A little bit of law for the lay person

So since the title of the blog has law student in it, I'd share a little about my first week of 2L year. I have classes Tuesday afternoon through Friday morning (no, not like every since hour between then) and that means five courses. Week one was longer than I thought and far more exhausting. But I thought I'd give you a little run down of each.

I'm doing clinic this semester and that means I get to do practical work during the semester. My credit hours dictate that I must do at least 10 hours a week. I'm looking forward to it, even though I'm a little bit nervous about dealing with my own clients. At EEOC I sat in on some charging party intake meetings (well potential charging parties)but I was always with an investigator and I didn't really talk much. I'm sure I'll do fine but it's just a new experience.

In addition to my 10 hours a week of work for clinic, I also have a weekly seminar (which includes a 15-20 page paper) on Tuesdays. It's public interest so I had to read a lot of articles this week about different aspects of public interest work. I'm looking forward to this week's discussion. In general, my professor is nice though I've learned I need to sit closer to him if I want to hear what he says because he speaks rather softly.

I also have Evidence on Wednesday morning (and Friday morning). This and legal writing are my only required courses this semester. Evidence is also my only two-times-a-week class. Going in (after seeing the syllabus) I feared it would be a lot like my criminal law course from last semester. Thankfully, it's not. Our professor is new (and fairly young) and he's very laid back. He assigns a few problems from the casebook and manageable reading each class and he's very open to explaining things if you don't get it. I'll definitely be taking advantage of his office hours most likely following the first graded problem. That is, of course, if I don't do as well as I want. The Federal Rules of Evidence are deceptively complex for short little blurbs in a book.

My other Wednesday class is Alternative Dispute Resolution. I think this course is going to be the most engaging, quite literally. Each week in class, we do role playing (no not in the "what's your safe word" way). We did a couple of smaller exercises in the first class that I liked. I'm not really one to confront conflict. I tend to avoid it. But I'm hoping that through this course, I'll better be able to confront conflict. I'm certain it can help in both my professional and personal lives. We also have a 15 page paper for this course.

My Thursday class is Internet Law. It's not much reading and our professor is pretty laid back too. She assigned only a 6-page paper because it's only a 2-credit course. I'm cool with 6 pages. Plus, I already know my topic. This is one assignment that can be knocked out over a weekend (Prof said as much). The one thing that was a little weird with the first class was she Facebook stalked people, including me. Then again, I thought certain things were set to private if I wasn't friends with them. Guess not. Though she did seem impressed with my writing and that I have an agent and such.

Friday morning comes way too early. 8:00am on a Friday for a class is just cruel. It's legal writing. I know I'm a writer but yeah...legal writing isn't my favorite. At least our assignment this semester is an interesting topic (constitutional law issue). But yeah, I'll have tot get through the two 15 page assignments for this course, plus an oral argument at the end of the semester as well. My professor is nice enough. She's an immigration law attorney which is kind of interesting.

So that's a no-so-short list of my classes for this semester. Overall, good classes, good professors, lots of writing. I should enjoy the fact that I only have 1 actual exam in December. I'll just to forget for the time being that it's at 9:30am on a Monday.

End of Summer a Success!

I promised I would be back this week to let you know how everything went with wrapping up my few fun things before classes began. I managed to do evertyhing.

I read "As Lie the Dead" by Kelly Meding. It's the sequel to a book of hers I picked up at the beginning of the year. I really enjoy the world she's created and she gives you just enough info to know what's happening if you didn't read the first book.

I buckled down on Saturday and got all of my revisions done to Pharaoh. I hae a call with my agent this Friday to discuss our plans for it (other edits, going on submission, that sort of thing). As for what I'll be writing next? Well I'm starting to plan for November. It's probably going to be a middle grade fantasy with a new twist on part of the Arthurian myth. We'll see how it goes.

Merlin has also been blogged. I will post a list of all the recaps over on MOre TV, Please! once Jen posts the last 3 blogs. I really enjoyed the rewatch of series 1. It turns out SyFy picked up series 3 and it will likely air in early 2011. I will try to be good and watch when it airs on this side of the pond.

Speaking of recapping, I think I will be recapping season 1 of Body of Proof this season for MTVP!. I'm quite excited because it means I get to watch more Jeri Ryan and gush over her. I know, I'm kind of sad and pathetic but I'm really hoping it turns out to be a good show. I don't normally do medical dramas but this is more of a crime drama in that the MC (Dana Delaney) is a medical examiner.

