Speechless Tuesday

Scan Arcana No 5

The last in a series!

I know a little about other novelist's process when it comes to creating a manuscript. Most that I'm aware of don't bother with the handwritten stage. My first stories were written by hand and I've been doing it for a long time now. It wasn't until I got serious about completing a novel that I realized some typing would be in order... eventually. Thankfully I'm well past that stage now but thought it would be fun to wrap up the "Scan Arcana" series by showing off the different phases of the manuscript.

You know me. Showing off is like breathing.

I started on the endless voyage years ago, around the same time that I started this blog. The outlook was mighty different in those days. My ideas for the novel were too many to list here. I was excited to get it written but had no idea how I would actually do it. Heady days.

In its initial form, the manuscript resembled what I'm doing over at Vault of Story: I serialized it. Rather than sharing online, however, I put new sections into a notebook behind the counter of a local coffeehouse where I happened to spend way too many of my waking hours. People were very encouraging with their comments. Those pages are awful in hindsight; then again, I've never been the biggest fan of my own writing, which tends to go the vinegar route with age.

Still, it was good to produce. I got into the daily groove of putting words to the page and the pile slowly grew.

After abandoning the public approach, I went into overdrive. Churn it out, I told myself, just get the words where they belong. A Steinbeck quote recently posted at Secret Forest would have been my credo, had I been aware of it: "Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on."

I didn't quite get the whole novel written. My premise was half-formed, a mistake I'll never make again. Lots of waffling ensued. I didn't know precisely where the tale was going, which is a little like sailing without a compass on a cloudy night. Sailing a sea of perspiration, because that is what you are doing all the time, sweating buckets to finish what you started.

Thus came the part I dreaded: editing.

It wasn't as torturous as I thought but editing a half-baked manuscript does take forever. This marks the beginning of the typing phase. Having a brain that only works in the morning, I'd go into work early and type for an hour. Do this every day and you'll wind up with a manuscript, it is inevitable. It worked fine as a process and the novel suddenly, magically, marvelously, had a beginning, middle, and, yes, the best part, an end. What I didn't know yet was that having a completely baked manuscript means more not less editing.

Sailing the seas of perspiration was never less fun.

Listen, writing is work. It is the hardest thing to do. You are the only one who can convince yourself to do it. Friends and family think you're a good writer and say nice things about what they've read, but it comes down to you, baby, nobody else, to make the damn thing readable.

Every writer's mantra is the same: Make The Damn Thing Readable.

Make it or break it, you have to do something -because stopping is not on the table. Finishing is non-negotiable. You would let down the people in the novel you've come to love, for one, and it tears you up to even consider fating them to the gloomy purgatory of an unfinished story. There's no pressure like that exerted by fictional characters of your own making. It sounds weird but in some ways they are more real than real people. They have startled you with their decisions. They have made and atoned for mistakes that got people they love hurt. The last thing you want to do is make existence worse for them. Nobody can live with that kind of guilt.

We're in the home stretch, the horizon is in sight. The manuscript -toot! toot!- looks the best it ever has and I'm optimistic it will be really and finally done this summer.

Gone Writing

This week I'm focusing on the book and haven't had time for new posts, a temporary deal until the first few chapters are hammered into place. The opening of the novel has proven so difficult it's a wonder I haven't thrown myself off the Space Needle! Practical considerations win out and since I cannot write if I'm dead the work must go on.

See you soon!

Got Avatar?

Nope, not the movie, but I got you to look, didn't I? I'm asking if you have an avatar, like all the kids are doing these days. I do, but the thing is, it isn't me. Let me explain...

She whom you see pictured to your right is not a real person. Sally Parker is the main character in my novel, Narchitect, about which you can read much more at the brand spanking new blog I set up to market it. In preparing introduce the world to Sally, it struck me that I wanted an image to accompany her bio. Since the technology doesn't exist (yet) to snap images of characters out of novels, I had to come up with an alternate way to show what she looks like. That's when it occurred to me to create an avatar for her, and I have to say, the result is a pretty decent approximation.

Cool thing is -or eerie, depending on how you look at it -Sally resides now as a 3-D character on my desktop. She hangs out down by the toolbar with her polygon hair waving in a digital breeze. If Narchitect were a kitchen sink drama or Regency England Romance, it wouldn't make any sense to craft her appearance this way. Since it is a novel set in the 23rd century, where everybody has analog lives in a game realm, this was the logical way to go. Kind of fun, too.

There are many other characters in the book, and I enjoyed creating an avatar for Sally so much that I imagine I'll give them the same treatment. This will give me an excuse to research myriad social sites online, where 3-D avatars are de rigeur. Stop in at the Narchitect blog to see the results!

Which reminds me...

The final installment of my first serial over at Vault of Story is now up and you can read the complete tale of Danny Bates as he deals with the consequences of being late to school. Not everything is as it seems in Danny's world....

It was fun transfering the short story to the blog in sections, transcribing it from my scrawl on college-lined pages and editing on the fly. The end result needs some work, I think, and it will be a while until I commit to another lengthy tale. After all, I should be devoting all my writing time to the manuscript, not short stories! They are such a nice break, even so, that I will not neglect to continue posting regularly. Already I've a slew of miniature, "flash" fictions to offer, which you'll be able to view presently.

Word to Entrecarders: Vault of Story is now droppable!

Stop by and check it out, everybody's welcome.

Monday Should Be Your Fun Day

My new blog is at the cusp of readiness, and I be stoked. Continuing with my theme of oddly-named blogs, this one takes its moniker from the title of my novel, Narchitect. The idea is that it will serve as platform for the book once it hits a bookseller near you. Since that magic day has yet to arrive, I'll present shorter pieces of speculative fiction from my Vault of Story. To encourage high reader recidivism rates these tales of wonder and suspense shall be serialized, to last no more than a couple weeks or so before reaching their conclusion. When one story is done, a fresh entry will follow to start the cycle anew.

I'm excited to finally get this blog underway. It's hard to describe what a moment this is, of culminating a long dream into reality. Though I've known since I was but a wee lad that I wanted to be a writer, only in the last few years has the desire begun to take real shape. Narchitect marks another milestone on this long road that has many more twists and turns ahead yet. I can't wait to see where they lead!

Narchitect's opening piece focuses on the truancy of Danny Bates at a school where no one is ever late. Watch for an announcement here when the first installment becomes available.

Novel Profile

Folks have been asking what just what the heck this book I'm writing is about. Here's the prospectus included with publisher submissions:

NARCHITECT BY JAMES MACADAM

A secret team of military talents goes to Luna on a seemingly routine survey mission, but what they encounter under the moon’s surface nearly destroys them. Friends and family against them, the survivors embark on a journey that takes them from the depths of a woman’s memory into a game arena encompassing every battlefield humanity has known, from the Earth homeland to distant settlements on Jupiter and Saturn.

Yumiko Rumi comes from the stars. Member of a cosmic cult, unless her deadly secret is discovered our world is doomed.

Rob Barclay spends more time in prisons than out, problematic for a priest who preaches everyone’s salvation but his own.

Sally Parker is at odds with a world that has no place for her. Upon her shoulders rests the hope of stopping an alien infection of Earth.

Together they will confront Narchitect, a game unlike any seen before where the stakes are life as we know it.

NARCHITECT
How Do You Fight Something That Shouldn’t Exist?