago.  While it was fun scouring Google, trying to find this item with very little to go on, I still found my creative font was empty…

So what gives?  I’ve got the time and I’ve got the motivation.  Why are words failing me now?

Despite the frustration of the day, I’ll spend time tomorrow writing something.  It might just be a journal entry.  It might be a letter.  Hell, it might be some really bad writing – but despite every block my brain puts in my way, tomorrow I will write.