The Nerve Wracking Process of Manuscript Submission

I am in the tedious process of submitting “Haley Cork and the Blue Door” for acceptance by an editor. The editor I am submitting to currently is very good at what she does, and was recommend both by my friend and by the site I decided to use in lieu of an agent, at least for the initial offering. If this submission falls through, I’m going to go the agent route in an active and relentless manner.

The key to surviving the process is to continue writing while you wait for your completed works to get noticed. I've been out of the business for quite a while, thus I am probably out of tune with the process, but regardless of how you do it, you can't forget to continue creating while you wait. Thus, while I expect to pay my dues at the bottom of some slush piles, there will be a time when an editor will drag it out and give it the once over, which will change my life, and hopefully theirs as well. Here’s to that lucky moment!

“Haley Cork and the Blue Door” is just the first in a series of books I plan to write, and absolutely will get published. Please note my determination. While I wait for the latest editor in my carefully selected list to respond, I have to resist the temptation to allow despair to cloud my mind. Despair is for wimps! Luckily, I don't have the time for despair, as I write the next book in the Series “The Doors of Vesalago” titled “The Last and Furious Hownan”. Unlike “Haley Cork and the Blue Door”, this sequel follows the life of a Keeper's descendent who must abandon revenge and combat her innermost demons to embrace compassion and self sacrifice toward those who hate and fear her.

I have complete confidence in “Haley Cork and the Blue Door” and my ability to produce the entire series. I have sketched out the plot lines for four of the seven books I intend to write, as well as character biographies and background material. The series is allegorical but covered in a thick web of fantasy and science fiction. It contains nanotechnology right along side parapsychology seamlessly woven together in a multi-layered tapestry of adventure and terror.

How to Avoid Writing the Climactic End in the Middle of the Book.

The novel I'm writing at the moment is a third-person endeavor which is considerably more down to earth than “Haley Cork and the Blue Door.” The fact that it takes place entirely on Earth and that the protagonist never actually sees the monster makes writing a young adult suspense story a little easier. There is only one problem about writing suspense, and I am only just discovering. You have to spend a whole lot more time fore shadowing before the big reveal. Hence the term Suspense. Three times already, I got impatient and dragged the monster into the scene and had to write the beast right out again, which is kind of like the poodle, who found the skunk, wanting to get back into the house. You feel sorry for the pooch, and let him come in, but the overwhelming odor makes you toss him right out again.

My monster, I took from American Indian legends. So, it wasn't really a good idea to give too many hints without revealing the whole show. I'm about halfway through fleshing out the book, and have only recently added the elements which will eventually be important for the final showdown. I still have to fight the urge to let the poor little monster in, but I think I can resist for a couple more weeks until I write the final set of scenes. The protagonist isn't a super-hero like Haley Cork, but he is tough in his own way, and has a singular charm which allows him to get away with more than anyone should ever really get away with.

While suspense isn't difficult to write, the restraint is probably the most important thing about the whole process. It's really very much what you don't write as much as it is what you do.

The Evolution of the Character and Other Happy Accidents

When I was writing my latest novel titled “Haley Cork and the Blue Door”, I did all of the usual things an author might do. I wrote out a plot, and a short list of characters, as well as the setting and special elements which would tie everything together. The mechanics were essentially the same as writing a script or an epic poem, but those don't have the level of detail which takes the process to the next step.

When I sketched out Haley Cork, I wanted an innocent 10 to 12 year old girl who evolved over the course of the story into a powerful heroine. There's only one problem with taking a 10 year old girl and doing that though. Most 10 year old girls are just finding out about boys and makeup, and could care less about saving the universe. They are still children and devoted to mommy and dolls, while at the same time, are heavily influenced by popular culture. It's rather difficult to take any 10 year old and make them even do their school work, let alone step through a Blue Door and battle monsters. Thus I had to make Haley something special to start off with. Instead of the maladjusted youths seen so often in novels these days, I chose instead to take a well behaved little girl, who loves her mother, and grandfather, who goes to church and loves God, and who is all around sweet, and toss her, giblets and all into the meat grinder life of a Keeper. Not very nice, I know, but somebody has to do it. The question I had, while I was writing the events around her plot-line was how far away from humanity must I take her before the reader's sympathies are strained to the breaking point.

At first, I had Haley becoming immediately invested with all of the fancy powers so often seen in super heroes, but what do you do with the character once she can already shoot laser beams out of her eyes and open nuclear missiles with her teeth? That's not to say Haley ever has the slighter inclination to do either. No, it became very clear, Haley as well as the other characters had to develop in a gradual manner and discover things for themselves in a continuous expanding arc. This is the sort of thing you read in creative writing textbooks, which I recently reviewed after initially messing the whole thing up.

The other problem I had was the villain, a nameless monster known merely as the Enemy. I wanted to write more than your simple Good versus Evil book, and explore concepts somewhat foreign to western society. My villain starts out as a murderous yet anonymous being who can control people from a long distance, and ends up more or less a petulant child having a tantrum. It's not nice to do that to any self-respecting super-villain, but I did, and that was that. The problem with that particular approach, is when your villain must start out as nasty as possible, how can you make him any worse without bumping up the, “Oh my goodness, he shouldn't of written that!” meter. Over all, I think I managed to balance nastiness with petulance rather nicely, though the Enemy probably would have wanted a significantly different outcome.

One thing I did learn, over this roller coaster ride of writing, was the following: Never, no matter what the urge, rationalization, or other spurious motivation, ever write the last and final chapter first. I did, and it was a rather stupid thing to do. Fortunately, like folding a hand at the right moment in poker, I tossed that lemon and started at the front, like I should have, after only wasting the first week in my mad writing adventure. When I read the last chapter I wrote first, I have have discovered it bears no resemblance to the last chapter I correctly wrote last.

The other, more significant thing I discovered, I completely enjoyed the process of writing at nearly every stage, and given the circumstances of my life these day, that's definitely saying something. If and when “Haley Cork and the Blue Door” hits the bookshelves in your neighborhood, don't skip ahead to the last chapter like I did.