Well I need to head off to my first class of the semester! I'm excited to be getting back into the swing of things, even if getting up early has been more difficult this week.

Pre-Semester/Summer wrap-up

So sorry I disappeared for a couple weeks. Not much was happening on the writing front. I had family visiting this past weekend which was fun. This was my last week of work for the summer as well. This weekend and next week I start gearing up for school. I've got all my first assignments for class. Some will probably take longer than others but I'll get them done. All except one of my classes meets once a week. Right now it seems enough time between classes to get things done but that could change when I'm doing 10 hours of clinic work a week.

As for the end of summer, I have a few fun things I'd like to finish before classes begin. I would like to finish blogging Merlin series 1. At this point, I only have 4 episodes left. I just re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I have one more book I'd like to read before classes. I'm hoping to finish revisions on Pharaoh's Link by the 24th as well. It seems I'm well on my way to getting all of my end of summer to-do list done. I'll be back before school starts to let you know how everything went.

Novel round-up

So I didn't exactly get that email from my agent. We chatted on the phone a bit. We haven't had any new rejections on EUTERPE since Dial. We've just gone out to Egmont USA and will be going to Candlewick in August and likely Disney/Hyperion in September. So in all, I think we're still out with like 5 or 6 publishers. Summer is a slow time, too. Lots of people go on vacation and the houses have summer hours (often times not open or very limited hours on Fridays). We just have to keep plugging along.

I've been making some little-ish edits to PHARAOH over the last week (as my mom reads, she sends me stuff). The biggest change so far has been the MC's name. He is now Jahi, a far more traditional Egyptian name. I'll be introducing some interesting religous undertones to the manuscript in revisions as well. It's going to actually add to the subplot of Jahi and Nan's relationship.

As for MONTICELLO, I've just gutted it. Lost over half of the word count but it's what was required. I've saved the material in case there is some parts that I can keep. I'm sure there may be a few choice bits of dialog that can be reused. I'm aiming for 13,000 words by the 31st which I'm fairly confident I can accomplish.

I've blogged the first five episodes of Merlin and through episode 4 has been posted over on More TV, Please. I swear once they're all up I'll throw up a post over here with a list of each recap. For now, I have to go do some beta-ing.

A brief update on state of affairs

Hey everyone. This is going to be a short post this week. I wanted to report that PHARAOH'S LINK is now being shipped off to readers before I do another edit and send it to my agent. Hopefully everything I've learned since last September (when I signed with my agent) will mean less revising time before submitting to publishers. I'm expecting a reply to an email from my agent in the next few days so I will probably swing by and give an update on that early next week.

I've now also done three guest blogs on More TV Please for the Summer TV Rewind series. I'll wait to post with a link to the individual entries until most of them are up. However if you go over to More TV Please, you can easily search through the July posts to find the first 2 entries.

I'm really enjoying this rewind. I hadn't watched Merlin series 1 since last summer (even before it aired on NBC). It is reminding me why I really like the show and getting me stoked for series 3 in September. And I'm eagerly waiting for series 2 to be released to region 1 DVD.

A Day with Steve Berry

So, I spent Tuesday morning and early afternoon at a workshop in Bridgeport, CT led by international thriller writer, Steve Berry. For those of you who have been following me for any length of time, you may have picked up that Steve is one of my favorite authors. For the genre, I would say he is the top of my list. It was nice to know someone besides me and my parents thought Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol was horrible. Steve said you could read it as what not to do in writing a novel. So, I've decided to recap what Steve lectured about and a few interesting answers to some questions from the Q&A session.


Story Structure (the 6 Cs)

A story can be broken up into essentially 3 Acts. Acts 1 and 3 compose roughly 5% each of the novel while Act 2 comprises the remainly 90%. Additionally, each has a set of Cs of structure one must follow.

Act 1 has Character, Conflict and Crucible. Obviously, you need to introduce your characters in the first part of the novel, including the antagonist. This will come into play more when we discuss Point of View but there should be 2-5 characters that you introduce at this point in time. You also need to introduce the main conflict for the story in the first act. It's even better if you introduce the conflict as early as you can. One way to do this, Steve suggested, is to start the story as close to the end point as possible. Finally, you need to have the crucible. This is more difficult to work out. It's the thing that makes your character (even your antagonist) act a way they would not normally act. It's basically, if I understand correctly, their motivation.

