Need help on the first draft of your novel? Here are some great resources.

• Planning or Outlining: Many revision techniques found here can also be invention techniques for those first drafts. As I’m working on my first draft of a new novel, I’m finding that many of the same techniques are helpful.

  For example, spreadsheet plotting works equally well as a revision technique or as an outlining technique for the first draft.

• Subplots: I searched through all my how-to-write books for tips on subplots and finally found a whole chapter in Robert Kernen’s book, Building Better Plots. He does a great job of laying out options. I’m choosing to contrast with a slightly comic (I hope!) subplot.
• Characters: While there are many great character books around, I still go back to John Vorhaus’s The Comic Toolbox: How to Be Funny Even If You’re Not. I know it’s about comedy — and it does help you be funny. But I read it mostly because it helps me develop characters better and faster than any other resource. Since I’m hoping my subplot will be a bit of comic relief, I’m using his plotline for that subplot, too.
• Narrative Arc: CD player in my car. One of the best things I’m doing right now is listening to a long series as a Books-on-Tape. Right now, it’s Garth Nix’s Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen trilogy. I read them long ago, but hearing them one right after another brings the overall narrative arc into much better focus. I did this a couple years ago with the Dark is Rising series and it was fascinating, too, to hear them all in relatively a short space of time.
• Emotional Arc: In Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot , Peter Dunne lays out two great charts of how the emotional arc intersects the narrative arc. I have a column in my plotting spreadsheet for the emotions of the scenes, so I can monitor the emotional arc while I’m planning, too.

I am gearing up for a summer of hard work! My 17yo son goes on a school trip next week and then will be out for the summer, so I’ll have time to concentrate.

Here’s a list of my current Works-in-Progress.

My Current Works-in-Progress

• Picturebook: Concrete Poems to go with illustrations from a friend. Usually this is a no-no. If you write a text, you do NOT need to find an illustrator. The editor and art director at a publishing house select the illustrator, deal with the contract with the illustrator and deal with the layout and design of the picturebook. All a writer does is the text.

  In this case, though, my friend (who has already illustrated several picturebooks and won several awards) and I did a manuscript critique together at our spring SCBWI conference. The editor indicated that she like the combination, but would like the project to go in a slightly different direction. In other words, we are solicited as a team. That is very different from sending in cold a manuscript with a dummy that’s done by your chum.

• Picturebooks. I’ll continue to develop picturebook ideas with Friday Ideas.
• Novel. I’ve started a new novel. So far, I’ve plotted the first act. In other words, I have an idea of the characters, situation, what’s at stake, and how I want it to open. I know what incident I want to use to send them into the second act. It’s a good start and plotting is going well. I’m hoping to have a decent outline by the end of this week or middle of next.

  Some things I’m paying attention to as I write this draft of the outline: emotional arc, narrative arc, where epiphanies might occur, the repetition and rhythm of certain setting occurring and recurring, making sure that conflicts have resolutions, etc.

• Teaching. I have a couple sessions this summer teaching from my new Paper Lightning book, a resource for teachers about prewriting activities for kids. And as a follow up to the Novel Revision Retreat, I’m planning to teach sessions this fall about voice and scenes. I’m reading and experimenting with activities for this.
• Marketing. I must continue to market other mss to editors.
• Marketing. I must continue to market/promote my books whenever possible. Remember that there are FREE pdf teacher lessons available for download for all my picturebooks.

A full summer! How does YOUR summer look?

The 2008 Arkansas SCBWI Fall retreat focuses on a Writer’s Toolkit, with sessions on nonfiction, fiction and marketing.

When: September 19-21, 2008
Where: Mt. Magazine State Park, Arkansas

Meet Michelle Andelman, Literary Agent

Michelle Andelman, the east coast representative for the Andrea Brown Literary Agency, will be presenting sessions on the marketplace. Participants will have an opportunity to send in material before the conference for Andelman’s review. At the conference, she will meet privately with the authors to discuss where their work might fall in the marketplace.

Meet Carla McClafferty, Award-winning Nonfiction Writer

Something Out of Nothing, Marie Curie and Radium won the Intermediate Nonfiction Award from the International Reading Association and was an Honor Orbis Pictus Award winner. McClafferty will take participants from dry facts to juicy stories.

Meet Darcy Pattison

I will be providing sessions on Voice and Writing Scenes.

For more information, see the Arkansas SCBWI website or download the pdf brochure.

Space is limited — register early!

Could it be true that YA fantasy is selling better than adult fantasy? Links to that story and more.

• YA fantasy outselling adult fantasy!
• Does being a professional writer mean you must also have teaching skills?
• Janni is talking to her characters again! For some reason, this cracks me up every time. Maybe because I want to echo everything she says.

• Do you write for yourself or for strangers?

• Reasons to Write remain the same five years later.
• Do you hear teens or listen to teens? Don’t read this one unless you want to weep.
• Here’s some honesty about the struggle to write consistently.

