I know it's temporary. I also know it's normal. I've been through these ups and downs enough times now to get that. But that doesn't make it any less frustrating when it happens.

I made vast strides in January and the first part of February this year. Things were really looking up. I had better-developed characters, stronger backstory, powerful character motivation (where before I had next to none), everything really felt like it was at last falling together.

Then I tried to apply this to the outlines of Part I of the book: the first five chapters. It went well until I got to Chapter 3 and I found myself (once again) stuck. Stuck by the process of turning all of these new plans and ideas into a gripping story. I just can't seem to make that leap from a solid outline to a readable novel.

And that's when my motivation drops back to zero. I want to do this but then I get overwhelmed at the thought of the amount of work still ahead of me. And if that weren't enough to hold me down in the mud, that OTHER thought hits me. You know, the hard, cold fact that even if I do finish this, the odds of it ever reaching a single bookshelf are in the struck-by-lightning range.

So that's today's pep talk! Be sure to tune in again next week for another exciting installment in my highly-acclaimed motivational series: Why Do You Even Try?!

A map gives you a solid idea of what's going on that no amount of prose can equal. Which begs the question: is the map a crutch? Certainly a really good book wouldn't need one. After all, isn't it considered literary cheating if you have to literally draw a picture for your readers to help understand your story?

I don't think so. The lack of a map takes away nothing from the story. The addition of the map only adds to the enjoyment of the reader, offering an extra dimension of exploration for those so inclined.

The Map as a Tool

What's easy to forget though, is that the map isn't so much there for the reader's benefit as it is for the author's. When writing a story, a clear view of what's really going on (and where!) is essential for the author. Without that solid image the story might wander or become inconsistent. And what better way to create a solid image than by drawing a map.

As I slogged through the latest draft of Winter's Gate, I began to realize that a particular vagueness to my surroundings was beginning to hurt me. I decided I needed to nail down the layout once and for all.

Maps aren't just for large, sprawling continents like Middle-earth. A large percentage of Winter's Gate takes place in a single building and I simply couldn't go on without a clear vision of this building. So last week, after exploring various tools, I settled on PowerPoint (for 2D) and Google Sketchup (for 3D). I then set about realizing my world. Here are the results.

First, the building exterior:

After kicking around some ideas, it felt like a three story building with a lower level (shown here below the ground line) made sense. Prior to this exercise, I really had no idea how many levels it had. And though I'm showing you the exterior first, this didn't come about until after I'd done extensive work on the 2D floor plans:

Lower Level: where the Generator resides.

Ground Floor: clearly still a work in progress.

First Floor: not much happens here, but I designed it anyway.

Second Floor: a lot happens here (ironically I designed this last).

And the Results?

My single greatest surprise is that many story elements and scenes which I had already worked out no longer fit the new landscape. This is odd, of course. I mean, this is a novel. By definition, it's fiction. I can make whatever kind of building I want and force it to fit the story.

But as it turns out, good fiction really CAN'T be whatever I want. The reader still requires plausibility and consistency. And drawing a clear map of one of my most important settings suddenly pointed out that I had plausibility and consistency issues. It didn't matter how much I liked some of the earlier scenes. It was clear I had darlings to kill.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Rewrite

As I left the wake for my recently killed darlings, something hit me. The story was about to get better. I re-opened chapter one, with my protagonist Quin's first encounter with that orange ball you see pictured above. I began rewriting the entire scene with this new, clear picture in mind, and wow. Everything got better.

My renewed excitement from a few weeks ago was renewed once again. The story that felt dead in the water last August has had new life breathed into it twice now.

Let's just hope it isn't all for naught.

And that's been my struggle over:

• The last year
• The last three years
• The last twenty years

Lots of ideas. No idea how to present them. My drafts are nothing more than plot tent poles but without the tent. What this means to the layman is: they're boring, they're wordy, and they're nothing no reasonable reader would want to spend five minutes on.

Not exactly the recipe for success, no?

