In the Interlude

A lot of books on writing suggest you put a manuscript to bed for a little while before beginning to edit. This gives you a little distance from the work, and the first blush of love you feel for any novel you've written, fades giving you the ability to 'kill your darlings' as it were.

I used to think this was hogwash -- shouldn't you know exactly what happened in your novel in order to go back and edit as soon as possible? As I've grown into the writer I am now, I find though, that I come to things with fresh eyes if I just give a little time for the novel to breathe. New ideas occur to me, I watch a new show and discover something that I want to add into my novel. Its a calming period, when I can think about what I have written and how to make it better.

I am in the waiting period, letting EoaW (I wrote out the title recently and realized to my horror that there was an 'a' in the title) settle into what it will become in my mind. There are things that have to change about it, I know, but for now I am letting it rest.

But just because I'm letting something rest doesn't mean I don't have a million other ideas. Two things have happened since I finished my novel that are related to this: one, I attempted to plot the next five books after Pawn and I read The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

Pawn is troubling to me because I don't know exactly where its going. The unfortunate thing about knowing how tropes work is that I know the expected path for a story like Pawn, and know that you can only deviate from it somewhat without violating the agreement with the reader -- to tell a story that is different yet the same in exchange for their willing suspension of disbelief. But I don't like the expected path, and to be honest the whole thinking about the whole series has made me slightly disappointed that it appears to have a moral.

This leads to a niggling, scary thought, that I am going to have to re-write a large portion of the backstory, and probably the majority of the story. While I know that this probably will be the result, I don't think I can handle re-writing the story right now. I'm in the middle of editing EoaW and I need that energy for the editing process.

Anyways, so that has me a little stumped. I think though, that the second thing that happened has opened up something for me.

The Hunger Games was given to me by a resident last night and I read it in one giant gulp. I don't remember the last time I read something new like this. I mean, I read The Dark Jewels trilogy like this, and Harry Potter, but even for authors I love, it usually takes me a couple of days to get through a book -- partly because of a decreased attention span and partly because -- well I get ideas and head over to word to start writing.

I suppose the last new book I read like this was The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and that was almost five years ago now (ignoring the Harry Potter books, because those were expected). Part of this is due to being in college, and finding less and less time to read, and part of this is the fact that it doesn't happen often me me.

The Hunger Games was another wonderful example of pacing done right. It had captivating characters and the narration -- wow the narration was done brilliantly. You are swept alone in Katniss's world, and feel the same confusion about characters, the same little loves and joys as her. It was extremely well done. But I don't want to spoil it right now. I have to read the next two books and see what happens and then I'll probably do a giant recap post.

Anyways, if you haven't read it, I definitely recommend it. At least the first book.

Anyways, The Hunger Games made Alane pop up again. Probably because I have twelve books to fill with her, but almost anything can happen in Alane's books, I just have to create a sequence and follow my larger plot driven arcs. The point being, the idea of an arena, fighting, lead me to the beginning of Alane's story -- something I had been trying to find for a long time.

So, in the interlude between finishing and editing, I am going to keep on writing... its all I know how to do.