If you were an unofficial user of the beta of Plot Clinic over the weekend, please let me know how it worked for you. Did you get a plot? What worked best? Do you have any questions that weren’t answered?
The weekend didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. Oh, I got plenty of sleep, but I did it with a fever, headache, coughing, sneezing, runny eyes and nose, muscle aches… you name it. Still sick today. The kidlet had it last week, I ran down my resistance by working too hard.
Anyway, I’m taking a sick day. My son asked me if I had to call my agent to see if it was okay. I thought that was pretty funny.
I’m worn out. In the last couple of weeks I’ve written Plot Clinic, had a new grandbaby, watched the NY Rangers climb out of mediocrity to clinch a spot in the playoffs and then sweep Atlanta in the first round, and dealt with some less-happy stresses.
So this weekend I’m going to sleep. I haven’t done that with any regularity in weeks.
Just a reminder for those of you wanting the beta of Plot Clinic—the link and the book will go away at 12 Noon EDT Saturday 21st. I’ll have the finished book up on April 1st at the latest.
I hope you folks have a wonderful weekend. See you Monday.
Jass and SLunsford. Chosen from a random drawing of qualified applicants.
Both are currently being notified by e-mail, and e-books sent via separate e-mail. File is big.
Okay–book is now available in the shop. Use the link and password. I put the price at 9.95 rather than some exorbitant amount, because I could just imagine one person clicking through anyway, just to see what would happen, and one of the two of us being out a big PayPal fee on the refund/book purchase. This way, nobody gets hurt if someone doesn’t read directions.
Added later–The warnings are supposed to be there, as is the line saying there’s no product associated. As noted, I’d like this beta version to go only to those of you who have been here following along with me and adding useful comments and questions. And, seriously, there are places where Scrivener did NOT play nicely with Word, so the layout is ugly. Bulleted lists are the big thing. There are a couple other issues. And the right-justified texts is pretty brutal in places, too. And this version doesn’t have live links, which the final version will. And … and … and.
This is NOT the version I want being released generally. So I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know what it is buying it.
But I think you’ll like the content, and you already know it’s beta. You’ll be prepared for the errors and general ugliness.
If you use the beta version, let me know what you think.
Had to do the pay-the-bills thing.
If all goes well, will be around three hours when beta-testers are annouced, and a bit after that when the beta-book becomes available.
I think it was the rows of “please, please, please…,” but it might have been those weirdly subliminal “PICK ME PICK ME PICK ME’s” added to the knowledge that I cannot pick everyone.
I was feeling cruel.
But anyway, Pink Ink offered an almost-cool suggestion in her (I hope I have the gender right here–if not, I apologize) “pick-me” request.
The suggestion was to offer the beta version as a special-edition e-book for full price in time for people to use the book over the weekend, and then let them upload the full version when it was ready.
That’s almost cool. Cool would be you understanding that my rocky prose can be quite rocky, and that those of you who wade through it before I’ve even gone over it might be in for a bit of a haul, and, cool would be me understanding that, too, and giving you a discount for pain and suffering. But you still get to download the edited and corrected version when it’s available, no extra charge.
So it will work like this. After I announce the two winners, I’ll put up a page in the shop on Friday (this is the real link, but will not work until the beta-book is actually available), and stick an exorbitant price on it. I mean, really exorbitant. $500, $1000 bucks, something like that. I’ll mark the page as a test page, and instruct regular shoppers not to buy the file. (I don’t want the beta e-book to end up in general circulation, and I don’t want anyone to think that’s how the finished e-book turned out. So if you buy the thing you have to promise me you’ll trash it when you download the real book.)
From Friday when the book goes up on the site until Saturday, as close to 24 hours as I can make it, the beta version of the book will be available, but you’ll need a code to get the discount price of $7.50.
That code will be:
Please don’t post the code elsewhere. This is just something special I’d like to do for those of you who have been reading my diary and following along while I wrote it and encouraging me on this book.
Put the “there is no product” in your shopping cart, click “check out” and paste the code in one of the green coupon boxes at the bottom of the page, where it says “Do you have any coupon codes? Enter them here for additional savings!” Then click the Update Cart button, and your price will drop from insanely expensive to $7.50. Make VERY, VERY sure that you Update Cart, though. Otherwise your card or your PayPal account will end up with a huge charge on it. Yes, I would refund the overage on the book price. No, I don’t want to have to do that. Much cooler if everything stays simple.
No, you don’t have to beta test. The beta testers get their books for free, remember? Just use the book, and tell me if you like it, and what you like about it.