So last week I picked one manuscript, Winter's Gate, and decided it needed a reboot. I hadn't touched it for five months and of all the works in progress, this still seemed like it had the most potential.

So I spent some time this weekend trying to pick it apart, save the good stuff, throw out the bad, and figure out how to best get from Point A to Point B. But after two days, I once again was left with nothing. This is the kind of thing that will drive me back to Cheez-Its.

But then, about two hours ago, something happened. Have you ever spent days and days and days working on a puzzle but simply cannot see the solution even though you know it's right under your nose? Miraculously, that's exactly where I was. And then it hit me. Why is it the hardest puzzles can suddenly look so mind-numbingly stupid once you have the answer?

So I'm fairly fired up about this. If I don't screw this up again, I may have a shot at a decent plot. This reboot is now officially underway.

My last post happened four months ago when I was (hoping to) kick off a writing binge and finally have something to show for it. It failed miserably.

But then the clock ticked over from 2011-12-31 23:59:59 to 2012-01-01 00:00:00 and I realized, with great hope (and a slight measure of anxiety) that I had just 355 days left to: write my book, get it published, and make an appearance on Ellen before the world ends.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's begin by dusting off the last two or three manuscripts and see if there's anything worth salvaging. I'll call Ellen tomorrow.

I originally envisioned the quarter taking up October, November, and December and each of the three months covering: Planning, Writing, Revising. However, something about the calendar flipping over from August to September really sets my brain to writing again and I simply can't wait. (Besides, December is never a full month anyway, so it doesn't count toward book progress.)

So here we go again, where "we" is "I". Last year I tried to get a few people to do this with me until I realized that sorta violated the "personal" part of PerBoWriQua. That doesn't mean you can't do it either. It just means you can't tell anyone about it. Otherwise one thing leads to another and suddenly it's national again. And we can't have the entire nation all writing books during the same calendar period. That'd be crazy!

Arden Ward
Top Nacho Literary Agency
2880 Broadway
New York, NY 10025

Dear Ms. Ward,

I'm writing to let you know that my latest manuscript still isn't finished. It's a real shame, too, since I have such a great idea for a story. I'm sure it's nothing like the manuscripts you usually read (well, apart from the fact that those manuscripts are finished and mine isn't).

It's not really my fault either. You see, I was kind of tired yesterday so I went to bed early. Then for whatever reason, I didn't wake up early today like I'd promised myself. Tonight I had to work late and then when I got home there was this really good show on television.

I swore to myself when the show was over, I'd get back to the manuscript. But I didn't anticipate that Avatar was going to be on HBO again. I've seen that movie seventeen times now and I don't regret a single one of the forty-six hours I've spent watching it. Well, except for the two and a half I spent tonight on it.

Anyway, at midnight, I sat back down at the computer and opened up my manuscript. There's this one really cool part where the protagonist solves a Rubik's Cube and impresses all her friends. I then began to wonder about puzzles and spent an hour on Wikipedia doing some research. I started on the main Rubik's Cube page but then somehow ended up reading about John Talbot, 3rd Earl of Shrewsbury. I then spent another half hour on YouTube before remembering I was writing a scene about a Rubik's Cube.

I know the finished story is going to be good because I have this great ending pictured in my head. So now all I have to do is fill in about 72,000 words between the Cube scene and the part where the protagonist wins the lottery and saves her family's house. When I get going, I can write about two thousand words an hour, so that means the book could be finished in just a couple weeks. I don't foresee any other problems along the way.

Therefore, please look for my next letter by the end of this month. I'm sure you will enjoy reading --- oh, look! Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan just started! I HAVE to see that again.

Best regards,

Charlie Hills

Since subsequent drafts have yet to go beyond the first five chapters or so, I still feel like I really haven't completed a full second draft yet. And even this fourth "draft" has gone through multiple rewrites. I'll read through it one day and think, "Hey, this isn't bad." But then I'll read through it the next day and think, "This is complete crap. No one would want to read this."

