Once Upon Draft Five

So I'm gearing up for Draft #5 now, and I'm actually SUPER EXCITED about it! Mostly because I'm fairly certain the grueling start-from-scratch stuff is OVER, and I just can't wait to make this book what it was meant to be in the first place!

Stuff I'm working on in this draft:

1. Stream-lining the novel. I want to cut AT LEAST 10,000 words
2. Make character motivations clear.
3. Work on pacing.
4. MAKE THE BEGINNING AWESOME
5. Condense/simplify my myths
6. Delete one of the character's POVs.
7. MAKE THE WHOLE NOVEL AS AWESOME AS I CAN.

So. We'll see how long this takes.

And GO!

Rewrite Update

It's been a long road since I started the Most Massive Rewrite Ever in April 2013. I'm not done yet, but I'm slowly getting there—the end of this draft is finally in sight. Eight and a half chapters left to get through, some rewriting of old material, some brand new scenes, including a completely different ending (unless I change my mind!).

Trying not to despair that I've been at this for over a year, because 1) It's so vastly different from the original it's like writing a new book, 2) I took time off to write 50K of something else in November for NaNoWriMo, and 3) I spent March and April revising an entirely different novel. It's not been QUITE as long as it seems, but it's still pretty grueling.

I'd love to finish this draft by July so I can start the next draft, which will hopefully go much faster because I'll have existing material to work with. We shall see!

Also, this novel is kind of having an identity crisis. It's definitely fantasy, but I'm not sure it's as Young Adult as I originally thought. I don't know what it is. But I'll figure it out. Probably. :-)

Kill 'Em

So, last week I hacked the first part of SEER to bits, then slowly stitched it back together again. I condensed/cut down the first ten chapters to just six, and my word count of 89,000 is now at 73,000. 0_o I think I'm beginning to learn the true meaning of the phrase "kill your darlings"...  Not 100% sure if all the changes are working quite yet, but I'll get there!

The aftermath of the hacking! Deleted scenes over there on the right.

In other news, I get to see Shannon Hale tomorrow night at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe. I'm so excited!!!

In other other news, I now own the Frozen bluray AND the Frozen soundtrack, so that's pretty awesome. :-D Seriously, that movie is so good I could watch it every single day like a seven-year-old. Beauty and the Beast will always be my favorite Disney movie, but Frozen and Tangled come pretty close these days.

And last but not least, the hubs and I scored this awesome coffee table at a garage sale last weekend:

Writing & Editing, as seen by Rapunzel and llama-Emperor-Kusco:

Plants are Pretty Cool, right?

I'm at that point with my revision of Part II where I just basically hate everything. I've outlined what I have. I've made lots of rambling notes about what I want to be different. I'm trying to figure out how to merge the two and it's just AWFUL!! Blarg. I go through this with Every Single Revision, you would think I'd be used to it now, but noooo.

It's like, I know I'll reach that point where I've got everything figured out and I can start the actual rewriting process, but right now it's hard to see it. I'm questioning everything: does this scene belong? would this character really behave like that? what is the point of this storyline? how do I develop this naturally? does anything in here make even A LITTLE BIT OF SENSE?? Should I just give up and become a horticulturist???

So anyways. That's how it's going.

It's January Already!

So, so, so, welcome to the second day of 2014! It's sunny and seventies in AZ, which might make a lot of you jealous, but I really wouldn't mind some clouds and snow and a roaring fire and some hot chocolate. I am drinking black currant tea with cream, though, so that's something!

On the roster for 2014:

• I'm turning 30 in twenty-five days. That sounds really old. 0_o (Obviously this isn't a goal, just an inevitable event.)
• Whale and the Tree revision. Hoping to be finished circa April, although this draft will need at least another pass after that. Really proud of my changes so far! I think it's already a much stronger manuscript.
• Another novel. Possibly another revision, possibly a reworking of last year's short story idea, possibly something completely new. We'll see!
• I have a ton of books I want to read, including but not limited to: The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Sorrow's Knot, The Bitter Kingdom, Shadow and Bone, The Fault in Our Stars, Unthinkable, The Name of the Wind, The Night Circus, Reflections (Diana Wynne Jones on writing), and whatever else has yet to tickle my fancy! (Book suggestions always welcome!)

