I've decided that I am never going to convince myself to write anything important during the day. I have to have been awake for several hours before I can get anything creative going. Writing is for the wee hours of the morning.
On the flip side, it seems to be perfect time for doing the more mindless of the editting. Converting everything from passive voice to active voice, rearranging the order of sentences, things like that.
Then again, I've also decided that I'm just not going to worry about passive voice anymore either. There's a lot of it, but sometimes it's supposed to be like that, dangit!
Mainly, I think, I'm afraid that by the time I edit the crap out of everything, I'll also have taken the soul out of the scene and it will no longer really be mine anymore. It'll just be another dull string of words, lifeless on the page, that anyone could've written.
And finally, I'm wondering whether I've found my art form yet. There's writing, music, visual arts, performance arts ... lots of things. Maybe writing isn't quite it for me. I don't know. I read through everybody else's comments about what it's like to be a writer, and although some of those aspects ring true for me, it doesn't ring true quite as strongly. I *don't* have zillions of ideas in my head, just begging to be written. There are no voices in my head demanding to be heard. I *can't* write anywhere near as many words per day as other people, even if I have absolutely nothing else to do - this particular holiday break is proving it in spades. I have an itch to do something artistic, and get restless if I have no creative outlets - but it doesn't have to be writing in particular. I do enjoy being alone and quiet in the dark, but that time is not spent creating stories - or at least, not *just* coming up with stories. It's spent ruminating on stuff going on in real life, philosophizing, and all sorts of things. And the stories I do come up with are just short fantasies about people in my real life.
Also my novel sucks. :p Writing it at high speed in November was sooo much easier than trying to get it into a presentable form. Why can't publishers just be happy to buy first drafts? *whine*
Actually that leads me into something else: the therapeutic and inspiration-rejuvenating powers of whining. I've noticed that when I complain to my best friend that I "have no clue what the frell I'm doing" and start going into great, lengthy detail about why that is ... suddenly my mind is working out exactly what the frell I need to do. And then I get to work, and it gets done, and life is good again.
Unfortunately, my best friend seems to have gotten tired of hearing me whine. :p (Imagine that.) Or, to be more accurate, I think we may have worn each other out on the whining, as she whines at me as well and I know that I get pretty tired of it sometimes.
All of which means that I may end up using blog space to do a lot of my whining. So, just a warning on what's likely going to be in many of my future blog entries. :) Maybe there ought to be a section specifically for whining so that everyone else can just ignore it...
Okay .. I guess that's enough ruminating for now. Back to ye olde grinde with me ...
2004/12/28
2004/12/26
To dwell or to move on ...
Well. Last night I finally banged out the second draft of my prologue. Which is posted as a comment to my previous blog entry. Thanks to everyone who made comments - stuff you guys said jogged my thought processes quite a lot, and even though I didn't end up doing exactly what you suggested, it got me going and that's what I most needed. So thank you.
This afternoon I sat down and looked at it ... omgxorz does it suck... :(( But! when held up next to my first draft version, it's actually better. (!) As measured in how much cringing is involved in me trying to reread through.
The third draft will be beautiful. That's how it always goes when I'm doing a Rumen scene (a roleplay character, the one that I'm currently playing opposite Robert's in the rpol.net game). There's always the first draft, which is basically a list of the content that needs to go in. Then this is followed by a ton of rearranging. Then I write a second draft and fiddle with it to death. Then I toss out everything and start over from scratch, writing the third draft from a completely different angle. The tweaked third draft is the one that ends up as the keeper.
This is how I've been writing my flash-fiction-lengthed scenes for roleplay for over a year. My current view of novel-writing is that it's exactly the same, only scaled up to stupendous proportions.
I can tell just by looking at my prologue's second draft that it will be beautiful when it's all done. At the moment I don't have the faintest idea how, but I'm not worried. Yet.
What's holding me up today is trying to decide what I should do next. Plow on ahead and bang out the entire second draft? Or work on each scene individually to fully polished, so that by the time I'm all done the thing really IS done? The former won't take long at all, but then I'd still have to do a third draft. The latter would take a minimum of 3 months, probably more.
On the one hand, I would kind of like to have the whole second draft done. I *can* do this fairly quickly, at least for the first half, where most of it is already written. There's a bunch of scenes in the second half that need to be written from scratch, but if I do the whole draft in a single swoop, by the time I get there I should be plenty warmed up to do them.
On the other hand, I don't want to lose the inspiration that's in the first few scenes. I can look at the prologue while it's fresh in my mind, and I *know* I can make it beautiful - now. I am not sure whether I can still do it with a month break in between.
On the other other hand ... the prologue needs to get tied in with scenes that occur later on. I'm a big fan of symmetry. The appearance of the prologue is going to dovetail with the appearance of at least two other scenes farther into the work. That means I probably should wait until I have those other scenes in second-draft form as well.
Bleh. What I need is an unbroken length of time that stretches all 3 months where I don't have any other obligations at all. I could do it then. Or burn out and crash. :p But I only have 9 more days before work starts back up. And then there's the February novel dare that I am planning to use for a completely different novel. Oh well. I'll figure it all out eventually.
This afternoon I sat down and looked at it ... omgxorz does it suck... :(( But! when held up next to my first draft version, it's actually better. (!) As measured in how much cringing is involved in me trying to reread through.
The third draft will be beautiful. That's how it always goes when I'm doing a Rumen scene (a roleplay character, the one that I'm currently playing opposite Robert's in the rpol.net game). There's always the first draft, which is basically a list of the content that needs to go in. Then this is followed by a ton of rearranging. Then I write a second draft and fiddle with it to death. Then I toss out everything and start over from scratch, writing the third draft from a completely different angle. The tweaked third draft is the one that ends up as the keeper.