And thank you, all of you, for being so cool and so enthusiastic about this project.
And Plotting While Writing is done, along with some revisions to Plotting Before Writing and How to Use This Book.
I’ll finish right on time tomorrow. Am going over all the beta tester entries, and will continue checking them until I finish the first draft of this tomorrow. So you can keep entering until I post the notice that the first draft is done.
Oh, for those of you who have weblogs linked to your name, I’ve been reading those, too, looking for spelling and editing clues. Folks with good weblog prose get extra points.
Wrote over 4000 words yesterday, completely redid the two Asleep tools in the book, and started and finished the entire Plotting Before Writing section. Today is Plotting While Writing, and tomorrow will be Plotting While Revising.
It’s almost done. I’m so excited.
All that remains are three longish essays—about three days worth of work. (Yeah, about another 9000 words, but that’s okay. I figured I’d end up running a bit long.)
So now’s the time to ask a favor of you.
I already have one beta tester lined up. I have room for two more.
Beta testers get the finished book free in e-book format, you’re recognized in the acknowledgements, and you have the warm, fuzzy feeling of knowing that you helped make the book better by field-testing it and finding places where it worked, and where it broke.
In return, however, you end up jumping through some pretty ferocious hoops. These field testers will need to have either index cards and a bulletin board (and pins, don’t forget pins) or software that replicates index cards and a bulletin board.
You’ll need a deck of cards, preferably one of those listed in the previous post, or one similar to one of those.
You’ll need a ring-bound notebook, lots of paper, and a solid lump of free time. I anticipate having the first draft of the book done on Friday, and will choose volunteers then, whether I go a day over or not. I’d like a three-day turn-around, which means I’d like you volunteers to build your plot in three days. If I send it to you on Friday, I’d like your comments back early Tuesday at the latest. Saturday would go to Wednesday, etc..
Yes, this is time- and labor-intensive, and to some extent brutal. You’ll end up with about twenty to thirty plot cards (minimum) and the knowledge of how to create missing scenes to fill in around them, you’ll come up with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and you’ll probably feel like your brain has been run through a wringer. I think you’ll also have a lot of fun in the process—I almost always do.
Testers should not start with a book already written, or in progress. This should be plot-from-scratch, because that’s the hardest thing to do under deadline. I can’t guesstimate how long this will take you. I figure it usually takes me a hard eight hours to build my basic plot (the part you’ll be doing) but I know all the tools already; since this is new to you, I’ll need to have you keep track of the amount of time you spend on the process so I can average that and let other writers know what to expect, and the point at which you can confidently declare yourself done. And you have to at least try ALL of the twenty tools.
But wait. There’s more. You have to proof-read, too, which is not going to be easy with the pressure you’ll be under when using the book.
And …..
You have to tell me why you want to do this. Funny or passionate entries which are also articulate, grammatical and correctly-spelled will receive priority.
With all of that in mind, I’m opening the door to proofreading volunteers. Post your applications here.
The chapter Cards, Books, Newspapers, and Other Arcana became Cards, and isn’t finished yet, and is already too long.
But I ran into three problems I didn’t forsee:
1) locating good card decks unrelated to tarot for writers whose religious beliefs would not permit them to own tarot cards;
2) recommending a few useful tarot decks out of the zillion or so available, and,
3) realizing that the deck I use most of the time is so racist and sexist that I cannot in good conscience recommend it, and have to consider dumping it from my own use—not easy, since this is the deck in which I found the Phoebe Rain “door” solution, and a dozen others that saved me from beating my head against a wall when my plots froze.
The deck is the Motherpeace deck, which does have a nice racial mix most other decks lack, but which is generally anti-male (with the exception of gamma males—essentially, gay uncles and members of the castrati choir), and vehemently anti-white-male, and built on revisionist history of the Barbara Walker, Marija Gimbutas variety. Back in 1987, when my first marriage was going into a tailspin and I was pretty anti-white-male myself, a friend in my writers’ group introduced me to the deck by reading for me. At the time, the deck’s blame-men philosophy matched mine.
Now I find myself having to admit that this is the deck I still occasionally use because I have twenty years of practice with it (as opposed to ten for the Universal Waite, the other deck I use), and because of its quirky, complex imagery and my ability to find funky solutions to plot problems in it.
Aside from figuring out the kinks in cards issue and finishing the Cards chapter, today I’ll also be writing the chapters Making Things and Chop Wood, Carry Water.