WIP Wednesday: Discovery and Doubt

Well, y’all, I had a week of both self-discovery and serious self-doubt. We’ll start with the self-discovery part, and in the interest of efficiency, I’m going to copy and paste a portion of the email I sent to my writing group this past weekend:

I have had a major revelation about myself today.

I am not a pantser or a discovery writer.

I am a misguided outliner.

I should have known this long ago.  I should have realized it from the way I like to print out a monthly calendar and place it upon my wall, and then track upon that calendar not merely events and obligations but also things like how many words I wrote that day, what my workout was, and the percentage of things upon my to-do-list that I accomplished. 

Yes, I just said that I sometimes calculate the percentage of to-do-list items that I accomplished in a given day.

I thrive on systems and schedules and to-do-lists.  I have a fetish for collecting office supplies.  My current audiobook is one on habit formation and maintenance. 

And yet despite these glaringly obvious signs that my underlying nature is one of outlining, I have never managed to create a systematic method of novel planning that truly works for me.  I have collected a bunch of bits and pieces of information yet never synthesized them into a comprehensive whole.

I wrestled more with Soldier of Dorsa this morning and realized that there are just too many things that are not working with this novel.  I like the writing itself, but the pacing is all off, and I’m too often getting stuck in plot cul-de-sacs.

I’m not saying I’m going to scrap the whole thing, but I’m realizing that I’m going to need to go back and restructure huge chunks of my 75,000 words, with some scenes getting thrown away entirely, and other things being moved to different places.

I more or less need to start over.

There’s a part of me that wants to be discouraged about this, but there’s a larger part that feels excited.  Because I feel that I’m not only going to fix Soldier of Dorsa, I’m also going to find a SYSTEM of writing that I can hone and use over and over to avoid wasting time the way I have with this book.  I don’t think I could have discovered my mistakes without attempting such a complex novel, so I don’t think it’s a loss. 

I think overall… it’s a win.

Which leads me to the doubt:

I don’t know how much of my existing 75,000 words (or about 60% of what I anticipate the novel will end up being — as a reference, Princess of Dorsa is just shy of 137,000 words) I can actually keep. And if I trash a lot of what I already have… I don’t know how I’m going to make my self-imposed June 10th deadline.

I say that not out of writer’s block or procrastination, but just because even if I meet my goal of 50,000 words in May, I don’t know if that is going to be enough to finish the draft. Plus, once the draft is finished, I’m STILL going to need a minimum of two weeks to edit it — and that is only if I’m going at lightning speed.

So I haven’t written much that’s new this week, nor have I continued with my effort of revising the writing I’ve already done. Instead, most of the work I have done has been outlining and planning, which has felt a little like (what I would imagine) giving birth feels like.

Remember when Murphy Brown had her baby back in 1992? She said that giving birth was like

squeezing something the size of a watermelon out of something the size of a tennis ball

(my paraphrase)

As in…

Anyway. So here’s what I’m going to do…

I’m going to share with you one chapter of the novel that I’m almost I will keep. It is a key moment for Joslyn early on in the book. And, for those of you reading this who are also authors, I am including my greater accomplishment of the week — the beta version of my outlining tool. May it be of benefit to you.

Without further adieu… Joslyn.

The soldier waited until the girl was gone, then seated himself across from Joslyn.  His stench was strong, but just as Joslyn’s ku-sai had taught her to unfurl her senses, he had also taught her how to withdraw them.  She did so now with her sense of smell, reeling the sense inward until she could smell only her own scent — the gentler smell of sea breeze, leather, and kuzyn.

“Thank you, sister,” said the soldier with obvious relief.

Joslyn studied him for a long moment before speaking.    She pointed to the bandages.  “What happened to your hand and your leg?”

He stared at his lap.  “Ye will think me as mad as the girl does if I tell ye.”

“Perhaps.  Perhaps not.”

He said nothing.  Absent-mindedly, he rubbed his bandaged hand.

Joslyn decided to change the subject.  “I’ve been at sea for the better part of a month, returning home from the East.  What news do you hear?”

At this, the soldier looked up, some of his unease disappearing.  “Much news,” he said.  “In Port Lorsin, the Emperor died, his eldest daughter was accused of the murder, and his senior Wise Man now rules as Regent.”

“The Princess murdered the Emperor?” Joslyn asked, feigning surprise.

The soldier shrugged.  “Far be it from me to try to answer that question, sister.  I heard there was a trial before the Imperial council.  They say the council voted to have her…”  He drew his index finger slowly across his throat, and Joslyn fought back bile as an image appeared in her mind of Tasia’s head rolling from her shoulders.  

“But they convicted her on the strength of only a single vote,” concluded the soldier.

“So they executed her,” Joslyn said.  She kept her tone devoid of the emotion that roiled inside her.

“Well, there’s the thing,” he said.  

And like any soldier sharing a tankard with his pals around the evening campfire, Joslyn could feel the damaged man warming up to spin his tale, momentarily forgetting his discomfort.  

The soldier leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table between them.  Despite the fact that Joslyn had withdrawn her sense of smell, his nearness brought the unmistakable scent of rot on his breath.  

