Restart

This always happens to me. I start a story. I have the ending plotted, I know my characters and world. The middle usually ends up a haze for me till I've written the beginning and then started to plot my way backwards. But somewhere in the middle something happens that stops me dead. With Spandex it was finding out that Maisie would work better as Matt. I discovered that plot twist somewhere in the second third of the first draft. In that case I ignored the first part of the novel and wrote the last of it as if Maisie was male. Then I edited, and edited, and edited.

Wren's song stopped me early and although it's demanding a new beginning, the change isn't nearly as drastic. I've dumped some scenes, put a few in a file to see if they fit in later, and rewritten the first 2k to line up mostly with my middle. I've got about 8K of words to edit tomorrow and then most of it should be able to fit in. I'm hoping to unoffically Nanowrimo this story, which should put me at about 60k coming into the Dec. That should put me at about 3/4ths of the way through the text. That is a happy point to be. Since I'm not ditching everything I have to start fresh on Nov 1 I am not joining any of the official things but I'm hoping it will be fun and press my word counts to a new height.

Ever notice...

that the longer you wait to say something the harder it is to say it? This last month has wrung me out, for a lot of the reasons. Most of them are things that I won't put into this blog, although the babysitting has been on that list. Hopefully in November things will settle back into a routine. There has been writing happening, mostly in small spurts of story and mostly on Wren's song.

The difference in writing Wren's song and Spandex diaries is enormous. For the Spandex diaries characters were my plotting vapor. Characters shifted mid story because they weren't firmly rooted when I started writing. I had more issues moving the emotional arc then the plot arc.

Wren's song is a 180. I know Wren, I know her down to my core. This character has been in my head since I was 16. I know the characters around her. What I don't know are the solutions to the problems. It's been coming out of the chronological order. I know the end, I know some of the middle, I have a jumble of scenes that keep shifting order. And nearly all of them are the emotional story. The plot points... still working on it.

I'm sitting for another month then things change. Hopefully that will lead to more increase in the word counts. Till then bear with the changes and I will try to get back to my old commitments soon.

Always something new...

Every time I approach a new novel I learn a new way to get the plot going. Rough drafting Wren's Song has put another few tricks in my basket. The first is the power of the blank page. I like blank pages. It feels like there is no pressure from the existing story. When I am terribly stuck I open a new window and write the scene there. It's simple, psychosomatic; it works.

Today's other stupid writer trick is a plot file. As I am writing out the story and jumping merrily from scene to scene as the muse takes me I keep tabbing back to my plot file. Every time I get stuck I start free writing out what needs to happen next to get the plot moving forward. It's turning into a clumsy synopsis/outline. Which helps when I need inspiration about what Wren did on page 8 and how I can mirror it on page 50.

Rough drafting means anything goes to get the words on the page.

Routine

It's taken a day to get back into my routine. Today I've spent the whole day writing and poking at the manuscript. I'm hovering just under 10,000 words. I have the beginning and a goodly portion of ending written. A lot of the plotting on this is working backwards from the end. I've walked to our local library and picked up books on writing novels. I'm outlining what needs to happen and when. Characters are having emotional issues and in general things are moving apace.

Tomorrow I hope to try to put up some of the blog posts I wrote while at Dragon*con. A little more show and less tell. Today I just need to write and do some laundry.

Politics...

only the good kind. I'm not talking Iran, health care or any other jazz. Nope, we are talking 100% made up politics in a 100% made up world. I've been having a fascinating time figuring out what conditions would have to exist to make the countries have the traits the stories need them to have. Queen Victoria, Jacobite revolutions, assassination plots and various Coup D'etat, and this is just the back story.
I am a thousand words into one of the big scenes right now. I've got a couple thousand in outlines, backstory and introduction. As always when I am writing in I remind myself to just get it down on paper. It's far easier to build a story from something then to start from scratch. And no one ever needs to see my first drafts if I don't want them to. That is a comforting thought.
Editing on Matt's story is nearly complete for pass two. I'm juggling the rewrites with Wren's song and I have 3-4 beta readers lined up once it's done. Forward momentum.

The last first draft post....

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 34027
New Words: 802
Present Total Word Count: 34829
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: Draft 1 is done. I know there is more to add but until I finish editing all the plots that I added and took out I'm having a hard time knitting everything together. The Final word count (including some outlining) ended up at 34,829.

Resolutions: Start revising…. I keep saying I’m going to put it in a drawer and wait a week or so but honestly it’s been long enough since I looked at the beginning bits that I’m ready to go… and have gone.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: Did some shopping, spent much quality time with the husband and even weeded a bit.

Reason for Stopping: Draft 1 is done… and I’m working on draft 2 which is at 35013 words right now. Since I’m writing into the story and hacking out whole sections (including outline, synopsis, and plot notes) as I go this is actually fair progress.

Word counts again

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 34027
New Words: 487
Present Total Word Count: 34514
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: Finding a clever way to end this is the hardest part. (This is a compilation of a few days worth of writing right now as I was in NC for a week and working on marketing projects.)

Resolutions: Finish the climax tomorrow or tonight.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: So far not so much except business emails. Next stop is gardening though.

Reason for Stopping: Hit a brick wall and needed to get the garden started.

