Tag: novel in progress

The Writing Moment

As I wrote and edited my novel-in-progress, or NIP, this week, a realization struck. I like to practice a ‘stream-of-consciousness’ style of plotting. And I like incorporating details about people and their lives, settings, and events.

My novel ends up with an unusual personality as I cater to those preferences. Starts as science fiction on a starship with a dragon in another dimension. Shifts to ‘literature’ and relationships between family members. Swings to sword and magic low fantasy. Then back to science fiction. All with threads of mystery, genetic engineering, time shifts, and sometimes thrillers.

I enjoy such mash-ups. Fun to read, great fun to write.

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The Writing Moment

Scenes hang in my mind, waiting to be unfolded. A line or two or three is written. A pause to contemplate them is embraced. More lines come, get written. The growing new scene is reviewed, lightly edited. More lines come, more gets written.

Sometimes, the pause gets extended. I surf into news articles and others’ posts. Then a muse spears my attention and I jump back to the scene being written. Lines are added. They stack into paragraphs. Paragraphs stack into pages. I review what I wrote and lightly edit.

That scene is eventually done. The next one is considered and plotted in my head. I approach again. A line or two or three is written. So it goes.

Meanwhile, muses ambush me with a new concept. I’m reading a non-fiction article about glaciers. The concept harpoons my mind. I grin with delight and think, oh, wow, that would be fun. An opening scene begins unfolding.

I open up a new doc to capture the first lines. Scenes are written. They turn into chapters and branch into a structure’s glimmerings. I think, this will be my next project. I rummage around my brain for a title. A tentative one is hauled out. Rejected. Another bubbles up. Acceptable. More is realized and written. The working title is modified. The quick, sudden progress surprises me. This will definitely be fun to write. But first, the other novel in progress must be finished.

I close the document. Return to the work in progress. A line or two or three is written. I’m close to the end. Close to tying it all up and saying to myself, finished.

So it goes.

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The Writing Moment

I’ve re-written the last 20% of the current novel in progress. Again, I guess. Guided by muses, and getting out of my own way, I added a whole other first section. Started it on Dec 26, 2024. Finished that section yesterday. How well it fit in really surprised me. I sweated and cringed as I wrote, wondering with clenched teeth, where is this all going? How does it tie together? But while I fretted over those things and tried my hardest to step up in front of myself and squirm and overanalyze, something inside me managed to push me aside again and again, and keep writing.

Then, suddenly, OMG, plot twist. And another one. And another.

I’ll tell you, all these plot twists make me nervous.

Am I close to writing a final ‘the end’? Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps… I can’t seem to really say. There’s a writer in me who took over, and he/she/they don’t let on about what they’re doing. I’m just going to sit down, gulp up coffee, write like crazy, and see what’s delivered.

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The Writing Moment

A cat came knocking on the bedroom’s slider.

Papi the ginger blade was demanding entry back into the house.

I let him in and returned to bed. The time was 4 AM. I told myself to go back to sleep. My brain wouldn’t cooperate. Instead, I thought about going into surgery on Wednesday. I felt I was close to finishing the novel in progress. It could be done before the surgery if I have three good writing days. I wanted that. Then I ended up staying awake, writing the story in my head.

When I sat down at the coffee shop, I put those words down into the document and realized, the end.

I was inspired by the book, “Gravity’s Rainbow”. I’d read the book in the past and was just browsing, and came across some reference to it. Then I had an idea, and “Gravity’s Emotions” was begun.

Word can tell you some things about a doc. Tells me that this one was started July 19, 2024. 432 pages, 117,480 words. 9218 minutes of editing. Anyone who knows that a day has 1440 minutes knows that’s not a huge amount of time. Just 6.4 days if you do the math. 6.4 days if I’d worked 24/7.

As always, it feels a little weird to be finished. Bit sad. “Like a death in the family” a writer of fame once said.

I worry about it. Don’t know if the plot makes sense or if people will buy into the character. I fret over the ending is too pat.

I told myself when I began writing this thing, just get out of your own way and stay out of the way.

Now, with it ‘done’, at least in this phase of novel writing, I need to remind myself again: just get out of your own way.

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The Writing Moment

Sometimes I write part of the novel, and it pours out, and I get up and walk away, exhilarated and terrified, asking myself, oh my God, what have I written?

I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t expect it, and it shocked me.

And then I start writing the next scene in my head and hurry back to my computer, eager to keep going.

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The Writing Moment

Still editing a novel-in-progress. Rev 7 remains underway for Memories of Why. I finished page 450 of 575 today. Don’t know if I’ll do a rev 8 until after I read the final chapters. I remember how I ended it but I’m not sure that ending is satisfying. We’ll see.

Meanwhile, I jumped into writing a new novel back on July 19, 2024. It just sucked me in. The working title is Gravity’s Emotions. As it’s a style and kind of novel that I don’t usually write, it stretches my nerves to breaking while engrossing and worrying me. Eighty pages have been written, so it’s been going fast. Breaking a standard rule, I share bits of the novel in walk off lines with my wife. Some of what I tell her freaks her out. That makes me giddy.

But I also need to return to finish Darla. Friends read the first sixty pages that I dashed off and want to read more of it.

It’s so entertaining and stimulating right now, imagining, thinking, writing, editing, revising, planning. I could easily see myself going non-stop writing and editing, but life needs pull me back into life’s embrace.

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The Writing Moment

I‘d been so pleased with how editing and revising Memories of Why (current working title), my current work in progress had been going. I related to my wife that it’d become like I was reading a novel that felt like someone else had written, feelings which have a surreal impact. What I meant was that it was going smoothly and keeping me engaged. No lip biting, teeth gnashing, or fits of despair was endured.

Then, screeched, I hit a piece of finished work which needed some updating and repairs. I immediately saw the issue but The Writing Neurons seemed to be gone for the day, staying aloof and unengaged. Letting out a heavy sigh, I called it done, packed up and headed for the door.

As soon as I hit the door, I knew what to do. Once the opportunity came in my home, I opened the doc and made the change.

We’ll see how it holds up today.

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The Writing Moment

Revising again, and it’s a good damn thing. I’d modified a story line. This resulted in two new chapters during the last go-around. OMG, they need work. Stiff and ugly, I need to spend time and thought with them before moving on. Bad enough that when I read partway through one yesterday, I shut down to regroup. LOL.

Well, it happens. They were written in a rush and worked for the moment as part of a draft, but they’re subpar for a finished manuscript.

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The Writing Moment

A day when the writing and editing ‘goes well’ leaves me energized and optimistic. Wish I could bottle it as an elixir and drink a bit every morning.

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The Writing Moment

Finished. Done. Over. Completed.

Yes, I’ve completed rev five of the novel in progress. Its current working title is Memories of Why. Speculative historic fiction. Couple cups of science fiction tempered with a pint of fantasy and a few tablespoons of revisionism. 523 pages in Word. 160,000 words. Probably over three hundred large cups of coffee. Began writing it in March of last year. Started with a character — a cherub — and their imprisonment and sugar addiction. Grew from there. Humans are about as involved as Martians. Or the reverse. Azure Iarnum — AI — had a bigger role than Humans or Martians. Dragons played a small role, as did ‘spaceships’.

Next: revise again. I think I’m getting somewhere.

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