This is how I've been writing my flash-fiction-lengthed scenes for roleplay for over a year. My current view of novel-writing is that it's exactly the same, only scaled up to stupendous proportions.
I can tell just by looking at my prologue's second draft that it will be beautiful when it's all done. At the moment I don't have the faintest idea how, but I'm not worried. Yet.
What's holding me up today is trying to decide what I should do next. Plow on ahead and bang out the entire second draft? Or work on each scene individually to fully polished, so that by the time I'm all done the thing really IS done? The former won't take long at all, but then I'd still have to do a third draft. The latter would take a minimum of 3 months, probably more.
On the one hand, I would kind of like to have the whole second draft done. I *can* do this fairly quickly, at least for the first half, where most of it is already written. There's a bunch of scenes in the second half that need to be written from scratch, but if I do the whole draft in a single swoop, by the time I get there I should be plenty warmed up to do them.
On the other hand, I don't want to lose the inspiration that's in the first few scenes. I can look at the prologue while it's fresh in my mind, and I *know* I can make it beautiful - now. I am not sure whether I can still do it with a month break in between.
On the other other hand ... the prologue needs to get tied in with scenes that occur later on. I'm a big fan of symmetry. The appearance of the prologue is going to dovetail with the appearance of at least two other scenes farther into the work. That means I probably should wait until I have those other scenes in second-draft form as well.
Bleh. What I need is an unbroken length of time that stretches all 3 months where I don't have any other obligations at all. I could do it then. Or burn out and crash. :p But I only have 9 more days before work starts back up. And then there's the February novel dare that I am planning to use for a completely different novel. Oh well. I'll figure it all out eventually.
2004/12/25
Well, I officially suck.
Sooo. Yesterday I finished outlining my novel. The index cards are still all over the floor, but they're in order now. The printout of my first draft is also in the same order - ready to become fodder for the second draft. I wrote up my outline in a list form and stuck that into my official online backup location. All I have to do is start from the top and rewrite the whole thing until I get to the bottom.
And I can't start. I don't know how. At all. :(
This is irritating because it's not like I've never written a scene description before. It's not like I've never written an action scene before. But for some reason, maybe because this is a combination of description and action together ... maybe someone here has some ideas of what I should do next?
The first sentence is: "The temple was under siege." What do YOU think should come next? :p
A longwinded description of what the temple looks like and the hill it's sitting on in the meadow? I would assume not. Jump straight into the action without describing what anything looks like? That doesn't seem right either. Start with a different sentence? How would YOU go about describing a battle as your very first scene in the book, that introduces the reader to everything?
And I can't start. I don't know how. At all. :(
This is irritating because it's not like I've never written a scene description before. It's not like I've never written an action scene before. But for some reason, maybe because this is a combination of description and action together ... maybe someone here has some ideas of what I should do next?
The first sentence is: "The temple was under siege." What do YOU think should come next? :p
A longwinded description of what the temple looks like and the hill it's sitting on in the meadow? I would assume not. Jump straight into the action without describing what anything looks like? That doesn't seem right either. Start with a different sentence? How would YOU go about describing a battle as your very first scene in the book, that introduces the reader to everything?
2004/12/24
So ... here I am.
Well ... I have arrived. :)
Just found my way here earlier today by way of someone posting on the NaNoWriMo forum. Apparently there's a February challenge in these here parts. I've signed up for it.
And now I'm all giddy about having a blog. :) I've never had a blog before. Wouldn't have any idea what to do with one now, either. I guess I'm just supposed to post stuff. Heheh ...
Today is the first day of my own personal challenge. 11 days off work, with no pesky family or friends to bother me. Nothing but a long unbroken stretch of time with nothing else in it but writing. I'm going to use it to write the second draft of my novel.
I wrote the first draft as a Nano novel back in November (50,163 words in 22 days. Woot!). Basically it's a pile of disjointed scenes that are in no particular order. Since then I've been getting myself organized for the second draft, which should come out to around 80k words when I'm all done, and will more closely resemble an actual 'real' novel.
The organizing is nearly done, I think. That's what today was spent doing. Laying out my index cards all over the floor in the proper order in which the story should be told. Some of the ordering doesn't quite make sense all the way, but I'm trusting my subconscious to know what it's doing. Hopefully by later tonight, or maybe early tomorrow, I'll start cranking out the rewrite.
At the moment I'm taking a food break, probably followed by some online chatting. Then it'll be back to the index cards for the rest of the evening.
Just found my way here earlier today by way of someone posting on the NaNoWriMo forum. Apparently there's a February challenge in these here parts. I've signed up for it.
And now I'm all giddy about having a blog. :) I've never had a blog before. Wouldn't have any idea what to do with one now, either. I guess I'm just supposed to post stuff. Heheh ...
Today is the first day of my own personal challenge. 11 days off work, with no pesky family or friends to bother me. Nothing but a long unbroken stretch of time with nothing else in it but writing. I'm going to use it to write the second draft of my novel.
I wrote the first draft as a Nano novel back in November (50,163 words in 22 days. Woot!). Basically it's a pile of disjointed scenes that are in no particular order. Since then I've been getting myself organized for the second draft, which should come out to around 80k words when I'm all done, and will more closely resemble an actual 'real' novel.
The organizing is nearly done, I think. That's what today was spent doing. Laying out my index cards all over the floor in the proper order in which the story should be told. Some of the ordering doesn't quite make sense all the way, but I'm trusting my subconscious to know what it's doing. Hopefully by later tonight, or maybe early tomorrow, I'll start cranking out the rewrite.
At the moment I'm taking a food break, probably followed by some online chatting. Then it'll be back to the index cards for the rest of the evening.
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