Writing journey through the POV of my book

You'll have to ignore my silliness in this next How I Write addition. The question asked was all about our writing journey (where we were ten years ago, five years ago, a year ago, six months ago). While my goals stayed pretty constant (the learning curve for me was a long one), the process for me, was the biggest thing. I always knew I wanted to be published, even when I was tracing the goo from Goosebump books on a made up cover and pretending I was going to write one just like that. If I could have done anything differently, I wouldn't have wasted a bunch of years. Yes, there was school and yes, I learned a lot from writing RP, BUT, I could have used those years better.

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In the POV... of my book:

My journey of conception was not an easy one. While some books were created simply by a spark of an idea and then went on to maybe one or two…sometimes a few more drafts before being finished, I was not so lucky. While my creator started to jot down ideas and scenes twelve years ago, my journey was a slow one at first with her school work. Luckily (or maybe un-luckily), she had no life. She would go home, sit at the computer and write (in between homework of course). And when she wasn’t doing either, she became addicted to Playstation war and fantasy games. Oh and we won’t mention the horrendous music she played on repeat. So many boybands…*sigh*…we also won’t talk about how she named the hero after one particular lead member.

Ten years ago, I had already been through the ringer three times. Three draft that she tore viciously into, abusing me as she deleted scenes and re-wrote, all in the name of ‘working on characterization’ or ‘learning how to pace the plot’. It didn’t end there. A story can only claim amnesia so many times, you see. Scenes were amputated from me and tortured so viciously that when they were re-inputted, they were completely different. I became Frankenstein incarnate. In order to keep some kind of sanity, I had to regress into myself, because I could barely recognize myself over the new following years.

I got some rest while she was away at university studying. Well no, that's not true…she abandoned me. I was suddenly not good enough anymore, and that does a number on a book’s ego as well, let me tell you. (Although, now that I think of it, it was probably more Stockholm’s Syndrome.) I may sound bitter, but she was the one who cheated on me a bunch with a bunch of role playing stories she co-wrote with a friend. Cheated on ME.

About five years ago, she did a re-vamp of her life. She’d ditched the RP stories and had crawled her way back to me. I thought NOW I could be finished. NOW I would go out and make my query rounds, but oh no. She was not done with me. She’d decided I wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t enough that she’d already taken so much away from me before. It wasn’t just the characters who suddenly became strangers or the plot that mutated until it got out of control.

Now was when the fun would start, she told me. Lies. Her definition of fun and mine are completely different. She cut me down to the first few pages and started over. Again. For the hundredth time. Re-write after total re-write. Edit after edit. She even handed me over to her friends. I won’t even speak about what they did with their red ink as they inserted “comments”. Fun? I don’t know if I’d ever qualify it as “fun”.

Between that point and a year ago, I lived in a fog. All I remember were the rejections and how ego crushing it had been for them to turn away from me. Until I was entered into a pitch contest and the very awesome Mallory Braus took me in. Oh I won’t lie, the edits these last six months have been life changing. I thought I knew all the secrets that went on within me but somehow, she was able to work with the creator to get more out of me. More than I knew was possible…but now, I have a home or will have one, at Carina Press.

Check out the rest of the writing journeys of my friends: Danie Ford Emma G. Delaney Kimberly Farris Kristen Koster

Overediting or... something more?

I have a question for you writers out there... one that I would like to know the answer to. How do you know when your MS is ready to be sent out?

Seriously. I spent the weekend editing. Rewriting. And just doing everything to the first three chapters. I was done. Or so I was convinced. I live in my own little world because apparently nothing I am writing is making sense. Or so it feels. At this point, I'm seriously concerned that I am overwriting. Or overediting as it may be the case at the moment.

I was done. I was sure of it. And then I decided to take another look and chapter 2 suddenly didn't really make sense anymore. You have some 'splaining to do, Lucy! So what'd I do? I decided that I needed a prologue. Yes... another faux pas to some. Is it needed, I don't know. I thought maybe it did but now, I'm just not so sure. So what do I do? It needs to be reread. I can't see the forest through the trees anymore.

Objectivity? I don't have it. I don't even know what it's like anymore. All that I know, is that my words read wrong. It's me. Or I'd like to think it's just that nagging little voice in my head, whispering of mistakes and what ifs. I want to think it's not instinct telling me that it's not ready. I'll find out soon enough, however. But for now, I'm just sitting here, wondering now what?

I move on. I go through the rest. I write the next. But it doesn't make things less difficult.

So what do you do? Do you distract yourself? How do you know when you're done and are not on the verge of overediting?

Prologues: yay or nay?

I've heard different things over the years. Some agents/editors like them, some don't. I'm talking about prologues. Now, I know where I stand. I'm in the for prologue bandwagon. I like them when they are done right. But they have to be short and snappy and be relevant.

A rule of thumb is that usually you can put the information you have there elsewhere throughout the book.

Now, I had a prologue once. For years. And then I had readers tell me that I didn't need mine or that it threw them. They thought the story started at Chpt 1 and I do agree. However, and here is where I don't know what to do: in chpt 2, I have a scene that I've been editing and there's a problem. The information as is doesn't really make sense. I mean it does to a point and it's explained in more detail later on.

But right now, I feel as though the reader won't understand what is going on. So I thought that if I put in a prologue it might help with that. I'm not entirely sure yet. I figure that I'll write it. Get it done and then get a reader or two to go over and see if it works. At this point, I'm still debating. I'm not entirely sure what to do with it. I have an idea in mind of what the prologue would be, but I'm not exactly sure how to get those thoughts out on paper.

You know?

What I need, is a machine. Some machine or tube that will suck that scene right out of my head into the computer and onto paper. Just like that. Instant words. But until such a machine is created, I shall tap away at the keyboard until I get it right.

So what about you? Do you like prologues? Hate them? If a book has one, do you read it or skip right to chapter one?