Words About Writing

Well, so much for doing A-to-Z. I forgot about it for two days. But, in the spirit of it: EDITING CHALLENGES The way I'm doing this edit follows a "top-down" system I learned about, actually through a Nanowrimo virtual write-in. Four steps - 1. Read the manuscript and MAKE NOTES. Notes should be coded for whether the suggested change will effect a) the whole story (or at least multiple chapters), b) just the current scene/chapter, or c) just that sentence/line. 2. Tackle the notes that will effect the whole story. These could be big cuts, added scenes, or themes that stretch throughout the story. 3. Now, tackle the notes that will effect a scene or chapter. After the big cuts from step 2, there may be fewer of them left. 4. Finally, go through all those nit-picky line notes. Clean up the language. Make it flow. Theoretically, step one should only take a couple days, but this vomit draft needs a lot of work. I hope to get step one up to the mid-point of this WIP today. Tha

So much for "short, simple" writing projects. March is at its end, and the most writing I've done for the last two months has been tiny edits in an earlier work; one that needs better atmosphere, so I'm going in randomly and trying to tweak it. Half-heartedly, so there's minimal progress. I've really lost my mojo for writing lately. I thought that having extra work for a month (-ish) was doable. "I can do anything for a month!" ... but getting back into regular life has been a struggle. I feel like I'm walking in a brain-fog all day. I read. A lot. I study. Not a lot. I drink coffee. Something is lacking and I need a boost to get whatever that something is. Therefore, now that the time has come to pick back up my latest Nano creation for editing, I have decided to join Camp Nanowrimo. This is a Nanowrimo event where writers set their own goals. So my measurable goal for the month of April will be to edit for two hours a day. It doesn't sound

About a week ago I finally finished that review/revision of Draft One. It's still Draft One. This was just a once-over that included some filling in of details. Some added tension, some improved dialog. It's still a bit of a mess, but the plot hangs together. I finished it just in time for my schedule to explode for the next month-plus. For now I'll do short writing projects to keep up the practice, and then in March or April I'll pick it back up and re-read it with fresh eyes. Prepare to edit! Meanwhile, I'm reading a lot.  Now, if only I could find a good resource for short, simple, writing prompts... 

I completed Nanowrimo, and had the bones of a manuscript at the end of it. Yay! This time, instead of setting it aside immediately, I wanted to read through it to fill in any holes before setting it aside for a while. I'm not even a third of the way through, and got hung up on one scene for the last two days. I just couldn't figure out the fix. Today, I went to my writing group - was the only one there, actually, which was kind of nice - and wrote new dialog for that scene. JUST dialog. It's easier for me to see the scene that way, and I can add setting and actions after I drop it into the manuscript.  I'm pretty proud that I thought of that! I had copied the whole scene into a new text page to re-work it, but now that I have this new dialog, I can delete that text page, start over with the dialog, and then pull from the original text any descriptions that I want to keep. It's a breakthrough. I now know that I can do this with any tricky scene.

Of course, I'm doing Nanowrimo again. I decided which of my various story options appealed the most, and it's going pretty well so far (one week in). That is to say, I'm staying on top of the word count. At my writing group the other day, I read out the bit I'd written for their prompt, and got some good feedback: great atmosphere, "I could really see it"... with one negative, "I wish I could sense what she's feeling." Now, as I'm writing a new book, I realize that I'm still writing without feeling. I'm generally pretty proud of my dialog, and some of my descriptions are pretty good. (I do get hung up on the layout of my interiors, but that can be fixed in editing.)  I think I see what's happening as I write it, but I don't feel it. I might need to kick up my process a bit. One thing I'm SO happy about this time around is my support network. Namely, my spouse. Always supportive - a writer, also, but not participating this

Well, another creative activity took over a lot of my time, but I have been writing. I've been editing, and now that it's October, I'm considering whether or not to do Nanowrimo again this year. I enjoy it. I enjoy the rhythm of writing that it creates. Also, I've done it several years consecutively, so it feels like a November tradition.  The problem is I don't have a story burning to be written. So I've done some of the Nanowrimo Prep 101 ideas, attended some write-ins, and have some ideas going. I'm still unsure of them. I'll probably do it. There is one story that sparks my imagination over the others. More like, a character and an obstacle. I still don't really have a plot yet.  I may need to sit with my three top ideas and do a bigger brainstorm for plot before committing. It's almost November, so I should get on that!