And even today, just when I figured I had it all figured out and was ready to move on, it hit me again: this sucks. So I embarked on the twelfth revision of the fourth draft and I'm still only on Chapter 3.

The irony is I know what I'm supposed to do but I just can't seem to do it. I'm starting to feel that my natural writing style is more suitable for history books than gripping novels. But having invested 336 hours into this project, I'm not ready to give up yet. All I have to do is turn twenty-seven "tell" passages into "show" passages, and I'll be sitting on a pile of gold.

• The very first time you try out your time machine, you don't stand directly in front of a car going eighty-eight miles per hour and say, "If my calculations are correct..."
• All they know is that lightning struck during the 10:04 minute: there would be no way to know the exact split-second when lightning hit. The odds of their plan working could be as bad as one in three hundred. To guarantee they get their 1.21 gigawatts they would have to build a rail about 1.5 miles long and hook the DeLorean up to it like a streetcar. Then as long as the DeLorean is going 88 mph that entire minute, no matter when the lightning strikes, they'll get their electric jolt. Doc really should have seen that coming.
• If you prevented your parents from meeting, there is no reasonable explanation for a photograph of you, your sister, and half your brother. On the one hand, if anyone would disappear, it would be Marty first (as he's the youngest child and thus the furthest down the timeline from his parents' meeting). On the other hand, people don't partially disappear. At no point would you find his brother walking around with half his body missing and posing for a photograph.
• And let's face it, Marty should have been killed when he struck that opening guitar chord.

I could go on but you get the point. Actually, no, you don't get the point because I haven't actually made my point yet. My point is: in spite of all that, it's a really good story and very well-executed movie (currently #70 on IMDb's Top 250). Who cares if the science doesn't make any sense? That's not the purpose of the film. The purpose of the film is to entertain, and on that level, Back to the Future hits one out of the park.

Bob Gale and Robert Zemeckis knew that the story was paramount. I, on the other hand, can't seem to grasp that. I'm the type that would spend weeks working out the exact science. My version wouldn't have a single plot hole and consequently my version wouldn't find a soul on earth who would care to read it.

I'd invest all my energy into the back story and completely forget that I was supposed to be telling a front story. Who cares if Marty's hand becomes semi-transparent while playing the guitar? The audience is enjoying the story. And they're extremely adept at suspending disbelief if the disbelief is dispensed the right way.

The wrong way is forcing them through forty pages of (what amounts to) science lessons just to ensure everyone "gets it" before you tackle the pesky task of writing an engrossing story.

On the upside, I've heard that recognizing you have a problem is the first step to curing it. So at least I've got that going for me.

And not just any "something" which is what I have now. Something unusual and curious: thirteen dwarves showing up unexpectedly for tea, four Preferiti missing in a race against time, fairy-tale creatures relocated to an ogre's swamp. The story has to begin immediately. There can be no long, drawn-out set up.

In my favor, I finally have a good solid backstory. At last, I possess greatly matured motivations for each character. And to top it all off, I have the build-up and ending that I envisioned from the beginning (not the ugly, tight corner I painted myself into during the first draft). So now I just need to pull it all together. I have to tell a story, and that is, as I've now proven repeatedly, something I can't do.

But I'm not going to let that stop me. That's what we're going to fix. I've slowly realized over the last two and a half years that my problem is, in a word, realism. My stories are just like real life, and real life is boring. Events unfold logically and methodically. That doesn't make for interesting reading. Take this current book for example. My protagonist makes an appearance in the Special World. Then another. Then several more. Each time a small, measured amount of story is doled out, but nothing is happening. My story is like a carefully designed PowerPoint presentation: each slide dispensing the required amount of information, and no more. I might as well write a history textbook.

So that's what I need to change. And fast.

Wish me luck.

Still lots of work to do, mostly ironing out a few of the middle details. But this is the closest this has felt in a long time, and I'm going to take that as a good sign.