out of my computer...and into the world!

So last week I got my copyedits.  I actually got them in the mail the day before we left on our little trip, and I was a bit worried that they wouldn't arrive before we left, and I'd have this mess of dealing with getting them back from the post office or whatever, but then  HURRAY! they came right on time, looking only slightly...battered.  :)

The outsides were intriguing enough!  (I love getting mail, real mail, in my mailbox...brown paper packages tied up with string, you know!)

But then!  Inside!  My manuscript!  With pencil marks and a post-it from Michelle Andreani at Marshall Cavendish, who READ MY BOOK! (and, at one point...I'm not going to spoil it for you because that's how nice I am, she MAY have written the word Lovely.  LOVELY!)  Read my book super carefully, too, like...did you know I have a character named "Norman Whatshisface"?  Did I know I had a character named "Norman Whatshisface"?  Well, Michelle does.  She also knows that, despite the fact that I had it written BOTH as one and two words in various places in my manuscript, earlobe is one word.  And bandanna has TWO N's.  And so many words either have hyphens that I did not use, or don't need the hyphens I did use...and also she kept careful track of when I capitalize the word "god" and when I do not (it was confusing!)

You know what else was awesome?  Michelle (my new bff) used a colored pencil to mark all the changes and suggestions and questions and typesetting marks.  And do you know what color she used?  My favorite, of course.  (This would be purple.)  So my mistakes were even aesthetically pleasing!

All these little excitements, though, were really nothing in comparison with the thrill of marking changes on the physical paper, thinking--this is it.  From here on, my story exists outside of my computer file.  (No, I did not go through my computer file and make the changes.)  At my editor's suggestion, I read through the entire manuscript out loud, and as I read through each sheet and made neat, upside-down pile next to my desk (I feel like I should have Michelle look this over--does upside-down have a hyphen???), the words were getting closer and closer to being an actual book.

An actual dream come true.  :)

dreaming in dialogue...writing woes in the wee hours

Happy for percolating...coffee and ideas!

For about an hour this morning, as I was trying to wrangle a little more sleep before the alarm went off and catapulted me into my somewhat waking life, my brain decided that I needed some writing lessons--specifically, writing dialogue.

I had a creative writing teacher once who said that all (interesting) dialogue is an argument--the interaction serves as a way for each of the characters to make his/her point.  Somehow, the characters need to be coming at the conversation from slightly different angles, and then they duke it out until they agree.  Or until the killer jumps out from the bushes.  Or the world ends.  Or they start kissing, I don't know.

In any case, in my dream, I had to write the scene I had been working on before I fell asleep last night, a scene that has been giving me a wee bit of trouble for some time (or...just possibly, one scene in a long string of scenes that have been tormenting me and filling me with paralyzing and agonizing waves of self-doubt about my worth as a writer and indeed as a human being...but anyway, that's not relevant), and instead of allowing me to wallow about in a restful sleep, my brain kept putting me through these dialogue exercises.

Okay, said my brain, or some cruel dream-time taskmaster, write the scene except Darin doesn't believe anything that Cass says.

And in my sleep, I did it.  I held it up, shiny and perfect.  "NOW can I sleep, please?"

Now write the scene except Darin doesn't believe anything Cass says, BUT he doesn't want her to know that he doesn't believe her.


I mean, sure, I can do that.  Dream-writing elissa writes in her dream.  Sleep now?


Now write the scene except Darin doesn't believe her, he doesn't want her to know, but she suspects that he doesn't believe her and not only does this make her angry but it reminds her of the way her brother spoke to her earlier that day and she realizes, with suprise, that he didn't believe her either.


Yikes.  Okay...dreambrain working working working...the alarm ticking on toward an abrupt and painfully noisy conclusion...YES! There! Perfect!  Dream-writing elissa feels a bit smug.  A bit...genius.


Now make her start to doubt herself, but hide that from him.

Simple!


Now make her hide that from herself.

Arghhhhh!  The alarm sounds.  Groggy elissa swims up out of the murky waters of dialogue exercises, disappointed that she didn't actually write all those perfect conversations in real life...maybe it's enough that she did it in her dreams.