Showing posts with label Process. Show all posts

As you likely have noted in the posts from the end of November to the last one, I've been battling a sense of hopelessness and loss in regards to my work as a writer. It's a bit embarrassing, but writers, like all creative beings, can get supremely insecure and outright scared. But we also hold out hope that we can find a way past our writer's block to the words hiding from us. Writer's block had set in on me, and looked like it was staying for the long haul, however much I wanted it to go away.

So today I dragged the writer's block out and bitch slapped it to pieces.

On Monday I made my first ever meatloaf. On Wednesday I played with several different recipes for tomato basil soup, and today was beef stew, as per my mountain cedar allergy struck husband's wishes. When I cook, I work half from a recipe and half from feel, smell, taste, and gut - er, stomach - instincts. With every new dish I served up I tweeted about it, proud of my work.

There was much approval, some even declaring they must go make their own as well. My friend Amanda (she's been showing up a lot lately, hasn't she?) mentioned that Sylvia Plath baked when she got writer's block. I tittered, amused to find myself within the same topic as Sylvia Plath. I rarely bake more than a microwavable brownie, though I've been thinking of trying to make some fancy pastries. And then what had been said finally sunk in, and I stopped at the thought.

Am I cooking to avoid writer's block?

Beginning to write your Second Novel Ever.

This is, I think, the most difficult lesson I'm learning in my writing journey. It's why I haven't been on Twitter much lately, or blogging as frequently. I haven't actually worked as much as I'd like on Shiny New Idea, now titled Night Run, or the plots for the rest of the Origin series. Because most of my friends are writers, I didn't want to admit I was taking an overly long break from something I should have been excited about.

After learning so much about the writing craft and my own process, I'm overwhelmed.

I'm so sorry I haven't blogged for the last two weeks! Normally I'm very good about it, but with the holiday season and all the hoopla, just haven't had the time or energy. But I'm back!

This Christmas brought to me a bevy of thoughts, both on my Real Life and my Writing Process. Really, I was attacked by them all. It made it hard to concentrate on my work, but I knew I had to address some of them before getting back to Life. If I didn't, things would only get worse, and I didn't want to risk getting too incapacitated to write at all.

My husband and I have decided to sell our 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1,400 square feet home and move to an apartment near the end of spring. This house is just too big for the two of us, and old enough to have problems. Unforeseen repairs depleted our Christmas Savings, and I'm just too damn lazy to keep a house this big clean. I'm still a teen at heart, why do you think I write for Young Adults?

Recently, I started revising my YA epic fantasy, Origins. Some beta readers graciously pointed out the stark differences of the first and second half, and I knew the first part was backstory to incorporate elsewhere. I'd noticed this in the middle of rewriting Origins, and had waited until I finished the whole thing. I found the right place for the story to start, and then tore out 32 pages from the beginning.

But I didn't relish it, and I normally do.

I'm sadistic, I love revisions. Completely restructuring the text, tossing scenes, mercilessly yanking words and sentences from their overwrought perches... it's an art form, a flow of ideas somehow more satisfying to me than writing the first draft. It's my favorite part of working on an essay or term paper, and with the extra material of full length novels, I should be deep into revisions by now. Still, my heart isn't into it, despite how I insist to myself this is what I want, what I'd waited for.

I'm not ready to revise Origins.

First, I want to thank all the lovely peeps who gave me words of encouragement and advice, both in the comments of On To Revisions and on Twitter. You're all so kind and super helpful when a fledgling writer is lost, I can't thank you all enough.

SO. On to business. From all the advice, I gleaned a tidbit of information I was wondering about.

There is no special trick when it comes to revisions.

Sounds kind of "Duh," right? Well, when you look at it from the eyes of a writer just starting out, who's never had to edit or revise a 90K novel before, then it's a whole different view. With all the ways to outline, organize, and write the first draft, I'd begun to think there were specific methods to go about revising as well. Of course there are some different techniques - stickie notes, charts, reading aloud. But somehow, the revision process seems more like just a big mess of words only the writer can find rhyme or reason in. And, well, that's exactly what it is. With revisions, there's no real formula anyone can learn and follow. It has to be even more organic than writing the initial first draft.

Hence, no secret. So, what now?

I finally finish the first draft of my novel! Now on to revisions, and feedback from Beta Readers.

