Tag: writing process

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

I Notice

I often think about what might come next in my WIP, plot arcs, character growth, scenes, and dialogue. Sometimes I use what’s produced but I frequently go with something that erupts in my head when I sit down to write.

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

0

Wasting Time

I did my Sudoku puzzle this morning. I like doing them early in the morning. Completing something, accomplishing something, gives me a pleasant lift.

It was a two-star puzzle, not very complicated, lots of clues. But the two-star puzzles feel more difficult to me. It took me six minutes this morning. I thought, I should be able to do them faster than that. Why do they take me so long?

The harder puzzles are more enjoyable and actually seem easier, even if they take longer. In the two-star and three-star levels, they give so many clues that the clues seem to exhaust me. Whereas, when it’s a four-star or five-star puzzle, with more blank spaces and less clues, I seem to see the patterns and employ logic more quickly.

I wondered about that, reckoning that I like the math portion of the problem solving less than the logic side of it. That sent me on a quest to understand more about solving Sudoku problems. One thing led to another and before long, I was exploring the complexities of time. An hour later, I found myself rushing to leave to write, at once celebrating that there’s so much to know, lamenting that I don’t have the intelligence and capacity to understand more, celebrating that I have the urges to explore these things, and wishing that I had more time to explore and understand. Then it was off to the races to write, and more thinking about my choices.

Along the way, I thought about how I used to work, as in, someone employed me, most of the day, and at last I have the freedom to indulge myself and pursue my dreams. Then I came here (to the coffee shop), wrote like crazy, and then wrote this little piece, reflecting on that as a choice as well.

This piece took about ten minutes to write and edit. I didn’t think much consciously about it before beginning to write it, but it was turbidity in my streams that I felt like I needed to write about it to explore my thinking and understand myself.

Meanwhile, I entered the coffee shop, got my coffee, plunked myself down at the computer, and wrote almost non-stop for ninety minutes, making great progress, adding another four thousand words to the total, after editing.

Now the coffee is cold. Most of the cup remains. I’ll chug it and leave, declaring myself done writing like crazy, for at least one more day. I expect there to be more days.

There’s always so much to read, learn, experience, and think about. Then there’s writing about it. It’s a never-ending demand. TGFC (thank God for coffee).

Cheers

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