Another progress post

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 33048
New Words: 1100
Present Total Word Count: about 34100
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: This is today's and yesterday's totals. I wrote yesterday... just not so much. Chapter 20 is done and chapter 21 is close. I think they are bother going to end up shortish but their are action and the cuts are in good places. Even though my outline has changed... I love writing into my outline. It means I never sit there and go... what do I write next. I always have some goal. Also today was the exercise in writing while babysitting. I have the 5 year old and the 10 month old to take care of and about 5 hours of time. I am pretty proud of the progress, and the children were fed, entertained and no catastrophes happened. It makes me hope that when I have children I will be able to steal enough time to write.

Resolutions: Finish up chapter 21 Monday and get 22 started at least. Hells I'd love to plow through to the end... but we'll see. I've got some other things going.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: No gardening today. I babysat for 5 hours and now I am packing up for the Exiles game.

Reason for Stopping: Had to go home and get things together for Exiles this weekend.

Current progress

Project: Superhero YA novel
Starting Word Count: 31366
New Words: 1682
Present Total Word Count: 33048
Goal: 50000ish


Observations: I went with writing Maisie as male in this chapter and the character is coming out more. I've talked before about writing badly but plowing through to get the plot down on paper. Yeah this stuff is bad. But I can see how to fix it and the rewrite is going to be better... I hope.

Resolutions: Tomorrow I do want to get to chapter 20. This is the vital chapter. Everything is revealed here.... I have most of an outline on that. I think it will end up with some holes ala [insert clever line here] but if I can make everything tie together reasonably logically I will be happy. Even if the writing sucks. I can prosery after I'm done holding the live wires and trying to macrame with them thank you very much.

Things Accomplished in Real Life: I planted blackberry bushes, tore out bushes and gardened for 3 hours straight. I ache.

Reason for Stopping: Finished chapter 19.

Writing through the weekend

I spent the weekend writing, which sounds quite virtuous until you realize that I should have spent the weekend unpacking boxes, cleaning up the chaos from the unpacking and getting the wedding stuff done. But I managed a thousand words a day, and 1700 yesterday. The word count is up and I can see the flaws but... I can also see a story.

As a motivating factor...background noise I can tune out helps and setting my screen saver to scream "GET BACK TO WRITING!!!!" in large red letters has also helped.

Tonight is my night for dance so I expect the word count will remain low but tomorrow 25K should be my next achievement. I can not wait.

Settling in

I moved into the house completely and I am trying to vary unpacking boxes with writing. There is some success thus far.

Today's odd writing tip is flashbacks. Flashbacks can be one of the most overused bits in writing. They can work, but they can also be a crutch. And I know why. They are easy to write. You aren't immediately in the scene and your hero of choice is retelling the choice bit of action. You know they made it out alive and the is more objectivity for the writer. They take you out of the "what happens next" head space and let you plot backwards.

For example our hero Mary has blown up a spaceship and by her reflecting back we can reason out how she did it and why with a lower pressure. It's already happened. Connecting the dots in reverse. When I get stuck with a piece of action that I can't figure out how to resolve I skip ahead and write a flashback. All of these flashbacks have ended up on the cutting room floor. Once I knew where the scene needed to go I wrote the ending and deleted the flashback.

Right now I am in middle of chapter 12 of a planned 23. Things are turning out a bit different then I planned and the outline is being modified on the fly to keep it on the track to the ending. Nothing major but things have come out in the writing that give a new spin to the ending. One of my favorite parts in writing is figuring out just how the story will end up going together.

If anyone is interested in the word counter I use it is located at Zokutou. Now back to boxes, wedding invitations, and word counts. The goal for today is to finish chapter 12.

Confessions from the writer

I write badly. I started writing stories when I was seven or eight and my early efforts were pretty awful, but that isn't what I mean. Today, right now, I write prose that alternates between simplistic drivel and florid prose, sometimes in the same sentence. Why do I create such abominations of the word? Well it's so I get something done.

I forget which writer this habit was attributed to, but the story goes he would type maybe a sentence a day and that would be a good days work. Now I have been known for some massive run ons in my day but that fault aside, say a sentence is usually 2- 20 words. Novels tend to be 50,000-150,000 words. That's like 13 years to write a novel. It's an extreme example, but when I started writing I had this image of the tortured writer agonizing over every word. Only the right word could hit the paper. I tried that technique, and I found that writing a story for me is like rolling a barrel. I need to build up momentum to keep it going otherwise the story and characters slip away and I start losing everything.

My solution is drafting. I think that it is fair to say very few rough drafts are publishing ready. In fact I would be surprised if any were. This is why we edit and rewrite, sometimes starting the whole thing again from scratch. It is a recent solution for me. I spent years, nearly ten of them in fact, trying to make everything come out perfectly start to finish. I wanted to read the novel I was writing as it happened, but I spent so much time editing what I had already written my forward progress was minimal.

Now I am a member of the terrible first draft club, may those drafts never see the light of day. I write faster (although I am still a slow writer in the grand scheme of things) and keep notes of what needs to be changed as I go. I skip things, write out of order, and decide in chapter 13 that Suzy has had a cat this whole time so I really should fix that once it's written. The end result is a mass of story that has a beginning and end and covers the main plot points. The characters are there but still rough in how they are coming out on the paper. To metaphor it is like making a sculpture. The first draft I make the frame for my story, dig up the clay, and pound the heck out of it. The rest of the drafts will make sure the frame is covered and making a pretty piece of art.