“Some say she’s dead and buried,” he said.  “But some say she escaped, and that half the palace guard helped her do it.  Ye can’t find two men with the same opinion on what happened, no more’n you can find two men who agree on whether or not she was the treacherous bitch who killed her Pa, or got herself framed by a weaselly Wise Man.”

Joslyn ground her teeth, frustrated that this was the most information she’d managed to gather all day and still she didn’t know if Tasia was dead or alive.

“Paratheen’s been quiet, but I hear there are some places in the Empire what don’t accept the Wise Man holding the throne,” he said.  “There’s been fighting.  Even some lords in open rebellion.”

“But the Princess,” Joslyn said.  “You don’t know if she’s alive or if she’s dead?”

Joslyn didn’t know why she asked.  She already knew he wouldn’t have a satisfactory answer; he’d said as much.

“Nah,” he said.  “But my coin — if I had coin, that is — is on the Princess.  They say she’s the cleverest of the Emperor’s three children.  And the wildest.”  He smirked and waggled his eyebrows.  “Nineteen and unmarried, but not because she’s afraid of a man’s bed.”  He puckered his chapped, dirty lips and made a kissing sound.  “Matter of fact, I had a lieutenant once who was a lord’s son — a spoiled little dandy from the Capital Lands, he was — and he told us that him and the Princess — ”

“Stop,” Joslyn commanded.  “Whatever your lieutenant told you, I don’t want to hear it.  Traitor or not, she’s still a Princess of House Dorsa.”

The soldier’s mouth hung open for a second, then he snapped it closed and waved his hand with an air of casual dismissal.  

“You’re right,” he said.  “I forgot I was speaking not just to a soldier, but a woman soldier.  Ye know how we boys like to talk.”

He gave her a crooked grin, showing off yellowed and broken teeth, but his grin faltered when Joslyn didn’t return it.

The soldier glanced left and right.  “Where’s the girl with that whiskey?”

The two lapsed into silence, with Joslyn eyeing the soldier across from her and fingering her dagger.  

While they waited for their meal to arrive, the café began to fill with other patrons, who had come to eat and socialize.  A group of young men, still looking and smelling like a long, hot day’s work at the harbor, sat down at a larger table a few paces from Joslyn’s.  An old woman hobbled into the circle of chairs and tables a few minutes later, seating herself at a small, round table opposite Joslyn’s.  She eyed the soldier, then Joslyn, before shifting her attention to her own table.

The serving girl finally reappeared a few minutes later, setting down stew, kuzyn, and whiskey on the small table.

“Thanks to the Mother Moon,” the soldier muttered, snatching up the whiskey and immediately tossing it down.  He coughed once, then slammed the empty clay tumbler onto the table.  

“Another,” he said hoarsely to the girl.

The girl frowned, looking from the man to Joslyn.

Joslyn understood her confusion.  In the Capital Lands, whiskey was often drunk in a single gulp, the way the soldier had just downed his.  But in Terinto, where the drink was far stronger, the same amount of whiskey was meant to be sipped slowly, lasting the entire course of a meal.  And as a single tumbler was more than enough to get most full-grown men drunk, a second tumbler was almost never ordered.  A second tumbler, in many cases, would put a man under the table.

Joslyn gestured for the girl to return to the café’s kitchen, and she obeyed.  

“Eat before you have more,” Joslyn instructed the soldier.

Already his cheeks had flushed a bright red.  He shook his head vigorously, rubbing his bandaged hand.  “No,” he said.  “You don’t understand.  If I don’t — ”

“Eat before you have more.”  Joslyn’s patience was wearing thin.

He looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn’t.  Instead, he picked up the wooden spoon with his good hand and proceeded to shovel soup in his mouth.

“How does the war proceed in the East?” Joslyn asked.

His eyes flitted to hers before returning to his stew.

He must think he will be permitted more whiskey only once he finishes his meal, Joslyn thought.

“How should I know?” he said gruffly around a mouthful of stew.  “I’ve been in blinkin’ Paratheen for the past two and a half months.”

“Were you one of those who survived the assault at Deerpark Pass?” 

The spoon froze for a moment halfway between the bowl and his mouth.  Then he resumed eating.  “No,” he said.  “I ran before that, during a different disaster — the battle for Meravin Wood.  Slaughter for Meravin Wood is more like it.  Ye hear of that one?”

“No.”  

This time, Joslyn was unable to keep her distaste from the man out of her voice.  It was one thing to tell bawdy stories about the Princess, but deserting his unit?  That was truly despicable.  Only the lowest kind of coward would abandon his fellow soldiers in the middle of a battle.

He put his spoon down and wiped his mouth with the back of his unbandaged hand, which only managed to spread a brown streak of broth across an already dirty cheek.

He met Joslyn’s gaze.

“Ye can think what ye want, sister,” said the soldier, as if he had heard her thoughts.  “I’ve been soldierin’ since the days yer nomad pa didn’t even know what an empire was.  And in all them years, I ain’t never run from a battle.”  He touched his bandaged hand.  “I didn’t desert me brothers-in-arms, I saved ’em.”