That's it for now. More later if I think of anything! Also, my tea is gone, so it seems a fitting place to end.

Go forth and be awesome, everyone!

Ode to October

I so love October!! No lovely autumn trees here, unfortunately, but the days are slooooowly getting cooler and the holidays are just around the corner, and my husband and I are going to Disneyland for our first anniversary next week. Life is good!

The revision is going pretty well… I haven't actually worked on it yet this week, due to a grisly battle with a horde of ants over our kitchen yesterday, but I'm feeling encouraged and enthusiastic about it. My goal is to finish the first half by the end of the month and I THINK I can do it if I push. And I want to because…

I'm contemplating NaNoWriMo this year!! I've been bitten with NaNo fever and I'm not sure I can shake it. :-) If I do join, I'll be continuing the novel I started writing in 2009, and therefore technically be a NaNo rebel! It's a story that's been in my head since the early 90s 0_o and I read the first part the other day and I desperately want to finish it because my inner thirteen-year-old self wants to read the end! I haven't 100% committed yet, but I'm definitely leaning that way.

But at any rate, here's my last piano student of the day, so I'd better attend to him.

Over and out. :-)

Dear Novel, I Still Like You

To paraphrase Shakespeare, the outline's the thing!

Yeah, I'm outlining the remainder of Part One of my huge rewrite, and it's a VERY EXCELLENT IDEA. I went into this thinking "I'll just start over and see what happens" and that might not've been the BEST decision ever. I'm at the point where I need to marry my new material to my old material. I realized I CAN still use some of the scenes I've already written, and that I'm trying to make THIS story better, not write a completely different one. So that was an encouraging realization!

I've only been working on this outline for a couple days, and I almost have it sorted enough to start writing/revising again. I'm excited! I can do this!

I STILL LIKE THIS NOVEL!!!!!!

This Writing Thing

Well, September is upon us! I'm slowly pecking away at the novel rewrite, and—as usual—being frustrated and encouraged in turn. I'm finally beginning to get a vision of how I want it to go, but there's so many decisions and possibilities it gets pretty confusing. But I'm gonna push through!!

I keep having to re-realize that, for right now, I can't worry about:

… whether or not it's too long

… whether or not there will be a market for it WHEN I finally finish

… whether or not my writing is perfect

… whether or not I'm being as creative as I aspire to be

… whether or not I'm ever going to make it past the first few chapters


I can, however, focus on:

— Plot!

— Characterization!

— Pacing!

— Structure!

— Doing the best I can with where I am right now

— Enjoying the freedom that comes with re-imagining the story

— Working on it EVERY DAY


At least I have something to semi-distract me from compulsively checking my email every two minutes and the miniature heart attacks brought on by seeing a reply to one of my queries in my inbox.

Yeah…

This writing thing, I tell ya.

Puzzles

This rewrite feels like I'm trying to do a 2,000 piece puzzle, but I've only got 200 pieces and I lost the box so I can't refer to the picture on the top and therefore have no clue what this thing is supposed to look like when it's done.

Yeah. It's kinda like that.

Where the novel currently is and where I want it to actually be are two separate universes at this moment. Here's some of the changes I'm grappling with:

1. The Beginning. In the longest and most helpful rejection letter I've ever received, the question was posed: does this novel start in the right place? In this new draft I began the novel earlier in the timeline, and I feel like I might be trapped in the (new) first three chapters for all of eternity at this point.

2. Characterization. I'm basically trying to give my MC a spine. And some spunk. She's getting a personality makeover, and she needs it!!

3. Relationships. I'm not too far into this aspect of the story yet, but there's a massive balancing act to do here. My MC's relationship with her mother is complicated and something I'm tweaking a little/trying to figure out in this new draft. There's also a massive love square (that's a love triangle with an extra side, haha) to navigate as the story progresses.

4. Plot. Although I'm not making a lot of earth-shattering plot alterations, I am changing it here and there, and I want to be consistent across the board and not change it so much that I lose the overall vision/feel of the original. I still want to be able to recognize this story!!

5. Length. I'm hoping to make this draft at least 10K shorter than the previous one. Yeah.

6. The Ending. I haven't figured out if I'm going to change the original ending or not. I can't decide.


So that's that.

