I’ve done it: I’ve met (and exceeded by a little) my goal of adding 1200 words a day to the draft-in-progress for the month of September.
As I keep chugging along I am trying to stay focused on slogging forward one scene at a time, being strict about writing chronologically from here to the end.
I'm closer. A lot closer. But not close enough yet.
If I stop to think that I have to get to "The End" before my sisters arrive to visit on 10/18, I'll panic. That’s two weeks plus a couple of days for frantic cleanup and a rough draft print-out.
I’m thinking of this draft as more "lacey and tangled" than “rough” (some parts of it are quite polished). There are lots of nice plot threads in there, but they meander around and get lost and then emerge elsewhere as a dangling thread, and there are loops of mystery stuff poking out here and there and everywhere, and threads that dive into the fun halfway through with no connection to what came before, and holes still. Too many holes. Most of them much smaller than previously, but they’re there.
Biggest hole remaining is that I have figured out how the good guys figure out "who done it," but not how the villain realizes “the jig's up.” Need something to happen to trigger the big showdown scene at the end. Have ideas for that one, but not how I'm gonna sew up the big gaping gap that comes before it on what passes for an outline around here.
Nice thing about working chronologically is I don't have to solve that plot problem today. "Buildup to the showdown" is still at least 3 or 4 days away in novel time. At the rate I’m going I won’t get to that scene before the beginning of next week at the earliest. Plenty of time for new ideas to pop up.
In the meantime, gonna go pre-wash latest fabric indulgence: didn’t buy much (had to reorder a trim fabric that I'd goofed and gotten the wrong color-way of). Have decided to consider all September fabric purchases a b'day gift to myself. Now majorly want to sew up at least one new thing to wear before my birthday, preferably two. Parcel of dress patterns arrived yesterday, must resist temptation for a few more hours.
Because these days noveling comes first. Today's goal: if I add 1600 more words I can do some sewing.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
So Much For That Idea
Yikes, have two weeks really gone by since my last post? Uh oh. Have not made as much plotting progress as I'd hoped, although I've added some "fit this in somewhere" points to the "how the story works" list, have fleshed out the Ouija board scene to include essential plot points/info drops, and made other small progress.
But, having fallen into recreational reading the past few days, now must junk the "safe combo found in dropped/broken golf trophy" trick, which arose during '07 NaNoWriMo writing, and which I think was pretty neat. That's because early this morning, lounging on a deck chair with a mug of coffee, I finished reading Laura Lippman's Another Thing to Fall, and darn it, a key revelation comes to light when Lloyd drops the Emmy statuette and a hidden paper is revealed.
So, great minds think alike. Anyway, Laura got it into print first (no surprise there, question of if/when mine will ever see print still wide open) and recently, so I'll come up with something else. Since that's current in my mind today, maybe I'll focus on that rather than polishing the Ouija scene, which might benefit from a fresh look after some time away.
But, having fallen into recreational reading the past few days, now must junk the "safe combo found in dropped/broken golf trophy" trick, which arose during '07 NaNoWriMo writing, and which I think was pretty neat. That's because early this morning, lounging on a deck chair with a mug of coffee, I finished reading Laura Lippman's Another Thing to Fall, and darn it, a key revelation comes to light when Lloyd drops the Emmy statuette and a hidden paper is revealed.
So, great minds think alike. Anyway, Laura got it into print first (no surprise there, question of if/when mine will ever see print still wide open) and recently, so I'll come up with something else. Since that's current in my mind today, maybe I'll focus on that rather than polishing the Ouija scene, which might benefit from a fresh look after some time away.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Another Deadline
So I went ahead and sent in to the Mystery Writers of America for an entry form for the next "Best First Mystery" competition. And yippee... I got assigned to (I hope) a "good" judge: a woman author whose style and wry humor is similar (I think) to mine. I'm not gonna post her name here yet, 'cause I don't wanna jinx anything.
This ought to light some kind of a fire under my butt: deadline for submissions is 12/31/08, and now that I've been assigned this judge I don't want to blow the opportunity by not getting a submittable, near-perfect draft done in time.