When is your novel finished and ready to send out into the world?

Your words are never set in stone until the novel goes to press. Up until then, it’s a decision only you can make, but here are some points at which others send out a mss.

• When the characters start to bore you, or you start talking to them instead of your friends.
• When you’re sick of every single word on the page.
• When your deadline appears and your editor can’t delay it any longer (Too easy of an answer!)

• When every critique group to which you belong agrees that it’s ready (like THAT will ever happen).

• When you’ve done your level best, your creative best, your editorial best, your literary best, and you can’t think of anything else to do. And if you try anything else, you’ll just be tinkering and possibly messing up. Then — let it go.

As Always, It’s Easy to Stay Connected

• Darcy Pattison Writing Workshops. May 25–Deadline for signing up for the June-July Novel Revision workshop.
• Sign up for Revision Notes Occasional Newsletter.

I’m still looking for a way into a new novel. So, here’s my plan for today: experiment with voice.

Starting with Voice

I’m reading Finding Your Writer’s Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction by Thaisa Frank and Dorothy Wall. While I don’t like every exercise they suggest, there are some interesting ones.

For my purposes today, Chapter 25 is entitled, “Working with Short Forms to Discover Your Story.” They suggest you write a short piece, just a paragraph or two, each emphasizing a different aspect: character, plot, images, or tone. This should tell me/might tell me what sort of approach to use to the novel I’m planning.

• For voice, they give an example from Sandra Cisnernos’, House on Mango Street, talking about a Hispanic neighborhood entirely from a character’s viewpoint. “Those who don’t know any better come into our neighborhood scared.”
• For plot, there’s a short story by Augusto Monterroso and a prose poem from Danhil Kharms, which they describe as a “tiny Russian novel in a paragraph.” “Once Orlov ate too many ground peas and died.”
• Short examples of prose imagery from Portugese writer Ana Hatherly are called “tisanas” and feature outlandish imagery that takes surprising leaps. “Once upon a time there was a landscape where there were never any clouds. To make it rain it was necessary to wash the horizon with feathers. (from Tisana #87)
• For tone, they offer a paragraph from David Ignatow called, “I’m a Depressed Poem.” “You are reading me now and thanks.”

It is interesting to see how the voice of each of these is dominated by what interests the writer the most.

Actually–I have two or three ideas for a new novel, so I may do this for each of the ideas, and see what voice emerges that excites me.

Starting a new novel is hard work!

Once again, I need to face the fear of failure and it’s difficult.

Fear of Failure

My schedule is free for about three months now and I need to use this time to turn out a new first draft of a novel. But I’m scared.

I’ve written five posts on the Psychology of Revision , most of which could be true of first drafts. I’ve read Art and Fear until I can quote parts of it, or at least turn to the exact page I need. It says that it’s not that people stop writing, it’s that they don’t begin again. The point in the process that is the most fragile is after a project is done (especially if it fulfills a particular goal for which you have struggled) and before a new one is begun. Artists stop making art by not beginning again.

So–I know all this. But I’m still scared to start again. Oh, I will. But it’s not easy.

Last week, marked the 400th posting and one-year mark for the Revision Notes blog.

To celebrate, watch for these “400″ postings this week

• Best of Revision Notes: Links to the most popular postings of the last year.
• 400 Comments: Please Help me celebrate by collecting 400 comments by Friday!
• 400 Words Exactly: Writing Long sentences–here’s my offering at 400 words, exactly.
• 400 Online Research Tools: Fun tools for historical, economic or literary research.
• 400 Fun

400 Fun

400 Pennies Watch how several cars react when 2 teenagers drop 400 pennies in the middle of the road, and hold up traffic until every last penny is accounted for.

Last week, marked the 400th posting and one-year mark for the Revision Notes blog.

To celebrate, watch for these “400″ postings this week

• Best of Revision Notes: Links to the most popular postings of the last year.
• 400 Comments: Please Help me celebrate by collecting 400 comments by Friday!
• 400 Words Exactly: Writing Long sentences–here’s my offering at 400 words, exactly.
• 400 Online Research Tools: Fun tools for historical, economic or literary research.
• 400 Fun

400 Online Research Tools (Well, OK, just 4)

• Historical Research. Need to know what happened 400 years ago in 1608? Wikipedia.com is a great place to START. Yes, Wikipedia is a collaboratively edited compiliation of pages, and not a peer-edited resource. But it’s still a great starting point. Check out the reference links at the bottom of the page, which usually include more scholarly items.
• Economic research. Relocating 400 miles away and want to know if the salary offer is worth the move? Check out this Relocation Calculator. For many more Cost of Living resource calculators, look at the University of Michigan Library list of statistical resources on the web.

  Or, try this Inflation Index calculator.

• Name research. Popular baby names by date from the Social Security Administration.
• Literary research. Rhyming words for four hundred. Find end rhymes, last syllable rhymes, or first syllable rhymes. Or, look up famous quotes at Bartleby.com.