Tag: novel writing process

One Typo

I was writing several days ago, working on the novel in progress, April Showers 1921. I’d dream the novel, seeing the cover and knowing the main characters and a lot of story. Yet I was struggling to find and fulfill the potential the dream had shown the novel to have.

I plugged on, though, searching, testing, writing, and then tossing some of it away, trying to find the right path. Completing a scene, I went back over it, making minor changes. I uncovered a typo, an ess attached to a word, changing the noun from singular to plural. While laughing at the images that plural conjured, I deleted the letter, but then reconsidered what the plural could mean to the story. Within a few seconds, that extra letter and the shift from singular to plural opened up a new range of ideas. I went with it.

Results surprised me. That typo bloomed like algae, taking over that scene, but also illuminating masses of the underlying concept. The typo changed the main character’s interactions with others and shifted the entire story by several degrees. The typo opened unexpected mind streams. I surfed into new directions again and again, reacting with surprise, but also with satisfaction that this novel was becoming something different than how it’d been going. All of this is what causes fiction writing to be so engaging and entertaining for me.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

3

The Next Book

I’m working on two novels right now. One is an “official” novel, destined for publication. The other novel is the unofficial, not-to-be published parallel story to that novel.

Coming to that point has been an interesting process. My normal process generally has several documents. First, of course, is the beta document. This is expected to become the book. Another document is about brainstorming and epiphanies. A third is a bible of terms, characters, settings, relationships, and major milestones and turning points. Fourth are snapshots. These include expanding thinking about characters, relationships, settings, historic references, just a handy guide to easily find information. I’ll often add notes about why something was decided, and where it’s included in the novel.

Last of my many documents is the deleted scene compilation. These are chapters that didn’t work, wrong turns, if you will. Sometimes they’re overcome by new concept or plot developments. Sometimes they’re deemed redundant, or they’re telling about something that I already showed. Sometimes they’re the original chapter that I wrote, which was then edited and revised. I keep them for just-in-case needs.

Why so many? I don’t know. This is what my process evolved to be. It works for me. That’s the critical component.

To this mix of documents, I’ve added the parallel story. It originally began as the deleted scenes document. I found it added a mystique, an intriguing veneer to the true novel to explore what’s happened in parallel and then have the original novel react to it.

I don’t work on the parallel novel much. It’s not meant to be a final document. Scenes are not deeply fleshed out, but are taken far enough to enable my understanding of what happened that will affect the novel in progress. Characters are sharply defined, because their thinking, decisions, and actions affect the real novel.

This is all part of the organic writing process, what some call pantsing instead of outlining. In looking at total word counts for all these documents, I estimated that I write two and half words of background and thinking material for every word in the novel. The beta draft of April Showers 1921 is forty-four thousand words. The others total about one hundred ten thousand words when added together.

That aligns with my last project’s results. Incomplete States is a series of five novels that total four hundred eighteen thousand in their latest draft. The supporting documents are just over a million words together.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

0

A Day Without Writing

I didn’t write write yesterday. I had a full schedule of other activities planned. Yes, it’s rare that I take a day off writing. I think there are usually six days a year that I don’t write, and they’re usually sick days, travel days, or holidays. Might as well face it, I’m addicted to writing.

When I say that I didn’t write, I mean that I didn’t sit down with computer, crayon, or paper and pen. I wrote, but it was all in my head. I’ve noticed before that not writing and breaking out of my routine to do other things stimulates my writing. Same thing happened yesterday. I was writing fast in my head.

After getting home close to midnight last night (and with over twenty-six thousand steps on the Fitbit), I had a lot to write this morning. The writing session was one of those intense, fast-paced, and focused affairs that I so love, one where I take one or two gulps of hot black coffee as prelude to the process, and then unleash the muses. An hour or two later, butt sore and with half a cup of cold coffee still available, I stop, spent like a marathon runner.

It’s been an excellent writing week. Having discovered that simultaneous submissions to agents are now considered normal (yeah, you probably all knew that already, didn’t you?), I’ve submitted Four on Kyrios to six agents. I’ve taken my writing approach to procuring an agent. With writing, I write and press on, and with agents, I submit and press on.

Meanwhile, I’ve jumped into a new novel-writing project, April Showers 1921. As always, it’s great fun here in the beginning, when ideas spin like polished, multi-faceted gem stones, letting me think about all the possibilities. Often, though, as I contemplate the facets, the muses say, “Here, we’re going this way. Come on.”

That’s how it’s been. I’m not arguing with them. Fools argue with muses, because mortals always lose any argument with a muse. That’s just fact. I looked it up on the Innertubes, and found a Youtube interview with Shakespeare about it, so you know it’s true.

Now, though, I’m at the après writing juncture that requires me to stop. Don’t really want to stop because it’s been great but I know that I’m finished for the day. Other things remain to be done, my energy is shifting, and my body is saying, “Excuse me, but can we move? Would it be possible to bend and stretch, reach for the sky, stand on tippy toes, and all that?”

