Tag: drafting editing

Machu Picchu Redux

Machu Picchu Redux

Machu Picchu caught in the coil of the coil of the Urubamba River (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Machu Picchu caught in the coil of the coil of the Urubamba River (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Okay, I guess I have a type A personality. If it isn’t right the first time I’ve been known to do something again and again and again, until I get it – if not right, at least closer to right. I’ve been known to go back to the same place again and again and again to get THE photo I want, when previous attempts didn’t yield what I wanted. With writing, I’ve been known to trash manuscripts 2 or 3 or 4 times before getting what I originally envisioned.

Terraces (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Terraces (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Given this, it shouldn’t surprise you that I decided to return to Machu Picchu after blowing out my legs on the Inca trail so that on my first visit to the site I was basically stationary. So up I got at 4:45 am on April 24, to catch the train to Aguas Caliente, an hour and a half train ride as the Andes unwound their scrub grass into jungle. Picture dawn light on magnificent glaciers, and then we slid into Aguas Caliente and I had to catch a bus up the mountain. And there I was. Again.

The Orchids of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
The Orchids of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Not that my ankles were 100% yet. Nope. I was still using a walking stick and my left ankle was still swollen and sore, but darn it, I’d come all this way and I darn well was going to enjoy the view. So I set off uphill, up innumerable steps to the guardhouse that perched along the path between the Sungate and what was once the main gate to the city. There I sat on the edge of a terrace and overlooked the city, trying to believe I was really here. It was still incredibly busy with tourists, but this time I could move away, an take cover in the shade of bamboo farther up the terraces.

The Guardhouse, many steps above the city (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
The Guardhouse, many steps above the city (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I ambled (read limped) around the ruins and found the series of fountains the Inca had built. Now don’t think spraying water and dolphins or cherubs – these are a series of small pools fed by a single spring that still supplies the ruins with water from far up the mountain. The story goes that each small pool has its own voice. I think could almost make out the tonal differences out over the myriad loud tourists. So I focused on the liquid song and, on as hot a day as this was, and after seeing children crying because foolish parents forgot to bring drinks, I could believe that the Inca built this series of fountains as homage to the importance of water to life.

There were swallows soaring and song sparrows trilling and generally it was a glorious day – except for the tourists. The final straw for me was some children who were determined to separate a very young baby llama from its mother because they wanted to pet it. I mean where were those darn children’s parents? I was about to use my walking stick and not on the llamas! Thankfully another tourist intervened before I got myself arrested. But I did get some photos I’m happy with and so here you go.

Enjoy! Ciao, from Peru!

The last view of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
The last view of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Planning for the Long Haul

Planning for the Long Haul

Planning a trip to Machu Picchu means planning for the long trek up hill. It means choosing a guide, choosing equipment, it means readying yourself so you don’t break down on the climb. Planning for a novel is much the same, but that doesn’t mean you have to plan everything step by step. Not in the least.

For the trek, I want to know that I’ll be comfortable and generally where I’m going. Yes, I have a basic equipment list, but whether it will be appropriate for Peruvian weather conditions needs consideration because I’m going  at teh end of the rainy season. For writing, planning means something similar—not a plan that guides every chapter, but a plan that will generally guide me through the arduous process of writing a novel.

Old Moslem Fortress at Sintra, near Lisbon, Portugal (2005) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Old Moslem Fortress at Sintra, near Lisbon, Portugal (2005) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

So how do I do that? I wrote previously about the process of selecting a guide for Machu Picchu (here). To plan for the trek involves gathering information. Who are guides that operate at Machu Picchu? Who is reputable? Before the internet it was much harder to find out. I used to go to my travelers’ bookstore and ask them what they knew, or else talk to other travelers. Those old favorite guidebooks Lonely Planet and Rough Guide provided helpful suggestions that I often took advantage of and often I’d arrive with only a general idea that I needed to find a guide and then would go on a search when for a good one when I arrived.

Finding a guide when planning a book is another thing altogether. I used to plan my books chapter by chapter and used wonderful chapter outline sheets that had been provided by my mentor, Dean Wesley Smith. These helped me focus on the important points of a chapter:

1. Point of view.

2. Where are the characters at the start?

3. Where are the characters at the end?

4. How have things changed?

5. How have things gotten worse?

I wrote many novels based on those chapter sheets. What I found was that often the novel started with those sheets, but gradually the writing took over and the sheets were put away toward the end of the maniscript. If people are relatively new to writing, or if they have a hard time finishing a novel, this can be a helpful tool because the sheets help you outline your novel scene by scene, chapter by chapter. But I found that I gradually outgrew the need for the sheets. I sort of look back at them as training wheels that helped me learn what chapters and scenes are all about.

From there, I began to plan books in large chunks. I knew the characters got from here to there and bad stuff happened, but I didn’t write it down. Or if I did, I just jotted brief notes. I once heard Nancy Kress, the wonderful science fiction writer; speak of writing a list of all the things you know need to happen in the book (or all the scenes you want to put in, or all the events you want to happen). She then suggests that you take this list and put the scenes/events along a story arc, thinking about try/fail sequences (everything always gets worse) climaxes, and the three-act structure. I’ve found this very helpful, not to start a book, but to help clarify my thoughts when I’m lost in the thick of the action.