I'm so out of my depth here. *despairs*

I've come to fully appreciate the harsh fact that anyone can write a story, but making it good is the hard part. Taking it apart and putting the piece back together in the best sequence, catching the discrepancies in character development, worldbuilding, plot holes. Making sure the narrative voice is constant, the actions believable, and the flow of the story is paced well. This is were so many fledgling writers trip up, lose focus or abandon the story, and I don't want to be one of those 'ex-writers'. Revisions take a deeper understanding of the craft.

Again, SO totally out of my range of knowledge here.

I've never had to edit or revise anything more than, say, 10 or so pages, and never before a full length novel I wrote myself. Do you know what? It's HARD. If I thought I was a novice writer, I'm a lowly amoeba when it comes to revising. I've been poking at the manuscript printout for a few days, a little fearful of the length (303 pages at the moment), and a little lost on what to do first. Do I go through and fix wording, rip out all the that's, -ly's, and general over usage? Do I read and make notes on what to fix, change, remove or add? Do I twiddle my thumbs and wait for the Beta Readers to finish and let me know what they think? Huddle in the corner as the monster of revisions looms over me?

As you've likely noticed, my Muse has set up her own blog. She doesn't update often, because she's always rather busy, but she exists, and is my best friend. She keeps me on track or gives me the final word on the subject of breaks. Shakes her head when I get off on some long winded, wild tangent and urges me on when I'm entirely in sync with the characters.

However, some of you may not believe in muses. I know Maureen Johnson hates the idea of them, and even wrote a blog about it, Death to Muses. Now, I feel I must better explain the existence of my Muse. Not to defend her, but to show you how I see her, how she exists to me. I fully understand Maureen's stance, the idea that a Muse is simply there to take credit for all the hard work the writer puts in. But I personally feel Muses are not like that, they are different to those who find they believe in them.

My Muse is Me.

I'm so sorry y'all for not posting sooner, but NaNoWriMo has been kicking my butt.

I used to have pretty steady days, were I'd write about 1-2K words a day, but recently I've been having problems with that. Every day feels like a battle to the death for every word, and there have only been a few days in which I've succeeded. And when I do triumph, its fantastic, I got 6.9K total words on Tuesday and hit the halfway point of NaNo that night. But it didn't come without a cost - yesterday I wrote nothing. I couldn't get my head straight, I'd pushed myself far too hard.

I'd gotten to about 5.4K around 7pm when I started getting soooooo tired, really wanted to go to bed. But then I realized I was so close to the 25K mark, and I, with the encouragement of a bunch of my writing buddies, set off for the gold. 7pm may seem like child's play to you, but with my ADHD medication and my problems sleeping, I should have listened to my body and left it be. But I didn't. I stayed up until 10pm, past when I should have been doing my nightly wind down routine, and got those words.

Lately I've been on a bit of a time crunch. I'm trying to finish writing a current novel while preparing for NaNoWriMo, which is only two days away. EEP! But I must take a moment to mention some things that I am STILL learning about writing. These are things no one really tells you how to do but tell you to when you start out being a Writer.

It takes a lot of time and effort to get your true voice, and to polish that raggedy Work In Progress into a shiny Manuscript. People will tell you to just write the first draft and worry about the rest later, yet most of the time they don't really mention how. I'm going to let you in on some sekrits I learned that should help. I'm still learning these things, but once you get the hang of them, you'll fly through the first draft and be on your way to revisions and edits in no time.

A day or so ago I took a day off from writing. I didn't necessarily want to, but I knew there were some things I needed to figure out about where to take my characters in the story. I've been having problems with this on and off for awhile now. I'd be writing a scene and almost every time I got closer to the transition to the next, I would slow down or even stop. I'd sit mulling it over, wondering where my Main Character was supposed to go or do next.

Then on Tuesday, I can to a stuttering halt. My inner skeptic, if you recall from the last post, told me I was doing everything wrong and I should start over. Thankfully my lovely writing buddies stopped that in its tracks. I went to bed early, sat with my husband in the morning before he left for work, knowing that while I hadn't started over, I still couldn't keep going. Something was delaying me, a question I hadn't asked yet, a decision I still needed to make. It turned out there were at least two, if not three, ways the rest of the story could play out, I only needed to find the best way.