Sure, body. We’ll go do some of that. Time to stop writing like crazy, for at least one more day. Just let me gulp down this cold coffee and we’ll get out of here.

Waste not, want not, right?

3

Catching Wind

I encountered a friend last night. “How’s your writing going?” he asked. I’m paraphrasing the conversation.

As I’d been socializing more, I’d created an elevator answer for that question. “Great. Finished writing a series of five books last year, and then I edited and revised them, completing that at the end of the year, wrote a synopsis of the first novel, and compiled a list of agents for submission. Meanwhile, I’ve started writing a new novel.”

“You’re already writing another book? Don’t you need to take a break?”

“No. Writing is a pleasure. I didn’t need a break. Starting a new novel is always energizing.”

“How do you come up with ideas?”

“There are always ideas. Ideas come on from watching animals, the weather, people’s voices, expressions, and stories, newspaper articles, new inventions, dreams, reading, watching television, movies, music. Deciding which one to pursue is the challenge.”

“How do you decide?”

“It’s really about which one catches the wind and takes off. I don’t make a conscious decision about what to work on so much as I start writing. Then it comes out.”

Thinking about that today as I finish my day of writing like crazy, I reflect on all the story, novel, play, and musical ideas locked up in my mind, wondering which will ever be realized. I think if I physically could, I’d be writing twenty-four hours a day to satisfy my imagination and muses, and that still might not be enough.

Ironically, I dislike socializing. Socializing is an energy thief. It requires that I carve time out, set it aside, and focus on being polite, friendly, and speaking with others. All that is exhausting. Yet, inconveniently, socializing stimulates my writing ideas. Listening to people, watching them, and breaking out of my routines fire new ideas. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?

Now, sadly, time to stop once again. Bummer.

4

Spinning Up

I’ve been conducting an agent search pursuant to having my novel published, writing the query and synopsis for it (and the series, as it’s the first novel in a series of five), and editing the novel (and series) again.

My agent search uncovered a lot of agent hunger for MG and YA novels. That seems to continue as a hot market. Apparently my subconscious took note, because the muses delivered a YA character, premise, and title to me in a dream last night. As I recalled the details this morning, other characters jumped into existence in my mind. Dialogue, scenes, plot details and twists began racing through my mind as I showered and shaved. Sitting down at the computer, I typed up dozen pages as I drank a cup of coffee, and then had a chortle.

My muses love novel writing’s inventing and imagining phase. A new project? Yes, naturally, they were excited. They kept on through the morning, punching more of the novel into me, spinning up my excitement as they fed me words. Like them, though, I enjoy the the inventing and imagining phase, putting it all together, playing with the logic puzzles behind motivation and voices that underpin establish a novel’s underpinnings. That shouldn’t be a surprise since my muses and I share a mind.

Got my coffee. Time to edit and write like crazy, at least one more time.

8

Stopping

I’m in such an editing and writing zone, enjoying reading what I’ve written, surprised by the characters and settings. I wrote this? Are you sure? Because I don’t remember it. Yet the notes tell me that I wrote it last June. Ah, where is my mind?

Now I need to stop. Plans were made and time has flitted past with a hummingbird’s speed. I’ve been busy for hours, and sad about stopping. That’s how it sometimes goes, but I take satisfaction in that it was a good day of writing and editing like crazy.

Cheers

0

Sick, Compromised, Logical, and Wrong

I confess, I’m not a good person to have as your driver on vacation. Yes, I’m safe, aware, and involved, but I’m also goal oriented. I’m driving for that destination. Stop to look at the view? That’ll slow us down. Eat? What? You have to pee? Are you kidding me?

Yes, once I put a goal into place, it’s hard to abandon. It’s true with my driving and my writing. What is a strength is also a problem.

I’m debating about a sixth book in the Incomplete States series. (The working title, The Final Time, came to me as soon as part of the brainstorm that inundated me last night.) It’s a logical decision to me, as though I’m in control of the whole thing. Yes, and no, of course.

First, I acknowledge, I’m a little sick of working on the series, sick in the sense that I need a time-out. Sick, as in the sense that I was eager to work on something different. I have a goal in mind, and I’m almost there. I don’t want to turn away from that goal. I see and understand that about myself.

I thought that maybe I could compromise with myself and my muses. I will write some on the side, maybe, maybe not, we’ll see (he said, hedging his commitment), and continue editing full-time. Yes, that sounds like a good compromise.

Yes, I’m pretty stupid at times, thinking that it’s all about logic, control, and goals.

That’s not it at all.

I forgot that I write for myself. I write for myself in the sense that I am my number one fan, and my number one reader. I write for myself because I want to know what I think. I want to know the story. To now think of the story and try to apply the brakes is ridiculous. I want to explore it; I want to know.

That means I must write it.

