Annie Hogsett--Moving the 1000 Pound Buddha

DEBORAH CROMBIE: I'm going to save author Annie Hogsett's advice on manuscript revisions to use every time I have to tackle a knotty problem And if her books are half as much fun as this piece, I've discovered a new series to read! 

Here's ANNIE HOGSETT on how to deal with a seemingly insurmountable problem. (Maybe we could apply this to life as well as writing...)

Moving the 1,000 pound Buddha

For anyone who ever wrote a sentence and dreamed it would be carved in stone, “revision” has to be the hardest word. I’m mostly okay with revision. Once my plot is in place and I’ve got someone who looks like he did it but didn’t, and someone else who looks like she didn’t, but did—the gerbils in my chest can settle down. Fact: there are always gerbils, but I can relax a bit, and get down to revising.

For me, revision is the easier part. Sort of. It can never be all smooth sledding because it involves “input from others.” Agents. Editors. Beta readers. Passersby. Whatever. Often even a little voice from the back of your very own head will point you to a line—or a storyline—that you adored and admired, and which is maybe a little…off. Like, for example, you’ve got a big, lovely Buddha in his gallery at the museum. You’ve figured out the halls to and from that gallery, through which you’ve now got characters running round and round— And all, all, all of that, is on the wrong floor. 

Yep. I did that. A  couple of weeks ago. I can use it as an example because I’m over it. Somewhat. Discovering you’ve got your Buddha on the wrong floor, in full view of readers who are bound to notice, is the first moment of the rest of your little nervous breakdown.

For me, there are Five Stages of Revision:

1)    Realization

This one is short and not sweet. It’s that ice block in your soul, when you murmur, “Wait. Gallery 241 is on the second floor?  But I had a map. I had three. Let me look at my maps.”

This leads to… 

2)    Exclamation

This one is easy. Say the first couple of words that spring to mind. Go ahead. Have fun. Be creative. Punctuate them by pounding on your desk. Or your head. Repeat this mantra for as long as it feels helpful. Get up and walk around. Breathe. Sooner or later, you’ll arrive at…

3)    Reexamination

Continue breathing as you gently, but thoroughly, assess the damage. How wide-reaching is this Buddha-On-The-Wrong-Floor problem? Where does it show up? How far into the plot has it reached? What has to be fixed? This phase can also be referred to as Excavation. Maybe you need to call in the heavy equipment. I’ve had a recent occasion to do research on the Komatsu PC300LC. It’s a 77,000-thousand-pound-yellow-toothy-shovel-y-thing. If you’ve got a big problem, I’d recommend the PC300LC. Dig deep.

 4)    Revelation 

Moment of truth. Let’s assume you’ve dug up every bit of fallout from your beautiful, wayward 1,000 pound work of art. You’ve looked at it unflinchingly. You know what you have to do. “Dang!” I said. [Insert  your exclamation of choice. Mine wasn’t “Dang.”] I really do have to move a 1,000 pound Buddha from the first floor to the second floor.” And then I said, “Don’t be a dope, Annie. You only have to move three sentences. Ten, tops.” NOTE: I confess I did not say this next bit in the heat of that moment, but I swear it just now fell out of the sky onto my laptop. I’m going with it. 

“He ain’t heavy, he’s my Buddha.”

5)    Exhalation

You begin to feel okay. Your excavations have actually made some space. Once I get a grip, I usually find that the change is not a big deal. Often it’s for the better. And if it’s a big deal, it’s digital, and I like to write. We look for the joy. We exhale. We move on.

Writers and readers:  I’m sharing a minor glitch, now repaired, from Murder To The Metal, the second of my Somebody’s Bound to Wind Up Dead Mysteries. At a secret meeting of the T&A Detectives (Tom &  Allie, people. Be good.) the detectives are seated at a round table. I had Otis located at both 6 o’clock and 3 o’clock, right up until the final, final, final draft. You?

Mondo Money is a murder magnet. Ten months ago, Allie Harper—smart, feisty, and broke—rescued Tom Bennington—smart, hot, and blind—and his winning $550 million lottery ticket out of a Cleveland crosswalk and into three wild weeks of mayhem, romance…and seven murders. Nothing much has changed. Except. The T&A Detectives—Allie, Tom & Otis—now have their first case. And? The threats are bigger. The adversaries deadlier. The stakes higher. And the pace?  It’s Murder to the Metal.

Here's more about Annie--

“Murder. Mayhem. Romance. Cleveland.” Annie Hogsett has a master’s degree in English literature and spent her first career writing advertising copy—a combination which, in Annie’s opinion, qualifies her for making a bunch of stuff up. Her first published novel, Too Lucky to Live, #1 of her “Somebody’s Bound to Wind Up Dead Mysteries,” was released by Poisoned Pen Press in May 2017. Second in her series, Murder to the Metal, is out now! Annie lives ten yards from Lake Erie in the City of Cleveland with her husband, Bill, and their delinquent cat, Cujo. She has never won a 550-million-dollar lottery jackpot.

DEBS: This was hysterical! Thank you, Annie, for sharing.

REDS and other writers out there, share your revision nightmares! We all have them, right? 

And a REDS winner alert--

Susan is the winner of Marian Stanley's Buried Treasures. Susan , send me your email address at deb at deborahcrombie dot com and I'll pass it on to Marian.