For my last three novels, I’ve tried something much more spontaneous. I’ve tried the write-into-the-mists form of writing—something romance writers call ‘pantsing’ (writing by the seat of your pants), which is much more akin to how I like to travel. I start out with a general idea of where I want to go and allow the destination to guide me about where I want to go. With writing, I start with a general idea of what the story is about. This allows me to enjoy the experience of the story, much as the potential reader will. A mystery writer friend recently finished drafting a novel and told me she didn’t know who the killer was until the last two chapters. Let’s face it, if the writer is surprised by where the story takes her, no doubt the reader will be, too. To write in this manner I have to let the character speak to me and at any fork in the story I ask myself what would the character do? So the noval arises from the character.

To write this way is an exploration. As I write, events or facts arise that mean I have to go back in the manuscript to insert information. Whether you do that at the time, or wait until the first draft is finished is your choice. I either keep a notebook, or keep a running list, of ideas or things to insert or change at the end of the manuscript. Other people I know, use the comments function to make notes of changes they need to make.

Increasingly, I’m noticing that research is one of the most important aids to my writing. But this is another blog on its own.

So planning for a novel, or a back-packing trip to the Andes, both require you sort out your planning method. Both require you to do your research, and if you are lucky, one will bleed into the other so your trip feeds our writing and your writing feeds your trip.

Finding the Perfect Jacket

Finding the Perfect Jacket

Let me start by saying there’s no such thing. You might get close, but perfect is beyond anyone in my humble opinion.

Searching a Paris shop window for the perfect whatever. Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson
Searching a Paris shop window for the perfect whatever. Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I spent a good portion of my Christmas shopping time also looking for the jacket I was going to carry on my trip to Peru. Now I know my trip is three months away, but when you are as tall as I am, finding clothes to fit you is never easy and finding specialty clothes to fit me is even tougher. Shirts and jackets and fleeces that on most women would reach down to the hips, on me barely clear my belly. Trousers—well let’s just say they are never cut long enough.

So finding a jacket that would be very lightweight, but rainproof enough for the rainy season in Peru, warm enough for the mountains, but still breathable enough when I was climbing UP said mountains (probably uphill both ways) was no small task. I needed to start early. I needed to plan where I would go to look. I needed to plan it all and find the perfect jacket.

I didn’t find it.

Everything was either too short or too short in the arms, or it was a man’s jacket and fit like a box. I finally settled on a jacket that they had to order for me and I’m hoping it will do the trick. Not quite as long as I wanted, not quite the fit I wanted, and it has a hood you can’t hide. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won’t, but the trick is to try it.

Why am I telling you this? Because finding the perfect jacket is a lot like trying to write the perfect book.

Over the past three and a bit months I’ve been writing another novel, this one a romantic suspense set in Cambodia, that I call Shadow Play. Writing it, and the last three books I’ve written, have been some of the most difficult creative exercises for me. Why? Because I wanted them to be perfect. Because I knew if they weren’t perfect, they wouldn’t sell. Talk about the wrong emphasis (selling).

The result was that I was so caught up on all the qualities I couldn’t seem to find in my own writing, that I couldn’t seem to see anything good, and if there’s one thing that can shut down the creative brain it’s the editor on your shoulder telling you it’s not good enough.

Luckily, I’m immensely stubborn and I have some great writer friends who helped talk me through these crises of faith, but the most important thing was to keep reminding myself it doesn’t have to be perfect. In this day and age of computers you can write the story, like I did, and discover the characters and their background through the writing process. Then you can go back and reshape the manuscript to fit the characters you actually wrote.

As I write this, I am chuckling because of something I tell my students in an investigative report writing course I teach. Of course I forgot to apply it to my novel writing.

Apparently there were researchers looking at people’s styles of writing and where writers placed the majority if their times in the planning, drafting, or redrafting process . The researchers surmised that people would spend most of their time planning and drafting with a small amount of time on redrafting.

What they found was that they were wrong.

There were actually two approaches to writing: one was the person who spent most of their time planning and writing. The other was the person who just wrote and found their report through the writing and redrafting process. These people rarely did planning. Both types of writers came out with a reasonable product at the end of the day, but both had deficits in their writing toolbox.

Why is this important? Because the best writers can use skills in both planning and redrafting.

When I initially read this information I laughed because I had virtually gotten through school with never writing a second draft, but it told me I had a serious deficit in my skill set. Writing novels has changed that.

I’ve spent time learning the skills of redrafting and now I no longer have to write the perfect novel first draft. With Shadow Play, the next few weeks will be spent going back and redrafting the front end of the book to be more compatible with the latter half. Maybe not perfect, but pretty darn good.

If only it were as easy to add four inches of fabric to the not-so-perfect jacket.

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