Words About Writing

I'm happy to say that I'm pleased with my book so far! It needs a lot of editing, of course, but this first read-through of what I wrote in November makes me feel a lot better about it. It starts with a big exposition dump, just because I needed to get the information and setting out of my head. As much work as that part needs - including dispersing parts of it throughout the book - I'm okay with starting that way. It works. The setting is unique enough, yet relatable enough, that I was intrigued by reading it. The next scene started the action. Immediately. And it's good. I sent that scene to one person to check how much explaining might be needed for some of the terms I use. It takes place in the future, and there are two cultures involved, so there's some jargon in it. I was prepared for that one scene to be an exception, but the following scenes keep up the pace and intensity. I'm interested in my characters, and am anxious to see what will happen ne...

As is so often the case, life got in the way of my best intentions. C'est la vie. I am beginning a first-re-read of the Nanowrimo manuscript, however. I am well behind what I thought was my schedule, and that's okay. Until I pitch a book and have an agent or editor or publisher to answer to, adjusting my writing schedule to make room for all the crises and emergencies that arise in everyday life is okay. Back on track, though. One, two, three, Here we go!

Well, THAT didn't work! I simply cannot wrap my brain around the editing WIP. I can think of two possibilities. Either: My most recent novel put my brain in a futuristic space that was so extremely different from this simpler story that needs editing that I am unable to get back into its more realistic world to edit. Or... I did a bad thing by breaking out all the scenes into those that need big changes and those that are okay with minor touch-ups. When I opened the edit WIP, it was hard to get a sense of direction or even get into edit mode. Maybe it's a touch of both. After weeks of dissatisfaction at my mental immobility verging on depression, followed by some sincere prayer time, I have decided that I will skip this edit and move into review and initial edit of the Nanowrimo Novel. That shall begin this week, if I can manage my schedule as planned. Best of luck in your plans during this new year!

Somehow a month has passed since I've posted here. Merry Christmas! I finished Nanowrimo with over 65,000 words. There's a lot more to do, but it has a beginning, middle, end, and millions of questions for me to figure out the answers to. So I decided to take some time off from writing. I thought I'd take a week off, then get back into writing, or editing my most recent editing project. (The one that I had all the notes back from my readers.) Anyway, a week off became two weeks off as I slipped into laziness. I'm back at the laptop a bit now, with some direction for my editing. After I do this edit on my previous work, I will attend to my Nanowrimo book. That's all the writing on my end. And clearly, blogging has been a low priority. With Christmas next week, it will probably be at least another two weeks before I have anything to say again. Enjoy your celebration of whatever holiday you prefer!

NaNoWriMo is halfway over, and I am ahead of my goal. The official goal is 50,000 words, but I challenged myself to get 60,000. I will definitely need more than that amount when all is said and done, so getting this much now just puts me in a better position. As of today, I'm even ahead of that goal. Since this year's Nano is going well for me, I decided to document my process here. Words. It's about words. You do not have a book without words. So I don't worry about getting things exact at this point. There will be time for that later. This is a deadline. My WIP takes place in a future time, so there will be new "things" to name. Any time I am writing about something that I haven't given a designation, I put square bracket [THING LIKE THIS] where "thing like this" is a current equivalent for whatever future item it is. Later, I will search for all the  [NOTES] and address them. I do that for characters who do not as yet have names, too. This...

After much thought, some prayer, and a review of my previous notes, I have decided to begin a new project for Nanowrimo. As for the current book in review, I will continue making my notes for the next edit. However, instead of doing that edit as a November project, I will write a brand new first draft of a new novel in November, and begin the next edit of my current WIP after that. I'm happy with this plan. That gives my WIP time to sit after I make notes and before beginning the edit. It also will give the next book time to sit after writing the first draft, while I edit WIP. That may sound confusing, but it's not. This next one has been in my head for a while, but it involves some world-building, so not much is written except notes. We'll see how it goes!

I am loving this next editing step. (I was right: the 4th reader hadn't finished, but she gave me a couple general notes about the part she read.) First, in Scrivener, I pulled out all the scenes that had significant comments from my readers. That dropped my word count from 57,000+ to around 23,000. (I'm thinking of doing major re-writes during Nanowrimo, so need to reduce the word count.) Now, I'm going through the remaining scenes, cleaning up minor grammatical stuff, and using the "Notes" function to make suggestions to myself for later. My intention is to put notes into all of these remaining scenes. Since it's flowing pretty well, that should take about a week. After that, I'll do the same with the scenes I purged into a separate folder down in the "research" tab on Scrivener. But for those, I hope to clear out whole paragraphs of text as I go. I feel like I'm back on track. It took a while to compile the notes from my readers....