I'm happy to say that the first 4 chapters are now in excellent shape, and I'm plodding forward. Chapters 5-13 are shaping up well, but need some tweaking in the plot department. The storyline itself is evolving painfully slowly still (I can write at the speed of light, but I plot like a fossilized mastodon). I'm trying to keep the plot/mystery reasonably simple -- while still achieving "clever" -- and let the characters deliver most of the fun. With a little luck and some ruthless editing I ought to be able to bring in a complete story draft at somewhere under way too many pages.
This ought to light some kind of a fire under my butt: deadline for submissions is 12/31/08, and now that I've been assigned this judge I don't want to blow the opportunity by not getting a submittable, near-perfect draft done in time.
I'm happy to say that the first 4 chapters are now in excellent shape, and I'm plodding forward. Chapters 5-13 are shaping up well, but need some tweaking in the plot department. The storyline itself is evolving painfully slowly still (I can write at the speed of light, but I plot like a fossilized mastodon). I'm trying to keep the plot/mystery reasonably simple -- while still achieving "clever" -- and let the characters deliver most of the fun. With a little luck and some ruthless editing I ought to be able to bring in a complete story draft at somewhere under way too many pages.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Edit Mode
I've been in "edit mode" lately. Decided (after several changes of mind) to go ahead with Rose's prologue, and after several passes have cut the length almost in half, which it needed. So much easier to write long and cut.
Chapters 1-3 have also been under the knife, but less drastically so. Now I'm poised to cruise through Chapter 4 with one hand on the mouse and the other on the delete key. Plenty of good writing in there, but the wedding reception sequence is way too long and unfocused. Need to strip it down to its essence, while finding clever ways to feed in some more backstory details. There's a subplot supposedly lurking behind the scenes that I haven't managed to introduce yet. oops.
Once this is all done I'll have (I hope) a solid launch into the middle of the story. Whether or not I'll be able to squeeze discovery of the dead guy into the first 50 pages or not remains to be seen, but knocking off Rose in the prologue takes care of the "where's the corpse?" issue, right?
Next challenge is to get back into "write mode" in order to crank out more first/second draft and fill in all the plot holes throughout the middle.
Abby and I have agreed to do a novel exchange when she comes to visit in October (I'll read hers, she'll read mind). That gives me three months and three days to pull a complete, readable draft together. Eeep.
Chapters 1-3 have also been under the knife, but less drastically so. Now I'm poised to cruise through Chapter 4 with one hand on the mouse and the other on the delete key. Plenty of good writing in there, but the wedding reception sequence is way too long and unfocused. Need to strip it down to its essence, while finding clever ways to feed in some more backstory details. There's a subplot supposedly lurking behind the scenes that I haven't managed to introduce yet. oops.
Once this is all done I'll have (I hope) a solid launch into the middle of the story. Whether or not I'll be able to squeeze discovery of the dead guy into the first 50 pages or not remains to be seen, but knocking off Rose in the prologue takes care of the "where's the corpse?" issue, right?
Next challenge is to get back into "write mode" in order to crank out more first/second draft and fill in all the plot holes throughout the middle.
Abby and I have agreed to do a novel exchange when she comes to visit in October (I'll read hers, she'll read mind). That gives me three months and three days to pull a complete, readable draft together. Eeep.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
3 out of 4 not bad
Progress! It's been appallingly wrenching to set aside the "should-dos" and "need-attentions" and allow myself to do an hour of novelling FIRST before turning to the rest of the day's demands, but I have managed to do so 3 of the past 4 days. Yay, me!
The missed day was because just as I sat down to my novel session the Sears delivery guys showed up with a new stove to replace the one that had died (no oven for a week, and only 1-1/2 working burners, which is a hardship if you cook as much as I do). So I hopped up and down with excitement and got distracted and then a couple of hours later when I sat down again, the phone rang and it was the nice lady at the gas company saying hey, guess what, our guy can stop by right now to hook up your new stove (we were scheduled for next day, so that was great!), so then that happened, and then it was time to do errands, and then we needed a nap, then workout, make dinner, etc. But still, we have a fully-functioning stove and oven (yay!) and three out of four days is awesome progress for me. Plus, I like what I wrote -- whoohoo!