That might all fizzle out, of course. Perhaps as I begin exploring it, the story will peter out. I’ll conclude, there’s not anything more to write and learn here. I might write some and realize, well, this is really just part of the last book.

I don’t know. It’s foolish to waste time contemplating what might happen or whether I have a decision to make. I’m a writer, and must write, and then I’ll decide what to do with it.

My coffee is at hand. Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time.

 

0

Progress Report – Incomplete States

I wrote five books (originally four) for my latest work in process.

I began work on this series in July, 2016. It was originally one book in concept, but what did I know? Eventually, it became four books. Then I felt it necessary to split the original final book into two books because it was over six hundred pages and three hundred thousand words. In an amusing aside, twenty-five documents were created to develop the five books, with well over a million words.

I considered the first take on the entire series to be a beta draft because the novels’ story lines were so interwoven. While written one at a time, I often edited and revised the previous books as I learned the story.

Now I’m editing the fourth book, creating a true first draft of the Incomplete States series by clarifying that story. Once the first draft is finished, another draft will be required to ensure that the same story is being told in the series’ five books (Four on Kyrios, Entangled LEREs, Six (with Seven), A Sense of Time, and An Undying Quest). Then comes another draft to sharpen and polish, and then it goes to the editors for their input.

I’d expected to have the series’ first draft completed by Thanksgiving, but my error (not saving a backup) set me back (lesson learned). I now have December twenty-first as my target date for completion. It’s not unreasonable, as long as I don’t do anything stupid.

Meanwhile, it is fun to read my creation. I’m enjoying myself. My writing /editing time is a sanctuary from existence’s frustration, pain, and weariness.

Time to edit and write like crazy at least one more time.

0

Impulse

I considered my plans for today last night.

It was about midnight. Today, from what I saw, would be part of a continuum, another day of editing and revising. While I’m happy to make progress and I enjoy what I do, sometimes I get tired of the unending routine. Sometimes I long for a break.

Then I brightened because, hey, I was beginning to edit the fourth and final book in the Incomplete States series.

While I’d been thinking these things, I’d been preparing to close down the computer for the day. Instead, I opened the file for the fourth book’s cover. I regarded and admired it for a while. I’d created covers for the four books as carrots, to make the books seem more tangible and remind me of my goals. With covers, the effort seems to have more promise. It seems more real.

Sitting down, I opened the book’s Word document and began reading and editing.

There wasn’t any plan behind this impulse. One chapter began two. Soon, without me noticing, it was one thirty in the morning. I’d read and edited six chapters. Short chapters, I’d worked through but forty pages. This is a six hundred page, one hundred fifty thousand word draft. There’s a lot more to go.

Despite complaints from my butt cheeks, eyes, neck, and hands, and a more sensible side reminding me that I need to sleep, I didn’t want to stop. I was enjoying what I was reading, and pleased that I’d written it. But prudence finally won.

Now, guess what? Time to write and edit like crazy, at least one more time. I think I may need more coffee.

0

Progress

I finished editing and revising the beta version of Six (with Seven) today. That’s Book Three of the Incomplete States series. I began editing and revising it on September 24 of this year, so my editing and revising process has kept going at a decent pass.

The editing and revising process was draining, requiring most of my mental energy. Not surprising, as editing and revising your work forces you to confront weaknesses and doubts. I know that it’s made me more of pain in the ass to live with than usual. Although there are chapters that leave me a little wary, I feel good about the book and project. Part of that is the simple satisfaction of completing another step in the project, but there’s also the element that I’m satisfied as a reader that the writer wrote a decent tale. I was also pleased because some of my worries and fears were allayed. I kept thinking as I edited and revised the book that I needed to do more to clarify matters and tie together the disparate story lines. Then I discovered that hurrah, I did that when I wrote, edited and revised it back when it was the subject of my focus.

The chapters that leave me wary will confuse some readers. They’ll require close reading to follow them, patience, intelligence, and an open mind. So, do I dilute them to reduce those challenges, or leave them? I left them as is for now, as that feels right. This, of course, was the first go in editing and revising, so that can change in one of the next go-arounds.

Of course, the readers can skip these chapters and go on to the final two chapters, which strain the mud out.

I like how Six (with Seven) ends, moving the series’ stories forward, clarifying more, and setting up Book Four, An Undying Quest. I also have more appreciation for the title, Six (with Seven). It’s more whimsical and cleverer than I first realized. I’m not being immodest, but recognize that a lot of these decisions have subconscious insights going on that I don’t appreciate at first.

With three hundred twenty-two pages in Word and less than eighty thousand words, Six (with Seven) remains a slender book in my general pantheon of fiction writing.

Tomorrow, I begin editing and revising Book Four, An Undying Quest. Once it’s completed, I’ll have a first draft of all four. With some hope and luck, it’ll all make sense and flow together to a decent ending.

Now, the coffee is gone. Time to go for a walk, have lunch, do some yardwork, and maybe have a beer to celebrate.

Cheers

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