Joslyn’s brow knitted in confusion.  “What do you mean?”

“Where’s that girl?” the soldier said, glancing around.  “I finished me soup.  I need more whiskey.”

“What do you mean you didn’t desert?” Joslyn repeated.  “You left your friends to fight and die while you ran.  How is that saving them?”

But he wasn’t listening.  “Where’s the whiskey?  I need more.”

“Answer my question,” Joslyn commanded.

Still he gave no response, nor any indication that he had even heard her.  He began to to tremble — just his hands at first, like an old man’s tremor, but then the shaking spread like a wave, consuming his entire body.

“Soldier?” Joslyn said, alarmed.

His head jerked backwards, then his back went rigid, and he fell sideways out of the chair.  “Whiskey!” he cried, the word half-strangled in his throat.

Joslyn leapt from her seat, one hand on the hilt of her dagger as she dropped to one knee beside the man.  He had begun to froth at the mouth.  

Around her, the café’s other patrons were murmuring in various dialects of concerned Terintan.  One of the young laborers approached Joslyn.  

“A tumbler of whiskey,” she told him without looking up.  She slipped a hand underneath the soldier’s head to prevent him from banging it against the ground as he seized.  “Now!”

The young man obeyed, hurrying off towards the café’s kitchen.

The old woman who’d been sitting at the table across from Joslyn’s got to her feet.  “It’s finally taking him to the Shadowlands,” she said, shaking her head sadly, like a grandmother disappointed by her heedless grandson.  “I always knew it would.”  

The old woman turned and walked away, swiftly but limping slightly as she went.  Joslyn watched her go, puzzled both by her words and by the fact that she’d left her barely touched stew and kuzyn behind on her table.  

The soldier drew Joslyn’s attention back to him.  His eyes had rolled into the back of his skull, and he made a piteous, whimpering noise in the back of his throat, a sound that made Joslyn think of a whipped puppy. 

The girl appeared then, running to Joslyn’s side with the laborer close on her heels.  Joslyn wrestled the soldier into a sitting position and pried apart his jaws, which had gone as stiff and rigid as the rest of him.  Joslyn snatched the clay tumbler from the girl’s hand and poured the whiskey down his throat.  But the soldier gagged, spewing most of the pungent whiskey back up.  Joslyn pinched his nose and forced his mouth closed again, watching his Adam’s apple bob when he finally swallowed it.

The shaking stopped almost immediately.  He went limp, his weight falling back against Joslyn.

His eyes, which had been open but unfocused a moment before, regained a sense of presence.

“It’s too late,” he said.  “It’s coming.  Run, sister.”

Then he fainted.

Joslyn glanced up, looking at the girl and the young man as if for an explanation, but both of them stood staring down at the soldier in silent, wide-eyed horror.  

Behind them, the other dock workers had gathered in a tight semicircle a few paces away.  They wouldn’t come closer than that, Joslyn knew.  Terintans were a superstitious bunch, as already witnessed by the girl’s assertion that the soldier was plagued by the children of Hyena.  But Joslyn had spent almost as much of her life outside Terinto as she had spent in it.  She knew that the Wise Men would say this soldier was not “plagued” but simply had a shaking sickness, which was a type of brain fever, as she understood it.

A Wise Man was probably what the soldier needed.  If she could find one, he might be able to brew a remedy to heal the brain fever.  

With this in mind, she said to the girl, “Are there Wise Men or healers near — ”

But the soldier didn’t give her a chance to finish her sentence.  His limp body went rigid again, and his eyes flew open.  A wildness took over his face, and he laughed maniacally.

“Joslyn of Terinto, daughter of Salif and A’eshan,” the soldier said in a deep, booming voice that was not his own — a voice which, with a gut-wrenching chill, Joslyn recognized immediately.  “I did not think we would meet again so soon.  Your year is not yet up.”

Joslyn froze.

In retrospect, she would realize that it only lasted a moment — three or four seconds at most.  But in those few seconds, she traveled back to the night on the mountain when she had fought the undatai, back to the moment of her death inside the roofless hut at the edge of the Sunrise Mountains.  Back to the many sleepless nights in between the bookends of those two horrific moments, nights when she stayed awake for as long as she could, praying that merciful Mother Eirenna would spare her the nightmares, nightmares in which the undatai would inhabit the bodies of her mother, her ku-sai, her Princess, and Joslyn would be forced to slay each of them, one by one.  And when she woke from those terrors, it always seemed that the boundary between the real world and the world of her nightmares had grown just a little more vague, a little less distinct.  

The soldier — who, Joslyn knew, was now less man than undatai — attacked.

With a snarl, he lunged at Joslyn, who recovered herself just fast enough to leap out of his path with reverse frog.  The lunge left him off-balance, but with impossible speed, he righted himself, finding his feet in a single fluid motion, a motion that was more insect-like than human.  

Joslyn scrambled backwards, drawing her sword at the same time.  She planted her feet into mountain.  Without taking her eyes off the undatai-soldier in front of her, she said to the people behind her:

“Run.”