Wordcounts and Doctor Who and Batman, oh my!!

Well, mostly good things to report over here!

My read-through went super good—I slashed and dashed as many words as humanly possible and got ye olde novel down to……………… 88,819 words. Not quite the 85K I was hoping for, but at least it's under 89K. You know. Ish.

I'm currently researching agents (I've been doing it on and off for a while now), honing my query letter and so on, and all that editing paid off—I revised and condensed that query, hooray!

Still working on getting my Scrivener compile feature up and running again (the tech support people are super helpful). Just got a general Scrivener update email today and it said that a couple of recent Doctor Who episodes were actually penned in Scrivener, which of course made my little geeky heart go pitter pat. :-D

Gonna poke at my novel a little more and make sure it's EXACTLY perfect, and then it's off to the query mobile, batman!!

Caution, Read Through In Progress: Verbiage Ahead!

So I wound up printing out my novel after all—had to resort to copying and pasting the whole thing into Pages and tweaking the formatting for a while but I got that bad boy printed out in the end!

I'm almost halfway done with my read-through/editing and I'm really liking this draft so far. I'm cutting as many extemporaneous words as possible and it feels good. I love that stage of editing when you're so on fire that deleting things no longer make you want to curl up in a hole and die but cackle with evil glee instead. :-D It remains to be seen how many words I've actually axed so far; I'm hoping it's in the neighborhood of 1K, though.

I've also rearranged some scenes in chapters three and four that were bothering me, which I think has solved the problem, and my newly rewritten sections are turning out to work with the flow of the novel much better than I thought, so that's encouraging.

Definitely on track to have the finalized Draft #3 ready to be sent out into the wide world by the end of the month. Hoorah!!

Hail the Conquering Author!

I finished!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just had half a chapter to go through this morning, which I did. I'm a little disappointed that I can't print it out yet, though—I'm having problems with the compile feature on my Scrivener (I LOVE this program and normally don't have any issues) and so can't get it into my word processor. Kind of frustrating, but I've contacted technical support and hopefully the issue will be resolved soon. I have a shiny ream of paper and a shiny new binder all ready to receive my new draft when it is!!

Final word count for Draft #3 is 90,607. Le sigh…

I might possibly be noodling on a short story idea… we'll see if anything happens with it!

Sheesh, three posts in three days! This is getting serious.

I think I need more tea.

Cheers!

Yea Verily, the Word Count Doth Swell

Only two chapters left!! Taking a bit of a break 'cause the last ones need special concentration and my head is starting to hurt (I clearly need more tea).

This revision is going quite well (I think!!). My only concern is the swelling of my word count. Why can nothing I write ever get SHORTER? I've peeked at my initial draft a couple of times over the last week to try and clear up some discrepancies (it didn't actually help), and was pleased to see that the second draft is a much better book than the first, and I think this third draft is making it even better. But not shorter. Never shorter. >:-( First draft was 70K, second draft was 80K, and now I'm pushing 90K! When I do my read-through I'm going to try and cut as much as possible. Hopefully I'll get it down to 85K, but I'm not holding my breath. Sheesh.

Okay. Break time. By which I mean bathroom cleaning time. And a shower. And more tea. Probably in that order.

Also, I think my post titles are possibly getting out of control. On the other hand, I can't just title my posts "update" all the time. That's super boring.

Okay I think I'm done now. :-)

Phew!

Just finished that scene I've been working on for what feels like a billion years! It clocks in at 3,547 words and I think it's pretty cool but that's up for debate when I get to the reread… I've really only got a few scenes left and they all flow together pretty much uninterrupted, but I think they're going to be difficult as well. :-/

But I'm getting there!!

Can't believe it's the last day in February! Where does the time go? Also, I need the next Artimes Fowl book. Might be bookstore time………

Just keep going, just keep going

As you can probably ascertain from the lack of post last week, the writing's been kind of rough lately. Didn't do much last week at all and was getting pretty depressed about ever picking it up again! Yesterday, though, a Starbucks session and an Earl Grey Latte gained me some momentum and last night I wrote nearly 500 words on my iPhone with my thumbs, so I think the ole grey matter might be working again.

