Tag: work in progress

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

Finished editing and revising the current novel in progress. It’s either the sixth or seventh iteration. Doesn’t matter.

My vision for it has clarified through the process of writing and then reading and changing it. One storyline was excised as meandering, dull, and convoluted. Firmer insights into relationships, terminology, and setting crystallized, leading to more slices. Explanations and clarifications were thinned. Characters and relationships found sharper evolution.

All good. I enjoy the manuscript and that means something to me. It is lengthy and meaty, and I wonder and worry about its length. But then I shrug, because nothing emerges for me to deliberately remove.

Now I’ll begin editing and revising again. This time I’m pursuing more of the novel’s voice and feel. I suspect — it’s a feeling — that this will be the last go around. And then I’ll begin pursuing publication.

A friend — another writer — asked me what titles I would compare it to. And gosh, I came up with nothing. I have some vague notions. Historic fiction, science fiction, and fantasy all combined in this speculative effort. And it has stories and characters embedded in it whose stories I’d like to pursue. Like Humans. Humans’ are in the book’s forefront and background, as they were moved to isolation in a forbidden zone long before events in this book. They are important to the novel because the primary antagonist is a Martian who loves Humans and conquers others to spread Human cultures. That’s one reason the rest of the civilizations consider her so dangerous. The other is that she’s proven difficult to kill.

There’s also the main character’s stepmother and her complicated story. I’d like to pursue exploring her and how she developed into the person she is. Then, there’s the main character’s relationship to his sister, and what happened to her in parallel to him, and where she is and if she’s still a cat.

But then, there are also so many other projects sitting in the wings, waiting for me to come back to them. And they’re all stories, concepts, ideas, which interest me.

It’s all fun, reading, writing, editing, imagining, thinking, the life of a writer.

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The Writing Moment

Back into the groove again, my little chicklets. I reduced my writing time while I was in Pittsburgh visiting and helping Mom, especially so in the final week. Figured I’d gone there to visit with her, so I needed to shift priorities and reduce my writing (grimace, grimace) and pay attention to her and her life. But now I’ve returned to Ashlandia and the writing and editing scene. Up to page 508 of 590, or over 86%. Probably complete it by week’s end.

And then I’ll turn around and begin again. Number 7.

Each time has felt good, like I’ve progressed in the story telling, and improved the elements. Of course, I’m the mother, so what else would be expected of me but to have pride in my baby? I’m also terrified because what if I’m totally wrong about what I’ve written and I’m deluding mysef about it, and it’s actually a stinking pile of garbage?

I don’t know how much it really matters about its quality. I’m having fun, meeting the challenge, and pressing on.

And that’s what I set out to do.

Cheers

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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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Three Months

It’s taken me three months to figure out this story.

Three months, four hundred manuscript pages, and one hundred fifty thousand damn words.

Now I think I have a handle on it. Of course that excites me.

(I also pause to think about the writing process and volume. Is four hundred pages and one hundred K words normal or standard? Is there such a thing? I started on 1 November last year, and here I am, a few days after 1 Feb of the next year (with time off for illness, holidays and good behavior). It’s odd, because it doesn’t seem like I’ve been doing much writing, just a few hours each day of vacuous sitting at the keyboard, but here I am.)

It’s the novel-writing rhythm, innit? Think, burst into flame with the brilliance of a new idea (or insight, aspect, whatev), jump to the medium (notebook and pen, notebook ‘puter, laptop, crayons on construction paper, again, whatever), and write with excitement and intensity until you flounder like a man on the can without any toilet paper (yeah, oh, no). Then think long, hard, and deeply (often while sipping tea or coffee) (or taking walks or doing dishes) until boom, the mini-process begins afresh.

In this case, I had a handle on eight of the ten main characters (after wrestling with one and getting thrown to the mat by them several times), but the other two continued vexing me. Those damn muses — that’s right, I cursed them, I’m not afraid of no muse — weren’t helping. (They seemed, in fact, to be hiding and not answering their phones.)

But once again, after editing and revising (and deeply pondering the distant mountains while draining the last dregs of cold coffee, and watching people walking by, people who seemed happier and more carefree than me) (well, some of them did) (like, that guy doesn’t, and that one), and then walking, driving, shopping, sleeping, reading, and thinking, thinking, thinking, when I took up the writing again, aha, there it is. 

Joy! Eureka! Etc. Isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t writing fun?

I did my thing and did my writing, revising, writing, editing, etc., and it all seemed so terrific. I still don’t have it all fully figured out, and proceed cautiously (and hopefully). (But then again, that’s today.) But, yeah, good day of writing like crazy.

Time to turn it off and do something else before it makes me crazy, ya’ know?