Act 2 has Complications. This where the meat of things happen. You also start weaving subplots in during this part of the novel. It's important that the subplots tie into the main plot. Just throwing a romance in for no good reason (or for filler words) is pointles. If it doesn't tie to the main plot, and resolve by the end of Act 2, then you need to either lose it or find some way to tie it in. Try not to have too many subplots. Two or three is more than sufficient.

Act 3 has the Crisis and the Conclusion. The crisis is the high point of the drama. The bad guy and the good guy are facing off and shit is about to hit the fan. Generally speaking, this should happen at the beginning of Act 3. And finally, you have the conclusion. Keep the 'duhs' to yourself. You need to end the story, not just let it sit there. Wrap it up.

Point of View

There are mainly two general points of view novels are told in; first person and third person. First person is far more difficult than one might imagine. Believe, I've done it and I much prefer third person.

First person can have the charactere either actively participating in the story be more passive. But since I don't write often in first person, there isn't much else to say.

Far more common, is third person (or omniscient). There are four types of third person narration; none, one, some and all. No narrator is generally done where there is only dialog and sees rather difficult to pull off. The moment you have the need for some kind of description, then you are no longer in no narrator. The second type of narration is one narrator. This is much like first person in that it's only shown through one character's perspective and can be difficult. Of course, it can be done and may be better for some types of novels than others. The most popular and used type of narration is some (or multiple) narrators. This usually is 3-5 characters and you guessed it, they happen to be the characters you introduced in Act 1. The last type of narration or point of view is all where you are in every character's head. I wouldn't recommend it and neither would Steve.

A few other things to remember regarding point of view. Throw away POVs are lazy writing. These are characters who you toss in for no other purpose than to show them getting killed off. Just don't do it.

Another interesting POV thing is psychic distance, how far away from the character the reader is. This is a completely new ocncept that I learned at the workshop. You want to be as close to the character as possible beause that keeps the point of view tight and there's less chance of accidental head hopping. So keeping things as s/he or I (depending on first or third) does this for you. One way to establish POV in a chapter is to start the chapter with the character's name and use s/he the rest of the chapter. Call other characters by name the whole time. You can throw in the POV character's name as a reminder if it's needed but only if it's really needed.

Dialog

Dialog is far more important than one might think. It helps to advance the plot, provide comic relief, maintain suspense/tension and/or illustrate character development. You want dialog (and every scene in fact) to do at least two of these things. Try not to use dialog as a giant info dump. There are plenty of ways to get the informmation out rather than a big long conversation. The best kind of dialog to use is oblique. It doesnn't have many direct questions and answers or yes and no or even hello or goodbye. I'm trying to do this as I revise my own manuscripts and it's kind of difficult. But, like anything, if you keep at it, it gets easier.

There are a few other things one needs to know about dialog; tags versus beats. Beats indicate movement and can come either before or after dialog and remind the reader who is about to speak. A tag is "said". And as much as it pains me to say this (no pun intended), use said 99.9% of the time. Occasionally you can toss in asked. But generally, avoid other qualifiers. Don't use exclamation points. That's just lazy writing. You can show the reader how the character is speaking with a beat.

The 10 Rules of Writing

1. There are no rules as long as it works
2. Don't bore the reader
3. Don't confuse the reader
4. Don't get caught writing
5. Don't lie to the reader
6. Don't annoy the reader
7. Writing is rewriting
8. Shorter is always better
9. Story never takes a vacation
10. Must tell a good story

Here a few questions I'd asked him that I thought had some interesting answers.

Q: Do you work on more than one project at a time.
A: I'm actively writing one and plotting two more. So there's always 3 stories in my head.

Q: Do you write daily and if so, how often?
A: I write four to five hours a day, usually in the morning. I spend the afternoons working on the business of writing.

Q: Do you ever wish you could write another genre?
A: I'd love to write historical fiction but moving between genres (unless it's a completely different audience) will make you lose your audience.

So that is everything I've learned from Steve. He's a delightful guy and I'm ready to implement his knowledge in my own writing.

I'm That Sort of Man

Hey, everyone. Nothing really new on the writing front other than I've finally hit 20,000 words (halfway) on PHARAOH'S LINK and I'm stedily working through chapter 2 of THE MONTICELLO DIARY.

I wanted to stop by and share with you another guest post I've written for More TV Please! This time, we explore the three Modern faces of Doctor Who.

(Sometimes) Rude and (Still) not Ginger: The Three Faces of the Doctor

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. I have to say I'm so happy I decided to check out Doctor Who. Not only does it shed some serious light on Torchwood but it's just genuinely a fantastic series.