The scene I'm in is a long one, but it's important, and one of those ones that needs to be written slowly. Only a few more scenes to be rewritten for this particular thread, and then I get to take a step back and consider some other elements of the novel. Here's hoping it will go smoothly!

Also, and hopefully I'll get around to some reviews soon, I've been reading the Artimes Fowl series over the last several months and I'm on book six now and I love them!! I'm way sad that I only have two books left after this one, but that won't keep me from busting through them anyway……

Here's to Tuesday! Go forth and prosper! :-)

Just a Tuesday in February

So, only a few more scenes left to rewrite, but they're doozys!! Juuuuuust finished one this morning that I've been working on for nearly a week, but it was one of those scenes that you just have to plug away at slowly. I THINK I made it better. Hopefully. We'll see how it holds up when I do my read through.

All the scenes I have left are going to be similarly slow in coming, I think. Which is daunting. And I'm fast-approaching the extremely important ending scenes, which frighten me immensely. This is so hard!!!! But worth it. Well, hopefully. :-D

Onwards and upwards!

ETA As of 3:00 I just finished another scene!! And I think it might be awesome! Woohoo!!!

Thursday Updates!

So I've only written a few scenes since Monday, including one today, but I'm definitely making progress, which is encouraging! I just sat down and reread all the scenes I've rewritten since I started this process, and I actually really liked them. I'm able to be really creative/imaginative/just-plain-crazy with these scenes, and it's all kinds of freeing and awesome. I was so tentative with my ideas the first time around that I wasn't really exploring all of this second world's interesting potential, and I'm definitely doing more of that now. I just hope I'll be able to keep everything semi-consistent!

I've got a few pretty epic scenes coming up, and an entire ending to make awesomer. This is getting intense, but I think I'm gonna come out of this with a better, stronger novel.

Also, it is a lovely rainy day.

Also also, Lizzie Bennet Diaries is getting so intense!!!

Happy Thursday!

Two Things

Well, two good things to report!


1. My mom and I have CHALLENGED each other to get a certain amount of work done on our respective projects by March 7th—if we do, we get to go to Baskin & Robin. :-D My specific goal is to get all new/rewritten scenes done and have my manuscript ready for a next-draft edit, by which I mean I'll start at page one and read everything, including new bits, and make changes as I go to work new material into old, etc. It makes sense in my head. :-)

2. My husband and I cleaned out our back room, which means we both have access to our desks and I have a legit writing space!! If only I use it for good and not distraction, I mean evil. :-)

Okay. Off to watch today's Lizzie Bennet Diary before I get to work. Obviously!!

Jump Start

So earlier in the week my blog post was going to go something like this:

I haven't really gotten much writing done and everything's confusing and I don't understand how to fix the things I need to fix!!

But that was earlier in the week. :-D

Tuesday, after getting a brand new driver's license with an updated photo and my married (!) name, I met my BFF at B&N for an hour and started handwriting a scene that jump-started my metabolism—I mean my brain. I spent the first part of Wednesday finishing the scene and staring at my outline synopsis thing until I went a little cross-eyed, but I made some good decisions and was able to plow ahead. Today I wrote another new scene and am quite pleased with how it turned out—of course I haven't reread it yet, so anything could happen there. :-)

I'm slowly working through the novel how I'd originally intended—rewriting/reevaluating the problematic scenes one at a time. I'm printing out the rewritten/brand new scenes on green paper (leftover from my wedding!!), taping them into my manuscript, and buggering on. The plan is to get through the whole novel that way, then start at the beginning, do the edits that need to be done, make sure all the new bits fit okay, cut what needs cutting, etc. I think this is gonna work. I hope so!!

Also, I think I should get some kind of award for battling my MacBook this week. Not only does the screen go black if it's at the wrong angle, there's something askew with my trackpad that makes my cursor jump around and haphazardly delete things whilst I'm typing. I can eliminate that problem by plugging a mouse in, which I will forever do now, but still. Kind of lusting after a new computer, I'm not gonna lie…

All right, that about does it. I kind of like that I rebooted my blog and didn't tell anybody and so no one is actually reading this. :-D I figured if I could be consistent for a month or two, I might spread the word again. We'll see.

Peace out!!