 

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The Whirlpool

I finished the tenth draft of the latest novel-in-progress, April Showers 1921, several weeks back (Surprise!, September 26). I thought it was the final draft but knew that I had notes which called for more work before I could say that it was finished as a draft. I hesitate to say final draft. Nothing is final about a novel-in-progress until it’s published. I prefer to call it the working final draft. Yeah, that’s pretty ambivalent, isn’t it?

I’d begun April Showers 1921 back in January, 2019. It originated with a dream of a book that I’d written, resulting in a powerful impetus to make it real. It’s a hefty ms., one hundred eighty thousand words and six hundred thirty MS Word pages. I recognize that an editor will probably cut through some of that beef. The story is told by skipping back and forth through multiple versions of the same fourteen-year-old protagonist, Anders. I struggled with that, and that facet pushed multiple revisions until I fully recognized and understood why and how the multiple Anders interacted (or didn’t interact) with one another.

The other matter is, I’m sure that the working title of April Showers 1921 will probably be changed. April Showers is a machine invented specifically to interact with Anders, a human. As a machine, she generally acts and looks human. That simple claim gets complicated because the novel is about how multiple levels of filters interact to create realities and alterverses. After exploring everything, April Showers’ role was reduced from what I’d originally expected it to be.

I was right about having some work remaining. I’d identified five sections in my notes for further work. Before I dove into them, I read through the notes, remembering why I’d jumped ahead of those sections. Two of them deleted. I thought they were needed but they weren’t. This happens to me. As I write a novel and explore everything, I develop a sense about where it’s going and what’s going to happen. Sometimes, though, those insights are overtaken by events and turn out to be superfluous to the final tale.

The other three sections were filler/bridge sections. Impatient critter that I am, I didn’t feel like dealing with minutiae that these three sections demanded. As I read the preceding pages to them, I easily slipped into what needed to be done (all hail the muses!).

What became more time-consuming were the side roads I frequently stumbled down. To confirm a point of continuity or clarity, I’d open a second window and hunt my notes and the manuscript for specific points. I inevitably ended up becoming engrossed in the ms, reading chapter after chapter, which I call the writing and editing whirlpool, because it just sucks me in. Small errors, pacing matters, and typos were typically addressed during these periods, but I was mostly indulging myself. Part of the process was sometimes coping with surprise about what I’d written and where that section went.

Seems strange, doesn’t it? I wrote it, so it follows that I should know what I wrote. My conclusion about it is that I’m working on a different level. Two, my writing process is like weaving. I don’t hesitate to dip into a section of the book and edit it to meet my preferences. That tangibly results in many sections being re-written, revised, edited, and polished multiple times. I often wear reader or editor hats when I’m doing that, instead of my writer hat. Maybe I’m just blowing smoke, though, to cover a weak or faulty memory.

Anyway, I’m out of the whirlpool. The final working copy is completed. Now, the part I loathe, presenting it to the world begins. I need to write up a blurb, summary, elevator pitch, synopsis, etc., to entice others into my world.

It’s been a good nine months of writing, editing, and revising like crazy. As other writers have mentioned, and I’ve echoed before, finishing the novel leaves a void. A friend is gone, a puzzle has been finished, a routine has been completed, a desire has been fulfilled. Leaves me with wondering, where do I go from here?

Well, yeah, there is the aforementioned loathsome tasks. I don’t really celebrate the completion except to mention it to a few close, supportive friends and family members, and privately toast myself, “You did it. Well done.”

Then, I begin thinking about the next novel. There’s so much to read, research, think about, and write. Existence is a rich mine of potential stories to be found and written.

Off I go, at least one more time, to write like crazy.

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The Fourth Time

Finished the novel-in-progress’ first draft back in June. Turned out to be a hot mess. So, after a few days of sulking and withering under the glares I gave myself in the mirror, I tried again.

Yeah, finished that draft and choked on it. I went into a hard work & focus mode that I’d discovered in myself about forty years back. Went to work on number three. Number three was a third of the way through when I realized, no; not working. Still not finding the root issue.

Damn it. My frustration levels were rising and hadn’t peaked. But with each draft, I narrowed down issues, and fixed problems. Come number four, and damn it, I remained dissatisfied. I kept thinking about what the problem was. Then, once I realized and admitted what it was, I began addressing how to fix it. The challenge haunted me through everything I was doing.

A possible answer was found this morning. Warning myself not to overthink it, I resumed work with draft number three as the basis, but designated as draft number four. I warned myself not to get my hopes up; I thought I could fix it twice before.

I did end up satisfied with the changes today. Need to sustain the effort, though, focus and keep the pressure up until I finish a draft that satisfies me. This might well take all summer. I could be writing about draft number twenty by autumn’s first day.

Done with writing like crazy for the day. Cheers

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