ellen mcbee

Hi, everybody!

I’ve been writing and editing and thinking (and also getting dragged down by current events, but we won’t get into that right now). I have many irons in the fire!

One of those irons is my book on the Polish Girl Scouts, which gets closer to completion every week. I’m writing about that process and some of the research that is unlikely to make it into the book but is still interesting, and you can read it at projectdiamonds.com.

I also continue to write teen fiction though I have shelved the book I’ve been working on. I don’t know, maybe it will end up as a historical romance about the 1980s.

What?

Anyway, I have an identity for that material and I’ve been writing about a trip I took with my mom to Scotland and Norway. I’m hoping to finish up that series so I can turn my attention to other (funny) things that happen every day. And you can see that on probablyunrelated.com.

Watch out for weekly updates to both blogs, and the occasional post here where I talk about weird things. Maybe I’ll relaunch this site? I’m not sure; I’ve had some good discussions here and in many places out in the “real world.” I might use this for a fantasy series I have in mind…

Well, I have the characters in mind.

I always thought I was a character-driven writer, but after some reflection, I’ve realized that I’m really plot-driven. I know the story before I know the people it’s going to happen to. In the case of the fantasy book, the characters came first. On the outside, they’re ordinary women, raising kids and gardens and running a home and building a marriage.

One is a witch (though I’m not sure what kind yet). One’s a former weapons expert for a shadowy government agency. One is psychic. And the new girl in the neighborhood? She’s the most powerful one of all.

See what I mean? I know it sounds a bit Charlie’s Angels-ish. I can see all four of these women and I know how they meet and who they are. I know the neighborhood. Bringing them together suggests a kind of shadow warfare. Solving crimes? They could all be Jessica Fletcher?

Or maybe they take over the local deli and make the best sandwiches ever…

Anyway, watch this space. I have never worked this way before (though seriously, I always thought I did!) and I have no idea where it’s going or what’s going to happen.

I’m starting to think this book is NEVER going to be finished.

Maybe I’ll be one of those people with a really exquisitely edited book, with gorgeous prose and poetic comparisons, and I’ll never think it’s perfect.

Except I don’t think I’m really working on perfect. Also, I love to read other people’s gorgeous, poetic prose, but that’s not what I do. I think this is more of a “Oh my God, I have to fix that!” reaction. This is happening about every third chapter. I’ve realized that I start nearly every chapter with exposition, explaining, sometimes description, or skipping through time. I have to skip through time because the story is September to May. But it’s the same lesson I had to learn about the first chapter; trust the reader to figure out what’s going on.

I have to say my rewrites are improving the story vastly. I want to have this book finished in six months and I’m starting to wonder if that’s going to happen; whenever I identify a big chunk that needs to be rewritten like this it usually takes me a couple of days to stop pouting and do it.

The section I’m working on right now is a two or maybe three chapter chunk (last half of Act II B) in which the narrative line falls apart and I just realized that two of my sub-plots fell right out of it! It’s a choppy section and I didn’t even see it until this readthrough. I’ve been doing most of the rewrites by hand (I’m still working with the book in a three-ring binder) but there’s so much to tackle I’m going to type it out. It’s kind of discouraging, but at the same time I know it’s going to make the story work better.

Oh–I’m still using the bullet journal. Admittedly, sometimes I mark off things I haven’t finished but have worked on today. I think it would be too discouraging to migrate the entire list every single day. And I bought some new Washi tape (shades of blue and green). And I started a new list: “Songs I Hate By Bands I Usually Like.” The first song: “Wait for Me” by Theory of a Deadman. Really? Basically, she’s home waiting and he’s glad she’s doing it, putting her own dreams and needs on hold so he can have what he needs? There’s too much of this going around, is all I can say. I listened to the words while it was playing and at the end I actually said, “Screw you, Tyler.”