So here I am boast-blogging instead of writing. Guess I'd better go see if I can make it four days out of five...
The missed day was because just as I sat down to my novel session the Sears delivery guys showed up with a new stove to replace the one that had died (no oven for a week, and only 1-1/2 working burners, which is a hardship if you cook as much as I do). So I hopped up and down with excitement and got distracted and then a couple of hours later when I sat down again, the phone rang and it was the nice lady at the gas company saying hey, guess what, our guy can stop by right now to hook up your new stove (we were scheduled for next day, so that was great!), so then that happened, and then it was time to do errands, and then we needed a nap, then workout, make dinner, etc. But still, we have a fully-functioning stove and oven (yay!) and three out of four days is awesome progress for me. Plus, I like what I wrote -- whoohoo!
So here I am boast-blogging instead of writing. Guess I'd better go see if I can make it four days out of five...
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Just what I need... a kick in the butt!
Did I mention that both my sisters are coming out to Hawaii in October to help me celebrate (or commiserate) turning 50? How totally awesome is that!! I'm thoroughly psyched to see them, and thrilled they're both gonna be here at the same time.
Plus, how great to have a captive (and kindly inclined, but not likely to hold any punches) "first readers" audience. So there's an incentive for ya: how great would it be to have a complete, readable -- though unlikely to be polished -- draft to give them while they're here?! Both are avid readers: one closely shares my taste in fiction, and the other is also an aspiring novelist.
Arrival date is now slightly less than five months away... I'd better get writing!
Plus, how great to have a captive (and kindly inclined, but not likely to hold any punches) "first readers" audience. So there's an incentive for ya: how great would it be to have a complete, readable -- though unlikely to be polished -- draft to give them while they're here?! Both are avid readers: one closely shares my taste in fiction, and the other is also an aspiring novelist.
Arrival date is now slightly less than five months away... I'd better get writing!
No whining!
Holy Moly! It's been more than a month since I posted here (?!?) ... how'd that happen so fast?
I'm not up on the details, but there's something going on with the Mayan calendar about time speeding up, getting faster and faster the closer we get to a major shift in consciousness or reality or something like that in 2012.
Sure seems that way to me, these days. I'm kinda curious about this whole Mayan/timeshift thing, but have been resisting exploration of the details -- which are readily available as my husband is into it and all I'd have to do is ask him (or read one of several books he's got on the topic).
Clearly there's a big part of me that prefers to go on pretending I have all the time in the world to get things done. So far, that part is firmly in the driver's seat of my daily life.
Novelling hasn't had much attention lately, but I've been moving ahead with reinventing the opening of the book (this draft, anyway). Feels like a big improvement. Still tons to do, of both the invention and revision kind, but the clearer I get about how to start the thing, the more the rest of the vision falls into place.
I did make one clear decision last month: I am not going to let this blog turn into a whine fest about how much writing I am not getting done. So, I'm only gonna post when I have something positive to say. Fingers crossed that turns out to mean more frequent updates!
I'm not up on the details, but there's something going on with the Mayan calendar about time speeding up, getting faster and faster the closer we get to a major shift in consciousness or reality or something like that in 2012.
Sure seems that way to me, these days. I'm kinda curious about this whole Mayan/timeshift thing, but have been resisting exploration of the details -- which are readily available as my husband is into it and all I'd have to do is ask him (or read one of several books he's got on the topic).
Clearly there's a big part of me that prefers to go on pretending I have all the time in the world to get things done. So far, that part is firmly in the driver's seat of my daily life.
Novelling hasn't had much attention lately, but I've been moving ahead with reinventing the opening of the book (this draft, anyway). Feels like a big improvement. Still tons to do, of both the invention and revision kind, but the clearer I get about how to start the thing, the more the rest of the vision falls into place.
I did make one clear decision last month: I am not going to let this blog turn into a whine fest about how much writing I am not getting done. So, I'm only gonna post when I have something positive to say. Fingers crossed that turns out to mean more frequent updates!
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